Re: Russian health care

["Chris Doss" <nomorebounces@xxxxxxx>]

>
> Part of the problem is that few NYT reporters in Moscow actually
> speak Russian beyond a rudimentary level. And even the occasional one
> who does doesn't feel comfy with the popular characters you mention -
> the pro-Western liberals are just their kind of people.
>
> Doug
>

To give credit where credit is due, I caught an interview with Paul Klebnikov on Russian TV the other days -- Forbes just published its list of Russian billionaires (allegedly, there are 38) so he is In The News -- and his Russian was quite good. (He appears frequently in the Russian media, on the strength of his books on Berezovsky and Chechnya. I'm reading the former right now -- shame on me, since it was written years ago -- and it is excellent. I have also seen Cohen and Lieven in the Russian media, but not nearly as often as Klebnikov.) But Klebnikov is a real journalist. BTW the Forbes list seems to have really scared some people who wanted to keep their wealth secret.

On the other hand, Condy Rice was interviewed on TV the other day, and she speaks Russian like an ourangutang. She also tried to impress the interviewer by saying that she had taken a course on Russian lit in school. Wow! A whole course!