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Post-Soviet Reality Lecture SeriesMarch 4, 2004-April 22, 2004Baltimore, MD --Sex, Terrorism and Robber Barons: The Post-Soviet Reality, a timely lecture series that is part of Johns Hopkins University’s Odyssey program, offers participants a unique opportunity to learn how the most pressing problems in Russia and the Newly Independent States (NIS) affect our state, region and nation. As U.S. foreign policy toward nations of the former Soviet Union will play an integral role in presidential candidates’ platforms during the 2004 campaign, this seven-week series focuses on the key obstacles to achieving mature democracy in Russia and the NIS and how these will shape future relations with the United States. Topics to be discussed include the increasing links among heroin use, human trafficking and infectious diseases like tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS; Russia’s potential in U.S. energy security; the role of foreign investors in Russia’s future; and the ways in which corruption facilitates crime and terrorism in the NIS, directly impacting the overall stability of the global economy. Among the speakers appearing in this series are Simon Kukes; CEO of Moscow-based Yukos Oil; Harvard University’s Marshall Goldman, the U.S. Justice Department’s Lou deBaca; Johns Hopkins University’s Robert Freedman; Nikita Khrushchev’s granddaughter, Nina Khrushcheva; and Ukraine’s Myroslava Gongadze, wife of murdered opposition journalist Georgy Gongadze. The lecture series will be held on seven successive Thursdays from March 4 through April 15, 2004 at the Johns Hopkins Homewood campus. To wrap up the series, a reception will be held at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, DC on April 22, 2004. Twelve years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the successor states of this former superpower are coping with a harsh new reality. Corrupt business tycoons use their leverage to buy political power and influence as democratic forces struggle to build free market economies. Russia and Central Asia are beset by terrorist insurgencies. Human trafficking is on the rise as are diseases like tuberculosis and HIV Aids. Are these problems an unavoidable part of the transition from totalitarianism to a free-market democracy? How should the U.S. shape its relations with Russia and the other Newly Independent States (NIS)? In this lecture series, scholars, writers, and other experts explore some of the most pressing problems facing the NIS. March 25 Putin's Russia: Promise for the Future or Echo of the Past In 1991 a small group of Russians emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union to claim ownership of some of the most valuable petroleum, natural gas and metal deposits in the world, using guile, intimidation, and occasionally violence, to reap these rewards. Marshall Goldman, Ph.D., is Kathryn W. Davis Professor of Soviet Economics at Wellesley College and Associate Director of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. He is the author of several books, including The Piratization of Russia: Russian Reform Goes Awry (2003). April 1 The United States, Putin and the Middle East The impact of 9/11 and the war in Iraq. Robert Freedman, Ph.D.--Visiting Professor, Department of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University--is author of four books on Soviet foreign policy and editor of fifteen books on the Middle East. Foreign Investors and the Russian Oil Sector A review of oil export pipelines from Russia. Julia Nanay, M.A.L.D., senior director of PFC Energy, a DC-based consulting firm that provides clients with risk analyses for investments in oil and gas in the Caspian region. April 8 Through the Looking Glass of the Cold War: Superman, Soviet Man and Beyond A review of the similarities and differences between U.S. and Russian pop culture within the political framework of the Cold War. Nina Khrushcheva, Ph.D.--granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev--is professor of Media and Culture in the Graduate Program of International Affairs at New York University, where she is also a senior fellow with the World Policy Institute. April 15 Transnational Crime, Corruption and Terrorism in the Soviet Successor States The interaction between crime and terrorism in different states of the former USSR and the way that corruption facilitates and aggravates the problem. Louise I. Shelley, Ph.D. is director of the Transnational Crime and Corruption Center at American University where she is a professor in the Department of Justice, Law and Society. April 22. Embassy Reception, A talk by a member of the Embassy staff, followed by samples of Ukrainian cuisine. Homewood Campus
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