Democracy in Russia: Inching Toward Progress?

The August 1991 failed coup by a group of Soviet leaders opposing President Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika eventually led to the dissolution of the USSR. On the 20th anniversary of those events, Irina Zaslavskaya, Program Officer in IFES’s Europe and Asia division and a native of St Petersburg, shares her thoughts with us. She tells us about growing up in the Soviet Union, her participation in the demonstrations during the coup, how democracy is perceived by many Russians and what she thinks of the upcoming parliamentary elections.