If it didn’t actually exist, it really would be amusing, even charming. A small chunk of the old USSR ruled over by a popularly elected meglomaniac seemingly determined to prove that Glasonst and Peristrioka could have redeemed the Soviet system. Old ladies out in their Brezhnev-era best, shopping in state stores packed with goods, while the TV offers daily updates on the successes of the current harvest campaign and the social implosion of other former Soviet republics. A place where a bottle of vodka costs a dollar, rent a few dollars more, where the hammer and sickle compete with Madonna and Sony, and the KGB – still called the KGB – plays cat-and-mouse with an opposition free enough to openly complain about the lack of democracy.