‘Alie told often enough becomes the truth.’

The president cannot be tamed, so it is time to put the national interest ahead of party politics, says Nina L Khrushcheva.  

If you remove the vestige and emblems of the past, do you erase the memory of what they represented too? asks Clodagh Finn

WHEN Peter the Great decided, in the early 1700s, that Russia needed access to the Baltic Sea, he built a port city on the river Neva, on the Gulf of Finland. 

THIS year marks the centenary of the most important event in 20 century global history: the Russian revolutions of 1917.

A tired and emotional hack, scrabbling about for kickstarting inspiration before a Sunday night deadline, loves an anniversary hookline. 

Yanis Varoufakis explores the strange new world where money is intrinsically worthless and how the solution to tackling this must come from a change in definition for currencies.

Consumerism isn’t just about buying goods and services. It has come to define the way we shape our identities and how we interact socially every day, as JP O’Malley discovers in a supersized tome that traces its history.

In this ‘Titanic enterprise’, Simon Sebag Montefiore is not afraid to suggest that something of what made the Romanovs powerful remains in the Russian psyche and Russian leadership today, writes Mary Leland.

Although it may be of a similar size to our own capital, Zurich has a distinctly different feel, with royal blue trams criss-crossing the centre against the backdrop of bridges, clock towers and the beautifully preserved buildings, writes Arlene Harris.

GERMANY: The 3,900kg granite head of Vladimir Lenin that was removed from a Berlin square in 1991 has been unearthed for an exhibition.

Frederick the Great is judged by many historians to have been an enlightened despot. Geoffrey Roberts on an  impressive, comprehensive new biography by Tim Blanning.

WHEN he was asked about leadership options in Fianna Fáil late last year, the venerable Willie O’Dea declared: “And I say this with the greatest respect to my colleagues — I respect each and every one of them — I look around the [parliamentary party] table in my mind’s eye, and I don’t see the messiah and when I look in the mirror I don’t see him either.”

Italian football has its share of unusual characters, none more so than Renzo Ulivieri.

Because of the rise to prominence of Paul Murphy, the anti-water-charges TD, I visited the Socialist Party’s website. 

THE water charges unveiled yesterday will do nothing to conserve water or reflect ability to pay and may not work to fix our creaking system. The plan was hatched by a Government which is, as the Right to Water Campaign said this week, “on the run”.

Joseph Stalin was violent and ruthless from an early age, and his criminality, his talents as an organiser and a manipulator, and his over-weening ambition, facilitated his later rise to power, says Geoffrey Roberts. 

Former Soviet town erects new Lenin statue - as a tiny, green, urinating man

Ukraine’s president has agreed to meet the country’s three former presidents to talk about defusing the political crisis gripping the country.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters poured into the streets of Ukraine’s capital yesterday, toppling a statue of former Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin and blockading key government buildings in an escalating stand-off with the president over the future of the country.

Anti-government protesters have toppled the statue of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin in central Kiev amid huge protests gripping Ukraine.

Lenin’s Kisses

It is a matter of taste, or maybe conviction. Either way the relics of St Anthony have prompted the devotion of thousands in all-weathers around the country.

Putin governs Russia with all the panache of a Bond villain, says Dave Kenny. Or so his photoshoots suggest

From Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Cuba’s Raul Castro, about 30 heads of state joined the funeral of Hugo Chávez in a last goodbye to the charismatic but divisive Venezuelan leader who changed the face of politics in South America.

July

Enda Kenny’s claim at the recent Michael Collins commemoration that Lenin visited Ireland at Collins’ behest has been proven to be false. However, there is an extremely slim possibility that Collins may have encountered Lenin in London.

Ryle Dwyer recalls his 1996 Béal na mBláth oration and the views he held then

Are recent mistakes indicative of a carelessness within Fine Gael, asks political editor Paul O’Brien

LAST Sunday, at Béal na mBláth, Enda Kenny brought Vladimir Lenin to Ireland.

Suggested holiday reading for Enda Kenny?

Molotov: Stalin’s Cold Warrior

With angry protesters emboldened in the wake of recent disputed Russian election results, Robert Conquest ponders the future for a country riven by a history of misrule

Despite spending the last 17 years behind bars, the world’s first celebrity terrorist is back in the spotlight with a new trial. Conall Ó Fátharta reports on the life and crimes of Carlos the Jackal.

EVERY revolution has its casualties and the fate of deposed tyrants may not always be a priority for those who deposed them.

Richard Fitzpatrick reads a fascinating account of tumultuous events in the early 1980s when the Cold War threatened to erupt into all-out confrontation.

TO lose one of the world’s great managers may be regarded as a misfortune.

THE statues go first.

TWO Russian art curators who angered church leaders with an exhibition that included images of Christ as Mickey Mouse and Lenin were convicted yesterday of inciting religious hatred, but escaped prison sentences.

Two Russian art curators who angered church leaders with an exhibition that included images of Christ as Mickey Mouse and Lenin were convicted today of inciting religious hatred, but escaped prison sentences.