To believe in something and stand by it in this world is derided, the ability to be a shape-shifter celebrated.

“Politics is the ability to use any situation to advance your own status,”

The Kremlin’s idea is to own all forms of political discourse, to not let any independent movements develop outside of its walls. Its Moscow can feel like an oligarchy in the morning and a democracy in the afternoon, a monarchy for dinner and a totalitarian state by bedtime.

It leads to the office of the head of the company, Ivan, and the room where the real accounts are kept. This whole elaborate setup is intended to foil the tax police. That’s who the guards are there to keep out, or keep out long enough for the back office to be cleared and the hidden back entrance put to good use.

This isn’t a country in transition but some sort of postmodern dictatorship that uses the language and institutions of democratic capitalism for authoritarian ends. I would rarely see Benedict angry, but when he talked about