Events
President Obama Joins the U.S.-Russia Civil Society Summit
July 6 - 7, 2009
President Obama joined civil society leaders from the United States and Russia at the parallel Civil Society Summit hosted in Moscow by the CSIS Human Rights and Security Initiative, together with the Eurasia Foundation and the New Eurasia Foundation. After listening to recommendations on a range of civic issues, the President spoke. In his remarks he discussed the value of civic engagement and the need for “resetting” relations not just between governments, but also between the citizens of the United States and Russia.
Views of Young Russian Women
December 5, 2008
Sarah Mendelson and Ted Gerber (University of Wisconsin-Madison) presented findings on young Russian women's attitudes towards human trafficking, prostitution, and discrimination and harassment in the workplace and educational institutions.
July 23, 2008
Sarah Mendelson and Ted Gerber also presented data illustrating young Russian women’s attitudes toward procreation and family formation, trafficking, and prostitution at the Moscow Carnegie Center on July 23, 2008.
Intolerance and Discrimination in Today’s Russia
November 19, 2008
Alexander Verkhovsky (SOVA Center for Information and Analysis, Moscow), Tad Stahnke (Human Rights First), and Catherine Cosman (U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom) joined Sarah Mendelson to discuss nongovernmental efforts to monitor incidents of hate crime and xenophobia in Russia and the Russian government’s response to them. This event was jointly sponsored by Human Rights First.
Book Discussion: The Angel of Grozny
October 24, 2008
Journalist Asne Seierstad joined Sarah Mendelson at CSIS to discuss her most recent book The Angel of Grozny: Orphans of a Forgotten War, a portrayal of the lives of Chechnya’s children in the wake of the region’s long-standing conflict. Based on Seierstad’s travels in Chechnya, The Angel of Grozny tells the story of the orphans and children who have suffered from Chechnya's forgotten wars. Since 1994, twenty-five thousand children in Chechnya have lost one or both parents.
Letter to Anna Screening
July 31, 2009
CSIS hosted a screening of the documentary Letter to Anna in which Swiss filmmaker Eric Bergkraut examines the life and death of Anna Politkovskaya (30 August 1958 – 7 October 2006), the Russian journalist and human rights activist well known for her reporting on the Chechen conflict.
Lessons for Russia Today?
Overcoming Absent Memory in European and Latin American Contexts
Budapest, May 30 – June 1, 2008
CSIS staff convened scholars and human rights activists with expertise on Argentina, Chile, Northern Ireland, Serbia, Poland, Bulgaria, Germany and Russia to discuss strategies and tactics for overcoming the legacies of dictatorships and their applicability in today’s Russia.
This conference was made possible by generous grants from the Ford Foundation and from East East: Partnership Beyond Borders Program of the Open Society Institute.
The Putin Generation: The Political Views of Russian Youth
Moscow, July 25, 2007
Sarah Mendelson and Ted Gerber presented findings from their survey of young Russians on democracy, human rights, and perceptions of the past at the Carnegie Moscow Center. The presentation specifically examined the state of collective memory and its implications for Russia’s future.
What Will Russia Resemble after Putin?
February 2, 2007
Sarah Mendelson took part in an online debate on Russia’s future with Nikolas Gvosdev (National Interest). The debate was held by the Council on Foreign Relations.
Human Rights in Russia and the Upcoming G8 Summit
May 25, 2006
CSIS and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty hosted Russian human rights experts:
- Yuri Dzhibladze, President of the Center for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights
- Tanya Lokshina, Chair of the Moscow-based think tank Demos
They discussed the human rights situation in Russia ahead of the July 2006 G-8 meeting in St. Petersburg.
The Bosch Series
Berlin, October 2006
Sarah Mendelson convened a meeting at the Bosch Foundation at which she and Ted Gerber shared the results of a benchmark survey of 1,200 males, ages 16 to 39 years old, in Dagestan, North Ossetia, and Kabardino-Balkaria, fielded by CSIS in collaboration with the Levada Analytical Center. See Cauldron of Terrorism or Bowl of Kasha? for their findings. Major donors to the North Caucasus region attended the meeting including UN agencies, the European Union, USAID, the World Bank, and senior officials from Denmark, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Reports and presentations from the meeting are also available from the following: World Bank (report, pdf.; presentation, pdf.), USAID (presentation, pdf.), and the UN (presentation, pdf.).
Berlin, March 2006
Sarah Mendelson hosted a meeting at the Bosch Foundation at which several producers of human rights reports from the North Caucasus met with report consumers to discuss ways to increase the impact of human rights monitoring.
Berlin, May 2005
Sarah Mendelson and Fiona Hill (the Brookings Institution) jointly organized a unique, high-level meeting with forty practitioners from organizations including the World Bank, the EU, the Council of Europe, and various UN agencies in order to generate ideas for future international involvement in issues facing the North Caucasus. With financial support from the Bosch Foundation, the meeting generated dozens of recommendations, including the need for subsequent meetings and further research.
