The Invention of RussiaWinner of the 2016 Orwell Prize In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev launched Perestroika, opened Russia up to the world, ended the Cold War, and gave his people freedom. The demise of the Soviet Union offered hope that Russia would become a 'normal', 'civilised' country, embracing Western values of democracy and the free market. Thirty years later, Russia emerged as a corporate state, overcome by imperial nationalism, fanned by its authoritarian president