Afisha and the Kremlin

Afisha portrayed Moscow as a cool modern European capital like Paris or Berlin. The magazine's unapologetically arrogant slogan was, we will say it and it will be. But if Afisha created the appearance of a prosperous European life, the Kremlin matched it by supplying a fake president. Dimitri Medvedev took over from Putin, a stansable at least, in 2008. And he looked the part of a modernizer. He was young and smartly dressed, he tweeted and used an iPad.