Nicholas Von ShatsCOR 260: DemocraciesProfessor Allen-PennebakerApril 23, 2014Russia: The Mock DemocracyRussia is the largest country on Earth and its territory expands to 17,098,242 sq km with 16,377. 742 sq km made up of land and 720,500 km2 of water. Russia is home to a population of approximately 142,470,272 citizens, of which 10,523,000 reside in the Russian capital, Moscow. Russia's conventional name is the Russian Federation and was formerly called the Russian Empire and, more recently, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic or USSR before the fall of communism in the late 1980s and early 1990s. After the fall of communism and the collapse of the USSR in 1991, Russia's first democratically elected president, Boris Yeltsin, attempted to reform Russia into a democratic nation. Today, Russia's attempts to become a democratic nation have failed, it has become a fake democracy with unfair elections, no longer independent courts and no longer tolerated political opposition. In the late 1980s, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev launched a series of political reforms that ultimately allowed for competitive elections, the emergence of an independent press, the formation of political parties, and the rise of civil society after the collapse of the Union Soviet Union in 1991, these proto-democratic institutions have survived in an independent Russia" (McFual). However, history has shown that Russia has always been an anti-democratic country; power has shifted towards authoritarian government both under the communists who under the Russian tsars. Under the previous authoritarian regime, Russian citizens were deprived of their rights and freedoms, but in...... middle of paper......d of being homosexual or to tell others if they were. Similar laws banning the “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” among young Russians had been passed in over 11 regions of Russia since 2006. Most of the anti-gay legislation had been passed in secret, with very little mention in outside media of Russia until people began discussing its negative repercussions at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games. As news of the anti-gay legislation grew in popularity around the world, many wondered whether athletes and their allies LGBTQ would be safe in Russia and whether countries should consider pushing to ban Russia from their Winter Games (Zirin). This anti-gay legislation has led to an increase in violence and harassment against the country's LGBT community, and in May 2013, three homophobic murders were reported in various regions of Russia.