Steve Rosenberg

So I try and tell the story as I see it as calmly as I can, really.

I'm probably kidding myself because probably this story is going to go on and on and on, like a Tolstoy novel.

You keep turning the pages and it never seems to end.

But I am fascinated by Russia and what's going to happen next.

Vladimir Putin's been in power for 25 years as president or prime minister.

The whole system in this country is built around him.

What happens after Vladimir Putin?

No one knows that.

There's no obvious successor.

The one thing that Russian history teaches us is that things change.

Russia changes, and change can happen very fast, and that things can swing.

I think one of the things I've learned about Russia is that this is a country very much...

of extremes, right?

Very cold winters, very hot summers, a country that can swing from communism to wild capitalism to another kind of authoritarianism.

A country where if you switch on Russian state television today, there'll be TV hosts and commentators pouring out this sort of anti-Western rhetoric.

A few months ago, one of the most famous TV show hosts in Russia said that I walk around looking like a defecating squirrel.

And yet the next day I was out on the street and several Muscovites came up to me.

They recognized me.

They shook my hand.

They said nice things about my reporting and they took selfies with me.