The author holds that in socio-psychological terms Russia is approaching the end of «the epoch of expectations». The most acute schism of elites, the socio-cultural depression, destruction of the aggregate industrial infrastructure are present. To that the gradual realization of the dead-lock by the public at large should be added. Persistent troubles in Caucasus are obvious as well as lack of proper adjustment of the whole sphere of international relations and general unpreparedness for future trials. The gravest point is incapacity to provide the answer to the principal issue: what is your present and future country? So long as there is no answer to the question there can be no substantial, thoughtful analytical study of events and it is senseless to discuss all details of the Russian politics, social and economic life. The author offers possible, the most sharp and relevant versions of the answer to the question. 1. Contemporary Russia is the country which successfully, if painfully could to move from the systemic pathology (the «Soviet regime») to imperfect but normal condition. 2. Contemporary Russia is the country where dismissal of pathology is a myth. The real content of events is aggravation of pathology, transition of pathology to a new phase. 3. Imperfect Soviet civilization accumulated contradictions and exploded like Chernobyl. This explosion created a «zone». On its ruins people make business and settle down with various levels of comfort. Choice of the answer begets the agenda. At least, it is necessary to prepare for unfavorable scenarios. At the maximum a person has to decide whether he/she is willing to exist in «the zone» or not and whether a person is able and willing to fight against such existence or not.

The author considers inflation as a complicated and multi-dimensional phenomenon. The greatest danger is presented not by inflation per se, but its impact on the economic climate in the country. In order to understand this impact one has to know the real condition of the Russian economy. And official reports and statements are utterly unfit for this end. The official statistics disguises inflation as index on consumer prices. At the same time unprecedented withdrawal of money from the economy is connected with greater influx of money to the country. A «machine» for reception and use of investments has not been created in Russia. In result of that despite the permanent «sterilization» of money the country found itself in condition of short supply of money in the real economy. Such policy accelerates the tempo of the Soviet economic heritage dissaving. The principal point is how to change the state and prompt it to develop and implement a new and effective economic strategy is not discussed in earnest. This question is not even raised.

The author analyzes the present condition of Russia-the Russian Federation, its past and prospects for the future, the rapid changes that occur in political, economic, social and cultural domains, discusses the situation of civilization and mechanisms of change and traces their historical origins. The author focuses his attention on transformation of foreign (external) context as well as on dynamics of the social mentality, emergence of new social corporations and elite groups, transformation of the world order terminology which has been formed earlier. According to the author at the present the humankind resides in the transitory state when a new social agent is already present and active on the world arena and post-modern constructs of the world has already emerged while fundamentals of the Modernity epoch are still present.

No single book has brought so much of sorrow and blood to Jews as «The Protocols of the learned elders of Zion» has. During the Civil war in Russia the book used to be the principal ideological substantiation for Jewish pogroms and persecution of Jews. The book played the same role in Nazi Germany. In the first half of the 20th century «The Protocols» broke all records in respect of print runs. However when checked the book of the century, to the utmost snafu, proved to be the forgery of the century. It was concocted by agents of the Tsarist Secret Service (Okhranka) and it was published for the first time in December, 1905, in Tsarskoye Selo where Emperor Nicolas II held his residence. And only in early 1920s, when the world was already flooded with «The Protocols», it was discovered that the book was a mere turned pamphlet «Dialogues in hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu» written by a French pamphleteer Maurice Joly in 1864 and pointed against Napoleon III.

The article is dedicated to an interesting phenomenon of the contemporary Russian historiography — the phenomenon of «paradox»; it is focused on the methodological principles of historians who study consciousness (notions, «mentality») of medieval people. The strategies which are applied here are based on totally different assumptions: while some historians insist on the idea that categories and concepts of people remain unaltered through centuries, the others ground the theory of «fundamental difference» between «the way of thinking» of medieval people and our contemporaries. Nevertheless historians of both trends agree on the idea that we can find many «paradoxes» in medieval sources and in «the medieval way of thinking» itself. As a result, we may speak of a peculiar explanatory theory that is being created in history. The author of the article seeks after finding the non-verifying suppositions (hypothetical knowledge) in the works of historians who not only see «paradoxes» in sources but accept their objective status. Finding out «paradoxes» in medieval texts and «mentality» is the result of certain guess-works that are taken by historians in the process of investigating sources or even before opening them. Studying these problems on the ground of some well-known researches the author comes close to the relevant issue of «understanding» and «explaining» methods in history and methodological principles that are necessary for the verified study of self-consciousness of a man and an epoch.

It is a publication of «Paths of struggle against the world crisis», the report delivered by V.S.Voitinski, a famous Russian Social-Democrat and economist, at the meeting of the Berlin club of the Russian Social Democrats in November, 1931. The world economic crisis of 1929−1933 made the Social Democrats to ponder the issue of new tasks that new conditions set for the Social Democrats. In particular, it was the moment to decide whether the Russian Social Democrats had to battle against the crisis or not and whether they had to consider the crisis as the crisis of the capitalism. Theoretical propositions, conclusions and suggestions Voitinski expressed, inter alia, in the report published here remain to be of current concern.