The article deals with challenges that are urgent for contemporary Russian elite. The present day geopolitical, ideological and spiritual context requires from Russia an adequate attitude to survival problems in complicated conditions of the big strategic game which is pursued for redistribution of global resources, for global supremacy and, in the final resort, for human minds. The Russian elite take risk losing this struggle once again. That happened repeatedly in our history. Russia needs development as much as the air. The country needs to strain all its forces in order to prevent the catastrophe of disintegration and anomie. Principles that development leaders may follow amount to activation of intangible assets, to expansion of production, to imposition of cult of labor and Law, to confirmation of a value system which would exclude backward motion to the traditional and archaic state. Sure, any modernization, any reform, any action will be stopped without clear understanding of who precisely will carry out the project. «Reflection on the subjectivity», cultural revaluation, definition of social core groups that will actively support modernization are the most important complex of demands that are to be lodged to people who perform strategic planning with expectation of success in the nearest future.

The breakthrough happened in January 1990 when it had became clear that unification of Germany advanced on the first place in European and world politics. In hot discussions in Washington and European capitals the fate of Germany was closely tied with the presence of Soviet and American troops in Central Europe. These discussions were held in the Kremlin also but they have not appeared on the surface. What was the result of these discussions and what decisions were made are thoroughly analized by the author who was the ambassador and the head of the Soviet delegation on the CFE Treaty negotiations in Viena at that time.

The author on the basis of great array of facts demonstrates that the current Russian social, political and economic reforms lack systemic character from the outset. That lack of coherence imparts a diluted character to their results. The results acquire a transmuted form when proclaimed goals and intentions of reforms do not match their real results. In the end, as the author thinks, the peculiar situation has emerged: in nowadays Russia actually all basic institutions of the public life (social existence) have a transmuted form because functions these institutions perform differ from functions formally prescribed. For instance, institution of private property in Russia has not become the foundation of the creative economy, the parliament has not become a mechanism of democracy and a type of independent branch of power while political parties have not become mouthpieces of mass moods in society. In this general situation the university does not perform its mission too. The university has nor become a leading form of civil society, a barometer of democracy that exists in political life, the basis of science and technology development. And the most important point: law and legal relationship system does function because in the real life it is displaced by corruption.

The author analyzes separatist trends exacerbation in contemporary Russia which has artificial character. This phenomenon is caused by various reasons including «export» of Chechen terrorism into Ingushetia, Dagestan and other North Caucasus regions. The author points at new destabilization of the Volga region, at escalation of the «Russian issue» in regions inclined to separatism (including Stavropol and Kuban regions), at official proposals of the Siberian and Ural authorities on long-term lease of territories to China in context of consequences delivered. The author supposes the coincidence of the Russian process and intensification of global trend to development of regionalism which is the integral part of global and supranational separatism European projects. Interest the West expresses to development of regionalism and overt separatism in Russia manifests itself in different forms. These forms include international pressure on Russia which faces the demand «to expand rights of regions and ethnic communities», and the forthright support of separatism, and imposition of alien doctrines of regional development, and European integration programs extrapolation on the Russian territory. Use of separatist ideas within framework of major political campaigns becomes a new phenomenon. According to the author, the possible support of decentralization doctrine by the central authorities under urgent social and economic trends is the greatest danger. The announced in early 2008 course line towards the full-fledged economic independence of regions is considered in this light.

In spring 1943, when Soviet-Polish diplomatic relations were interrupted the USSR declared its disagreement with creation of Czechoslovakian-Polish confederation. The USSR approved neither the idea of signing Czechoslovakian-Polish treaty nor tripartite Soviet-Polish-Czechoslovakian treaty. So the idea of Soviet-Czechoslovakian treaty emerged. Theoretically this treaty was opened for the third country, Poland at an appropriate moment. The Soviet leaders and Czechoslovakian president E. Benes were intent to sign the treaty as soon as possible. The British objected because they thought that treaties of this kind between the great powers and small countries could be signed only after the war. Finally, the British resistance was cracked down. The treaty was signed in Moscow on December 12, 1943. The author adduces many documents that confirm her concept and conclusions.

The basis of these notes is a diary written in different years during travels across Latin American countries, even though the word «diary» can be applied to these notes in a very tentative sense. In this particular case notes are supplemented by various reminiscences that have emerged after travels as well as by judgments derived from miscellaneous sources that attracted the author’s attention. The focus of these notes occupies discourse on what Latin America and Russia have in common.