A glorious revolution swept through Russia 20 years ago. Glorious, because it was almost completely nonviolent and because no one who was there will ever forget the sense of solidarity, camaraderie and even affection people felt for one another — and for the new Russia they so fervently anticipated. Revolution, because beyond the hundreds of thousands gathered in Moscow and on Palace Square in St. Petersburg, rallies against the hardline putsch and for Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev took place in every major city.
The revolution ushered in a new political system, changed the country's economic foundation and created a new state: post-imperial Russia.
Where did it all go? What happened to the noble fervor, the moral clarity, the thirst for truth, the heroism?