Reddit reviews Godfather of the Kremlin: The Decline of Russia in the Age of Gangster Capitalism

Sorry for offtopic but I think I must shed some light on current and previous state of democracy in Russia as lots of people here blame Putin for killing it.

Putin is far from perfect but killing democracy in Russia is not a crime he is guilty of.

Actually democracy never existed. Yeah, that pretty much contradict "naive" view of most western media but if you try some more unbiased sources or just plain history textbook you will just see it:

• It was a vote whether USSR should be disbanded or not and 77 percent of the people said it should be preserved. This was ignored by Gorbashev and his company.
  
  
• In 1993 Yeltsin moved tanks on the streets and shoot the White House where Russian parliament resided then then tension between them arose. Some people who protected White House were murdered.
  
  
• Later Yeltsin and his company, (so called Family) probably forged results of the presidential elections in 1996. The crimes of Yeltsin and his "Family" are numerous and you could read about them in the book of "Godfather of the Kremlin: Boris Berezovsky and the looting of Russia" http://www.amazon.com/Godfather-Kremlin-Berezovsky-Looting-Russia/dp/product-description/0156013304 by Russian Forbes editor Paul Khlebnikov. (He was killed a few years later)
  
  
• During Yeltsin era opposition was under much more serious pressure, for example, son of one of the opposition leaders got his fingers cut in the middle of the day. That was son of Yavlinsky leader of the Yabloko party. btw, his son was a promising young pianist.
  
  I've just briefly outlined some interesting parts of modern Russian history to give you some perspective.
  
  So why the difference? Why media praises Yeltsin and Gorbashev and bashes Putin? The two major sins Putin is really guilty of in eyes of the some western politicians and journalists are ambition and ability. Those qualities both of them lacked miserably.
  
  Yep, Putin is not saint and I personally will not vote him, through in my eyes he is not and evil monster some media pictures him nor an evils dictator or neo-hitler. From my point of view he is just a man with his positive and negative sides, a politician I will not vote for.
  

Here is the Amazon link in case anyone is interested. 17 bucks for 400 pages seems like a good bargain.