VOA标准英语2011--After USSR, Russia Rode Roller Coaster for 20 Years

After USSR, Russia Rode Roller Coaster for 20 Years

When the Soviet¹ Union collapsed³, Russia, the biggest member republic, embarked⁴ on 20 years of unsteady independence.

It was a Christmas gift that anti-communists had prayed for, for seven decades. Mikhail Gorbachev announces that the Soviet Union would cease to exist on December 25, 1991.

But Russians follow a different religious calendar. And the following 20 years of Russian history have been rocky.

Less than two years after the Soviet collapse², communists in Russia’s parliament tried to depose⁵ Russia’s first elected president, Boris Yeltsin.

In the heart of Moscow, tanks shelled the renegade parliament. When the fighting was over, more than 600 people were dead or wounded.

With the center weak, Russia’s Muslim fringes tried to secede⁶. During the war in Chechnya, the capital, Grozny, was bombed so heavily, it looked like Stalingrad during World War II.

Peace was barely restored with the Chechens, when oil prices plummeted⁷, triggering Russia’s financial collapse of 1998.

After the chaos⁸ of the 1990s, Russians gravitated to Vladimir Putin, a little known KGB officer, who was elected president in 2000.

With a public relations team building his action image, Mr. Putin dominated the decade.

He confronted Russia’s oligarchs, putting the nation’s richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, in jail - where he sits seven years later.

The Chechens fought back, using mass kidnappings of civilians⁹ to confront the state.

Human rights abuses soared. And then someone killed the messenger on President Putin’s birthday.

In central Moscow, a gunman killed Anna Politkovskaya, a fearless reporter on Chechnya.

The outcry from the West had barely died down, when Russian tanks rolled into South Ossetia, a breakaway territory of Georgia.

Moscow said it was protecting its peacekeeping troops. But the tanks kept rolling into Georgia proper.

The war strengthened Mr. Putin to the point he seemed untouchable.

In September, he and President Dmitry Medvedev announced they would switch jobs after presidential elections next March.

But this backroom deal offends many Russians.

After a decade of economic growth, Russia’s new middle class wants more - political freedom.

Connected through the Internet, Russians are joining the largest demonstrations¹⁰ seen here since the fall of communism.

The next one will be December 24.

1 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

2 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

3 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

• Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
• The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。

4 embarked   

乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 )； 装载； 从事

参考例句：

• We stood on the pier and watched as they embarked. 我们站在突码头上目送他们登船。
• She embarked on a discourse about the town's origins. 她开始讲本市的起源。

5 depose   

vt.免职；宣誓作证

参考例句：

• The witness is going to depose.证人即将宣誓做证。
• The emperor attempted to depose the Pope.皇帝企图废黜教皇。

6 secede   

v.退出，脱离

参考例句：

• They plotted to make the whole Mississippi Valley secede from the United States.他们阴谋策划使整个密西西比流域脱离美国。
• We won't allow Tibet to secede from China and become an independent nation.我们决不允许西藏脱离中国独立。

7 plummeted   

v.垂直落下，骤然跌落( plummet的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Share prices plummeted to an all-time low. 股票价格暴跌到历史最低点。
• A plane plummeted to earth. 一架飞机一头栽向地面。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 chaos   

n.混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后，城市一片混乱。
• The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。

9 civilians   

平民，百姓( civilian的名词复数 )； 老百姓

参考例句：

• the bloody massacre of innocent civilians 对无辜平民的血腥屠杀
• At least 300 civilians are unaccounted for after the bombing raids. 遭轰炸袭击之后，至少有300名平民下落不明。

10 demonstrations   

证明( demonstration的名词复数 )； 表明； 表达； 游行示威

参考例句：

• Lectures will be interspersed with practical demonstrations. 讲课中将不时插入实际示范。
• The new military government has banned strikes and demonstrations. 新的军人政府禁止罢工和示威活动。