The Unseen Assembly: Russia’s Final Blackout on Parliamentary Transparency

This restriction represents a significant retreat from Volodin’s previous claims that the State Duma was the "most open parliament in the world." Only a year ago, the Speaker had sardonically remarked that such liberties were a privilege, even using the photographers' presence as a tool to keep deputies "alert" and "prevent them from dozing off." The reversal into a total ban suggests a growing fragility within the Russian political establishment, where the fear of a single candid photograph is now great enough to warrant a total overhaul of parliamentary press regulations, moving the institution closer to the hermetically sealed environments of the Soviet era.