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From Our Own Correspondent: Russia and the USA

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Russia and the USA

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, Russia and the USA

Daniel Sandford's Moscow flat has a sad history; David Edmonds is impressed by Princeton.

Daniel Sandford on the chilling story of one former resident of his flat in Moscow and David Edmondson how American universities raise funds and student morale.

Pascale Harter introduces personal stories, insight and wit from BBC correspndents around the world. In this edition:

Stalin's statistician - victim of the numbers
In the Russian capital, Muscovites have been marking long-suppressed events, with some public gatherings commemorating Stalin's great purge of the city's elite, 75 years ago. A new, interactive online map has been created which shows the home addresses of the purge's victims - a peppering the Moscow streetscape with tens of thousands of blood-red dots. Our correspondent Daniel Sandford has made a chilling discovery. When he looked up his former address, he found one of its former residents had been one of those hauled away to be shot - and all because of his work for Stalin's regime. During that era, everything was political, and any inconvenient truths could endanger your life. Even if it was just a statistic.

The old college cheer
In these cash-strapped times, governments all over the world are making cuts to higher education. Controversy over student loans in the UK has been fierce; campuses in Latin America and Europe have been in revolt. So how is it that some universities in the United States are still so lavishly funded? On a visit to the well-tended campus of Princeton, Dave Edmonds learned that a lot of its endowment comes from former students. Some keep on giving long after they've left - as long as 200 years later. But what does the institution itself do to create that kind of loyalty?

(Image: $100 bills. Credit: AFP PHOTO/Karen BLEIER)

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