by Maria Eismont, Eurozine, Austria - Most regional newspapers in Russia focus on lighter, less risky content, preferring entertainment and consumer news to politics and investigations. Some publishers, however, have chosen another path, trying to address readers as citizens, not just consumers. What the readers themselves prefer is still up for debate. The most important question is whether Russia's privately owned press is sufficiently strong, influential and independent to represent a serious threat to an increasingly centralised government and to resist authoritarian pressure.