I can never remember the names of any of these directors. All those consonants overload my brain I think. There was a pretty good article on Russan Cinema in a recent edition of a US film journal (can't remember which one - I'll see if I can dig it out).
Two of my favourites are:
Aleksei Balabanov has made a couple of interesting arthouse films (him of Brother fame). My favourite is "Of Freaks and Men" (Review here: http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/2000_05/freaks.html). A great, freakish, film.
Aleksandr Sokurov is very much the heir apparent to Tarkovsky (had a similar relationship to the Soviet government as well).
And of course on the subject of Eastern European film industries. Hungary has Bela Tarr (who mostly seems to get German funding these days), and there are a couple of decent Czech and Polish directors.
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