About the book: 2014 / The number one problem for all, without exception, former republics of the USSR was overcoming the consequences of the totalitarian regime. And the choice of form of government made by the newly independent states can, to a certain extent, be considered as an indicator of the country’s readiness to part with totalitarianism. The book is a collection of “pictures of some reforms” in a number of republics of the former USSR, which provides, first of all, a description of the institutional reforms of the judicial systems in transition. The choice of countries was determined, among other things, by the availability of highly interesting materials in the form of country reports and respondents’ answers to questions about the judicial systems of the respective states, received from experts from Ukraine, Latvia, Bulgaria and Poland as part of the implementation of one of the INDEM Foundation projects. The uniqueness of the experience of the Baltic countries, which managed to achieve a lot in the period between the two world wars, were forcibly incorporated into the USSR and then restored their independence, made Estonia and Lithuania an obligatory part of the study. The history of transformation in the revolutionary countries of Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan is also of great interest. The outstanding economic achievements of Kazakhstan also did not allow us to ignore the process of transformation in this state. Reform of criminal law and criminal procedure has become one of the priorities in those post-Soviet countries that, not on paper, but in reality, have taken a course towards creating a democratic state. Police reform is inseparable from judicial reform and criminal justice reform, so the book provides a lengthy description of the successful experience of those countries that actually managed to solve the problem of turning the corrupt Soviet cop into Mr. Cop and transforming the repressive structure of the Soviet state into a service that protects rights citizens. The book is aimed at the widest possible range of readers, including lawyers, historians, political scientists, as well as those who are simply interested, regardless of their professional affiliation.