It stands as one of the more unusual turning points of the Cold War, thanks mostly to the surprise appearance of several naked middle-aged women. Taking The Cure: How a group of British Columbian anarchists inspired democracy in Russia.
posted on May 13, 2008 - View this thread

Comrades! Glory once again in the display of Soviet Russian military might at the revitalized May Day Victory Day Parade!
posted on May 11, 2008 - View this thread

Meet the new boss... Same as the old boss.
posted on May 7, 2008 - View this thread

Ever wondered what life is like on the International Space Station? Wonder no more.
posted on Apr 25, 2008 - View this thread

Soviet Museum has some great retro photography, industrial, postcards, propaganda, "Soviet Union" magazine, aspects of moscow, red army, etc [did I mention erotic too?]. It even has 'Vladimir Putin Favourite Places' (which as far as I can tell, is one place). Set aside some time if this sort of thing interests you.
posted on Apr 21, 2008 - View this thread

Soviet Lemonade Labels
posted on Apr 17, 2008 - View this thread

In soviet russia... screw drives you! (via)
posted on Apr 15, 2008 - View this thread

Hot For Words - a youtube classroom series on etymology taught by Marina, a... hot Russian philologist. Mildly NSFW.
posted on Apr 1, 2008 - View this thread

Something about the library inspires one to jump.
posted on Apr 1, 2008 - View this thread

Cat + Airplane + Parachute [video]
posted on Mar 15, 2008 - View this thread

Kiuchi Nobuo - a Japanese airman in World War II, was captured and sent to a prison camp in the Ukraine. He tells his story with drawings.
posted on Feb 5, 2008 - View this thread

"My defection was the major failure of the Russian intelligence, probably in all of history," - Sergei Tretyakov, former colonel in the Russian intelligence service and the subject of Comrade J: by Pete Earley. His claims of Russian turned Canadian politicians, Russian scamming of the UN for millions, and of a Russian duped ranking member of the Clinton Administration have been denied, while legal action has frozen plans to sell Comrade J in Canada.
Two contrasting reviews of Comrade J, here and here.
posted on Feb 2, 2008 - View this thread

18 animators collaborate on a cute little cartoon set to a song by Oppa Novy God, a "festive brass band" from St. Petersburg. (via Bloody Circus of Scary Dolls)
posted on Jan 28, 2008 - View this thread

Art Deliverance - Alex Klochkov's gallery of abandonment from the Soviet Union. There's next to no explanation of the photos, unfortunately. Indirectly via Retrospectacle's post about the brain lab.
posted on Jan 27, 2008 - View this thread

"The "American Intervention in Northern Russia, 1918-1919," nicknamed the "Polar Bear Expedition," (wikipedia) was a U.S. military intervention in northern Russia at the end of World War I." The ostensible purpose was to open an Eastern Front following the Russian withdrawal from World War I, but in practice the unit stayed to fight Bolshevism. An archive of the expedition, which gives wonderful insight into early Bolshevik Russia as well as war-weary United States, is online.
posted on Jan 25, 2008 - View this thread

So we've already learned how babies are made in Germany. But we haven't seen Russia or Israel. Could be NWS if you work with people who don't know where babies come from.
posted on Jan 21, 2008 - View this thread

After 60 years of separation due to her family being marked as an enemy of the people, and sent off to internal exile a couple who spent only three days together after their marriage have reunited, in an amazing stroke of luck.
posted on Jan 18, 2008 - View this thread

Did Vladimir Putin really turn around Russia's economy? Washington Post's Fred Hyatt attempts to refute the conventional wisdom that Putin was responsible for Russia's turnaround from the economic instability of the "disastrous" 90s by offering a thorough counter argument to prove that Putin's effect on the economy was just the reverse.
posted on Jan 18, 2008 - View this thread

Super funny money turning up on the world stage
Along with pranks going on in the gulf this week, some funny stuff going on with US Currency as well - Perhaps part of the explanation of the seemingly endless run on gold?
posted on Jan 13, 2008 - View this thread

The Plight of the Amur Tiger (aka Siberian Tiger), the largest living cat in the world. Only 330-370 are left in the wild, but the situation is showing improvement, and they may even be repopulating previous strongholds in China. China is doing its part to repopulate the species - but for what purpose? The park's director admits the park made money from selling parts of dead tigers and wants China to lift the ban on the trade of tiger parts. They're considering it. Meanwhile, captive tigers are illegally skinned and beheaded, and 5000 tigers are kept in farms.
posted on Dec 29, 2007 - View this thread

Russian cold war bombers - The Tu 95 Bear and Tu 160 Blackjack, based in central Russia, which resumed long range patrols in August.
posted on Dec 23, 2007 - View this thread

The livejournal group ru_graphic has been showcasing great artists for years, such as soamo, desmonych, floksystar, malli-ly, olliwander, omie-yomie, zuza1, ya-ya, varka, solntsev-gleb, adul and names.
posted on Dec 19, 2007 - View this thread

Some Russian online communities like to take on unusual challenges. Courtesy of English Russia.
posted on Dec 17, 2007 - View this thread

Russos takes photos of Moscow Metro construction. Also of a half-abandoned river port, a cool bridge being put together, and an old underground nuclear submarine base. But mostly of the Metro, behind the scenes. (Don't ask me how he gets access.)
posted on Dec 6, 2007 - View this thread

Six Apart Announces New Home for LiveJournal: Russia
posted on Dec 3, 2007 - View this thread

The Alexander Palace Time Machine. This deep site on pre-revolutionary Russia was not at all unearthed as a result of noting this bit of news today. The site was linked in passing previously this past August, in a post about the exact news the Times is reporting today.
posted on Nov 24, 2007 - View this thread

Garry Kasparov, chess grandmaster, and presidential opponent to Putin, has just been detained on charges of organizing a protest and resisting arrest.
posted on Nov 24, 2007 - View this thread

The Roma Journeys - contemporary photographs of Roma life in Hungary, India, Greece, Romania, France, Russia, and Finland by Joakim Eskildsen. For more photo essays and info on the Roma, see two superb prior posts by plep and taz.
posted on Nov 15, 2007 - View this thread

Russian sect says world ends May 2008. And no, you can't borrow their cave.
posted on Nov 15, 2007 - View this thread

In October, Vladimir Putin posthumously awarded the Hero of the Russian Federation to George Koval, who, using the code name Delmar, successfully penetrated the Manhattan Project as an agent for the Soviet Union. But, he wasn't the only one. Some think the award is just a disinformation campaign orchestrated by the Russians.
posted on Nov 12, 2007 - View this thread

"Trotsky lived on after Stalin, and to some extent is still alive today, not because young people want the world he wanted: a phantasm that not even he could define. What they want is to be him."
posted on Nov 11, 2007 - View this thread

The Russian Revolution: A Gallery Of Photos
posted on Oct 15, 2007 - View this thread

9000 miles by ferry, train, bus, bicycle, horse, foot and car. In a bid to reduce his carbon footprint, Joseph Tame swapped 11 hours in a plane from Japan to England for a month-long adventure across Eurasia. Along the way he has a Chinese Imperial Guard hold a penguin, stays in a Mongolian Yurt, experiences a "road" trip or two, misses some trains, and befriends a chipmunk.
posted on Oct 15, 2007 - View this thread

On July 1st, 26 year old Fiji-native Satender Singh was gay-bashed to death by several Slavic immigrants in Sacramento.
posted on Oct 9, 2007 - View this thread

Whether it's the Shatner or Lithgow version of the story, it's not something you would want to try and re-enact in real life.
posted on Sep 26, 2007 - View this thread

The Por-Bazhyn Fortress (meaning “clay house” in Tuvan) is believed to have been built in the 8th century CE at the behest of the Uighur kagan Mo-yen-çur. Its remains occupy a 3.5 ha location on a spectacular island location in Lake Tere-Khol in the south west part of the Republic of Tuva. This summer a project to excavate and ultimately preserve the site began [Embedded video] (attracting some notable visitors). Via
posted on Sep 20, 2007 - View this thread

Last Wednesday, residents of the Ulyanovsk province of Russia took the day off work in celebration of their newest holiday, Sex Day.
posted on Sep 18, 2007 - View this thread

Some photo galleries (and youtube video) of Buran, the USSR's space shuttle program (previously) from the 1980's, long since abandoned. Bonus: A comparison between Buran and the US space shuttle. Double Bonus: More on Buran from russianspaceweb.com, which is awesome. Combo breaker: An official page with NASA's take on Buran, (and their photos), frozen in time a decade ago.
posted on Sep 13, 2007 - View this thread

Russians are planning a trip to Mars, but first they want to better understand the psychological and practical issues involved with long, isolated human travel. So the Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems will be locking volunteers into a small, closed system for ~500 days. The ESA is collaborating on the so-called Mars500 project. There is a current call out for volunteers which is open until the end of this month.
posted on Sep 6, 2007 - View this thread

Mayor of Siberian town orders his bureaucrats to stop using expressions such as "I don't know", "I can't", "I'm having lunch", and "It's impossible". Not sure if "You have got to be fucking kidding me." or "What the fuck, man? are on his list.
posted on Sep 4, 2007 - View this thread

Dead Road - Museum of Communism in the Open. "It was one of the most ambitious projects of the Stalin era, known as the 'railway of bones'. At least 10 people a day died during the four years of its construction [actually 1947-1953], but unlike most of Uncle Joe's grand designs it was never completed and now sits unfinished in the tundra, an icy road to nowhere." The transpolar railway was built by labour camps^ 501 and 503 and construction was stopped after the amnesty following Stalin's death in 1953; 800km, about half, was built. Some sections are currently in operation, but much is abandoned: depot and locomotives in Dolgoe, Dolgoe itself, labour camps, more spectacular decay. (Previously: Norilsk, which was supposed to see an extension of the line.)
posted on Aug 27, 2007 - View this thread

The Shanhai Cooperative Organization. ^[wiki] When Moscow and Beijing engineered the creation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) six years ago, I am not sure if they foresaw its emergence as an important actor in the international order. Iran, India, Pakistan and Mongolia, currently observers, are lobbying hard to get accepted into this club. The US request for membership was rejected two years ago.
posted on Aug 23, 2007 - View this thread

My Disillusionment In Russia. Deported American anarchist Emma Goldman's narrative of her time in 1920s Russia. Omitted chapters were published as My Further Disillusionment With Russia. Emma was not only an anarchist, she was also an advocate for free speech, women's equality, sexual freedom, birth control and more. For more of her writings, see Anarchism: What It Really Stands For, Patriotism: A Menace To Liberty, and Minorities Versus Majorities. [Previously 1, 2]
posted on Aug 21, 2007 - View this thread

Bush the Dissident. (WaPo) Background (and previously) here here here here and here.
posted on Aug 19, 2007 - View this thread

Newsfilter: Someone is clearly nostalgic for the good old days of the Iron Curtain.
posted on Aug 18, 2007 - View this thread

Clinton White House Spokesman Joe Lockhart does stand-up. Text, or if you prefer there is some audio at the 51min mark from This American Life.
posted on Aug 17, 2007 - View this thread

Know who else liked tunes by "subhuman" Jewish and Russian musicians? That's right.
posted on Aug 7, 2007 - View this thread

Musica Excentrica.
posted on Aug 7, 2007 - View this thread

Portraits of rural Russians by the photojournalist Pavel Bezrukov. He is born in 1962, and started with photography as a hobby. Currently freelancing as a photo correspondent for the Moscow-based Orthodox magazine Foma. Some more samples of his work can be found at Orthodoxy Photo.
posted on Aug 7, 2007 - View this thread

Russians plant flag on North Pole Sea bed. Russia has attempted to assert it's sovereignty over the North Pole by planting a Russian flag 4,200 metres under the ice. Norwegians, Danes react with amusement.
posted on Aug 2, 2007 - View this thread