Soviet Music "You are browsing a resource which is devoted first of all to the history and culture of the Soviet Union, the country which the West for a long time usually named as "The Empire of Evil", the country to which some people in the West perceive as "something big and snowy". I offer you to try to look outside the frames of usual stereotypes, to try to understand life of a unique country, with its interesting history, beautiful culture and miraculous relations between people. The music submitted on this site - is an evident sample of a totally new culture, which completely differs from all that, with what Hollywood and MTV supply us so much. This culture, being free from the cult of money, platitude, violence and sex, was urged to not indulge low bents of a human soul but to help the person to become culturally enriched and to grow above himself." [more inside]
posted by tellurian on Sep 23, 2008 - 16 comments

The Russian Revolution: A Gallery Of Photos
posted by panoptican on Oct 15, 2007 - 27 comments

She interviewed Mussolini. She wrote plays for Eugene O'Neill's Provincetown Players. She got letters from Trotsky. Freud and Helen Keller were in her address book. She married journalist John Reed, and Diane Keaton played her in Reds. And she was nearly forgotten. Now, Louise Bryant is remembered. More here and much more here.
posted by digaman on Nov 9, 2005 - 4 comments

The Orange Revolution -- A coup is taking place right now in the streets of several Ukrainian cities. Following the "election" of Viktor Yanukovych, an election that everyone from the Ukrainian man-on-the-street to EU observers and the US and Canada say was marred by serious and obvious fraud, Ukrainians are turning out by the hundreds of thousands to show their support for the opposition candidate, the pro-West reformer Viktor Yushchenko. Individual cities and municipalities, not to mention heads of Ukrainian religious groups, have even announced that they will refuse to recognize Yanukovych as the Prime Minster.

The problem is, Yanukovych is supported by the Kremlin. Russia's state-run TV stations had been broadcasting propaganda on his behalf, they called the election on his behalf before the polls were closed, and their increasingly despotic President Putin even congratulated him on his "win", before backtracking slightly. And now reports are trickling out--from former American congressmen communicating via Blackberry, no less--about Russian soldiers being flown across the border into Ukraine, dressed in Ukrainian militia garb, and set among the protestors. Phones have been cut across much of the country, including at the embassies. A semi-covert Russian-backed military push against the pro-democracy protestors is feared. Will this be another peaceful Rose Revolution, as happened in Georgia one year ago today, or more like Hungary, 1956? Stay tuned to the Ukrainian bloggers and webcams; this could get messy.
posted by Asparagirl on Nov 23, 2004 - 147 comments