Growing up, she was a beloved celebrity in her home country. Thousands of girls were named after her. So was a bestselling
perfume. But Josef Stalin's "Little Sparrow," his only daughter, (born Svetlana Stalina) defected to the United States in 1967. Upon arriving in New York, she promptly held a
press conference that surprised the world, denouncing her father's regime.
Svetlana became a naturalized US citizen, moved to Taliesin West, married an American, changed her name to Lana Peters, then returned to the Soviet Union in 1984,
declaring that she had not been free "for one single day" in the U.S., only to once
again return to America in 1986. She lived out her remaining days in a
small town in Wisconsin. Mrs. Peters
passed away from
colon cancer on November 22nd, at the age of 85. [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Nov 28, 2011 -
39 comments
NOON, 22ND CENTURY. The research vessel Pegasus is getting ready for liftoff from a spaceport near Moscow. Its small crew of three comprises interplanetary zoologist Dr. Seleznev, his adventurous nine-year-old daughter Alisa, and the terminally pessimistic Captain Zeleny. As they search for rare animal specimens to expand the Moscow zoo's collection, they will discover which of the ferocious
tigerat's two tails is longer, save a planet of
robots from a paralyzing epidemic, and deliver a modestly sized
birthday cake.
[more inside]
posted by Nomyte
on Jul 8, 2011 -
24 comments
Get ready to meet the fourth or fifth most famous pairing in Soviet children's animation: the meek, civil
Leopold the Cat, and the rowdy
mice who endlessly harass him in the course of 11 animated shorts (and a non-canonical feature made after the fall of the USSR).
[more inside]
posted by Nomyte
on Jun 29, 2011 -
25 comments
EXT. STREET -- TWILIGHT. A dreary day in 1971. Wearing a trilby hat and a hideous overcoat, a LONE CROCODILE stands on the rain-slicked sidewalk.
Singing in tune with the plangent sounds of the concertina he clutches in his claws, he tells the viewers that today, of all days, is his birthday. This scene presages the appearance of
one of the most emblematic characters in Soviet animation.
[more inside]
posted by Nomyte
on May 7, 2011 -
24 comments
The Soviet Collapse "The document which effectively concluded the history of the Soviet Union was a letter from the Vneshekonombank in November 1991 to the Soviet leadership, informing them that the Soviet state had not a cent in its coffers."
posted by bitmage
on Nov 19, 2010 -
28 comments
In the scale of its intensity, its destructiveness and its horror, Stalingrad has no parallel. It engaged the full strength of the two biggest armies in Europe and could fit into no lesser framework than that of a life-and-death conflict which encompasses the earth. - The New York Times, February 4, 1943
[more inside]
posted by Joe Beese
on Oct 27, 2010 -
61 comments
So where would you go looking if you wanted to find the deepest and sickest cold wave synth-beats of all? Then I think we would have to look all the way back to
John Bender, avant-garde
synth pioneer, who released three seminal
albums in the early
'80s and then just disappeared, forever. What else sounds this fantastic, and has that addictive, computerized, lo-fi ice beat? Maybe Ultravox, and the frosty, hollow majesty of
Hiroshima Mon Amour. Or
Soviet with Candy Girl, or Lori and the Chameleons and
Touch
posted by puny human
on Sep 2, 2010 -
12 comments
RussianFilter:
Historical Chronicles with
Nikolai Svanidze is an ongoing Russian television documentary series which, starting with 1901, picks out one person per year, every year, of the 100 years of the 20th century in Russia. It's entirely in Russian, of course, but for them as speaks it, it's one fascinating perspective on Russian history, with excellent narration, copious detail, and fascinating interconnections of events, people and places. All of the episodes that are available through Google Video and various other sources, and
[more inside]
posted by cthuljew
on Aug 30, 2010 -
8 comments
"Wow, a talking fish!" is a cheerfully deranged bit of animation based on an Armenian fairy-tale, starring a poor old fisherman, a talking fish, and probably the most psychedelic wizard ever committed to film.
posted by wanderingmind
on Feb 6, 2010 -
32 comments
Simo Häyhä is often revered as the deadliest sniper in history. Using nothing more than a
Mosin-Nagant sniper rifle with stock iron sights, Häyhä is credited with felling 542 Soviet soldiers during the
Finnish Winter War (with as many as 150 more kills by SMG). Nicknamed
"The White Death", Häyhä spent weeks in snow-covered forests, enduring sub-zero temperatures while sniping Russian officers, weapons crews and snipers. The Soviets placed a bounty on Häyhä's head, utilizing counter-snipers and artillery fire in an attempt to kill him. Over the course of only three months, the 5'3" Häyhä (a farmer by trade) killed upwards of 800 of the Red Army soldiers deployed to Finland. Despite eventually being
shot in the face by a Russian sharpshooter, Häyhä recovered and passed away in 2002 at the age of 96.
posted by Tenacious.Me.Tokyo
on Jan 28, 2010 -
244 comments
70s/80s Soviet album covers. Until today, I had no idea Soviet hair metal existed. Prepare for keytars, mall hair and proof that 80s cheese was not solely a product of degenerate kepitalist decadence.
posted by DecemberBoy
on Jun 23, 2009 -
54 comments
"This is a regular Russian school biology textbook owned by some Russian school. He has
modified some illustrations so now it’s hard to say sometimes what was there originally and what has appeared as a result of his imagination."
posted by squalor
on Feb 12, 2009 -
24 comments
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
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has died. (
BBC ) The great author and opponent of totalitarianism lived to see the end of Communism in the Soviet Union and almost everywhere else. He survived WWII as a commander in the Soviet army before being put into gulags where he spent 20 years. He went on to write the
Gulag Archipelago and win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970.
posted by sien
on Aug 3, 2008 -
75 comments
