One of the most widespread myths in Russia today is that in Soviet times, Russia took care of everyone, Maxim Mirovich says; but in fact, Moscow didn’t “feed” anyone. Instead, “the entire country worked for the...
New polls show that the share of Russians who would like to go “back to the USSR” is at its highest levels over the last 15 years, a development many find troubling because it will make the future evolution of Russia toward a...
Polls show that ever more Russians want to go “back to the USSR” but this nostalgia is not shared by others, including Ukrainians where the level of nostalgia for that past is only have as much as it is among Russians. New...
Have you ever seen a real chekist ID? This belonged to my grandfather and I still have it. (The term “chekist” comes from the Russian abbreviation ChK, or Extraordinary Commission (Cheka), which was the original secret police...
When I went back to Donetsk after an absence of six months, I was greeted by Lenin and Depardieu. The mining capital of Ukraine hasn’t heard anything about decommunization, which is underway in most Ukrainian cities. Monuments to...
In 2014, after the first Russian invasion of Ukrainian territory in the Donbas, soldiers who had lost limbs in battle were seen for the first time in public as they returned home. Since the full-on invasion by Russia in February 2022, the...
