Alexander Palladin

Alexander Palladin19.01.2025

On September 11, 1981, the Soviet and Canadian national teams met in the decisive game for the Canada Cup. The tournament organizers were so confident of their countrymen’s triumph that they had alotted every single best player award to Canadians only even before the final match started. The game was won, though, by the USSR […]

Alexander Palladin13.01.2025

On January 7, 1991, I was discussing current issues with Valery Ivanovich Boldin, Chief of Staff of the USSR President, when a red bulb lit up at his desk signaling a phone call from Mikhail Gorbachev. On such occasions visitors had to leave Boldin’s office immediately but Valery Ivanovich picked up the receiver with one […]

Alexander Palladin11.01.2025

Justin Trudeau announced his decision to step down as Canada’s 23rd Prime Minister. With slightly more than 9 years in that office he is № 7 in the national list of longest serving PMs. The eldest son of Pierre Trudeau, on November 4, 2015 he became the second-youngest government leader in Canadian history and the […]

Alexander Palladin07.01.2025

Russia’s Ded Moroz (Grandpa Frost) has a close relative in the Western world. His name is Santa Claus, also known as Saint Nicholas. They both have the same gentle, kind characters and similar duties, i.e. to deliver gifts to children and to amuse people at large. What makes them different, though, is their names, different […]

Alexander Palladin25.12.2024

Upon his return to Moscow from Crimea after the well-known events of August 1991, Gorbachev appointed Grigory Revenko as the head of the Presidential Administration instead of Valery Boldin who was arrested for participating in the State Emergency Committee. Revenko brought with him a group of trusted people, including Anatoly Sazonov. He was made the […]

Alexander Palladin19.12.2024

In mid-80s, I bought a photo album with this title in a Washington-based book store. As a result, by pure chance, I learned about Russia’s pioneer of color photography who at the beginning of the 20th century carried out a titanic task of taking hundreds of superb pictures of what used to be called Russian […]

Alexander Palladin16.12.2024

In the Russo-Japanese War that began 120 years ago, Russia suffered defeat which was also caused by its inability to wage properly what we now call information wars. St. Petersburg-based contemporary weekly magazine “Chronicles of the War With Japan” published an article headlined “Japanese Propaganda In Europe”, noting that propaganda of Japanese and Japanophile ideas […]

Alexander Palladin12.12.2024

Once in 1974 when I was stationed in Canada, Alexander Yakovlev, our ambassador in that country, shared with me his views on Academician Andrei Sakharov who renewed his public attacks on Kremlin’s policy. Before his assignment in Ottawa Yakovlev worked at Central Committee as the actual head of Agitprop and was quite knowledgeable about the […]

Alexander Palladin11.12.2024

Melor Sturua As a Mirror of Soviet Elite’s Evolution: Part I Soviet authorities upheld the decision to declare Nagorski persona non grata. Thus, Melor Georgievich managed to return to the United States only 8 years later, when our country hit Catastroika, as Alexander Zinoviev, Soviet philosopher, writer, and sociologist, branded Perestroika. In 1990, Sturua started […]

Alexander Palladin10.12.2024

10 days before the US presidential election, Izvestia’s film crew sent from Moscow to cover the event was detained at the Washington airport. The Russian reporters had valid entry visas, but their equipment was taken away, and they were interrogated for several hours. Cameraman’s visa was cancelled and he had to return to Moscow. Which […]

I Helped the USSR National Team Get People’s Canada Cup

Gorbachev As a Reincarnated Pontius Pilate

Unlike Father, Unlike Son

Western Relative of Russia’s Grandpa Frost

The End of an Era

Photographs for the Tsar

Losing Info Wars Costs Dearly

Perestroika Architect Yakovlev And H-Bomb’s Father Sakharov

Melor Sturua As a Mirror of Soviet Elite’s Evolution: Part II

Melor Sturua As a Mirror of Soviet Elite’s Evolution: Part I

Japan to keep importing Russian LNG

The Deal of the Century for Trump the Peacemaker

Fasting

The Glory of the World