Yuri Chekalin, Author at The CommentaTHOR

Yuri Chekalin21.08.2023

In Japan, many things are deeply symbolic. For example, every dish that is served on the New Year’s table has its own meaning. Therefore, it is easy to guess that gifts also have a hidden meaning in this country. And if you present a gift to a person older than you (by rank or age), […]

Yuri Chekalin25.07.2023

One day at sunset in 2000, the expeditor Vyacheslav Prokhorenko found the remains of a soldier next to the German fortifications on the Sinyavinsky Heights in the Leningrad Region. Buttonholes of a junior lieutenant, binoculars, a pistol. And in the pocket of the decayed tunic there is a medallion with a note. They unwind a […]

Yuri Chekalin07.07.2023

The Assumption, Archangel and Annunciation Cathedrals, the Ivan the Great Bell Tower, the Grand Duke’s Palace, the walls and towers of the Kremlin — all these structures were erected in a little over thirty years, when Moscow and the whole country were actively built in the 15th century. As a result, the monumental architectural and […]

Yuri Chekalin22.06.2023

Last year marked the 60th anniversary of Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin’s visit to Japan. Gagarin had not only visited this exotic country, but also returned the name of our legendary intelligence officer Richard Sorge from there. How did it happen? To the Land of the Rising Sun Yu.A. Gagarin flew on May 21, 1962, together with […]

Yuri Chekalin08.05.2023

History has a funny habit of repeating itself on a new coil of its spiral. As the classics said, first as a tragedy, then as a farce. History often surprises us with such zigzags. Let’s take a look at the times of Peter the Great. To persuade Mazepa to treason, Charles XII of Sweden sent […]

Yuri Chekalin13.04.2023

“Where does all this madness about hara-kiri, bushido come from…” /From one Russian radio broadcast./ “… We must win honestly, We must live in the bright light, They will compose songs about us, Heaven will be hot…” “Sport Heroes” “…Who knows what awaits us? Who knows what will happen? And will be strong And […]

Yuri Chekalin23.02.2023

The first serial killer in the Soviet Union. In late 1922 – early 1923, corpses began to float in the Moscow River, frightening the fishermen. In the abandoned wasteland, passers-by also began to find bodies, tied and packed in bags. Rumors spread around Moscow about a terrible maniac and about people who went to the […]

Yuri Chekalin10.01.2023

By 1908, the time was right for a new kind of agency to protect America. The United States was, well, united, with its borders stretching from coast to coast and only two landlocked states left to officially join the union. Inventions like the telephone, the telegraph, and the railroad had seemed to shrink its vast […]

Yuri Chekalin04.01.2023

Emilio Kosterlitzky was one of the most colorful characters to ever serve as a special agent. A cultured, Russian-born man of the world, he spent four decades in the Russian and Mexican militaries, rising to the rank of brigadier general in Mexico. To avoid the dangerous tribulations of the ongoing Mexican Revolution, he settled down […]

Yuri Chekalin18.10.2022

Pyongyang’s nuclear capability is increasing, but international capacity or interest in dealing with them is limited. The details vary, but the picture is immediately recognizable: a salvo of missiles followed by chilling new rhetoric. This time, North Korean state media claimed that the recent flurry of tests simulated strikes against targets in South Korea and […]

Yuri Chekalin

Gifts Not to Give in Japan

Secrets of the Moscow Metro

How did the Kremlin become red?

Yuri Gagarin saves Richard Sorge from oblivion

Zigzag of History

Seppuku and Death in Japan

Scary stories for adults

The Birth of the FBI

The Russian Cossack Turned Special Agent

Armageddon and North Korea

Olga Chekhova — the “Queen of the Nazi Reich” and Russian Spy

Do Animals have Conscious Thought?

Gavriil Popov — the First Post-Communist Mayor of Moscow

“Bulgakov — Get Out the Russian Chauvinist from Kyiv!”