History & Persons

Alexander Palladin08.11.2024

“A few years ago, a former American intelligence officer whom I knew well, having arrived in Moscow, during dinner at a restaurant on Ostozhenka, said: ‘We know that you have had successes that you have every right to be proud of. But time will pass, and you will gasp (if this is declassified) at what […]

Alexander Palladin06.11.2024

My speech at Richard Bland College, Petersburg, Va. March 20, 1985. “Mr. Chairman, esteemed hosts, ladies and gentlemen! As little as I might know about your country and your mores, I do know that a person in my present position is expected to start with а joke. I feel being under special pressure of this […]

Alexander Palladin06.11.2024

The 40th US President Ronald Reagan was branded Great Communicator. If the USSR had a national leader who deserved such a title it was, no doubt, Joseph Stalin. He recognized the power of PR full well and used it with magnificent dexterity. The military parade at Red Square on November 7th, 1941, is just an […]

Tony Rocchi05.11.2024

World War One was the catalyst that made possible the speedy collapse of the Russian state and society after the overthrow of Tsar Nicholas II in the February Revolution of 1917. All sectors of society in the Russian Empire underwent major changes both on the war front and on the home front from 1914 to […]

Alexander Palladin04.11.2024

In August of 1983 16-year old Andrei Berezhkov, youngest son of Valentin Berezhkov, first secretary of the USSR Embassy, sparked a diplomatic confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. Former Stalin’s interpreter who had translated Soviet leaders’ talks with Hitler, Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt, in the United States V. Berezhkov represented the Institute […]

Alexander Palladin01.11.2024

Back in April 1982 US media revealed President Reagan’s intention to have lunch with a group of Soviet dissidents who had emigrated to the West. Their list contained the names of about a dozen of persons barely known to American people. Meanwhile, the extraordinary event was planned to coincide with the renewal of the Soviet-American […]

Alexander Palladin30.10.2024

Back in 1983 USA-based press published a report claiming that the American Big Brother managed to eavesdrop on what Leonid Brezhnev would say using the supposedly eavesdropping-prone phone in his limousine. The veracity of this piece of news was supported by quotes from US government sources. This was followed by even more sensational publications on […]

Tony Rocchi29.10.2024

The tumultuous eight months between the February and October Revolutions of 1917 witnessed many types of violence, but terrorism and even state violence were not among them. Instead, the lands of the former Russian Empire were rocked by many incidents of mass violence from below. Politically motivated killings often happened during 1917, but political parties […]

Alexander Palladin23.10.2024

Back in 1935, when the 25th anniversary of Leo Tolstoy’s death was marked by many Soviet newspapers and magazines, my father was sent to Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy’s former estate and burial place. He was given an editors’ assignment to bring back some new interesting facts about the deceased author of War And Peace and many […]

Alexander Palladin22.10.2024

It is generally accepted that the first Soviet citizens to undergo internships at Columbia University were the future architect of perestroika, Gorbachev’s closest (after his wife) adviser, Alexander Yakovlev, Oleg Kalugin, who later became a KGB general, and two others whose names have sunk into oblivion. As part of the thawing of relations between the […]

History & Persons

Two-Faced Yakovlev: Part One

The Soviet Newsman Speaks in the USA

Unforgettable Parade

Brave New World: Russian Society in 1917

Andrei Berezhkov’s Greetings To Mick Jagger

Solzhenitsyn: A Worldwide Dissident

US Big Brother and Brezhnev

Terrorism in the Year 1917: a Conspicuous Absence

Leo Tolstoy’s Offsprings

The First Soviet Interns at Columbia University

Two-Faced Yakovlev: Part One

Who Won The Election?

The Soviet Newsman Speaks in the USA

Unforgettable Parade