History & Persons

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 […]

Klim Zhukov21.12.2024

Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was born on December 19, 1906. He is the personification of stability. The people of Rus’-Moscow Kingdom-Russian Empire-USSR have never lived so calmly, well-fed, richly, confidently, but most importantly — calmly. The majority of the population was confident in the future. The other side of memory is the endless jokes about Brezhnev. […]

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 […]

Yuri Chekalin17.12.2024

Amet-Khan Sultan was born in Crimea on October 25, 1920, to a Lak father and a Crimean Tatar mother. Like many young people of the 1930s, he attended an aeroclub, which determined his future fate. Having been drafted into the army in 1939, Amet-Khan was sent to the Kachin Aviation School, from where he graduated […]

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 […]

Alexander Palladin09.12.2024

World War I Heroes in Memoriam: Part I Since 2017, on December 9 Russia celebrates the annual Day of Heroes of the Fatherland. One of them was my grandfather Pyotr Vasilyevich who got two St. George’s Crosses during World War I. He belonged to the ancient Korchagin family, who lived in the Ryazan region at […]

Alexander Palladin07.12.2024

In 1982, Charles Higham’s book “The Untold Story of Errol Flynn” was published in the United States. Sent to print on the eve of yet another anniversary of the Japanese attack on the main base of the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor, it was dedicated to Errol Flynn, Hollywood actor of Australian origin and […]

History & Persons

The End of an Era

On the Birthday of Leonid Brezhnev

Photographs for the Tsar

Amet-Khan Sultan: the Air Ace Who Bacame the Two Times Hero of the Soviet Union

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

World War I Heroes In Memoriam: Part II

The Unknown Role of Errol Flynn

Happy Holidays!

The End of an Era

Coming Face to Face with Terrorism in the Russian Empire

What Beliefs Does the Orthodox Church Have About Birth Control?