History & Persons

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 […]

Alexander Palladin19.10.2024

38 years ago, in the capital of Iceland, Gorbachev and Reagan had their second personal meeting. It almost ended with an agreement on the complete elimination of nuclear missile weapons of the USSR and the USA. Fortunately for us, at the last moment, the advisers of the then head of the White House persuaded […]

Alexander Palladin16.10.2024

On March 1 (old style), 1881, in St. Petersburg, the seventh assassination attempt on Alexander II in almost 15 years was made, this time fatal for the Tsar-Liberator. This happened before the eyes of my grandfather Ivan Petrovich Palladin, who had lived in the Russian capital since 1869. The second son of a sexton who […]

Egor Sennikov15.10.2024

An artist trying to publish his story about the horrors he experienced in the camps. A writer who became a propagandist in the service of the Nazis. What do they have in common — and where did their different paths lead them? A tram crawls along the Trinity Bridge — oh, excuse me, the Equality […]

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History & Persons

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

Assisted By Reagan Fate Was Merciful to Russia

My grandfather witnessed the assassination of Alexander II

On Both Sides of Transparent Glass

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?

On the Birthday of Leonid Brezhnev