USSR

Alexander Palladin12.03.2025

Two weeks ago, a new feature movie, called “North Pole”, was released in Russia. Based on real facts, it is dedicated to the crew of the first Soviet nuclear-powered submarine K-3. Nearly 63 years ago, in mid-July of 1962, it became Soviet Navy’s first submarine to surface in the North Pole area. The vessel was […]

Andrey Vedyaev04.03.2025

Half a century ago, on November 8, 1974, Wolf Messing passed away, a unique Soviet psychic and seer who made a significant contribution to the Victory of the Soviet people over the fascism of Europe. When I am asked what this contribution consists of, I suggest that we first think about the contribution to the […]

Yuri Chekalin03.03.2025

Few people know that the historical consultant on the set of the Russian cult film “17 Moments of Spring” was the real SS Obersturmführer (i.e. Senior Lieutenant) Heinz Felfe, who personally knew Müller and Schellenberg and helped to supplement their images with historical accuracy. Unfortunately, the consultant’s name was not indicated in the credits. But […]

Alexander Palladin28.02.2025

80 years ago, on February 26, 1945, a national mourning was declared in the USSR in memoriam of Alexey Tolstoy, an outstanding writer who passed away just a few months before the Great Victory over Nazi Germany. Official cause of his death was lung cancer, diagnosed a year before. In lots of photos and portraits, […]

Andrey Vedyaev19.02.2025

Soviet intelligence officer, Hero of Russia Colonel Alexander Semenovich Feklisov can be counted among the most important witnesses of our atomic age without any exaggeration. He was a participant in Operation Enormous, an operation of the NKVD foreign intelligence service to obtain American atomic secrets. It was to him that the outstanding physicist Klaus Fuchs […]

Egor Yakovlev09.02.2025

Sergio Leone’s ‘900 Days’ — The Story of a Grand Project on the Siege of Leningrad. Sergio Leone, the author of the best Western films in history, was not very popular in the USSR. Soviet film critics criticized the Italian director for the aestheticization of violence, caustic irony and the lack of a moral compass […]

Alexander Palladin01.02.2025

As I mentioned recently in my The End of an Era previous piece, in October of 1990, I got an offer to head the Presidential Information Service (PIS) post, reporting directly to Valery Ivanovich Boldin, Chief of Staff of the USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev. Each morning we would prepare digests of the latest mass media […]

Alexander Palladin28.01.2025

On January 27, 1944, the military blockade of Leningrad, the 2nd largest city in the USSR, by German and Finnish troops was finally broken. It lasted for 872 days and ranks as the longest and most lethal siege in world history, causing an estimated 1.5 million deaths. Some historians speak of the siege operations in […]

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 […]

Yuri Chekalin15.01.2025

Fyodor Fyodorovich Serpilin, the main character of Konstantin Simonov’s trilogy “The Living and the Dead”, was a composite image. In him, one could guess the features and destinies of the legendary generals-commanders Alexander Gorbatov and Ivan Grishin, but the main prototype was Colonel Semyon Fyodorovich Kutepov, whom the writer Simonov (at that time – a […]

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Unique Soviet School

Wolf Messing’s Magic is Immortal

Former SS Obersturmführer in the service of the KGB

Alexey Tolstoy In Memoriam

Confession of an Intelligence Officer

Sergio Leone’s ‘900 Days’

Eyewitness Report on August ’91 Events At Kremlin

German and Finnish Siege Could Not Silence The Voice of Leningrad

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

Who Was The Prototype Of Brigade Commander Serplin?

The Deal of the Century for Trump the Peacemaker

Fasting

The Glory of the World

The Paradox of Russian Central Bank