USSR

Vladimir Grigoryan22.10.2025

An interesting story happened to Yevgeny Gomberg. A millionaire and philanthropist, he is known in Latvia as a defender of the historical heritage of the Russian Empire. Among other things, he bought monuments to Peter the Great and Barclay de Tolly, which local authorities had decided to get rid of. The case concerns a lawsuit […]

Andrey Vedyaev25.09.2025

September 19 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Yuri Ivanovich Drozdov, whose name is associated with an entire era in the history of the KGB’s underground intelligence service. It was under his leadership that the Vympel special forces group was created, and the first Heroes of the Soviet Union emerged among the KGB’s […]

Andrey Vedyaev20.09.2025

On December 5, 2024, Colonel Ivan Pavlovich Evtodyev, a veteran of the illegal special purpose intelligence service, an honorary employee of the state Security Service, celebrated his 100th birthday. The last of the surviving employees of General Sudoplatov. Ivan Pavlovich was born in 1924 in the village of Subbottsy in the very center of Ukraine […]

Vladimir Morozov04.09.2025

The first decrees of the liberal Gaidar government in 1992 dealt a blow to those industries of the deceased USSR, which formed the basis of the technological leadership of the Soviet Union. The Americans demanded from their new vassals the immediate defeat of the aerospace industry, which was done. One of the first orders of […]

Yuri Chekalin02.09.2025

From the report: “Only six portraits of Stalin were published in Pravda in 1952, while 147 portraits of Khrushchev were published in the same newspaper in 1964.” Nikita Khrushchev is usually associated with the “thaw”, space flights and the mass migration of people from communal slums to relatively comfortable five-story Khrushchev buildings. It is believed […]

Yuri Chekalin08.08.2025

Vasily Martekhov had an interesting fate. Vasily was born into a family of Russian immigrants at the Bukron mine in the American state of Ohio and became the fifth child. By birthright, the boy received US citizenship. His father, a miner, worked 12 hours a day, but received negligible amounts. The Martekhovs lived on a […]

Andrey Vedyaev30.07.2025

Hero of the Soviet Union Colonel Stanislav Alekseevich Vaupshasov is one of those people whose lives were spent in campaigns and battles, among forests, hills and mountain passes, behind the front line and, in his own words, at dangerous crossroads. He was born on July 27, 1899 in the town of Gruzdziai, 19 km from […]

Alexander Palladin08.07.2025

During the Great Patriotic War, a total of 649 signals about enemy air raids and 3,087 reports of artillery shelling were transmitted by Leningrad Radio station, managed by Pyotr Aleksandrovich Palladin. On such occasions, the city radio used to be disconnected from the broadcast network. Instead, the metronome beating was put on the air. For […]

Alexander Palladin31.05.2025

80 years ago, on June 26, 1945, the UN Charter was signed at the final meeting of the United Nations Conference in San Francisco. Ukraine and Belarus, along with the USSR, were among the 50 founding countries of this international organization. My father’s second cousin Alexander Vladimirovich Palladin signed the above mentioned historic document on […]

Alexander Palladin04.05.2025

During my stay in Washington, D.C. as bureau chief of Izvestia, I took part in numerous TV and radio programs, discussing Soviet-American relations with US politicians, journalists, and political scientists. One of those occasions stucks out in my mind as it dealt with a unique event at American television. On April 19, 1985, I got […]

Spy Games

Illegal Anniversary

One of the Last Intelligence Officer Survivors

A Liberal Approach to Economic Sovereignty

A Little About Khrushchev

The Only American Hero of the Soviet Union

Star of a Chekist

As It Happened in Sieged Leningrad

He Signed the UN Charter

Spirit of the Elbe Is Gone?

The Andropov Code

A Tragedy That Shook Russia

Tucker Carlson Draws a Line

Russian Strongmen