Early “Vzgliad” parodies itself

A 1988 celebration of a year of the late- and post-Soviet youth program “Vzgliad,” where several sketch comedy artists parody and recapitulate its casual, sincere, and freewheeling style of television programming.

The Soviet technical intelligentsia learns Reaganomics on the “Chto? Gde? Kogda?” quiz show

“Chto? Gde? Kogda?” (What? Where? When?), a long-running highbrow quiz show targeted at the late Soviet technical intelligentsia, debates the economic principles underpinning Soviet private enterprise in the midst of perestroika’s economic reforms in 1988.

Manager Board Game 1st edition

A square, indigo board game similar to Monopoly, but reading "Manager". Manager, which became the most successful Monopoly-like made in the former Soviet Union, initially presented itself as scientific and rational in its promise of capitalist success.

"Vse idet po planu." Audio recording. By Grazhdanskaia Oborona

The 16th track on Grazhdanskaia Oborona's 1988 eponymous punk-rock album, whose refrain became a popular catchphrase of the late perestroika and post-Soviet period. The song cemented Egor Letov and his band as a major influence during Perestroika, marking the punk genre's departure from the established norm of largely avoiding politically-charged lyrical content.

"Sovetskii Ekran" with Tsoi on cover

The cover image from volume 13 (1988) depicts Viktor Tsoi of Kino and Petr Mamonov of the Moscow-based rockband Zvuki Mu. Both artists appeared in Rashid Nugmanov 1988 film The Needle (Igla, 1988), which cemented Tsoi’s rock stardom and firmly established Mamonov as a serious actor. He went on to star in Pavel Lungin’s drama Taxi Blues (Taksi Bliuz, 1990), which was released to international acclaim and became one of the classic examples of the perestroika-era chernukha aesthetic.

Political discussion group "Perestroika"