Losing the Soviet nation on "KVN"

The winter 1992 opening broadcast of the amateur variety and improv contest show “KVN” (“the Club of the Jolly and Resourceful”). Filmed just a few months after the dissolution of the USSR, the episode features former Soviet university teams lamenting the new national borders appearing all around them.

Roksi Music Journal (Samizdat) (Vol. 15, 1990.)

The final print issue of the Leningrad-based samizdat rock journal Roksi, which was founded in 1977 by members of the rock band Aquarium and the future president of the Leningrad Rock Club. Considered to be the first rock publication in the Soviet Union, which was subject to raids by the KGB, Roksi eventually became the official newsletter of the LRC, and thus legitimized by the state apparatus.

Perestroika-era Russian Women Speak to US Women

A clip from one of many perestroika-era televised conversations between American and Soviet "regular people," in which they find common ground with the help of longtime Soviet propagandist and future star of liberal post-Soviet TV, Vladimir Pozner (1934-).

“500 Days: Program Summary,” a special issue of "Komsomolskaya pravda"

A special issue of the long-running Soviet daily "Komsomolskaya pravda" dedicated to economist Stanislav Shatalin's (1934-1997) "500 days" plan for economic reform under Mikhail Gorbachev (1931-2022).

"Russia votes"

"Democracy must know how to defend itself," Obshchaia gazeta