Ekho Moskvy - 20 August 1991

Live coverage of the GKChP putsch in August 1991 from the Echo of Moscow radio station. Demonstrates the chaos of the moment, the putschists' failure to control their message, and the power of the newly independent media.

A coup d'etat holds a press conference

Press conference held by the State Committee for the Emergency Situation (GKChP), the group of hard line government officials who had attempted a coup d'etat overthrowing Mikhail Gorbachev. This press conference was held the next day and shows the coup coming apart at the seams.

Vzgliad on the GKChP

Clips of Vzgliad's reports during the attempted GKChP coup in 1991. These include being holed up in the White House (the RSFSR parliament) alongside its defenders and celebrities, such as Mstislav Rostropovich.

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

Evgeny Kiselev discusses the 21 September – 4 October 1993 Russian Constitutional Crisis on "Itogi"

Excepts from first episode of Itogi with Ev. Kiselev on NTV

The First (Home-Made) Post-Soviet Independent TV

The Saint Petersburg “New Artists” stage a meeting of the committee “anti-state of emergency” on their “Pirate Television,” declaring their support of Yeltsin against the group of communist hardliners who led the coup d’etat against Gorbachev on August 19, 1991.