Ekho Moskvy on the 1991 Putsch

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

Russian Crime Statistics, 1980-1996

Nothing epitomized the everyday experience of the urban Russian 1990s like crime. As this first comprehensive statistical study of the 1990s demonstrates, crime was just as bad as everyone had anecdotally experienced. The numbers also reveal some unexpected trends.

Soviet Nostalgia– Old Songs About the Most important

The most popular Soviet nostalgia project of the 1990s- "Starye pesni o glavnom [Old Songs About the Most Important"

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

Soviet audiences devour the Brazilian soap opera "Escrava Isaura"

Stills from the first episode of the Brazilian soap opera "Escrava Isaura," which aired in Brazil in 1976-77 and in the USSR/ Russia in 1988-90. In this first episode, aired on Soviet Central Television on 16 October, 1988, it is revealed that the show's title character, Isaura, is not the niece of the wealthy Almeida family—but instead a "slave" with a “mulatto [sic]” mother and a Portuguese father.

"Pravda" editors pledge to do better, 23 August 1991

Editors’ statement on the front page of iconic Soviet/ Russian daily "Pravda" from 23 August 1991, just after the failed 1991 anti-Gorbachev putsch.