“Glas naroda” (The People’s Voice) was a booth installed in the middle of Moscow, into which random people could enter and speak their minds on camera. For this 1991 episode, the booth was set in the vicinity of the Kremlin on last anniversary of the October Revolution ever celebrated in the USSR.

“Namedni” (Recently), Leonid Parfenov’s project dedicated to recent history, was one of the most successful shows of the 1990s. Eschewing big narrative arcs, the program highlighted the past as a collection of memory sites—in this case, exploring the origins of the “New Russian” in 1991.

The Oscar-nominated animated short film “Gagarin,” directed by Alexei Kharitidi for Pilot, a Moscow-based animation studio.

A monument pedestal with no statue, two uneven footprints are imprinted on the pedestal.

From a single memorial inscription for deceased Soviet rock star Viktor Tsoi (1962-1990), an entire wall of graffiti sprang up, forming an enduring pilgrimage site and evolving canvas for generations of fans.

In 1992, the Beatles superfan and rock-and-roll activist Kolia Vasin (1945-2018) petitioned the St. Petersburg authorities to establish a public “John Lennon Temple of Rock-n-Roll.”