SpidInfo #1, January 1991

Aidsinfo, quickly renamed Speedinfo, drew its second title from a play on words: the homophone between the Western calque “speed” and the Russian abbreviation for “AIDS,” “SPID.” Speedinfo was the first publication to inform the Russian public about sexuality and sexually transmitted diseases. The first issue, from 1991, under the editorship of Andrei Mann, is a quaint artifact still marketing itself as an “All-Soviet Monthly.” Its cover includes instructions for cutting the pages into a functional newspaper and directly states the prevention of STIs as a significant goal. It is difficult to imagine that, over the next three decades, this educational publication would develop into Russia’s most popular sex tabloid, publishing erotic jokes, unlikely stories, sex advice columns, and letters-to-the-editor style fantasy narratives from readers.

This future trajectory is already foreshadowed in the first issue, which includes drawn images of a nude man and woman apparently experiencing sexual unhappiness and dissatisfaction, while the cover stories promise both adult fairy tales and a lurid account of being sold into prostitution by one’s own brother. This riotous background all but drowns out the informational blurb about the spread of AIDS. For an entire generation raised on the limited sex education available in the Soviet Union, Speedinfo was an important publication. Despite its content, in early 1990s Russia it was sold on every corner and widely read by people from all walks of life as a totally novel form of entertainment with a (however fraudulent) educational veneer.