SpidInfo #1, January 1991

AIDSInfo, quickly renamed SpidInfo, drew its second title from a play on words: the homophone between the Western calque “speed” and the Russian abbreviation for “AIDS,” “SPID.” SpidInfo 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. 

 

This earnest first foray into educational publication gives few clues that, over the next three decades, SpidInfo 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. At the first time, the magazine’s first issue foreshadows its future trajectory, with the cover featuring drawn images of a nude man and woman apparently experiencing sexual unhappiness and dissatisfaction. Meanwhile, the headlines 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, SpidInfo was an important source. 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.