The Rise of Public Opinion Polling
A collection of data presentation venues of the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM). After the fall of the Soviet Union, VTsIOM became the Russian Federation’s most important polling organization.
View ArtifactNovikov's Shocking Coming Out (Draft)
During an interview, Timur Novikov and Sergey "Afrika" Bugaev talk about their otherwise unconfessed homosexuality in an intentionally shocking way.
View ArtifactSoviet 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.
View Artifact"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.
View ArtifactThe founding of the Memorial Society in the late 1980s
Three moments in the early history of Memorial, a human rights group established in Gorbachev-era Russia (and abolished by Putin’s government in 2022) to document and memorialize Soviet political repressions and abuses.
View ArtifactNovikov and Afrika Come Out
During an interview, the artists Timur Novikov and Sergey “Afrika” Bugaev talk about their otherwise unconfessed homosexuality in an intentionally shocking way.
View Artifact