1991 Referendum on Preserving the Union (Draft)

Referendum ballot, 17 March 1991; Pravda coverage of elections from 18 March 1991

Political discussion group "Perestroika"

Questions submitted at readers' conference held by Lit Gazeta (Draft)

Question submitted to editors of Literaturnaia Gazeta by reader attending readers’ conference

Vyacheslav Marychev, "Actor" of the Russian Duma

During a Duma session, Marychev cocks a gun while wearing sunglasses and a Megadeth t-shirt tucked into high-waisted slacks

The Raspberry Blazer

The origins and significance of the raspberry blazer as an iconic element of the “New-Russian” wardrobe in the early 1990s.

Sergei Kuryokhin and Pop-Mekhanika on TV's "Musical Ring"

Making its debut in 1984, Musical Ring was a Perestroika-era Soviet television program, dedicated to showcasing new musical talent and fostering a live audience Q&A. This 1987 segment features composer and avant-garde jazz pianist Sergei Kuryokhin and his band Pop Mekhanika. Throughout the episode Kuryokhin artfully wields the postmodern rhetorical weapon of styob, imbuing formal musical discourse with farce, an artistic and communicative device that became one a defining mode of expression during perestroika and the early post-Soviet period.