Explore:
Novikov 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
The Hit Song “Ubyli Negra” (1999): Dark Humor or Racism?
Music video and lyrics from the 1999 musical hit “Ubily negra [They Killed a Black Man]” by the band “Zapreshchennye barabanshchiki.”
View Artifact
Vladimir Putin Brings Criminal Slang (and Attitude) to Mainstream Russian TV
At a press conference held in the wake of the September 1999 apartment bombings, then-Prime Minister Putin declared that he would “whack terrorists in the crapper.” In so doing, he reinforced his image as a strong and somewhat thuggish leader, ultimately boosting his popularity ahead of the 2000 presidential election.
View Artifact
An Encounter with America
This billboard advertising the cigarette brand L&M is positioned in front of the burned façade of the Russian White House, which was bombed on Yeltsin’s orders during the 1993 Constitutional Crisis. It possibly inspired one of the most famous passages from Victor Pelevin’s iconic satire of the 1990s, “Generation P” (titled, in English, “Homo Zapiens”).
View ArtifactFirst USSR Congress of People's Deputies
Televised footage of the USSR’s first Congress of People’s Deputies in 1989. So many Soviet citizens tuned in to the live broadcast that production rates fell nationwide.
View Artifact