Bestsellers of Moscow

Post-Soviet Russia's first bestseller lists, compiled by the weekly industry newspaper Knizhnoe obozrenie and published from late 1993 through 1998.

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Gone with the Wind - The post-Soviet Sequels

Series of five collectively authored sequels to Margaret Mitchell's bestselling Gone with the Wind. Writing in Minsk, the anonymous authors published under the pseudonym Dzhuliia Khilpatrik and released titles like We'll Call Her Scarlett, Rhett Butler's Son, and Scarlett's Last Love.

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The Russian Booker - Scandals

A series of five articles scandalously decrying the new literary prize, imported from England, the Russian Booker.

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The Triumph Prize

Launched at the same time as the Russian Booker and funded by the newly minted oligarch Boris Berezovsky, the Triumph Prize promised an even broader program of cultural guardianship and philanthropy.

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OMON Uniform

Though the police special forces unit known as OMON was introduced before the fall of the Soviet Union, their now-ubiquitous light blue camouflage was only introduced in 1994, when OMON began to be deployed as part of the first Chechen War. OMON (and its light blue camouflage) has since been associated with street intimidation, market clearings, and protest quashing especially in the capitals.

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Russian Crime Statistics, 1980–1996

Nothing characterized the everyday experience of the urban Russian 1990s like crime; as shown in this first comprehensive statistical study of the 1990s, crime was just as bad as everyone had known. But the numbers also reveal some unexpected trends.

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