First Russian-language LiveJournal Post

A post in 1999 demonstrates that LiveJournal processes Cyrillic encoding, leading to the Russian internet's most pervasive and influential early social media site. LiveJournal, soon known simply as ZhZh in Russian, became a platform for poets, writers, political activists, essayists and graphomaniacs. It launched or catalyzed several literary and political careers, and fed the budding market for conspiratorial thinking in late 1990s Russia.

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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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"A Way Out of the Dead End"

The open letter that became known as the Letter of the 13, signed by thirteen of post-Soviet Russia’s most powerful businessmen ahead of the 1996 election, was as much as anything a manifesto of the power of capital in post-Soviet politics.

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The Miracle of Evgenii

A Russian soldier during the first Chechen War, Rodionov was captured outside of Grozny and reputedly executed for refusing to renounce his Orthodox faith. His image has since served as the inspiration for several of post-Soviet Orthodoxy's most popular new icons.

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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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