Browse Items (158 total)

Black bread was, since time immemorial, a ubiquitous Russian food. Born out of climactic and economic necessity, black bread has been credited with giving the Russian peasantry the physical strength necessary to crush Napoleonic France, but also…

After the death of Lenin in 1924, his body was embalmed by the Soviet government so that it could be displayed in a mausoleum. Lenin’s corpse became the focus point of a Leninist cult of personality throughout the Soviet period, and this precedent…

After Harvard Economics Professor Shleifer reached a settlement with the US. Government because of his illegal stock-buying activities in post-Soviet Russia, President Summers was accused of extreme favoritism towards his well-known friend. In…

The Lada 2100 (“Zhiguli”) was a type of car produced in the Soviet Union by the Lada company. The car, modeled after the Fiat 124 and marketed as the “people’s car” became available for purchase in 1970 in the Soviet Union. However, a commercial…

This is the first home of the Russian Academy of Sciences, built in the 1710s. Peter the Great had it constructed in conjunction with his establishment of the Academy. What is most notable about this facility is how nice it is—clearly Peter places a…

“Under the Banner of Lenin - Socialist Construction” is a photomontage poster created by Gustav Klutsis in 1930. It is an artifact of the Soviet propaganda campaign to shift the mindset of every Russian citizen through art. Klutsis’s posters are…

The St. Sophia’s Cathedral in Kiev is an important monument to the increasing influence of Orthodox Christianity, as well as the flourishing of Ukrainian artistic expression, under the reign of Grand Prince Yaroslav the Wise of Kievan Rus. This…

Khimki Deep Map screenshot

The Katyn Forest Massacre occurred in 1940. Under orders from Josef Stalin, the Soviet NKVD executed approximately 20,000 Polish officers, landlords, officials and intellectuals whom they had previously been holding in prison camps. The victims…

Stalin was born in Gori, now a city in present-day Georgia, and spent his childhood there before traveling to Tbilisi to attend school on a scholarship. He was, however, expelled from the Georgian Orthodox Tiflis Spiritual Seminary after poor…

American journalists John Reed and Louise Bryant provided vivid accounts of their first-hand experiences of the October Revolution. Reed published his experiences in the bookTen Days that Shook the World.Braynt published Six Red Months in Russia.…