Browse Items (22 total)

The T-34 is widely regarded as the most influential tank of WWII, credited (along with the Russian winter) with turning the tide against the Nazi’s in the east. The T-34 was both a technological and industrial marvel, coupling advanced engineering…

Sputnik was a decisive event that initiated the Space Race. On one hand, it furthered divides between East and West, and helped kick off an arms race that led to thousands of nuclear warheads being deployed. On the other, the era of technical…

Our Lady of Kazan is a Russian icon that was found in the burnt ruins of the city of Kazan in 1579. Mary, the mother of God in Christian tradition, appeared three times to a small child, providing instructions on where to look for the icon. Over the…

Existing first as a makeshift, anti-Soviet bomb, the Molotov cocktail has taken on meaning as not only a material weapon of guerilla warfare, but also an international symbol of resistance. As an explosive device, the Molotov cocktail has a long…

Flourishing under Stalin-era reinvention of Russian national culture, Russian lacquer crafts were creations of a Tsarist age. In fact, it was from Japanese toys and boxes that Russian craftsmen took inspiration, so it is on a borrowed canvas that…

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…

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…

“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…