Artifacts

1994

The Rise of Public Opinion Polling

Monitoring Obshchestvennogo Mneniia, the monthly publication of the All Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM).

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.

The Rise of Public Opinion Polling

Monitoring Obshchestvennogo Mneniia, the monthly publication of the All Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM).

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.

The Russian Booker - Scandals

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

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.

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.

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.

Klei-Moment

Made by the German Henkel company, Moment glue was a staple of post-Soviet hobbyists. It also became one of the prefered drugs among the post-Soviet youth. The brand name became synonymous with huffing itself.

Olympic Stadium Book Market

The center of the post-Soviet book trade made its home in the corridors of the enormous stadium built for the 1980s summer games in Moscow. It was chaotic, even dangerous, and an embarrassment of riches.

Rebuilding Russia

Alexander Solzhenitsyn's traditionalist prescription for pulling Russia out of its difficulties was seen by many as out of touch with the times, but many of the ideas he expounded in 1991 have become part of Russia's neo-revanchism in recent years.

Solzhenitsyn's Return

In 1994, Alexander Solzhenitsyn staged a theatrical return to Russia, flying from America to Magadan, and then returning by train from Vladivostok to Moscow. The journey and the salvific importance Solzhenitsyn attached to it soon became the target of much derision, as well as some praise.

Early Vzgliad parodies itself

A 1988 celebration of a year of Vzgliad, where several sketch comedy artists parody and recapitulate Vzgliad's casual, sincere, freewheeling style of television programming

A coup d'etat holds a press conference

Press conference held by the State Committee for the Emergency Situation (GKChP), the group of hard line government officials who had attempted a coup d'etat overthrowing Mikhail Gorbachev. This press conference was held the next day and shows the coup coming apart at the seams.

TV Commercials for the MMM Pyramid Scheme

A series of 15-second TV spots advertising post-Soviet Russia's most successful pyramid scheme, MMM. The scheme's popularity had much to do with the simple action-reward structure of the TV spots which gave a simultaneously winking and sincere vision of a capitalist utopia.

Putting the "Spotlight" on an experimental three-hour line for Soviet luxury clothes

Prozhektor Perestroiki [Perestroika's Spotlight], a glasnost-era televised investigative journalism project, investigates a three-hour line for luxury clothes at the recently opened Luxe Fashion Center, where the reporters discover the problem of supply and demand in the USSR.

Soviet technical intelligentsia learns Reaganomics on the Chto? Gde? Kogda? gameshow

Chto? Gde? Kogda? [What? Where? When?], a long-running high-brow quiz show for the late Soviet technical intelligentsia, debates the economic principles of Soviet private enterprise in the heat of Perestroika’s economic reforms in 1988

Writers demand a Yeltsin coup ("Letter of the 42")

"Pisateli trebuiut ot pravitel’stva reshitel’nykh deistvii [Writers demand decisive actions from the government].” A letter signed by prominent intelligentsia during the 1993 Parliamentary crisis, in which the liberals urge Yeltsin to use lethal force to destroy the Communist-led parliamentary opposition.

"Tema" Talk Show- Racism in Russia

A clip from the talk show "Tema [Theme]," List'ev's major post-Soviet project after the 1991 end of Vzgliad. This particular episode is dedicated to the theme of racism in Russia. Includes Dzheims Lloidovich Patterson, the grown up boy from the classic Stalin-era film, "Circus"

"Tema" Talk Show- Racism in Russia

The Glasnost Booth on the last October Revolution anniversary in the USSR

“Glas naroda [The People’s Voice]”– a booth installed in the middle of town, into which random people can enter and speak their minds. Episode from the Kremlin, on USSR’s last anniversary of the October Revolution, in 1991.

The post-Soviet people’s show, Pole Chudes

A clip from the most-watched entertainment show of the 1990s, "Pole Chudes [Field of Miracles],” which renders the post-Soviet narod of regular folks, engaged in a free-flowing relationship with capitalism and Russia’s central television

"Politburo" versus the specter of communism, during the 1993 political crisis

A clip from "Politburo," a weekly commentary show from Aleksandr Politkovsky (a Vzgliad alum). This show takes place just prior to May 1, and just after the 1993 Referendum, as well as Rutskoi's first salvo in the "Kompromat Wars," regarding 11 suitcases of materials documenting Yeltsin's corruption. Here, Politkovsky is happy to return the favor to Rutskoy. The show ends with anti-communist chiastushki for Mayday.

The View from the Other Side

LGBTQ activist Yaroslav “Slava” Mogutin’s response to another article on gay men in post-Soviet Russia (by Aelita Efimova) in the magazine Совершенно секретно.

Primetime hypnotic tele-healing seances with Kashpirovskii

Anatolii Kashpirovskii, the psychic and guru of Perestroika era's "new thinking" uses the power of suggestion to heal the Soviet people from all ailments physical and spiritual

The logo for the "Dendy" Entertainment Console by Ivan Maximov.

The logo of an young, anthropomorphic elephant giving the victory sign with his left hand announced Russia''s first game console, which became enormously popular between 1992 and 1996.

Cover for “Red Hogwash” [“Krasnaia Burda”], issue 1, October 1990 by G. Malyshev.

The first issue of Red Hogwash's cover depicts a man in the costume of the Statue of Liberty lighting a cigarette with the torch.

Kommersant Board Game

Kommersant attempted to represent the 90s market economy via a Monopoly-like of two economies, an inner and an outer, with racketeering as a recurring threat.

Manager Board Game 1st edition

A square, indigo board game similar to Monopoly, but reading "Manager". Manager, which became the most successful Monopoly-like made in the former Soviet Union, initially presented itself as scientific and rational in its promise of capitalist success.

Lesbian Masha Attacks the Bureaucrats

An article on the early 1990s LGBTQ activism of Masha Gessen in Russia

A Man Who Keeps Up with the Times

A piece on David Bowie, focusing on the star’s bisexuality, in the glossy color gay magazine Мальчишник

K Chitateliu

A letter to readers from the editor of a regional newspaper (from the Ural region of Russia), Гей диалог

Philosophy on the Margins

Series of philosophical and theoretical texts from Russian and international authors published by Ad Marginem and meant to bring the latest in global thought into newly opened post-Soviet minds.

Babylon (online) Vavilon (.ru)

Vavilon, or Babylon, began as a loose group of young poets brought together by Dmitry Kuz'min in 1988. In the post-Soviet years, the group's almanac and then webside became a driving forces behind some of the most innovative poetry of the 1990s.

Chumak sends morning healing vibes to Perestroika audiences

A healing seance with TV-psychic Allan Chumak in 1989, during the morning newscast, “120 Minutes.” Works on people, their drinking water and their creams.

Kino’s last concert (Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow)

Footage of a live Kino concert at Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium on June 24, 1990, roughly a month and half prior to frontman Viktor Tsoi's death in a car accident in rural Latvia. The footage shows the band at the very height of its popularity, as well as offering an unencumbered look at a country in transition: a heavy and conspicuous Soviet police detail is assigned to the event, while audience members wave both the Soviet flag and the Russian tricolor banner.

Loss of the Soviet Nation at KVN

The Winter 1992 opening broadcast of the amateur variety and improv contest show KVN, filmed just a few months after the dissolution of the USSR, with former Soviet university teams lamenting the rise of national borders around them

Perestroika Women Speak to US Women

A clip from one of many Perestroika-era televised conversations between American and Soviet "regular people," in which they find common ground with the help of long-time Soviet propagandist and future star of liberal post-Soviet TV, Vladimir Pozner

“500 Days: Program Summary,” a special issue of Komsomol’skaya Pravda, 29 September 1990

Komsomol'skaya pravda "500 days" special issue

Yeltsin 'sleeps through' Ireland

Footage of the Shannon diplomatic incident and/or Yeltsin’s justification of same, September 1994. More specifically: 25 seconds of TV footage of Yeltsin confronting reporters in Vnukovo-2 in which he says, “Я скажу честно: я просто проспал, восемнадцать часов в полете, до этого, понимаешь, значит, столько не спал, а служба безопасности не пустила тех людей которые, так сказать, э-э-э, должны меня были разбудить. Я, конечно, разберусь. Им врежу, как следует.”

Evgeny Kiselev discusses the 21 September – 4 October 1993 Russian Constitutional Crisis on Itogi, 10 October 1993

Excepts from first episode of Itogi with Ev. Kiselev on NTV

Oleg Kulik and Alexander Brener, Rabid Dog or the last taboo guarded by a lone Cerberus, Nov. 23rd, 1994. The street outside Marat Guelman’s gallery, Moscow.

A snarling, nude and chained Kulik attacks cars and strangers, while Brener pulls on the chain, both are in a public street.

Kommersant’ by Vladimir Kharchenko and Rada Ltd, 1991.

The Ukranian video game attempted to represent the rough transition to capitalism via a detailed, simulationist interface.

Vyacheslav Marychev, "Actor" of the Russian Duma

During a Duma session, Marychev cocks a gun while wearing sunglasses and a Megadeth t-shirt tucked into high-waisted slacks

The Raspberry blazer as the uniform of the New Russian

The origins and the meaning of the raspberry blazer as the iconic dresscode of New Russians in the early 1990s

Gagarin (1994), directed by Alexei Kharitidi and the Moscow Animation studio “Pilot”

"Gagarin", the Oscar-nominated cartoon, directed by Alexei Kharitidi and the Moscow Animation studio “Pilot”

Mikhail Kuchin’s gravestone

Photograph of Mikhail Kuchin's funerary portrait with mercedes keys, gravestone, 1994. Shirokorechenskoy Cemetery.

"LoveIs" gum insert

"LoveIs" gum insert. Image shows a man and woman walking somewhere. The English text reads: "taking him/her to the place you lived before marrying". The Russian text reads: "Showing her your future marriage house". LoveIs featured Kim Casali's syndicated cartoon "Love Is", however the explosion in similarly adorned gum included everything from film stills from the Godfather and Jurassic Park to pornography.

Express-Gazette Cover, Headlines: “Pugacheva is being tricky”, “Fillip’s Spermatozoid” 1998

Busy tabloid cover depicting pop stars Alla Pugacheva and Fillip Kirkorov embracing next to a headline speculating about the viability of Kirkorov's sperm.

SpidInfo #1, January 1991

Cover of the first issue of SpidInfo depicting an anxious nude couple turned away from each other in bed.

Gorodok [Little Town]: 1993-2012

title screen, "Little Town"/"Gorodok" by Iurii Stoyanov and Ilya Oleinikov, 1996

Georgii Deliev, Mask Show (Маски Шоу), 1991-2006.

title screen, "Maski-Show"/"Maski-Show", 1991 by Georgi Deliev, showing a stylized image of multiple people in clown make-up.

Kukly ["Dolls'], still from episode 2 “The Old New Year” (01/07/1995) featuring the first appearance of Boris Yelstin’s puppet on the show.

Still from Dolls"/"Kukly", 1994-2002, an influential political satire showing several politicians as puppets.

"Tsoi's Wall" on Arbat

A wall of fan graffiti dedocated to the late Soviet rock star Viktor Tsoi on Moscow's famous Arbat Street.

Leningrad Rock Club

A wall of graffiti in the courtyard of the Leningrad Rock Club (1981-1991) on 13 Rubinshteyna Street in Leningrad (St. Petersburg), which featured fan street art dedicated to USSR's most revered rock-music collectives. When the wall was painted over in 2010 by the bulding's new proprietor, this caused a public outcry from both rock fans and the many surviving musicians from that era, who sought to preserve the LRC's legacy and designmate the wall and the building a historical landmark.

TaMtAm Rock Club documentary by German television (1993)

The first and until 1994 the only Western-style rock club in Russia, which was founded in 1991 by cellist Vsevolod (Seva) Gakkel (Akvarium) after he visited the famous music club CBGB in New York. The club specialized in punk rock specifically, providing the budding underground punk scene in Russia a much-needed performance venue and cultural legitimacy. Some have accused Gakkel's establishment for breeding far-right nationalist sentiments among Russia's youth subcultures (or at least providing them with a physical organizational platform) in the early 1990s. The fact that a German television production company took interest in TaMtAm is also a testament to punk as a truly transnational movement after fall of the Berlin Wall.

Meaning of pluralism on Vzgliad

A conversation about pluralism between Evgeny Dodolev and Alexander Liubimov, after an expose on Nina Andreeva

Love is Nasty, It Can Make you Fall in Love with An Asshole

Item in Правда about Slava Mogutin’s attempt to register marriage to partner Robert Filipini

A Conservative Revolutionary Avant-Garde

“The New against the Old,” a programmatic article by Aleksandr Dugin from the first issue of Limonka, the official newspaper of Eduard Limonov’s National Bolshevik Party (NBP), radical political organization/countercultural movement.

Top Secret: Investigative Journalism and True Crime During Perestroika

Sovershenno sekretno, the first privately owned periodical in Soviet Russia since 1917, showcased a combination of transparency and sensationalism that became a distinguishing feature of journalistic writing in the post-Soviet period.

Novyi Vzgliad: Violence, Political Irony, and National Pride

Novyi Vzgliad authors write some of the most scandalous and incendiary political commentaries of the 1990s, producing new forms of political irony. Iaroslav Mogutin and Eduard Limonov turn violence into a paradoxical source of identity. The main artifact here–an article by Mogutin–exemplifies this process.

Fascist Fashion Between Counterculture and Mainstream

Images from a photo shoot from the Polushkin Brothers’ collection Fash-Fashion–alluding to both queer and fascist aesthetics–is used as an ad for the popular brand Dr. Martens in the lifestyle magazine Ptiuch and as a model for a nascent National Bolshevik countercultural aesthetics in the pages of the newly founded political newspaper Limonka.

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Artifacts

1994