Russia

Maya Ivanova reviews Anait Grigoryan’s “The Village on the Oredezh River” as a powerful portrayal of social breakdown in provincial Russia during the 1990s.

Maya Ivanova reviews “Echelon to Samarkand” Guzel Yakhina as a powerful novel that brings renewed attention to the Volga famine, a long-silenced catastrophe that devastated countless Tatar families.

Sonja Astrakhan reflects on Boris Grebenshchikov’s anti-authoritarianism, spiritual curiosity and enduring place in Russian culture.

Diego Benning Wang revisits “Lev Yashin: The Black Spider” as more than a tribute to a football legend: a powerful story of genius, scapegoating and rehabilitation that restores Yashin’s dignity, [...]

Georgie Archer reviews "Mr Nobody Against Putin", a film about the plight of a school turned upside down following the start of the war in Ukraine.

Diego Benning Wang examines how Cape Verde and Amílcar Cabral were portrayed in the Soviet press, showing how Moscow turned anti-colonial struggle into ideological propaganda while ignoring the [...]

Maya Ivanova reviews “The Mountain and the Wall”, a novel that imagines what would happen if Russia sealed off its Muslim-majority Caucasian provinces with a wall.

Rafik Aharonyan reviews "Two Prosecutors", Sergei Loznitsa’s film about Stalinist repression and the machinery of terror in Soviet Russia.

Riccardo explores Turin’s Slavika Festival, where Slavic cultures, poetry and politics come together.

Sasha Molotkova examines the heavy surveillance and enforcement of ideology at universities in Russia after the start of the full- scale war in Ukraine.