"The question was never only what was forbidden. It was who, when, and in whose interest decided what counted as a crime, an illness, a moral failure, or a threat to the state."

Two TV series, #Fartsa and #SovietJeans, reveal how Soviet law served as in instrument of state power. Gevorg Avetikyan reads the two series side by side and shows how coercion worked in practice - and how the grey market became part of the system itself. ⬇️

https://justimino.hypotheses.org/1175

#SovietHistory #ColdWar #hypoverse

The mobile gas chambers were invented by Russian communists, not Nazis

https://medium.com/@sensmedia.srl/the-mobile-gas-chambers-were-invented-by-russian-communists-not-nazis-db8c403a8a52
#russia #soviethistory #nkvd #nazi #communism #warcrimes

"Circassian culture was often exoticised within Russia ... we carried a kind of internalised self-doubt, shaped by Soviet and post-Soviet attitudes that framed local culture as backward"

A story true of every local culture and independent nation that Moscow tried to colonise

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/jan/21/soviet-attitudes-framed-local-culture-as-backward-the-record-label-standing-up-to-russian-imperialism

#Circassians #Caucasus #imperialism #colonisation #genocide #soviethistory #histodons #ussr #soviet #music #russia #russiaukrainewar #ukrainewar #musichistory #religion #islam #ethnography #punk

In Search Of Holy Mother Russia by Ludo Van Eck

The chief purpose of this book is to give the uninformed Western reader a clear idea of everyday life in the USSR and of the Russian Orthodox Church, yet it also touches on a number of other related subjects, such as the history of the Church in Russia and the things in which it differs from other Christian creeds, the church architecture, the celibacy of priests, the veneration of saints, icons, church art, the clergy, divine services, the dogmas of the Church, fasts and feasts, the Sacraments, the attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church towards the issue of peace on Earth, and towards other religions.

You can get the book here and here.

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Foreword 5
A Meeting in Zagorsk 9
An Excursion into the History of the Russian Orthodox Church 25
At the Moscow Patriarchate 29
Zagorsk Revisited 41
Suzdal and Vladimir 60
Leningrad 84
Petrozavodsk and Kizhi 117
Pskov and Pechory 129
An Appeal for Peace 155
West German Clergymen in the USSR 172
One Last Meeting 180
Conclusions 185

#religionInUssr #russianHistory #russianOrthodoxChurch #sovietHistory #sovietLiterature #travel