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Soviet Union

Theremin

Arts, Culture & Media

Electronic-instrument inventor Leon Theremin turns out to be a Russian spy.

Lomo

Arts, Culture & Media

Cultural Exchange

Arts, Culture & Media

Painting in Pre-Glasnost Russia

Arts, Culture & Media

Special Guest: Svetlana Boym

Arts, Culture & Media
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Rescuing Cold War History Before It Disappears

Arts, Culture & Media

Twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a new museum dedicated to preserving everyday artifacts of the Eastern Bloc is opening in Los Angeles.

Stanislav Petrov made a split-second decision that probably averted a nuclear conflagration. “I told myself I won’t be the cause of World War III. I won’t. Simple as that,” he said.

The unsung Soviet officer who averted nuclear war

Conflict

Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov committed an act of bravery in 1983 that probably prevented a nuclear conflict. Yet he was largely unheralded in Russia.

Omar Hernandez in downtown Moscow. He says problems that came from speaking his mind too freely in Cuba led him to leave in the early 90s. Now he's lives in Russia.

Is Russia’s romance with Cuba coming to an end?

Culture

When Fidel Castro ushered in the first communist state in the Western Hemisphere, Soviet Russia fell in love with Cuba. And the romance that lasted decades.

Nancy

‘2 alpha women’: Nancy Reagan’s icy time with Raisa Gorbachev

Global Politics

The death of Nancy Reagan sparks Russians to remember her Soviet counterpart Raisa Gorbachev.

Christian Ray Flores became a rock star in post-Soviet Russia in the '90s: "No one knew exactly how to make music like that but I did because I grew up overseas."

The guy who supplied the soundtrack for Boris Yeltsin’s Rock the Vote

Global Politics

When the Soviet Union collapsed, Christian Ray Flores was in the right place at the right time. With his outsider status, he became a rock star in Russia.

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