A generation of Soviets grew up seeing the face of actor Innokenty Smoktunovsky in his varied roles, both on screen and on stage. But what was his actual life like? In this snippet, he gives a taste of the trials he underwent as a soldier fighting the Nazis.

Collectivization in the Soviet Union was a time of hunger, suffering, and massive death tolls – even as the papers proclaimed phenomenal success. One former peasant's memoirs give us a window on that terrible time.

On April 26, 1715, Peter I published his Military Statute, which remained in effect until the mid-nineteenth century.

Today it is hard to imagine the revolutionary atmosphere that pervaded the Soviet Union in March and April of 1985.

There is another Teriberka story that predates the current Leviathan dust-up. It involves a willful captain, fishing rights and, oh yes, the Norwegian navy.

On Valentine's Day 65 years ago, the USSR and China signed their Treaty of Friendship. But their budding romance was not to last: just six years later the relationship went south, and nothing has been as rosy since.

How can you be accused of wanting to restore the bourgeoisie when all you've said is that the current policy isn't anti-bourgeoisie enough? Leon Trotsky responds to the nonsense dominating Soviet courtrooms in the 1930's.
 

Tsar Ivan IV had a bit of a temper. When you look at his record of dramatic self-exile, tyrannical persecution, domestic abuse, and abrupt changes of heart, you realize that the current meaning of "Terrible" fits him quite well.

Originally known as “Pozhar,” then “Torg,” Red Square is a repository of Russian historical memory, the altar of the motherland and, in general, the center of the Russian universe. But how did it all come together?

On January 8, 1815 was the monumental "meeting" of Alexander Pushkin and Gavrila Derzhavin, the greatest poets of their respective generations.

Birth was no easy thing in rural Russia in the nineteenth century, not for mother or child. All manner of bizarre and unsafe practices reigned, from being “corrected,” to getting popped in the oven, to being left alone all day while mom worked in the fields.

In December 1564, Ivan the Terrible abdicated the Russian throne. The consequences were dire and continue to affect Russian society, 450 years on.