New York’s Morbid KGB Museum Is for Spy Nerds
New York’s new KGB Museum is, suffice it to say, a very strange place. The cinderblock-walled space occupies the ground…
Statue of Leader From Communist Empire Transformed Into Leader of Actual Empire
It’s always the most embarrassing part of a fallen regime. All those statues, no longer relevant. Usually they come…
The Olympic Venues of the USSR, 35 Years Later
The 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow were controversial. While its war in Afghanistan had sparked a global boycott of…
Space-Themed Soviet Postcards Are a Cosmic Delight
The Soviet Union had some problems, but one thing they got right was space art. That's why there's nothing better than…
The Incredibly Bizarre World Of Animated Soviet Propaganda Films
After the Soviet Union formed, the new country's first animated film was a 1924 piece of propaganda films. From then…
Salyut 7: The Last and Longest-Running Soviet Space Station (Until Mir)
By the latter half of the Space Race between the United States and the USSR, focus had shifted from simply putting…
Vintage Memorabilia Celebrates The Soviet Union's Cosmonaut Dogs
The canine members of Soviet Union's space program were stars, symbols of the nation's technological future. And so,…
The collapse of the USSR left behind a haunting post-apocalyptic world
These photographs by Rebecca Bathory make it seem as if the apocalypse has come and gone and the world is in complete…
Inside the Former Soviet Union's Secret Nuclear Test Cities
Though it played out on the international stage, the arms race between the United States and the USSR took place mainly…
In the 1970s, A Weaponized Version Of Smallpox Got Out Into The Wild
In 1971, a woman in Kazakhstan near the Aral sea died of smallpox. How did she get it? It was harvested, weaponized,…
How Soviet Artists Imagined Communist Life in Space
Artists from the Soviet Union didn't just imagine a worker's Utopia on Earth. They also thought that the great…
The Soviet Edition of The Hobbit Has the Best Gollum
It's almost tragic that Peter Jackson didn't go with this design for Gollum. However, it's completely understandable…
That Time Soviet Russia Built a House Entirely Out of Plastic
In its heyday, plastic was viewed as a revolutionary advancement—safer and lighter than glass, cheap to manufacture,…
This trippy anti-capitalist cartoon was the USSR's first animated film
It's not surprising that the first animation to come out the newly formed Soviet Union was anti-capitalist propaganda,…
Urban Explorers Immortalize Forgotten Corners of the Soviet Bloc
Say what you will about urban exploration as a hobby, these guys sure do find some cool shit sometimes. Thank God they…
Did the Russians love the '80s too? Some revealing photos
The '80s weren't a great time for those living in the U.S.S.R., although those living in Moscow had it better than…
The KGB conspiracy that attributed AIDS to the CIA
The Cold War contained a lot of ignominious events for all how participated in it. One of them lingers in conspiracy…
Inspiring and Intense Soviet Space Propaganda Posters
The twentieth century Soviet space program will always be remembered as one of the greatest in the world. And these…
Old KGB Radio Intercept Stations Are Still Operational and Listening
We recently learned that the NSA is definitely watching us, and as it turns out, our Soviet Big Brother is spying on us…
Tons of Hackers Are Hanging Out in Old Soviet Cyberspace
The Internet is a huge place. Some parts of it are awesome, but others are...less so. And falling squarely in that…