Artist, activist, and writer Slava Mogutin talks to us about being exiled from Russia, outing Zhirinovsky, and the fetishization of military uniforms. Transcript of the episode: https://medium.com/shes-in-russia/malicious-hooligan-interview-with-slava-mogutin-2c529cc183b5 Slava's website: http://slavamogutin.com/ Get Slava's latest book of photography, Bros & Brosephines: http://www.powerhousebooks.com/books/bros-brosephines/ Get Pictures & Words: https://www.amazon.com/Pictures-Words-5-...
Jun 05, 2018•43 min
Nuclear policy specialist Alicia Dressman talks to us about ballistic missiles, Cold War weaponry, and what "the Russia threat" means to her. Follow Alicia: twitter.com/thedelphivision
May 29, 2018•47 min
A conversation with award-winning author Alisa Ganieva about her upcoming neo-noir detective novel Offended Sensibilities and the formation of a new kind of past-focused patriotism in Russia. A reading of a chapter from the book, translated into English by Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler. The translated text is published in the quarterly literary journal Apofenie. You can find it at https://www.apofenie.com/fiction/2018/5/1/an-excerpt-from-offended-sensibilities Follow Isaac: https://twitter.com/ThreeN...
May 22, 2018•52 min
On May 9, Lily went out into the city and collected stories from people celebrating Victory Day. On that day, people in Russia and much of the former USSR celebrate Nazi Germany's surrender in 1945 and the end of the Great Patriotic War.
May 15, 2018•47 min
This week we listen to music by 1980s Leningrad legend/cult figure Viktor Tsoi and his band Kino. Plus we tell some meaty stories about Tsoi's life and the late Soviet / early Perestroika rock scene.
May 07, 2018•1 hr 6 min
Novaya Gazeta's Elena Kostyuchenko on why she decided to report on Chechnya, what exactly foreigners misunderstand about Russian media censorship, and why her journalism isn't trying to change people. This week we respond to a talk Smith went to earlier this month at Columbia University between Elena, who is the Harriman Institute’s Paul Klebnikov Russian Civil Society Fellow, and the World Editor of BuzzFeed News, Miriam Elder. Special thanks to the Harriman Institute for letting us use the aud...
May 01, 2018•57 min
Smith asks Lily about her life in Russia. Lily talks about why she feels she has to explain basic bitch feminism all the time, the pecularities of black American cultural appropriation in Russia, and how she got broken up with for being a sugar mama. As a bonus, Lily debuts some new voices she's been practicing.
Apr 24, 2018•50 min
In the suburbs of Moscow people have been fighting with local government to solve what has now clearly become a region-wide garbage management crisis. To make matters worse, it's in the largest urban area of a country that, at least on the official level, doesn't recycle. This week Lily tells Smith what she learned about Moscow Oblast's trash problem from talking with people at a protest in Lobnya, one of the several Moscow suburbs that held trash-related protests on April 14, in honor of the re...
Apr 19, 2018•48 min
On top of an unassuming building on the LES of Manhattan there is an 18-foot tall copper statue of Vladimir Lenin, gesturing to Wall Street. This week Smith tells Lily what she learned about the statue’s journey from post-Soviet Russia to New York — and what it has come to symbolize there — from speaking with the statue’s co-owners and residents of the neighborhood. Theme Music: Shit Happens by Tierra Whack
Apr 06, 2018•39 min
This week SIR tells the story of the recent tragic fire in Kemerovo through voices from the city. On Sunday March 25, a fire broke out in a mall in the Siberian city of Kemerovo, killing 64 people, mostly children, who had come to see the movie Sherlock Gnomes and celebrate the start of their Spring break. The tragedy has been filling the Russian internet and media space for the past week, occupying the minds of people across the country who are mourning with the city.
Apr 03, 2018•46 min
We've got Hannah Gais on to talk about the phrase the "Russian soul." We cover the phrase's origin and subsequent adoption by the West, its contemporary uses amongst unhinged Twitter personalities, and how it is Russia has excellent sushi despite being a landlocked country. Read Hannah's article on the "Russian Soul" in The Baffler: https://thebaffler.com/this-american-carnage/whos-afraid-of-the-russian-soul-gais Follow her on twitter at @hannahgais and go to her website to check out her other w...
Mar 27, 2018•35 min
This week we are co-presenting -- with Event Horizon Magazine and translator Isaac Wheeler -- the English-language debut of author Olga Onoyko. We're devoting this episode to Olga's surreal, dream-like short story, "The House Behind The Vacant Lot." Lily interviews the author and Isaac reads his translation of her story. Olga Onoyko is a 33 year old, Moscow-based musicologist by training, who works in IT. She is the author of multiple published novels and short stories. In 2007 she received the ...
Mar 20, 2018•46 min
On March 18 Russians will vote to elect a (possibly new) President to lead the country for the next 6 years. This week SIR changes it up, handing our mics over to three millennial, liberal-leaning Russians -– Nastya, Max, and Rita -- to discuss the personalities and platforms of all 8 candidates. During the discussion, they explain why TV is the country’s “main problem”, what kinds of gifts you get the first time you vote in Russia, why Ksenia Sobchak was more badass when she started her campaig...
Mar 13, 2018•52 min
In Russia International Women's Day is celebrated widely every March 8 since 1917. At some point in the Soviet era, the holiday (whose original incarnation is a strongly Socialist-rooted celebration of the struggle for women's rights, gender equality, and in Russia specifically the women who initiated and comprised the 1917 February revolution) morphed into a twisted mirror-image of itself that reinforces woman's traditional social role as caretaker and patron saint of beauty, family, and the ho...
Mar 06, 2018•41 min
Russiagate unfolds: on Feb. 16, 2018. Former FBI director and current US Special Counsel Robert "the Swan" Mueller III published an "unprecedented" indictment of 13 Russian people and 3 Russian companies all related to the so-called Internet Research Agency, aka the "Troll Factory" in St. Petersburg and now all formally accused of interfering in the 2016 US presidential elections. Allow SIR to explain: what actually happened, why it matters, and why we knew all this already. Follow our Telegram ...
Feb 27, 2018•53 min
The Russian banya -- the body/soul cleansing, health stimulating spa ritual cum social club. This week we talk about the significance of the banya in Russian culture, why it's very much not just a sauna, what kinds of banyas Russians use today (and one of their slightly frightening prototypes). Plus how to properly "steam" someone with veniki [bushels of leafy twigs, often birch or oak]. Theme Music: Shit Happens by Tierra Whack are.na channel: https://are.na/smith-freeman/banya-the-russian-saun...
Feb 20, 2018•53 min
We're kicking off our ongoing series on former Soviet countries with Kristaps Andrejsons, host of The Eastern Border podcast and, incidentally, a Latvian. Our conversation runs the gamut: wild boars in Riga, the three waves of National Awakening (i.e. how Latvia became a country), and the best summer festival. Theme Music: Shit Happens by Tierra Whack Listen to Kristaps's podcast: http://theeasternborder.lv/ Telegram channel: https://t.me/shesinrussia
Feb 13, 2018•35 min
This week we shoot the shit with Igor Belkin, journalist, media person, "blogger", about the Russian Internet (Runet). We've got Livejournal in the early 2000s, quintessential Runet memes, and menacing Orthodox officials. Plus what it's like to be a Russian expat in America. Theme Music: Shit Happens by Tierra Whack Interlude: IAmNobody by Lin-Z Telegram channel: https://t.me/shesinrussia
Jan 30, 2018•37 min
This week we tell the story of Russian and American space programs -- the race to space, why "free men" should get there first, Russian bear hugs, and the (lack of) politics in space. This episode is a montage of primary source clips from archives and other corners of the internet that tell the story starting from the 1800s til the present day. And we, of course, play peanut gallery. Theme Music: Tierra Whack Interlude: Mae Jemison by Sammus Telegram channel: https://t.me/shesinrussia
Jan 23, 2018•44 min
This week we discuss the theory and daily practice of translation, joined by two honored guests and translators. Our first guest is Kevin Rothrock, Senior Editor and Translator at Meduza in English, who tells us about his daily work bringing independent Russian news to English speakers, and how to stealthily pick fights on Twitter. Our second guest is Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler, professional independent translator of both Russian and Ukrainian poetry and prose, who tells us, among many other thing...
Jan 16, 2018•53 min
This week we were both in NYC and took the opportunity to spend the day talking to people in Brighton Beach, aka Little Odessa, aka the neighborhood of choice for Soviet immigrants. We spoke to people from all over the former USSR (and Turkey!) who live, work, and/or were visiting Brighton, asking them about the neighborhood and their relationship to it. We tried to let them do the talking. Telegram channel: https://t.me/shesinrussia
Jan 09, 2018•41 min
This week we select clips from some of our favorite episodes of the year. Happy New Year. Telegram channel: https://t.me/shesinrussia
Dec 26, 2017•59 min
This week Lily tells Smith the tale of the Russian Christmas/New Year's tree. Pagan anti-demon rituals, Peter the Great shaking and moving, a pro-tree Pravda op-ed by a party leader: Lily plots the course of how the Christmas Tree came to Russia and then ultimately became the New Year's tree. Theme Music: Tierra Whack Interludes: Guayaba (aeonfuxxx on Soundcloud) Special thanks to the scholarship of Elena Dushechkina Telegram channel: https://t.me/shesinrussia
Dec 19, 2017•39 min
Cozy up for story time. This week we bring you a reading of two texts translated from Russian -- a short story called "Thirteen" by Alisa Ganieva and an excerpt from a novel called "The Gardener is Gone" by Lena Eltang. The short story was translated by Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler and published in The Missing Slate. The novel is currently in the process (!) of being co-translated by Isaac and Reilly Costigan-Humes -- we're very grateful to the translators for the chance to get a sneak peek of their...
Dec 12, 2017•50 min
This week we're checking in with “Russiagate”/ the “Russian matter” [российское дело]. You will learn: what Michael Flynn’s plea deal is and why there's a fuss about it; and what happened to RT America, the US branch of a multinational Russian news network. RT’s case has in incited yet another tit for tat between the US and Russian governments involving their respective “Foreign Agent” laws (which are very much not the same), the tit of which is looking to be alot more harmful than the tat. We g...
Dec 05, 2017•44 min
This fall, European University at St. Petersburg was shut down under dubious circumstances. We talk with Molly Zuckerman about the school's contentious history with government and the plight of foreign students now stranded by the school's closure. Plus, she shares some good tidbits on kegels from a Russian sexologist. Theme Music: Tierra Whack Interludes: Tatarka Telegram channel: https://t.me/shesinrussia
Nov 28, 2017•42 min
It would seem that governments are finally starting to cotton on to cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. The Russian government is no exception. This week we cover exactly what cryptocurrency and blockchain are, the Russian government's economic, legislative, and technological move into the crypto space, and the state of private crypto businesses in Russia. Theme Music: Shit Happens by Tierra Whack Interludes: Tiff The Gift Telegram channel: https://t.me/shesinrussia
Nov 21, 2017•50 min
How did the Bolshevik Revolution and the actual establishment of the Soviet Union inspire and encourage activists and intellectuals of the African Diaspora? With what specific mechanisms of hard and soft power did the Soviet Union, from its earliest years, seek to create a ‘global Black proletariat’? We didn’t answer these questions ourselves, but thankfully someone else did! For the week leading up to the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution (Oct. 7, 2017), The African American Intelle...
Nov 14, 2017•45 min
How has the Russian healthcare system transformed since 1991? How much does the average Russian doctor earn now? This week we bring you an overview of healthcare in Russia today, from how insurance works to why the constitution's promise of 'free healthcare for all' isn't quite as good as it sounds in real life. Plus we're joined by our dear friend Izzy, who tells the story of her own personal saga cum cultural struggle with the Russian healthcare system when she was a wee student in St. Petersb...
Nov 07, 2017•42 min
On this week's episode we bring you the political mother. We trace the history of the Soviet conception of motherhood, interview an honest-to-goodness Russian mom, and talk about three recent tragedies (Kursk, Beslan, and The Ukrainian Crisis) to which mothers responded by politicizing and organizing. Plus, we give some real practical and useful advice on how to stimulate the clitoris. Music: Tierra Whack
Oct 31, 2017•58 min
