Russia Underground

When it comes to books, Russia more and more resembles the Soviet Union – despite modern technology. Censorship means that publishers have moved abroad, bootleg copies of banned texts are sold online, and even the language of literature has changed, becoming more allegorical, euphemistic, and indirect. We spoke to some of those still championing reading in wartime Russia – independent booksellers,...

When a teacher told Olga’s daughter to write a letter to a Russian soldier in Ukraine, she wrote simply: “Don’t kill anyone!” This time, there were no repercussions. But education is increasingly subject to political interference, and schools are more and more a place of propaganda, rather than learning. Interference is particularly intense when it comes to the teaching of history. How have histor...

In Russia, the history that’s shown on TV, written about in books, and taught in schools and universities is more tightly controlled than ever. As a result, people are turning inwards. And family stories have become a way not only to confront taboos in Putin’s Russia, but a relatively risk-free way of trying to understand contemporary political repression, violence, and censorship. We speak to som...

Repressive laws and a wartime crackdown have made Russia’s LGBTQ+ community more invisible than ever. But activists continue operating despite the risks, and NGOs have found a way to keep operating on the ground (even if staff are located abroad). We spoke with Max, a trans man in Rostov-on-Don, who opposes the war in Ukraine and has remained involved in political activism since the full-scale inv...

Hosts Howard Amos and Nina Berezner look at the immense challenges facing independent journalism in Russia, which continues to cling on amid censorship and repression. They explore the emergence of what some have called a “new generation” of journalists, which includes Vera, a 21-year-old reporter from Belgorod, who covers the consequences of the war in Ukraine for her hometown despite the growing...

Our first episode is an introduction to what it means to be ‘underground’ in modern Russia, and the myriad of ways anti-war Russians can – and do – express their opposition to the fighting in Ukraine and the political direction taken by the Kremlin.  We meet a documentary filmmaker who has been shooting the reality of wartime Russia, and attend a screening of one of her recent films in Moscow. She...