The Eastern Border

Greetings, Comrades! This week, we’re going to post our interview with our ex-finance minister, and a member of the higher council, Edmunds Krastiņš, about how stuff really went down in the “atmoda” era. Also, we’re posting the winners of our anecdote contest tomorrow! Have fun! Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/theeasternborder . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more inf...

Greetings, Comrades! Due to editing issues, we lagged behind with this episode, but here it is. A semi-serious interview with Jonathan Waterlow PhD, author of the newly-published book “It’s only a joke, comrade!” – a book about Soviet political jokes during Stalin’s era in the 30’s. Semi-serious, because we talked about the cultural impact of jokes and…well, Stalin himself, this episode consists o...

Greetings, Comrades. It’s been about two years since my grandmother died. She was an amazing – rough, a bit xenophobic, but an amazing nonetheless, person who taught me that I should be more stoic, be a warrior and do my best. This is her story. A story on how a devout Lutheran managed to do crazy things in the USSR – a collection of anecdotes from her life that I wrote down when she was alive, an...

Greetings, Comrades! This time, we’re back to Stalin. Stalin’s assuming total control, and we’re looking and why, how and what parallels can we draw with today. Because the more Stalin actually gets to do things, the more similarities we can actually draw. Including how things get done. This ep’s to be listened with a thinking cap on. Enjoy! Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/theeasternb...

Greetings, Comrades! And happy birthday. To us! Can’t really believe that we’ve been here for all this time. Hey IN the episode, I mention that we’ve hit two years, but it’s been three by now. THREE. It’s crazy. And as great as it is, to talk about the podcast and the plans and what’s been going on, we’ve grown now. And Putin just held his 4.5 hour livestream, so called “tele-bridge”. Obviously, w...

Greetings, Comrades! In this episode, by popular demand, we look into the whole faked murder thing, concerning Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko. It also gets crazy, raises more questions than answers, and as I received more news, some of them being completely untested, amidst writing the script and then – recording, it’ll also allow to test my sources. All in all, complex. Yet-I hope you’ll lik...

Hi, Comrades! This is a special episode, all about how we treated the computer gaming in the past, and how it’s now. Specifically dedicated to Ian Bodreau, but I hope you’ll all enjoy it! Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/theeasternborder . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Greetings, Comrades! Hello from Sweden, where I’m currently visiting PDXCon. But I just couldn’t leave you without an episode, now could I? So, this is why I recorded one before leaving the town. It’s all about Soviet Cinema – but, as it turns out, as there is just a ridiculous amount of stuff to talk about in this subject, I turned this into a Stalin series episode. It’s about the early, really r...

Newest episode in our political themed series, this one focuses on the Telegram app in Russia, its owner and strange details surrounding them. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/theeasternborder . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Greetings, Comrades! Sorry for the delays – we lost a recorded 3-hour interview, AND this episode was very research-intensive. But nonetheless, welcome to the true beginning of Stalin’s era in the Soviet Union. This episode is about the Soviet-Turkic subjugation of Georgia, in the background of which, Stalin had finally assembled his power base. And his machine had finally started running. Enjoy!...

Greetings, Comrades! Simo had to wait and be contextualized. The ep I just recorded is about people here who believe that Khazar Jew Nazi KGB Satanists from Israel are secretly controlling Putin, to eliminate native people’s all over the world, and especially in Latvia, because we’re the spiritual center of the planet. Dead serious. Latvian conspiracy sites for our first ep in April, because I wan...

Greetings, Comrades! This episode started with one of our oldest fans, Dave, sending us a book, “Setting the East Ablaze” by Peter Hopkirk. It was about the struggle between Lenin and Bolsheviks and Great Britain about the influence in the east, especially in India. Then, while doing this month’s episodes about Putin and everything, I decided that the book had only English and Russian perspectives...

Greetings, Comrades! This episode was made by the request of our listener, Oliver. It explains the statement I made in the last episode, where I said that the bombings were Putin’s work. Well, now you’ll know why I think so. Also, more history episodes incoming, I’m getting REALLY tired of Putin. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/theeasternborder . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy...

Greetings, Comrades! This is my account on the events in the Russian elections, together with some analysis. Normally, I don't insist on it, but, please, if you can, share it and recommend to people, who want to know how things actually went down. One thing, that really matters tho, is that while this episode was being edited, Zhirinovsky already managed to declare, that United Russia plans to abo...

Greetings, Comrades! Sorry for being…well, let’s just say, not-as-much in time with our episodes. We’re plagued with deep personal issues at this time, and to be frank, making the show is the thing that keeps me sane. This episode covers the recent news about Russia, and is intended to be a follow-up to the PWC Wagner episode. Covering the nuclear threats, new weapons Putin presented in his “state...

Greetings, Comrades! This is a special episode, that I have to publish now, because I’ll have to give the source book away. But it’s a glorious book – “Tales from the great congress”, which is a review of the all-communist party congress in 1939. It’s full with tasty propaganda and excellent stuff. Hope you’ll enjoy this episode – and I apologize for my deep sarcasm in places. It was a natural rea...

Greetings, Comrades! Today, we look at Stalin’s personal life, his views on capitalism (which weren’t very pleasant) and how the bolsheviks experienced minor issues with the whole “war communism” thing. You know…destitute poverty, misery, cannibalism, crime, famine…nothing that death camps can’t solve! Enjoy! Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/theeasternborder . Hosted on Acast. See acas...

Greetings, Comrades! This episode covers the events on the 7th to 8th of February in Syria, where American-led coalition forces, in a counterattack, while defending their base, basically annihilated a large number of Russian soldiers from the Private Warfare Company “Wagner”. Now, there already have been news about the “what” part, but I delve into the “why” and deeper reasons of the whole thing,...

Greetings, Comrades! We’re in the middle of a move now. And working hard. And our PC died. Nonetheless, this week, we have an interview with the She’s In Russia podcast girls, who invited me to their show, and I think it went really nice, so so check them out! Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/theeasternborder . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Greetings, Comrades! Turns out, doing dubbed-over interviews, that are translated as-is from Russian to English, like we set out to do with mr. Potapenko’s interview, takes a lot more time than expected. So, this time, have another Stalin episode, while we deal with the dubbing and everything. Also, there’s always time for more Stalin! Especially since this episode covers his rivalry with Trotsky,...

Greetings, Comrades! This time, after all the previous super serious episodes (and the serious interview with Dmitry Potapenko and more Stalin, both incoming) we decided to do some laid-back, chill discussion about one of our favourite subjects: The Cossacks. And Daniel, is, as you all know, a foremost expert of the subject from his history podcasting days. We had a nice discussion, and it felt go...

Greetings, Comrades! With the help of our academical friends in the Latvian KGB research center, we acquired a very interesting document: “Regulations of the USSR KGB “On the agency apparatus and trustworthy persons in the USSR State Security Committee”, from 1983. Yes, it’s authentic, and as, I couldn’t find a full, widely available English translation on the internet. So…I translated the wh...

Greetings Comrades! As you can see, this part’s name, together with the last part’s name makes a pun. Yeah, it’s a brick joke. It’s blunt, same as what I’ll do now. With the “reality shifts” made by Stalin later in place, and with this period being covered in the Lenin series, this episode got stuck in development hell, and ended up a bit…awkward, by the end. But we’ll make it up, and it’s necessa...

Greetings, Comrades! This is a re-upload because acast went haywire last year. This year, Grandfather Frost brings you a whole new episode, very work-intensive, about how it’s like to be an opposition journalist in Russia…and how it’s like to be in the Eastern European media, talking about Russia in general. Together with analytics, and reports on the latest events. And some jokes. Because why not...

Greetings, Comrades! Today’s episode has it all! Sneaky deception, warfare, guns, riots, police violence, drama, philosophy, a theory that Rosewell incident was caused by Stalin and Mengele working together… I hope you enjoy it. If someone guesses the name of the next ep, they get an extra souvenir in mail! Great day for you, Comrades! Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/theeasternborder...