The Eastern Border

Greetings, Comrades!  This time, thanks to the KGB research commitee, we can enjoy some very real criminal cases about smuggling in the USSR. It's pretty great, as we found out that a Latvian/Swedish teacher can just swindle a smuggling gang, and that smuggling gang should be called "Nylon Mafia" anyways. Also, according to theme, here's a link to our card game - made by a listener John - abo...

Greetings, Comrades! My voice’s not perfect already, but by jingo, we really need to get through World War One, so that we can finally do the revolution again in the next episode. And…well, as it turns out, the revolution was possible, because the Bolsheviks were the only guys against the war in the Russian empire…and so, they weren’t sent to die in the front lines against the German and Austrian...

Greetings, Comrades! I currently have no voice, due to illness. So, Alice took over for this episode, and did it her own style. So, what we have here is a very hardcore episode, containing the look in the life of a true Soviet woman in the year of 1960 – because we had ALL the Latvian Soviet Woman magazines from that year, which allows for a very interesting perspective. Both of the good thin...

Greetings, Comrades! I've been really ill past week. You'll hear that on the show. And, besides watching Stalin documentaries to fall asleep, and history of Crimea for a future episode, I went full zombie mode...and experienced Russian news. Being unable to think clearly and in massive pain is the only way how a reasonable person could take this on. This episode goes weird, really fast. Enjoy! Als...

Greetings, Comrades!  Our new Stalin ep is here again. By this time, Stalin and Exile have become comedy terms. But there are unfunny things in this episode too. Enjoy! Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/theeasternborder . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Greetings, Comrades! We bring you the latest episode of October, the one about InTourist, and the very weird experience of being a foreign tourist in the USSR! Hope you’ll love it! Enjoy! And no, I won't be giving lengthy descriptions of the episode, Not today! :D Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/theeasternborder . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Greetings, Comrades! Today’s episode was made out of schedule, but it was so timely, and so urgent, that I just had to do it. Special thanks to Travis J. Dow, my Dark Myths colleague and friend from the Bohemican podcast (and many others) for inspiration here. It’s about radicalism in Russia, about trolls, about how your opinion can easily be swayed and what you should watch out for. I mean, they...

Greetings, Comrades! Today, I want to give you an episode about something completely different. About one of the…strangest..communes out there. I’ve been wanting to make an episode about this sub-denomination of the Orthodox church and their weird destinies for a while now, so now that I had the chance, I did. And It came out as one strange episode. Hope you’ll like it! Support this show http://su...

Greetings, Comrades!  As we've just returned from our vacation to Berlin, it's due time to present this episode on STASI, the dreaded KGB analogue of East Germany, that surpassed the "sword and shield of the communist party" in many different ways. Sorry that the beginning of this episode is so disjointed. The construction company, building an extra floor on my local shashlik bar decided that...

Greetings, Comrades! Welcome to the one of the most depressive episodes I've ever made. Bonus points for you, if you caught the song reference in the title. This episode is about tragedy. Deep, personal tragedy and how it makes monsters out of men. Don't want to spoil much else here. Also, about how sources and research can be tricky sometimes and why making this stuff isn't easy - I take jab at o...

Greetings, Comrades! I got terribly ill – had tonsilitis in a heavy form. Basically, I was tormented with fever so I couldn’t script as well as I wanted, and then, turns out that with a terribly sore throat, recording is literally impossible to do. But – as I’m almost ok now, recorded this episode, which I admit, isn’t the best one that we’ve ever made – but it’s full with fun statistics, and is a...

Greetings, Comrades! I had two scripts prepared, one for this and one for Stalin, for this week - and this won out in the social media voting. So here you go. Honestly - I'm normally very, VERY critical of my episodes, but this is what I consider to be one of my top tier shows. A must listen. Because...wow. The work I put in here, in my opinion, really paid off. And the things I discovered, were t...

Greetings, Comrades! This episode is a "fun" one, and as it contains crime, violence, descriptions of gory events, explicit language, secret marriages and conspiracies, it's not suited for younger listeners. Yes, we've now managed to get into the period, where, as we discovered in the last episode, Stalin's decided to "do practical things" and "take matters further". It's the story leading up to,...

Greetings, Comrades! This episode will be a bit dry. It's mostly about lies...and actually, the differences between Social Democracy and Socialism, and how zealous people can screw things over. But seriously, it's a bit dry, as we're preparing to talk about the true crime stories of Stalin himself - this is how Stalin basically became a terrorist, after almost bankrupting the Bolshevik party. And...

Greetings, Listeners! Firstly, here’s the link to Time Cube. http://timecube.2enp.com/ Don’t know what time cube is? Don’t worry. It comes up in the 2nd hour of this discussion that you should really listen through. This one is all about ideologies. And religions. And how they both get so intertwined, especially in the United States, that they affect modern political decision making. Our guest is...

Greetings, Comrades! In this episode, me and Brandon Newberg from the Dead Ideas podcast discuss Stalin's relationships with Tito. And who was more bad ass. But then, philosophy and analytics get in the way, we get sidetracked and stuff becomes way more awesome. Sorta. Enjoy! Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/theeasternborder . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information...

Greetings, Comrades! This PSA is here, to inform you that you should watch our fist ever video episode about our three-day Soviet car festival, which ended in a Latvian tank museum and which I filmed. I'm not very great with a cam, tho. So, like said in this PSA - click here, to watch our first ever video episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP7RW7SyDfY Support this show http://supporter.acast...

Greetings, Comrades! Alice is still away, and I feel like a lost puppy. I can’t find where any of my stuff is, and nobody pokes me and everything’s pretty much not nice. For those of you, who’re not yet married – it’s actually a wonderful feeling, when you understand that you function so much as a team with your “other half” that you begin to miss them intensely after a while, and can barely funct...

Greetings, Comrades! Alice is away for three weeks, working in a children's camp. That means I don't have an editor, so regular episodes are taking a small break - but, in this sunny time, this means, you get specials! And some other stuff later on, but we'll see. Anyhow, here's an episode that we wanted to do for a while now, it's about the Bulgarian prophetess Vanga, together with Sam from the S...

Greetings, Comrades! On today’s episode, we answer many important questions. And give out some others. But it doesn’t matter, as Uncle Joe responds to them all, with a) escaping from prison and b) urging more people to a violent uprising. This is how it goes in the USSR. Hope you’ll like the show. And send in your questions! Do svidaniya, tovarischi! Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/th...

Greetings, Comrades! This is our next Stalin episode AND our anniversary episode. And it's not quite awesome, as I'm suffering from a food poisoning now. But it's pretty good still. However, there are a few things I'd like to say. Firstly, thank you for being here. Secondly...well...this is going to get explicit: People send me death threats. People want to beat me up. People used to tell me that...

Greetings, Comrades! My usual Stalin episode is written down, and all I needed was to record it. But then, as sometimes happens, my dad arrived, and this time, he was carrying some documents and books with him. They turned out to be Soviet reports of various peace conferences - and the collected works of Anna Sakse, a children's writer...and a massive, massive propaganda master and state-paid spre...

Greetings, Comrades! In this episode, we discuss Stalin. ALL that is Stalin. Superman can take a rest...if he was real, and Stalin were the head of the USSR, Supes would end up in a GULAG. We're talking about a man, who almost killed his father, when he was 7. Intentionally. Also, he's endured almost everything. And yeah...this is the happiest episode of the series that I have to make about the pe...

Greetings, Comrades! Today is a special day – we bring you the final episode of the Red Dawn series, about Lenin’s death…and eternal life in mausoleum, people’s memory, anecdotes and culture. It…was amazing in the beginning, but turned out to be a laughing stock in the end. Next time, we’re moving to the Man of Steel – Stalin. But for now, remember: Lenin lived, Lenin lives, Lenin – Eternally Aliv...

Greetings, Comrades! I'll be honest with you - the previous week has been a living hell for me, I'm dealing with a dying grandfather, for whom I have to do all the paperwork while he's still here with us. And it's hard. And Alice has exam season. And Alice spilled water on her laptop, so I had to re-record the whole episode. And then, we had to fix some factual errors in our episode, as it turns o...