This cheerful Russian childrens' book about the lands of the former Soviet Union has this informative box:

This cheerful Russian childrens' book about the lands of the former Soviet Union has this informative box:

How did Auntie Gelya become a refugee?

Because of the most horrible reason -- war. In war, it's not just soldiers who die, but peaceful civilians too, from hunger, disease, bullets and shells.

Right now there's a war in Ukraine, so Auntie Gelya lives with us. Auntie Gelya is an involuntary refugee. But we hope that the war ends soon and that we will be able to just visit one another as before.

There were several such "How did Auntie/Uncle XXX become a refugee?" boxes for other lands.

Two men are standing in a long, long vodka line prompted by the limited supply.

Two men are standing in a long, long vodka line prompted by the limited supply. One asks the other to keep his place in line, because he wants to go over the Kremlin to punch Gorbachev in the face for his anti-alcohol policy. He comes back many hours later and his friend asks him if he had indeed punched Gorbachev. “No,” the man answered despondently. “The line at the Kremlin was even longer.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/02/world/europe/mikhail-gorbachev-interview-vladimir-putin.html

"Papa, is this a book about Odin's cat?"

Originally shared by Lev Osherovich

"Papa, is this a book about Odin's cat?"

The New York Times on recent revelations about Able Archer, a 1983 NATO military exercise in Europe so realistic...

Originally shared by Lev Osherovich

The New York Times on recent revelations about Able Archer, a 1983 NATO military exercise in Europe so realistic that nearly frightened the Soviet Union into launching a pre-emptive nuclear war.

The Russians were making their decisions, in part, by feeding 40,000 variables into a computer to predict the likelihood of nuclear attack.

“Soviet intelligence clearly had tipoffs” to the Able Archer exercise, the advisory board’s report said, and some scenarios suggested a nuclear first strike.

“It is an especially grave error to assume that since we know the U.S. is not going to start World War III,” the board warned, “the next leaders of the Kremlin will also believe that — and act on that belief.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/10/world/europe/nato-war-games-unwittingly-put-soviets-and-us-on-hair-trigger-in-83-analysis-suggests.html

The Wall Street Journal has an amusing piece on Michael Bohm, an American who routinely appears on Russian...

Originally shared by Lev Osherovich

The Wall Street Journal has an amusing piece on Michael Bohm, an American who routinely appears on Russian television to present a pro-American political perspective. The innocuous Mr. Bohm (who speaks fluent Russian) typically tries to get a word in edge-wise while being shouted at by the Russian equivalent of Donald Trump supporters.

“Michael, go for it!” said the host of top-ranked “Evening with Vladimir Solovyov” with a fist pump three Sundays ago. “First of all, may I ask: Is it true that Russia is at fault for everything?”

Mr. Bohm responded: “Well, not for everything, of course."
http://www.wsj.com/articles/american-pundit-russians-love-to-hate-is-in-hot-demand-1457452420

In honor of Lennon's Birthday:

Originally shared by Assia Alexandrova

In honor of Lennon's Birthday:
The Russian Abbey Road

(via Dimitar Bechev)

This Salon piece about Soviet counter-espionage can help you identify CIA plants in your midst.

This Salon piece about Soviet counter-espionage can help you identify CIA plants in your midst. 

Totrov came up with were 26 unchanging indicators as a model for identifying U.S. intelligence officers overseas. Other indicators of a more trivial nature could be detected in the field by a vigilant foreign counterintelligence operative but not uniformly so: the fact that CIA officers replacing one another tended to take on the same post within the embassy hierarchy, drive the same make of vehicle, rent the same apartment and so on. Why? Because the personnel office in Langley shuffled and dealt overseas postings with as little effort as required.

One productive line of inquiry quickly yielded evidence: the differences in the way agency officers undercover as diplomats were treated from genuine foreign service officers (FSOs). The pay scale at entry was much higher for a CIA officer; after three to four years abroad a genuine FSO could return home, whereas an agency employee could not; real FSOs had to be recruited between the ages of 21 and 31, whereas this did not apply to an agency officer; only real FSOs had to attend the Institute of Foreign Service for three months before entering the service; naturalized Americans could not become FSOs for at least nine years but they could become agency employees; when agency officers returned home, they did not normally appear in State Department listings; should they appear they were classified as research and planning, research and intelligence, consular or chancery for security affairs; unlike FSOs, agency officers could change their place of work for no apparent reason; their published biographies contained obvious gaps; agency officers could be relocated within the country to which they were posted, FSOs were not; agency officers usually had more than one working foreign language; their cover was usually as a “political” or “consular” official (often vice-consul); internal embassy reorganizations usually left agency personnel untouched, whether their rank, their office space or their telephones; their offices were located in restricted zones within the embassy; they would appear on the streets during the working day using public telephone boxes; they would arrange meetings for the evening, out of town, usually around 7.30 p.m. or 8.00 p.m.; and whereas FSOs had to observe strict rules about attending dinner, agency officers could come and go as they pleased.
http://www.salon.com/2015/09/26/how_to_explain_the_kgbs_amazing_success_identifying_cia_agents_in_the_field/