For about 70 years of its long history, Russia was part of the Soviet Union. Explore before-and-after stories about the country and its people, writers, artists, culture, rulers and worldwide influence.
Nikolai Getman (1917-2004) was a Ukrainian artist who served time as a forced laborer in Siberias Kolyma camps.
At the age of 28, Nikolai Getman boards a ship at Vanino as he heads to the forced labor camps at Kolyma.
NOTES from UNDERGROUNDBy Fyodor DostoevskyTranslation by Andrew R.
Dostoevsky worked on Notes from Underground in 1863.
The Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb on August 29, 1949.
Oil matters. Ever since mankind has used oil to fuel planes, cars, trucks and other vehicles, oil has been vital to growing economies. To power his vi...
Alexander Solzhenitsyn's novel about life as a prisoner in a Stalinist forced-labor camp, in Siberia's GULAG, is based onhis own experience.
Russia rose as a mighty power following the Middle Ages, but after Ivan IV (also known as Ivan Grozny - "Ivan the Terrible") died, the country was thr...
Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov, Commander of the USSRs 62nd Army, was at Stalingrad during one of the worlds most-deadly battles.
Following a period of deep depression, during which he questioned whether he could ever compose again, Rachmaninov composed Piano Concerto No. 2. List...
Dostoevsky gives us clues where Raskolnikov lives, but not until his wife provided more information (after the author's death) can we be more certain ...
Ronald Reagan delivers a speech to students at Moscow State University, urging them to be free of fear and full of hope for the future.
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