Category Archives: US-Russia

Back in late 2008, when Pajamas Media was still having me write articles on Russia (they’ve since stopped asking, I think, because I wasn’t anti-Russian enough), I noted that Americans and Russians long for the return of the Cold War.  Those were the days when “new Cold War” books were all the rage and Russia and American were engaging in some good old proxy warfare in Georgia and Ukraine.  In America, Russia was evil again and that was a good thing.  In Russia, America was evil again and that was a good thing too.  Americaphobes and Russophobes rejoiced in unison.

Enter Barack Obama and Dmitri Medvedev.  Two “thaw” presidents in their respective countries looking to reform their respective kingdoms in the wake of economic calamity.  The former called for a “new” America, the latter called for a “modernized” Russia.  Both were simply mimicking what their forefathers had strove to do, albeit ..read more

Are your backyard barbecues breeding Bolsheviks?  Deep cover agents posing as a two car garage, 2.3 kid, suburban, all-American family?  Mysterious sultry, salon dyed Slavic redheads friending you on Facebook?  Foreigners who dazzle with superb hydrangea pruning skills?  Watch out America, the Russians are coming, and one of them might look just like you.

There isn’t much to be said about the busted Russian spy ring at this point.  We all know the story of 11 secret agents planted by the “Moscow Center” to dig up information about nukes, policy, and backroom rumors in Washington.  We all have fawned, or read about the fawning over the PG-13 pics of “Anna Chapman,” the femme fatale of this real life Naked Gun movie (if the Chapman obsession wasn’t pathetic enough, now the Marines are now using her to warn sailors ..read more

It has been a long haul and I’m slowly crawling out of my hole.

For those who don’t already know, I filed my dissertation, We Shall Refashion Life on Earth! The Political Culture of the Communist Youth League, 1918-1928, on Monday.  The process of filing was a bureaucratic nightmare in and of itself.  Back and forth between UCLA’s Murphy Hall because my middle name, “Christopher” (which I never use, but I somehow put down when I registered at UCLA), was not on the the dissertation. Then two trips to the library to get it checked over by the dissertation lady.  What a thankless job that must be!  A quite unpleasant, though somewhat charming, woman sits in a small office surrounded by dissertations, goes through each and every page to make sure the margins and typeface are correct.  I was told she busts out a ruler but this must be an urban ..read more

I don’t have a lot of time for blogging these days.  The finishing touches on the dissertation (one . . . more . . week), job applications, and getting ready to spend the next year in Russia fill up all my time.  Inevitably commenting on missiles, Medvedev the modernizer, not to mention Moscow’s Holy Father of Fury, has been relegated to the eternal back burner.  Yet, there are some things in the world of Russia that just can’t be left to simmer on the boiler plate.  Especially when it involves a pant-less Boris Yeltsin.

According to Taylor Branch’s “The Clinton Tapes,”

Former President Clinton recalled getting a security alert in 1995 that the Secret Service had found Mr. Yeltsin, in his underwear, outside Blair House on Pennsylvania Avenue trying to hail a taxi. He was clearly inebriated, wanting a pizza. And he eluded security the second night, nearly causing an even more ..read more

Richard Feynman, famous American physicist, atom bomb maker, father of nanotechnology, and Tuva lover.  Feynman discovered the remote region and its nomadic people from stamp collecting during the dark days of the Cold War.  Feynman began a long correspondence with one of its residents.  Feynman wanted to visit Tuva, but never did.  The Cold War prevented him from getting a visa which he documented in the book Tuva or Bust.  In pure Soviet bureaucratic fashion, the his visa approval arrived the day after he died.

Feynman didn’t make it to Tuva, but his daughter Michelle did.  BBC Radio’s Ilona Vinogradova chronicled her incredibly emotional journey, Feynman’s fascination with Tuva, and the life, customs, and hospitality of the small province on the Mongolian border.  Never did Michelle think that she would be slaughtering goats in her father’s honor.

[podcast]http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/docarchive/docarchive_20090814-1030a.mp3[/podcast]