The most inventive medieval architecture in Russia wasn't built by tsars or princes. It was built by neighbourhood committees in Pskov — a frontier republic on the Estonian border that ran its own town-hall assembly, put up around forty churches in the fifteenth century alone, and paid for all of it with local limestone and not enough money.

What makes those buildings strange is that they don't pretend. Look at a Pskov bell wall and the piers holding it up are different thicknesses, each one sized to the weight of its bell. The churches grew sideways rather than up, because sideways was cheaper. The bell towers sit off-centre. The doors don't line up. Ten of them made the UNESCO list in 2019.

The tradition died in 1510. Nothing burned. Moscow annexed the republic, took the veche bell down off the belfry, and within weeks had deported three hundred leading families and moved in settlers of its own. The buildings survived. The conditions that produced them did not.

The rest is echoes. Two hundred Pskov masons conscripted east in 1554 to build the stone city of Kazan. Yuri Spegalsky, the restorer who pulled down eighteenth-century bell towers to recover a medieval silhouette, and left behind a city that looks older than it is. Alexei Shchusev, who was remixing Pskov churches before he designed Lenin's mausoleum, and who put one on the Adriatic in Bari. And a Russian Orthodox parish in Reykjavik that has been waiting since 2011 for the most Pskovian church of this century, and still hasn't broken ground.

No Kremlin, no Red Square, not one golden dome. Just beauty, politics, destruction, and a half-built church in Iceland.

Sources at https://substack.com/@sunriseoutlawed (essay "The Republic in White Stone") — the photographs live there too, and this is an episode that badly wants them.A note on the voices: they're AI. Everything else — the research, the writing, the counting of the piers — is stubbornly human. Sunrise Outlawed is a social-art project. Say hello: [email protected]Free guide — Russian Chthonic: ten dark songs in ten videos, mapping the emotional geology of Russian music from the 1990s to now → https://sunriseoutlawed.com/#feel-russiaSite: https://sunriseoutlawed.comSubstack: https://substack.com/@sunriseoutlawedPatreon: https://patreon.com/SunriseOutlawed

Chapters(00:00) Piers that tell the truth(01:52) Why Pskov, not Moscow(03:05) Two fortresses on the Velikaya(04:45) The Battle on the Ice monument(06:26) Two visits, thirty years apart(08:41) The white churches and UNESCO(10:28) A republic that built by committee(11:57) Form follows budget(14:46) Inside: a whisper, not a shout(18:17) Spegalsky and selective authenticity(22:25) Bonus episode: Shafarevich(25:26) 1510: Moscow takes the bell(28:00) Two hundred masons sent to Kazan(29:20) Shchusev's one-man revival(33:33) The unfinished church in Reykjavik(36:40) Where to go from here

An Oscar-winning documentary was filmed inside a Russian school by the school's own videographer. Pavel Talankin was paid to shoot the assemblies and the last bell ceremonies in Karabash, a copper-smelting town in the Urals. He kept shooting for two years after those assemblies acquired a script, and then left the country with the hard drive.

This is our first film review, and we have no business doing one: neither of us watches films, and we refuse to say whether it deserved the Academy Award. Ask a real critic. What we can do is talk about Russia, so we spend the episode arguing about the parts the reviews skip. Talankin's colleagues, students and their parents were filmed for a routine school report and ended up in a movie with Putin in the title; one of the producers has said there was no informed consent in any way, shape or form. The film's villain, a history teacher who names Beria and Abakumov among the people from history he'd most like to meet, is the best antagonist a documentary has had in years and also a real man the edit shaves down. The apartment he receives on screen was awarded a month before the invasion, by public vote, in a copper company's charity draw. And inside Russia the film is banned, unpoliced, one click away, and hardly watched.

Sources at https://substack.com/@sunriseoutlawed (essay "The Camera Nobody Thought to Fear").A note on the voices: they're AI. Everything else — the research, the writing, the fact-checking of one apartment — is stubbornly human. Sunrise Outlawed is a social-art project. Say hello: [email protected]Free guide — Russian Chthonic: ten dark songs in ten videos, mapping the emotional geology of Russian music from the 1990s to now → https://sunriseoutlawed.com/#feel-russiaSite: https://sunriseoutlawed.comSubstack: https://substack.com/@sunriseoutlawedPatreon: https://patreon.com/SunriseOutlawed

Chapters(00:00) Two people who don't watch films(01:26) The two men who made it(05:57) What the film is about(09:14) Was it ethical to make?(13:52) What we loved(17:25) A word from us(19:08) The villain(24:02) What doesn't work(28:42) Where we land

In 1994, Alexander Solzhenitsyn came home to Russia after twenty years of exile — a two-month train journey across the whole country, cameras at every station, a prophet returning in triumph. Then he started talking, and the country stopped listening.

This is the third episode of our patron-only series on the books that shaped how post-Soviet Russia argues with itself. This time: Russia in Collapse (1998), Solzhenitsyn's furious diagnosis of the 1990s, published weeks before the financial crisis proved him right, and never translated into English. We follow the man in the "white coat" of moral authority: his cancelled TV show, the four failures he diagnosed in the new Russia, the 25 million Russians stranded outside the new borders — and how a state he never fully endorsed ended up adopting his ideas.

This is the free half of the episode. The full 34-minute episode is on Patreon: https://patreon.com/SunriseOutlawed

SOURCESAleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Rossiya v obvale [Russia in Collapse] (Moscow: Russkii Put, 1998) — in Russian, never translated."I Am Not Afraid of Death": SPIEGEL Interview with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Der Spiegel, 23 July 2007: ⁠https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,496003,00.html⁠Anton A. Fedyashin and Anita Kondoyanidi, "The Conservative Dissident: The Evolution of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Political Views," RIIM, no. 51 (October 2009): ⁠https://www.eseade.edu.ar/files/riim/RIIM_51/51_2_fedyashin_kondoyanidi.pdf⁠All other sources are in the essay "The Prophet's Diagnosis" at ⁠https://substack.com/@sunriseoutlawed⁠A note on the voices: they're AI. Everything else — the research, the writing, the arguing over who gets to wear the white coat — is stubbornly human. Sunrise Outlawed is a social-art project. Say hello: ⁠[email protected]⁠Free guide — Russian Chthonic: ten dark songs in ten videos, mapping the emotional geology of Russian music from the 1990s to now → ⁠https://sunriseoutlawed.com/#feel-russia⁠Site: ⁠https://sunriseoutlawed.com⁠Substack: ⁠https://substack.com/@sunriseoutlawed⁠Patreon: ⁠https://patreon.com/SunriseOutlawed⁠

Chapters(00:00) The 1994 homecoming train(06:03) His own TV show(08:31) Russia in Collapse, the book(11:59) Four failures of the 1990s(15:59) Preview ends — full episode on Patreon

In Russia, older women outnumber older men almost two to one — and by their seventies and eighties, a whole country is quietly held together by them. This episode is about the babushka: not somebody's grandmother, but a social category, and one of the most powerful forces in Russian life that almost nobody bothers to name.

We start with a number, then follow Eduard Limonov's idea that Russian old age is a costume handed down generation to generation. It turns up everywhere. On the courtyard bench. In the $350 pension, in the funeral savings tucked into a jar, in the caregiving that never lands in the GDP, in the sociology of Anna Shadrina and Jennifer Utrata. Then it turns political — the babushka vote, the staged loyalty squads, the story of "Babushka Z," where the same costume gets forced onto a real woman against her will. Gregory and Dina host.

Sources at https://substack.com/@sunriseoutlawed (essay "The Same Buttons").A note on the voices: they're AI. Everything else — the research, the writing, the reading of Limonov out loud — is stubbornly human. Sunrise Outlawed is a social-art project. Say hello: [email protected]Free guide — Russian Chthonic: ten dark songs in ten videos, mapping the emotional geology of Russian music from the 1990s to now → https://sunriseoutlawed.com/#feel-russiaSite: https://sunriseoutlawed.comSubstack: https://substack.com/@sunriseoutlawedPatreon: https://patreon.com/SunriseOutlawed

Chapters(00:00) The ratio that holds Russia together(01:44) Limonov: old age as a costume(05:43) Meet Gregory and Dina(06:13) The bench: memes and folk heroes(11:54) $350 a month and funeral savings(14:40) Grandmothers as the family engine(18:52) The script you can't rewrite(23:00) A word from our Patreon(24:53) The babushka vote(31:02) Babushka Z: a symbol turned on her(32:11) Is the costume finally optional?(35:22) Further reading

Elon Musk is the most popular foreign figure in Russia's internet culture — the one Western billionaire Russians have claimed as their own, Kremlin officials and meme-makers alike. This episode traces how an American tech CEO became a Russian cultural phenomenon, and how fast the affection turned.

In 2023, state TV called him "the last adequate mind in North America." By February 2026, after Starlink went dark on the front line, the same propagandists were calling for a nuclear strike on his satellites. We follow the whole arc — the "How do you like that, Elon Musk?" meme, the Putin shoutouts, the Twitter duels with Rogozin and Kadyrov, the Neuralink chip panic, and the four very different Musks Russians keep in their heads at once. Because his fame says less about him than about a country looking at one man and seeing its own unfulfilled potential.

Sources at ⁠https://substack.com/@sunriseoutlawed⁠ (essay "How Do You Like That, Elon Musk?": Russia's Love Affair With Its Favorite American).A note on the voices: they're AI. Everything else — the research, the writing, the tracking of every Musk tweet that somehow made Russian front pages — is stubbornly human. Sunrise Outlawed is a social-art project. Say hello: ⁠[email protected]⁠Free guide — Russian Chthonic: ten dark songs in ten videos, mapping the emotional geology of Russian music from the 1990s to now → ⁠https://sunriseoutlawed.com/#feel-russia⁠Site: ⁠https://sunriseoutlawed.com⁠Substack: ⁠https://substack.com/@sunriseoutlawed⁠Patreon: ⁠https://patreon.com/SunriseOutlawed⁠

Chapters(00:00) The last sane mind, then the nuke(02:30) How big is Musk in Russia(06:52) How do you like that, Elon Musk?(08:58) Putin and Musk: one phone call(11:02) Rogozin and the trampoline(14:01) 2022: single combat and Kadyrov(19:00) Starlink and the love affair(24:01) February 2026: the blackout(28:01) A quick word from Patreon(29:02) Two peaks: 2022 and 2025(33:38) Neuralink and the chip apocalypse(37:14) The four Musks(44:23) If Musk ran Russia(44:56) Further reading

Yuri Mamleev wrote what may be the most disturbing novel in Russian literature — and was, by every account, the warmest man in any room. This episode follows that gap: how the underground mystic of late-Soviet Moscow became the accidental metaphysician of Putin-era ideology, without ever quite meaning to.

This is episode two in our closed series for patrons — Books That Built Russia's Ideology. Last time: Vadim Tsimbersky and his vision of Russia as a civilizational island. This time: something darker. Mamleev's philosophical treatise Russia Eternal — a near-unreadable tome praised by Prime Minister Medvedev on the day of Mamleev's death — and what the state did with its ideas once it stripped away the mystical packaging.

This is the free half of the episode (the first ~23 minutes). The full conversation — covering Mamleev's theology of suffering, his radical theory of patriotism, his Russia-India metaphysical sisterhood, and two completely contradictory accounts of his final days — is available for patrons: https://patreon.com/SunriseOutlawed

Sources at https://substack.com/@sunriseoutlawed (essay "The Bear That Forgot to Sleep").A note on the voices: they're AI. Everything else — the research, the writing, the arguments about whether suffering is metaphysics or just suffering — is stubbornly human. Sunrise Outlawed is a social-art project. Say hello: [email protected]Free guide — Russian Chthonic: ten dark songs in ten videos, mapping the emotional geology of Russian music from the 1990s to now → https://sunriseoutlawed.com/#feel-russiaSite: https://sunriseoutlawed.com

Patreon: https://patreon.com/SunriseOutlawed

(00:00) Cold open — the shatun(01:52) Who we are, the series(03:53) Mamleev — a biography(06:06) Shatuny: the novel(07:37) Exile and return(10:29) Russia Eternal: the book(13:22) The Absolute and the Abyss(14:26) Russia between God and the Void(20:05) Love for the motherland(22:30) Preview ends — full on Patreon

In all of Yeltsin's Russia, exactly two academics put "traditional values" in the title of a paper. After the invasion of Ukraine: five hundred and ninety-one. This episode traces how a phrase nobody can define — and everyone is now afraid to question — became the most effective political branding in modern Russia.

We follow it from Putin's bone-dry 1999 manifesto, where "traditional values" meant patriotism and functioning institutions and nothing else, through the Orthodox Church's quiet decade of groundwork, the "spiritual bonds" that the internet memed into paperclips, the export to the UN, the 2013 speech that turned values into a weapon, and finally Decree No. 809 — the law that lists what you must believe and names everything else a threat. Along the way: what the classified survey data actually shows, why the Kremlin doubled down anyway, and how a tradition stops being one the moment you put it under glass.

Sources at https://substack.com/@sunriseoutlawed (essay "The Price Tag on the Sacred").

A note on the voices: they're AI. Everything else — the research, the writing, the reading of every decree so you don't have to — is stubbornly human. Sunrise Outlawed is a social-art project.

Say hello: [email protected]Free guide — Russian Chthonic: ten dark songs in ten videos, mapping the emotional geology of Russian music from the 1990s to now → https://sunriseoutlawed.com/#feel-russiaSite: https://sunriseoutlawed.comPatreon: https://patreon.com/SunriseOutlawed

Chapters(00:00) Two papers to 591(03:09) Who we are(03:54) Why the label falls apart(09:56) Putin's 1999 engineer's memo(12:40) Soft power in vestments(16:19) Protests and spiritual paperclips(21:51) A quick word from us(23:56) Exported to the UN(25:30) 2013: values become a weapon(26:48) Does it actually work?(30:03) The decree that defines it(33:24) The rainbow in the room(35:18) The commune that wasn't(36:38) The monument and the question

Russia produced some of the most consequential software on earth — Nginx, Telegram, Kotlin, ClickHouse — and then watched almost all of it leave the country. This episode is about the gap between that talent and the sector it never managed to become, and about what the state did with whatever stayed behind.

We trace the whole arc: why every celebrated "Russian" success is really an escape story; why a country that wrote the web server running a third of the internet never built a Russian Stripe or a Russian GitHub; what actually walked out the door in 2022; and how the state captured what remained: golden shares, a forced fire-sale of Yandex, dividends that dwarf earnings, and a "national champion" AI that's the most expensive option in its own house. By the end, the most in-demand skill in Russian IT turns out to be an accounting system from the 1990s.

Sources at https://substack.com/@sunriseoutlawed (essay "How to Kill a Tech Sector").

A note on the voices: they're AI. Everything else — the research, the writing, the refusal to take a press release at face value — is stubbornly human. Sunrise Outlawed is a social-art project. Say hello: [email protected]

Free guide — Russian Chthonic: ten dark songs in ten videos, mapping the emotional geology of Russian music from the 1990s to now → https://sunriseoutlawed.com/#feel-russia

Site: https://sunriseoutlawed.comSubstack: https://substack.com/@sunriseoutlawedPatreon: https://patreon.com/SunriseOutlawed

CHAPTERS(00:00) The ex-Yandex myth(02:38) World-class tech, all escapees(06:26) Yandex search: who really won(10:58) A marble lobby on rented land(14:36) Why IT can't replace oil(18:50) February 2022: the exodus(22:22) The builder layer leaves(27:17) The state moves in(31:25) VK: a family reunion(33:43) The dividend that told the story(38:33) Intermission(40:10) Where the money goes: chips(43:09) Copying yesterday's software(45:57) The Claude token paradox(49:15) The labour market squeeze(52:52) AviaSales: the best employer(57:29) 1C: the real face of Russian IT(1:00:30) From innovation to surveillance(1:03:45) The speed(1:06:10) Coda

Russia is an island. Not geographically — civilizationally. That's the argument Vadim Tsymbursky (1957–2009) spent his career building, and it's the single most influential framework in post-Soviet Russian thought that almost nobody outside Russia has read. His central essay was never translated into English.

This is the first episode of our patron-only series on the books that shaped how post-Soviet Russia argues with itself. We open with Tsymbursky — a classicist who read Homer in the original Greek, never earned a doctorate, and used Roman frontier theory to describe a geopolitical pattern that wouldn't fully materialize until decades after his death.

You're listening to the free half of the episode. The full episode — including Tsymbursky's 1994 prediction of the exact regime Russia would become, the infrastructure collapse that proved his "internal East" thesis right, and the bitter irony of how his own concepts were laundered by the regime he foresaw — is on Patreon.

Chapters00:00 Cold open: the abduction of Europa01:25 A new series, made for patrons02:53 Vadim Tsymbursky, 1957–200905:37 Return to "Island Russia"07:17 Russia is an island08:00 The Great Limitroph11:34 Demolishing Dugin's Eurasianism13:39 Roman frontier theory16:00 The 500-year cycle20:00 Why Russia can't absorb the Limitroph23:49 Turn inward26:00 Preview ends — full episode on Patreon

Full episode + companion essay The Moth and the Lantern → https://patreon.com/SunriseOutlawedFree preview of the essay → https://substack.com/@sunriseoutlawed

A note on the voices: they're AI. Everything else — the reading, the research, the writing — is stubbornly human. Sunrise Outlawed is a social-art project. Say hello: [email protected]

Site: https://sunriseoutlawed.com

Russia is home to 49 million cats—nearly twice as many as dogs. Despite projecting a rugged, powerful image, the nation has quietly woven its identity around the enigmatic, independent cat. In this episode, we trace the cat’s journey through Russian history—from peasant cruelty and Soviet-era kitchen warmth, to modern-day consumer obsession, celebrity zoo cats, and the tragic story of military blogger Murz. Discover a sideways history of Russia, told through the animals it chooses to love.

Chapters
(00:00) Intro

(01:30) 49 million

(03:47) The one trait Russians excel at

(05:00) The dark history

(12:00) Soviet kitchens to capitalism

(16:18) Cats as economy: 84%

(22:22) Timofey and Twix

(30:54) Murz

(32:24) Why cats, specifically

(37:41) What to read and watch

Sources at https://substack.com/@sunriseoutlawed (essay "Forty-Nine Million Mirrors").

A note on the voices: they’re AI. Everything else — the research, the writing, the choosing of which cat to talk about — is stubbornly human. Sunrise Outlawed is a social-art project. Say hello: [email protected]

Free guide — Russian Chthonic: ten dark songs in ten videos, mapping the emotional geology of Russian music from the 1990s to now → https://sunriseoutlawed.com/#feel-russia
Site: https://sunriseoutlawed.com
Substack: https://substack.com/@sunriseoutlawed
Patreon: https://patreon.com/SunriseOutlawed