The Eastern Border

Greetings, Comrades! In this episode, we talk about the death of Brezhnev and how that brought two old, sick men into power that they probably should never have had in the first place. And how they tried to take alcohol away from the USSR citizens. All of this went about as well as you could imagine.

Today’s featured image, however, is a drawing that we received from the talented and beautiful Diona Nikitenko. It’s truly amazing, and you can use that for whatever you’d like.

This is Yuri Andropov, the first of our old men. He who started the anti-alcohol campaign.

Constantine Chernenko, the other old man – even older and sicker than Andropov. Good that he really didn’t do anything.

The poster, mentioned on the show: It says “Schoolchildren who drink, study worse than those who don’t.”, followed by some statistics. Look at the age of the kids depicted – and if THEY need an anti-alcohol poster, then think about the general state of alcohol consumption in the USSR.

And finally, here’s the link to the youtube video, where you can see Chernenko’s funeral in full length, as shown on the Soviet television:

Chernenko’s Funeral

And don’t forget to visit Dark Myths collective for more shows like this one, and Ben’s wonderful Wittenberg to Wesphalia: Wars of the Reformation podcast.

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Greetings, Comrades, and Merry Christmas!

Sorry for the small delay, but the new episode is finally here. All the listener questions we received are answered…and then we talk about the very depressive issue of Christmas in the Soviet Union. Special thanks goes to Lynn, from The History of The Ottoman Empire podcast, for doing the intro – and he allowed us to do his, so after you’ve done with this episode, go and check him out at https://historyoftheottomanempire.squarespace.com/

We have two pictures this week! One is the Rubles that you might be getting in the following three months:

And the second one is Ded Moroz and Snegurochka. Santa Claus has nothing on this!

Also, you can now follow us on Twitter – @Eastern_Border. We post podcast updates, funny pictures, historical pictures, one movie link, which was really sad, and some news comments. Basically, stuff that’s at least kind of related to what we do here.

Anyways…enjoy the show, I hope your questions have been answered, and..,Merry Christmas!

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Greetings, Comrades!

We are very happy to publish a new episode so soon, but we also have to apologize for the brevity of this episode – Moscow Olympics is a subject that just didn’t fit in anywhere else, so, better to publish this alone. Here are the pictures, mentioned within the show:

Firstly, the Moscow Olympic emblem and the glorious bear, Misha!

Then comes a typical poster for the Olympics

Soviet-made Coca-Cola and Fanta. It exists, tovarischi!

And finally, Kozakiewicz, having uncontrollable muscle spasms.

There are also some things I’d like to say:

Firstly, huge thanks to Darryl Cooper, he’s a friend of ours, and we highly recommend you, giving his “Fear and Loathing in New Jerusalem” podcast a listen, if you haven’t done so already – it’s a dark and moving story about the history of the Jew and Arab conflict in Palestine, and it’s very good.

Secondly, between the recording and publishing of this show, I managed to get into hospital. find the issue that iTunes might have with us, get out of the hospital and decide what to do with my Soviet memorabilia. That means that we still might somehow get into iTunes, which is awesome. Also, that means that as the next episode is a Christmas (in the USSR) and Q&A special, there will be prizes! I have a lot of pins, badges and all kinds of small Soviet memorabilia at my or my relative’s places, and some of that stuff is quite awesome – including some real Soviet medals for actual achievements, like “Hero of Labor” and “Work Veteran” and the like. So, we’ll be giving you stuff. Cool, old Soviet stuff. The ways to get stuff are:

1. If you have any questions you would like us to answer, so post them in the comments, send them to our e-mail, or to our facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/TheEasternBorder/ – as I know that some of you can’t find us by searching) , and we shall answer them in our next show and the author of the best question (or authors of questions, not limited to just one), shall be contacted and some interesting soviet pin or badge or a small flag will be sent to them. The time limit is the 19th of December, and the winners shall be announced on the next podcast episode, which will come out in the week after that.

2. And this is a bit bigger one: We shall also choose one person among those who donate to our show during December, and send them an actual Soviet Medal. An authentic medal, given to people for real achievements. (Achievements may be possibly pointless.) You can feel like Brezhnev, while wearing this to work, basking in the adoration of your capitalist colleagues. Yes, this is a bit of a fundraising scheme, but the size of the donation has zero impact on who gets to be the new owner of a Soviet medal, and we feel that this is the fairest means of doing one. We can’t really afford to send more than one, though, because a lot of you don’t live in Europe, which means that the shipping costs limit us. Also, the time limit for this one, is all of December, and we shall announce the winner of a genuine Soviet Medal in the first episode we make in January. Important note: this will be a civilian medal, not a military one. We at The Eastern Border believe that military medals should only be worn by those who earned them, and that giving away such medals randomly is morally wrong.

The photos of the actual stuff that you’ll be getting will be posted on our webpage and our Facebook page at about 15th of December.

And, as always – enjoy the show!

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Greetings again, comrades!
Sorry for being so late with this episode, but as you’ll hear in it, I’ve run into some issues with my life. Some of you wrote me e-mails asking me, if I’ll be making any new episodes – and yes, I will. This is Eastern Border, we love it here, and we don’t intend to stop anytime soon. Huge “thank you” to everyone who donates, writes comments, sends e-mails or just listens to our show. You’re all awesome.

Now, about this episode a bit: this one is a more serious, more emotional episode than usual. It was also a bit harder for me to make, due to having to do some quote translations on the fly, as I would have taken an eternity more, if I’d scripted everything – so, I apologize for some parts of the show, that might sound a bit worse than you would expect. Otherwise, I’m actually really happy about how this turned out, especially considering my situation – so I hope you’ll enjoy it.

The picture, for this time, is one of the infamous Zinc coffins – in which the soldiers were sent home during the Afghanistan war.

Also, don’t forget to check out this episodes podcast recommendation – the Historical Intentions podcast, by Joseph Newton!

Edit: Also, for those who like the accent – I don’t really notice it, that’s just how I speak in English. I imagine it sounds a bit weird for you.

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We’re back with a vengeance! And small land and medals, and spring. In Prague! In all seriousness, I had some serious health issues, so I wasn’t able to make the episode in time, but I promise that such things will not happen in the future. I have to add that I made a small mistake in the episode, Daugavpils is in the south-eastern part of Latvia, not in the southern part. Well, it IS in the south, but it’s also very to the east, so I should add that. To add to your listening experience, here’s a picture of what happened in Prague, 1968:

Soviet invasion and protests in Prague, 1968

Also, this time’s recommendation is Wittenberg to Westphalia: The wars of the reformation podcast. It is awesome, and you should pay them a visit, if you care about what and when happened during the reformation in Europe. Link: wittenbergtowestphaliapodcast.weebly.com

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Greetings, Tovarischi! In this episode I’ll try to introduce you to the basics of the Soviet culture life. And don’t worry, I will return to this subject sometime in the future I well. I hope you’ll enjoy the show.

Also, the word “tovarisch” is a latinized spelling of the word  “Товарищ” meaning “Comrade” – and the way of me, pronouncing in the show is the proper Russian pronunciation of it. I received a question about the meaning of this from a listener, and as the answer isn’t included in the show, I thought I should post it here.

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Greetings, Tovarischi! This episode is about the Soviet army, it’s military might and the trials and tribulations of the common soldier – as heard from those very common soldiers. (And, of course, historical background and information on this as well.) Leave your comments below, and don’t forget to tell everyone about this podcast. 

Also, I recommend you to go and listen to the Naval History Podcast, by Buckner F. Melton jr. because that podcast really deserves more attention. You can do that here: http://navalhistorypodcast.com/

And to make the lawyers happy: The intro music is a fragment from “My Army” by the Red Army Choir, and the epilogue is from “She thinks herself immortal” by Jim Rooster, used under the Creative Commons licence.

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Greetings, Tovarischi! In this episode: The economy of the USSR, craziness of Khruschev and plans for the future episodes. Leave your comments below, and don’t forget to tell everyone you know about this podcast!

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In this episode, I explain what all of this is going to be about, while I work on my first, real episode about M. Gorbatchev’s book on perestroika and work with all of my written material about the life in the USSR. This is the second iteration of the intro – so we spend some time explaining for our new listeners how the podcast has improved and evolved over time.

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