Soviet Union

Uzbekistan was a product of Islamic modernism and Soviet might. Free from the latter, the nation now seeks to foreground the Young Bukharans.

The death of Joseph Stalin’s son Yakov Dzhugashvili in a German concentration camp 80 years ago was kept a secret for decades.

Theft in East Germany was so common as to be nicknamed ‘the people’s sport’. Why were citizens of the GDR so light-fingered?

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and its effect on the international politics of the late Cold War era.

The architects who adapted to the demands, whims and chicanery of the Stalinist state.

The nightmarish power of the Soviet passport.

In 1935 Stalin declared ‘life has become better’. This was clearly not the case for everyone, but feelings had to be expressed very carefully.

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, had aimed to bring new life to a system in which he believed until the last.

The first of Earth’s creatures to hurtle into the Moon’s orbit were slow and sedentary residents of the Great Steppe.

Those who control the media control the state. Lenin knew this, but by 1991 his Soviet successors had forgotten, to their ultimate cost.