This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit yasha.substack.comWe talk about my recent epiphany that the scary and volatile world of Russia that I grew up in post-collapse in the 1990s might be the future of America, rather than a distant, embarrassing past that I used to think was irrelevant to my new life here. Turns out I’m a time traveler of sorts. I am from your future.—EvgeniaPS: At the end of the ep, Yasha ruminates on how when collapse finally does come, he’s willing to become a peasant at a PMC women-run colony that will surely pop up here in the Hudson Valley…working the land in exchange for protection from the brutish bands of MAGA scavengers.
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Red Scare's Wake
We talk about the rise and fall of Red Scare, America’s once-coolest Soviet immigrant podcast. They lost their edge. We’re #1 now.Want to know more? * The Secret Power of Lex Fridman* Konstantin Kisin's KGB Konnektions* …other eps — and subscribe! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit yasha.substack.com/subscribe
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2:00:04
The Theatre Experience with Matthew Gasda
We talk to playwright and theatre director Matthew Gasda about his plays, his theatre company Brooklyn Centre for Theatre Research, and the zeitgeist of the post-COVID downtown New York scene. We talk about how theater is a peculiar art form for a millennial to be engaged with, as it is completely offline and intentionally unrecorded, un-televised, and impossible to make viral on social media. In that way, theater points to a future where people abandon virtual reality and want to experience things live…in the flesh. —IBWRPS: Doomers, Gasda’s play about the geniuses behind our AI takeover, is playing now. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit yasha.substack.com/subscribe
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1:26:37
Soviet lit for kids with Nika Dubrovsky
Artist and author (and mother) Nika Dubrovsky is back on the show to talk about Soviet cartoons and Soviet literature for kids and the unique radical progressive ethos children’s culture had in post-revolutionary Soviet society. We talk about the utopian book series Dunno, about poems by Marshak and Chukovsky, who is considered the Russian Dr. Seuss, and we compare them to the American publishing system that censors interesting and alternative children’s books. Nika tells a fascinating story on how Dr. Seuss found publishing success despite all odds.Nika is currently working on a book series she cofounded with her late husband David Graeber: Anthropology For Kids, which was inspired by Vladimir Mayakovsky’s poem “what is good and what is bad.”—EvgeniaP.S. I had to talk to Nika alone since Yasha couldn’t come down to New York because our daughter was sick. The sound quality is not that great since my mic set up failed and the conversation was recorded on an iPhone. My tech support was not there! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit yasha.substack.com/subscribe
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1:31:47
Konstantin Kisin's KGB Konnektions
We continue our journey through the weaponized immigrant podcaster universe — this time with Konstantin Kisin. Konstantin, a hack comedian turned political podcaster, is a classic weaponized immigrant — or a “court Russian,” as Evgenia calls it. He embodies all the tropes of one: gross subservience to “Western civilization,” trafficking in stereotypes about the savage totalitarianism of Russian society, blaming all the problems in the West on outside forces — particularly Russia and China… His particular shtick, though, is to placate his Western audience with the notion that they live in the best of all possible societies and that a group of Russian FSB-connected asiatics are plotting to destroy their way of life. How? Through a new type of Marxism called wokeness. That’s how. What Konstantin doesn’t divulge, though, is that he himself is part of this foreign bacillus injected into the UK with the help of the Russian security state. As we discuss, Konstantin’s fancy schooling in England (and his move to the island) was funded by his Russian bureaucrat-business father, who partook in the pure capitalism of 90s Moscow by embezzling and privatizing public funds while getting cover from the FSB.—IBWR Support our work, become a paying subscriber.Want to know more? * Listen to our ep on Lex Fridman* Yasha’s was on the weaponized immigrant beat a long, long time ago — hence the title of this Substack This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit yasha.substack.com/subscribe
Netherlands