Sociologist Anna Kuleshova spotlights Russian artists in exile, who, while dealing with the challenges faced by all emigrants, have managed to unite many of their compatriots living abroad and are changing the public image of their home country.

Publisher Vladimir Kharitonov looks at rising book censorship in Russia, describing the tools used to get rid of “bad” books and explaining how current practices differ from Soviet times.

Tequilajazzz is a rock band from St Petersburg founded in 1993 by people from the Leningrad Rock Club. The group has become a symbol of Russian alternative music. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it halted its activities in Russia, and its leader Yevgeny Fedorov openly condemned the aggression.

Oxford professor Andrei Zorin explains why Russian literature is not responsible for the Kremlin’s policies and why it is dangerous to use historical arguments to justify current conflicts.

Artemy Troitsky discusses the pop music scene since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and compares it to Soviet ideological constraints and repressions. In his view, today’s situation is more toxic than it was back in the 1980s.

Maria Engström looks at the cultural recycling of the 1990s in contemporary Russian popular culture which works with mass things, trashy, insignificant and previously rejected, such as the shabby Khrushchevka housing, bad music, all kinds of kitsch, and dubious political ideas.

The authors explore how opposition-minded Russian musicians navigate the minefield laid by the increasingly authoritarian regime and offer a tentative basis for broader social solidarity against repression.

Mikhail Zygar argues that the unprecedented success of the film Cheburashka reveals how Russian viewers withdraw into a children’s fairy tail movie in order to avoid the war.

Oleg Kashin writes that the anti-ideological nature of Russian society and the state in the early post-Soviet period resulted in degradation. The inhumane mores of the 1990s, refracted through the domestic prosperity of the 2000s, have produced selfish, cruel philistines indifferent to the pain of others.

Alena Solntseva shares her impressions from conversations with fellow Russians about the Ukraine war and the situation in the country and the world in general. Her interlocutors tend to look after themselves and their loved ones, focusing on their own affairs without delving into disturbing and tragic news.

Mark Lipovetsky writes about a new series of comedic shorts titled Out Loud, modeled on a Soviet-era satirical film anthology. The plots are tinged with a fear of anything new, with the ghost of the dangerous Other looming in the backdrop.

Alexei Makarkin elaborates on the thesis of Yuri Saprykin about the sources of the “inclination toward evil” in modern Russia and suggests to look for them in the cultural processes of an earlier time.

Yuri Saprykin explores how post-Soviet Russian literature has borrowed from popular works of modern Western literature to create its own vision of the good and evil divide.

Alyona Solntseva writes that amid the “special military operation,” plays and the names of unreliable directors and playwrights have disappeared from theater repertoires. The bans, however, are informal, with no institutions authorized to monitor “ideological purity.”

Anatoly Golubovsky explains how government interference in Russian theaters differs from Soviet-era censorship. Despite its relative mildness, it causes serious damage to public life.

Vladimir Kharitonov writes on the troubles that book publishers in Russia are experiencing today: printing houses lack high-quality paper and necessary supplies, Western publishers refuse to work with Russian partners, and new censorship is further weighing on sales.

Russia’s conservative Red Guards, as Ivan Davydov calls them, have created a demand for a repressive cultural policy. The state is now taking a huge step toward them, but disappointment awaits: the authorities need underlings, not ideological volunteers, on the cultural front.

Nikolai Kulbaka analyzes popadanets literature – typically featuring contemporary Russians who travel back to the recent or distant past – and draws interesting conclusions about the state of Russian society.

Artist Dmitri Vrubel, who painted The Fraternal Kiss fresco on the Berlin Wall that became a symbol of the end of the Cold War, passed away at the age of 62 in Berlin. Anna Tolstova writes about how the famous work appeared and the various hats Vrubel wore before and after The Kiss.

Lisa Surganova writes about the devastating effect that the war in Ukraine has had on the Russian film industry. As Western distribution companies have stopped working with Russia and the Russian government tightens censorship, a flourishing industry is rapidly coming apart.

Vladimir Kalashnikov on the absence of a consolidated architectural style in Putin’s Russia and the neo-modernist and neo-Stalinist eclecticism of new buildings.

Vladimir Kalashnikov on how Russia’s memory politics and monumentalization evolved over the years, resulting in a memorial frenzy encouraging a depoliticized Soviet identity.

Based on end-of-June survey and focus group discussions, Denis Volkov writes that the prevailing opinion among Russians is that Prigozhin’s “march on Moscow” has not weakened the authority of the central government and some believe it has even strengthened it.

Mikhail Vinogradov believes that the Prigozhin rebellion exposed serious problems with the administrative system, along with demands for changes coming from various social groups. However, it remains unclear whether decision-makers will show that lessons have been learned or pretend that nothing happened.