What unites the overgrown microdistricts of Anastasia Tsayder, the church ruins of Pyotr Antonov and the mythological landscapes of Igor Elukov and Natasha Lozinskaya? All of these projects use the language of the Romantic landscape, a tradition in which the subjective experience of nature, ruins and myths becomes the key to understanding the universe.

Seventy percent of Russians still live in late-Soviet panel areas. Alexey Izosimov spoke with sociologist and employee of the Institute of History and Culture of Eastern Europe in Leipzig Mikhail Ilchenko about the value of panels and whether they can turn into tourist meccas. Orekhovo-Borisovo district, Moscow, 1975 © Thomas Taylor Hammond / WikiCommons Mikhail, hello!

On April 27, the auction for the Rizhsky Station in Moscow failed - there were no buyers for the historical building, put up for 4 billion rubles. Why was the lot not of interest to investors? Can an old train station get a new life and still retain its transport function? And why is the sale of Rizhsky just the tip of the iceberg? We discussed all this with railway transport historian Yuri Egorov.

For some, Sarov is associated with the Soviet nuclear project, for others - with the monastery of Seraphim of Sarov. But there are people for whom Sarov is simply a favorite city that they want to do better. And while the authorities are busy developing virtual tourism, they are implementing real projects that they and other citizens need. In the closed and ideologically divided Sarov, how is a new generation of residents trying to restore its integrity and living urban environment?

In January 2026, it became known about the expansion of the Golden Ring. To the usual route of eight cities - Sergiev Posad, Pereslavl-Zalessky, Rostov, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Ivanovo, Vladimir, Suzdal - 49 more cities and towns will be added. Together with experts, we tried to figure out how this project will affect the heritage of the regions.

What do people look for in the forests of northern Russia? Some are mushrooms and cloudberries, others are abandoned villages, and still others are stages of Soviet rockets. In the 1990s, collecting space metal was commonplace for some residents of the Arkhangelsk region and the Komi Republic. This is the subject of the artistic and research project “Falling Fields” by Makar Tereshin, Igor Elukov and Polina Timofeeva.

While Sapsan trains run between Moscow and St. Petersburg, some villages can still only be reached by narrow-gauge railways, on trains with wooden benches and a stove in the middle of the carriage. Mikhail Konchits is a connoisseur of this romance - he recently published the book “ Preserved Railways ”. It can be read as travel stories, or as a guidebook.

In the 19th century, the village of Izhevskoye experienced a real economic boom: its coopers supplied the entire south of Russia with barrels. This trade allowed them not only to get rich, but to redeem themselves from serfdom long before its abolition and create elected bodies of self-government in the village. Why is this story important today? Read the article by Dmitry Ermakov, a photographer and one of the project participants, about the path of Izhevsk coopers along the rivers of Russia.

Science city Zhukovsky is a city of lovers in the sky. Here, in closed institutes, since the early 1930s, airplanes were created and the latest developments of the Soviet aviation industry took to the skies for the first time. The architectural heritage of the science city has been perfectly preserved: constructivism, the neoclassical center, and, of course, post-war modernism. Together with the SovModno project team, we are publishing a guide to the city’s modernist treasures.

In the USSR, children's toys were more than just entertainment. With its help, adults tried to instill in children the necessary skills, tastes and behavior patterns. What specific requirements did the state, parents and teachers place on toys? Exploring the products of the Tomsk Children's Toy Factory, Alexandra Ermolova answers these questions in her text for the collection “Made in the USSR: Materialization of a New World” edited by Alexander Fokin.

On February 20, 2026, it became known that a new museum dedicated to the genocide of the Soviet people in World War II would appear on the site of the Moscow Museum of Gulag History. We asked former employees, researchers and activists what the museum's demise means for preserving the memory of victims of repression and what consequences it might have for society and regional initiatives.

“You see, there were only two places where the whole village went - to the church and to the mill,” Valentin Karelin explains the significance of the project. “Only someone still needs churches, but there are no mills.” Especially for “In the Woods,” journalist Maria Dyatlova found out how and why he is saving the mill and what awaits her if the villages around are dead. We are publishing this material together with the “ Regional Aspect ” media.

When, on January 27, 1945, Red Army troops entered the Polish Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp complex and freed its prisoners, it seemed to draw a line under the worst disaster of the 20th century. However, for prisoners in other camps, the final act of the Holocaust unfolded only a few days later. Thus, on January 31, 1945, in the village of Palmniken near Königsberg, several thousand prisoners of the Stutthof camp were taken to the shore of the Baltic Sea and shot.

For the release of a podcast about genealogy, our hosts Masha and Lesha interviewed the writer Yegana Jabbarova, who recently received the Hamburg Prize for her novel “The Hands of the Women of My Family Were Not for Writing.” We talked with her about family memory, the body as a dowry and heritage, and also found out why literature is not therapy. Hello Egana! Tell us why you decided to write a book about your family?

Winter Theater Square in Kirov was probably the most elegant in the USSR. Every year it was decorated with huge painted figures made of snow: ruddy archers and heroes, deer and bears, princesses in patterned kokoshniks and young men in golden caftans. Several generations of Kirov sculptors and artists were involved in their sculpting, led by Faina Shpak and Nikolai Ledentsov.