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His hair fell out, his eyes turned yellow, and he was dead in less than a month. Somebody poisoned Alexander Litvinenko...but who?
Sources:
Full text of the Litvinenko Inquiry
Burrough, Bryan. "The Kremlin's Long Shadow." Vanity Fair April 2007.
Cowell, Alan. "Alexander Litvinenko Lived and Died in World of Violence and Betrayal." International Herald Tribune 3 Nov. 2006.
Crimes of the Kremlin. Prod. Martin Butler. By Nick Lazaredes. Journeyman Pictures, 2012.
Harding, Luke. "Substance Used to Poison Litvinenko Could Only Have Come from Russia – Inquiry." The Guardian [London] 11 Mar. 2015.
Harding, Luke. Alexander Litvinenko: the man who solved his own murder. The Guardian [London] 19 Jan. 2016.
Storr, Will. "Bad Blood." Medium. Published by Matter.
Ward, Victoria, Gordon Rayner, and Tom Whitehead. "Litvinenko Inquiry: David Cameron Considers New Sanctions against Russia after 'state-sponsored Murder' of KGB Spy in London." The Telegraph [London] 21 Jan. 2016.
Watson, Richard. "Litvinenko: A Deadly Trail of Polonium." BBC Magazine 28 July 2015.
Time to face the music — or panic.
Sources:
Aldridge, Dina. "In Moscow It's 'Swan Lake' Too: Hard-fighting Russians from the front and all Moscow are flocking to the theatres of classical dance." New York Times 8 Oct. 1944: 96.
"Ballet Fans Wait in Rain 7 Hours: Special Sale at Garden for Bolshoi Draws Thousands -- Orders Total 900,000." New York Times 11 Apr. 1959: 14.
Ezrahi, Christina. Swans of the Kremlin: Ballet and Power in Soviet Russia. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012.
Keaton, A.E. "Tshaikovski as a Ballet Composer." The Contemporary Review (1904): 566.
"Looping Swans." The Documentary. BBC Radio 4.
Ross, Janice and Lynn Garafola. Like a Bomb Going Off: Leonid Yakobson and Ballet as Resistance in Soviet Russia. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015.
Schonbeck, Amelia. "This Portentous Composition: Swan Lake's Place in Soviet Politics." Hazlitt. 26 Mar. 2015.
"Swan Lake." Soul Music. BBC Radio 4.
[Musical Credits: Pond5, archive.org]
Everything you wanted to know, but were afraid to ask, about the rise of Vladimir Putin. Part 1.
Sources:
Gessen, Masha. The Man without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin. NY, NY, USA: Riverhead, 2014.
Hill, Fiona, and Clifford G. Gaddy. Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin. Washington: Brookings Institutions, 2015.
Orth, Maureen. "Russia's Dark Master." The Hive. Vanity Fair, 31 Jan. 2015.
Tuffs, A. "One in 20 East German Doctors Spied on Patients or Colleagues." Bmj 335.7630 (2007): 1113.
Musical Notes:
"Light up the Bonfires" (Взвейтесь кострами) was a popular song of the Young Pioneers.
The waltz is from the 1966 Soviet movie "Beware of the Car," a satirical heist film.
The famous Mark Bernes sang the sentimental tune "From What the Motherland Begins," from the popular 1968 spy series, "The Shield and the Sword."
"Die Nacht ist viel zu schoen" was a popular East German tune from 1956.
"Ich will nicht vergessen (Denk ich an Deutschland)" is sung by the East German band Pudhys, who gained popularity outside the GDR.
**Ronald Reagan's infamous quip about bombing the USSR was an off-the-cuff remark caught on a hot mic in 1984. The President was testing his microphone in preparation for his weekly radio address. Read more here.
[Musical Credits: Pond5; archive.org; Reign Supreme Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)]
A story about things that go "boom" in the night.
Sources:
Anderson, Scott. "None Dare Call It A Conspiracy." Gentleman's Quarterly. September 2009.
Gessen, Masha. "The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin." New York: Riverhead Books, 2012.
Knight, Amy. "Finally, We Know About the Moscow Bombings." The New York Review of Books. 10 February 2000.
Kovalev, Sergei. "Putin's War." The New York Review of Books. 10 February 2000.
Litvinenko, Alexander and Yuri Felshtinsky. Blowing Up Russia: The Secret Plot to Bring Back KGB Terror. New York: Gibson Square, 2007.
Satter, David. The Less You Know, the Better You Sleep: Russia's Road to Terror and Dictatorship under Yeltsin and Putin. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017.
Musical Notes & Credits:
The hip-hop song "Буду пАгибать мАлодым" by rapper Mister Maloy (Мистер Малой) was a hit in 1990s Russia.
President Boris Yeltsin famously addressed U.S. Congress in 1992.
"Beat the Burglar" by Scott Holmes, Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
"A Sea Change" by Kyle Preston, Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
"Below the Surface" by Kyle Preston, Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
"The Nightmare" by Lee Rosevere, Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
In the expanse of Siberia, who knows what's out there?
Sources:
Dash, Mike. "For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of World War II." Smithsonian.com. 28 January 2013.
Figes, Orlando. Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia. New York: Picador, 2007.
Holdsworth, Nick. "Reclusive Russian Family's Last Survivor Toughs It Out In The Taiga." RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. 28 October 2015.
Thubron, Colin. In Siberia. New York: HarperCollins, 1999.
Musical Notes & Credits:
"Gardermoen" and "Idlewild" by Julia Kent
"Ot junosti moeja (From My Youth) [Antiphon, in tone IV, Znamenny Chant]" by the Valaam Men's Choir
"V Tserkvi" by Peter Tchaikovsky, performed by the Andreyev Balalaika Ensemble
"Scythian Empires" by Andrew Bird
Everything you wanted to know, but were afraid to ask, about the rise of Vladimir Putin. Part 2 of 2.
Sources:
Gessen, Masha. The Man without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin. NY, NY, USA: Riverhead, 2014.
Hill, Fiona, and Clifford G. Gaddy. Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin. Washington: Brookings Institutions, 2015.
Oushakin, Serguei Alex. The Patriotism of Despair: Nation, War, and Loss in Russia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009.
Miller, Stephen Lee. The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin. New York: Vintage Press, 2015.
Shogren, Elizabeth. "Rationing of Food Sends Chill Through Leningrad." Los Angeles Times. 30 November 1990.
Musical Notes:
"Die Nacht ist viel zu schoen" was a popular East German tune from 1956.
"Поезд на Ленинград (Train to Leningrad)" by Империя
"Дым Сигарет с Ментолом (Smoke Cigarettes with Menthol)" by Nensi
"Swan Lake" by Tchaikovsky
"до завтра (Until Tomorrow)" by Dmitry Malikov
"V Tserkvi" by Peter Tchaikovsky, performed by the Andreyev Balalaika Ensemble
"Those Were the Days," adapted from "By the Long Road," performed by the Andreyev Balalaika Ensemble
[Musical Credits: Pond5; archive.org; Reign Supreme Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)]
[Musical Credits: Pond5; archive.org; Reign Supreme Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)]