Vinyl in Russia (and X-rays in the USSR)
Переверни Пластинку = flip the record. In English, Flipside. Documentary (2016) about vinyl in Russia. And about records when vinyl was either unavailable or banned: pressed onto X-rays. See How X-rays were used to smuggle banned music into the Soviet Union (Vice/Noisey, 2017) and When Rock Was Banned in the Soviet Union, Teens Took to Bootlegged Recordings on X-Rays (Smithsonian Magazine, 2015).
Trailers
The name of this
trailer is aptly explained, Рок на костях = rock on the bones. No subtitles, and not very inviting. There’s also a
Новый Трейлер (new trailer) and
The Needle in my Ribs (an older one).
Music history
It’s best to watch the entire documentary. Especially if you love vinyl and/or music history—who doesn’t? It covers fans and collectors, contraband and record stores, underground scenes and revival. Featuring Mujuice, Noize MC, Beat Junkies, Dmitry Spirin (Тараканы!), and others.
Directed by Roman Naveskin (Роман Навескин) and Stepan Polivanov (Степан Поливанов).
More at
Antipode and
IMDB.
English subtitles, 44 m.
Learn more about vinyl and its alternatives below.
X-Ray Audio: The Documentary
(The Vinyl Factory, 2016, 13 m)
English subtitles, also on thevinylfactory.com
Bone Records
(Slate, 2016, 2 m)
Документальный Фильм О Советском Феномене – Пластинках На Рентгеновских Снимках
(Own Sound, 2016, 13 m)
More
- The Strange History of Soviet X-Ray Records (Great Big Story, 2020, 2 m)
- X-Ray Audio | Soviet Records (Vinyl Eyezz, 2019, 5 m)
- Фильм о виниловых пластинках в СССР (2017, 16 m)
- Russia’s X-Ray Records (Zoomin.tv, 2017, 3 m)
- Vinyl records back in fashion in Russia (AP Archive, 2017, 6 m)
- Music on Ribs – Forbidden Music in the Soviet Union (OurGreatSociety, 2016, 4 m)
- The story of X-Ray Audio: What would you risk for the sake of music? (TEDx Talks/Stephen Coates, 2015, 18 m)
- Музыка на костях (Aleksandr Gromyko, 2011, 8 m)
More
Country
The Netherlands holds a unique place in the Russian imagination. This is how our country, and we, are viewed through Russian eyes.
An interview becomes legendary when it gets its own page on
Wikipedia. On February 6, 2024, Tucker Carlson spoke with Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin. The report (127 minutes) offers a good, or at least broad, opportunity to hear the Russian perspective on the war against Ukraine.
What we would call ’tokkies’ or ‘gabbers’, and what elsewhere might be referred to as white trash or hooligans – in Russia, these are called gopniki. Folk culture in a tracksuit.
Since the age of sixteen, Игорь Мухин (1961) has been taking photographs. Armed with a
Смена-8М camera, he started his journey. So, when he found himself among artists and musicians in the 1980s, he already had a trained eye – and a better camera. Mukhin (sometimes Moukhin) witnessed major changes and began documenting them.
Freedom of speech is decreasing everywhere, though the reasons vary by region. Meanwhile, Big Tech’s power is growing, along with its interference. In this new era, a nearly forgotten Soviet answer is reemerging: samizdat, the underground DIY press and distribution network.
Every country has a flag and a coat of arms. The Netherlands has a lion, France has a rooster, New Zealand has a kiwi, and the United States has a bald eagle. In Russia, it’s an eagle with two heads and three crowns, and a man on a horse who has just killed a dragon with a spear.
