Latest Episodes
8
Episode 8: Shriekers, Demons, and Witches. The Tale of Vasilisa Alekseeva
In the 1890s, the tiny village of Ashchepkovo in western Russia was struck by an epidemic of demonic possession. This episode attempts to understand...
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Episode 7: The Italian Job. The Tale of Raffaele Scassi
In the early nineteenth century, Raffaele Scassi, Genoese gambler and ne'er-do-well, found himself in the newly founded Black Sea port of Odessa. This was...
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Episode 6: Africa's New Moscow. The Tale of Nikolai Ashinov
In 1889, a small band of unlikely Russian colonists seized the abandoned fortress of Sagallo in today's Djibouti. Led by the would-be Cossack Nikolai...
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Episode 5: Around the World. The Tale of Ivan Goncharov
In 1852, the novelist and government bureaucrat Ivan Goncharov set sail on the frigate Pallada for a mission to closed-off Japan. This episode follows...
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Episode 4: A Priest at War. The Tale of Father Dimitrii Smirnov
From the Baltic to the Black Sea, the First World War's eastern front massacred men by the thousand. Father Dimitrii Smirnov, along with hundreds...
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Episode 3: Murder in Venice. The Tale of Mariia Tarnovskaia
In 1910, Europe and Russia were rocked by a sensational murder trial: three Russians stood accused of conspiring to murder one of their compatriots...