(In bed with) the Russians

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comFor this Vamp Valley stream, I speak to Josh Golin about how commercialization and consumerist brainwashing of children, already dominant in American society before the internet, has been very consciously turbocharged by the tech overlords that mediate our reality. We discuss problems facing children in the age of the internet: alienation, bullying, sexual harassment, addiction, self-hate, suicide, destruction of critical thinking — all them being knowingly inflicted on kids just to keep them on these platforms as long as possible, wasting their lives and destroying their minds in the name of better ad metrics and rank consumerism. We also talk about attempts to regulate social media, the power of the tech lobby, and the baffling attempt of “left-prog” influencer Taylor Lorenz to protect vampiric mind control monopolies from even the tiniest bit of democratic control.I’m doing these streams to talk to people about the tech that’s destroying our minds and destroying our world — as part of my research for a doc series I’m working on, Vampire Valley. Live streams are available to the public but recorded streams are only available to subscribers. Reminder: If you give $100 or more to Vampire Valley, you will automatically get an annual sub.Josh Golin is an Executive Director at Fairplay. They’re great. Check them out here.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comToday I chat with Joe Costello about the backlash to data centers and why he thinks this national grassroots movement just might be the very first time Americans are engaging in politics in many, many decades. Joe recently published a great book — The Politics of Ape and Machine. Also check out his newsletter: Life in the 21st Century.I’m making a doc series about the internet called Vampire Valley. The first ep will look at data centers. It should be out closer to May. If you want to help fund this film, give here. Or if you’d like to make a tax-deductible donation, write us at [email protected]’s been on the show a few times before. Check him here:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comMarried with podcast, we catch up on some topics dear to our hearts. Among things discussed: Evgenia’s films, the ghettoization of feminist (and minority) filmmaking in a liberal society, Yorgos Lanthimos, Kathryn Bigelow, Sophia Coppola…Then we move on to discussing the saga of the Feiyue sneaker and how it illustrates the rise of China and American/European collapse and hubris. It all ties together. Trust us. Have a great week. Pray with us that Trump does not nuke the world. Praying is all we got left. 🙏

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comFor this vamp valley stream, I had Peter Korotaev on to talk about drones and war. Drones, which I see as very much related to the internet, have made big leaps in battlefield adoption in the last few years: first in the Russian-Ukraine war and now in the Israeli-American war on Iran.The United States pioneered drone technology. In fact, as I mentioned on the stream, the same ARPA program that funded the internet was at the same time funding research into drone technology for use in the Vietnam War…a small helicopter operated by a remote control so big it barely fit on an Army jeep. But even though the U.S. security state has been pumping money into drone technology for more than half a century, it hadn’t explored the use of drone technology to its fullest potential yet. It’s been up to peripheral states like Ukraine and Iran (and also Israel) to take drone warfare to the next level. And what’s happening on the periphery of the empire is going to be coming home soon…there is no doubt about it. Drone tech is just too easy to use, too effective…like smartphones. It makes me think of Philip K. Dick’s wonderful novella, Second Variety, which is about autonomous robotic weapons that were designed to kill people…until they ran out of people and started fighting each other. I’m pretty sure Second Variety inspired Terminator, even though it was never credited.Anyway, Peter writes the great Events in Ukraine newsletter. I highly recommend reading his stuff. He’s a funny writer and covers the subject with the respect and black humor that it requires.See you next week! I’m doing these streams every week, broadcasting against Vampire Valley from within Vampire Valley. All live streams will be available to the public but most recorded streams will be available only to paying subscribers. Influencers are people. We need to eat, too. Reminder: If you donate $100 or more to my Vampire Valley doc, you will automatically get an annual sub. If you’re thinking of giving a larger tax-deductible donation, get in touch with us at [email protected].

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comFor this week’s vamp valley stream, I’m publishing a talk that Evgenia and I did with Joe Costello about his wonderful new book, The Politics of Ape and Machine.We’re in the middle of another industrial power grab. We talked to Joe to make sense of the situation. We talked about AI, the parasitic internet, industrialization’s destruction of democracy, the politics of technology, what it means to be monkeys who think they’re in control of the known universe… Joe thinks that the AI boom we’re in potentially offers a historic opportunity to transcend our entrenched, stagnant politics: the much-promised automation and the reality of computerized crapification of broad sectors of society and further centralized control will make mass reorganization of politics not just a possibility but a necessity — an opportunity that hasn’t been seen in many generations. Will people rise to the challenge? How would you bet?This talk took place on November 23, 2025 in Manhattan at the KGB Bar. This is the first time it is being published on this pacification tech we call the internet.For those who don’t know, Joe Costello has been on our podcast many times and I’ve republished his work before. He’s worked in politics all of his life and he’s one of the most clear thinkers and writers today on politics and on the meaning of democracy in our age of terminal industrialization. Buy his book! And check out his newsletter: Life In the 21st Century.—Yasha***I’ll be doing these streams every Friday at noon NYC time, broadcasting against Vampire Valley from within Vampire Valley. All live streams will be available to the public but most recorded streams will be available only to paying subscribers. Influencers are people. We need to eat, too.Reminder: If you donate $100 or more to my Vampire Valley doc, you will automatically get an annual sub. If you’re thinking of giving a larger tax-deductible donation, get in touch with us at [email protected].

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comFor this week’s vamp valley stream, I’m joined by Daniel Bessner to talk about how our politics are in the grips of a powerful decadent rationalist illusion: it’s the idea that information is power. But as Daniel points out, despite having all the information regular people have no effect on politics. We know everything, but can’t change anything. It is a longterm problem in nominally democratic US (and Europe) that has been massively exacerbated by internet technology. We’re wrapped up in the Spectacle, confusing the consumption of nonstop political content with politics. You could say that we’re whistleblowing on our own profession, trying to make people understand that information is not a magic spell — just knowing things about the world won’t miraculously lead to change.—YashaSome essays that inform our conversation:* End of Mass Politics and Empire’s Critic and Democracy in Exile by Daniel Bessner* Gaza and the Death of “Information Is Power,” Information is not power, Influencerism is the highest form of capitalist realism by me.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comFor this week’s vamp valley stream, I talked to C. Derick Varn about the backstory of Mark Fisher’s controversial (at the time) and influential “Exiting the Vampire Castle” essay and why it still matters today.I wrote about Fisher’s essay last summer as part of my attempt to understand the way hyper-connected communication technology is affecting our world — and how structural forces built into internet technology have worked to pacify people and have foreclosed on the possibility of any sort of politics by turning everything into entertainment...a virtual cage match of endless culture wars where everyone is constantly pitted against each other in an endless fight that involves constantly evolving identity politics, fringe causes, peripheral issues, and perceived slights.Derick was one of the editors who worked with Mark Fisher to publish the essay in the now-defunct The North Star online magazine. He’s also a sharp critic of the influencer economy and the effect of technology on culture and politics. Check out Derick’s show on YouTube or the podcast version of the show.Thanks…and see you next week!Yasha***I’ll be doing these streams every Friday at noon NYC time, broadcasting against the Vampire Castle from within the Vampire Castle. All live streams will be available to the public but some recorded streams will only available to paying subscribers. Influencers are people. We need to eat, too! Reminder: If you donate $100 or more to my Vampire Valley doc, you will automatically get an annual sub. If you’re thinking of giving a larger tax-deductible donation, get in touch with us at [email protected]

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comRowan and I were at UC Santa Barbara last month presenting Pistachio Wars. We had a wonderful Q&A after the screening, which you can see below. Subscribers can listen to it on our usual podcast feed and read a cleaned up transcript below. Thank you to Rich Farell and everyone at Carsey-Wolf Center for having us out and being such gracious hosts. Sorry for being such a doomer. But desperate times and all that… Of course watch Pistachio Wars if you haven’t already. —Yasha Rowan and I were at UC Santa Barbara last month presenting Pistachio Wars. We had a wonderful Q&A after the screening, which you can see below. Subscribers can listen to it on our usual podcast feed and read a cleaned up transcript below.Thank you to Rich Farell and everyone at Carsey-Wolf Center for having us out and being such gracious hosts. Sorry for being such a doomer. But desperate times and all that… Of course watch Pistachio Wars if you haven’t already.—YashaRICH FARRELL: Okay. My name is Rich Farrell. I’m a graduate student in the Film and Media Studies Department, and I’m pleased to be joined by the filmmakers of Pistachio Wars, Yasha Levine and Rowan WERNHAM. So a round of applause for you.YASHA LEVINE: Thank you.RICH FARRELL: So I just wanted to start the Q&A with some background and beginnings. First to you, Yasha. At the beginning of the film, you say that the story started with a piece that you wrote, “A Journey Through Oligarch Valley,” in 2013, which was published in Not Safe for Work magazine online. Can you tell us a little bit about your background, how you came to work on that story, and then how you decided to adapt this into a documentary?YASHA LEVINE: Well, I’ll try to keep it brief. Thank you. Thank you everyone for coming.I had been out of the country and started my journalism career reporting out in Russia, and I kind of missed the whole real estate bubble, the speculative boom that happened here, and the collapse that happened in 2007, 2008. I had been abroad watching it from afar. And when I came back to America, I was really curious about what it was all about. So I moved to LA and I was casting about for the best example of a speculative city that embodied the speculative boom.I kind of toured California and chose Victorville -- a little suburb in the Mojave Desert, halfway between L.A. and Las Vegas -- because I really wanted to understand the kind of society, the kind of civilization that this boom created. Like what remained when Wall Street crashed and had to be bailed out…

For this anti-vamp stream from my newly established NY basement studio, I’m joined by Mike Pepi, author of Against Platforms. We talk about the failed utopian promises of the internet and how the tech platforms that now dominate our world are concentrators of power and destroyers of all other forms of organization that came before them. This monopolization/destruction isn’t an aberration or a corruption but is built into the very nature of this technology.Mike opens his book by talking about an Apple ad that came out a few years ago that illustrates this Borg-like monopolize/destroy drive. I’m embedding it below because Apple had scrubbed this ad from the internet, following a backlash.Compare this Apple ad……to the Borg. Who is more honest? Help me make my Vampire Valley doc series. Give here. Or if you’d like to make a tax-deductible donation, write us at [email protected] Mike’s book today! Help me make my Vampire Valley doc series. Give here. Or if you’d like to make a tax-deductible donation, write us at [email protected]. If you give $100 or more, you will automatically get an annual sub! A two-for-one deal! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comEvgenia pays tribute to Nikolai Komyagin, the frontman of the Russian cult band Shortparis. He died recently — tragically and unexpectedly ay 39.As Evgenia explains, he was a true poet — and a total artist. With his music and videos, he did something that no one else had done yet. He captured on a pure emotional level the feeling of Russia with its failed utopian past and its violent present and all the ideals and the people that got ground up and spit in the two revolutions — the Bolshevik one and the Market Bolshevik one it had in less than a century. Ironically, the last big thing Shortparis made was the soundtrack to Limonov’s biopic, Limonov: The Ballad.—IBWR PS: Evgenia recently wrote about Limonov’s prophetic view of Russian politics.PPS: The song in the intro/outro is Apple Orchard (Яблонный сад).

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comFor this anti-vamp stream from my newly established basement studio, I’m joined by internet by Brian Merchant, author of the wonderful book Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech. It’s a book about the rise and fall of the Luddites, a decentralized 19th movement of English textile workers against factories and the centralization of power. We talk about the history and politics of the Luddite movement and how the conditions they faced are not that different from what we all face today. Eventually, the Luddite insurgency was crushed by a military force larger than the one England sent to fight Napoleon, which was happening at the same time. The history of this rebellion was erased, the state and its factory owners won, and the term “luddite” became synonymous with ignorance and laziness — any opposition to tech was branded as crazy and stupid. At the same time the Luddites were a huge cultural power, inspiring the Romantic movement and launching the sci-fi genre with works like Frankenstein. Of course, in the end, the Luddites were right. We’re all Luddites now, whether we realize it or not. Watch and/or listen…and buy Brian’s book! Yasha * * *I’ll be talking to people about the internet and the tech that’s destroying our minds and destroying our world — as part of my research for Vampire Valley. Live streams are available to the public but recorded streams are only available to subscribers. Reminder: If you give $100 or more to Vampire Valley, you will automatically get an annual sub. If you want to give a larger tax-deductible donation, get in touch with us at [email protected]

We record this on President’s Day to talk about the slop machine we all now inhabit and how all internet culture is an abusive psyop meant to keep us tethered and addicted and pacified. Everyone knows this. But few of us can escape.Sam Kriss, slop merchant to the overly educated, makes an appearance in our talk. We also discuss how America’s ruling class hasn’t just psyoped the masses with this feedback loop tech — they’ve pysoped themselves, too. They’re just as confused and powerless as the rest of us. Everyone is looking for a strong leader type that hasn’t fallen victim to this feedback loop psyop — which is maybe why Xi has so many fans out there.***Help Yasha’s crusade against the internet vampires that feed on us. Make a contribution (including a tax deductible one) to Vampire Valley today!*** This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe talk about how the Jeffrey Epstein scandal/spectacle fits into the larger context of American decline and collapse. And Evgenia explains how normalized all the Epstein revelations are to someone like her who grew up in 1990s Russia — a collapsed society that ran (and still does) on “Epstein ethics” and where living an Epstein-lite life became democratized and within reach of many men.Among topics addressed: how Epstein is not some demonic force but a function of a massively unequal society with extremely bored and overfed elites, how social context creates sociopathy and breeds objectification, Alexei Yurchak and Hypernormalization, Mark Ames’s “The Life and Murder of Anna Loginova”, Fellini’s Satyricon, Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut…and more.Subscribe to listen! Want to know more? Without realizing it, we did two Christmas Special episodes on Jeffrey Epstein — one in 2021 and in 2025. Christmas Special: Ghost of Epstein and Epstein Christmas Special ft. Vampire Valley… See how our views changed over the years.

We recorded most of this from inside a banya on New Year’s Eve in San Francisco as a rainstorm raged outside. We had to pause several times because the heat was making us woozy, but we persevered and held it together. As promised we are now releasing the ep…Among the topics discussed: influencerism, Olivia Nuzzi and Yasha’s stories about briefly working with her at the start of her career, the cultural emptiness of artificial intelligence, Luddites, the growing importance of controlling distribution channels as filmmaking technology gets cheaper and cheaper, August Lamm and the limitations of the anti-tech flip phone movement…and a lot more. You also get to enjoy authentic sounds of the banya: moans and grunts, water hissing at it hits hot rocks, complaints and bickering. Have a great 2026! С лёгким паром!If you are in the Bay Area, come out to our event tomorrow in SF: INTERNET JUNKIE ANONYMOUS! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe dial in on Christmas Day from sleeping gas San Francisco to talk about the two-day power outage (caused by Yasha psi powers), CIA mind control, the Luddites, Trump’s holiday Epstein file dump, Eyes Wide Shut and Kubrick, Russia, Marquis de Sade…Happy Holidays! DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS PODCAST. SPEND TIME WITH YOUR FAMILY AND LOVED ONES INSTEAD.PS: We’ll be holding a live event in SF on Jan 4 to talk about Vampire Valley, the internet as a pacification project, and the spectacle that’s grinding us all down. More info coming soon! And, as always, contribute to Yasha’s film. He can’t make it without your help!

We dial in to talk about my Silicon Valley Soviet immigrant tech bro origins story, my early anti-tech documentary attempts, and the anti-Silicon Valley series I’m making now — Vampire Valley. I’m raising money for the doc right now. So pitch in if you have some extra cash!As we discuss, looking back on it now, there was pretty much no way that the internet would not have turned into the parasitic technology that it is today. On the one hand, it was a tech that had been built by the Pentagon for technocratic control — to surveil, predict, and manage populations. On the other, it was commercialized inside a hyper-consumerist society in the grips of neoliberalism and deregulation, a society that was already full of manipulative marketing techniques and propaganda, managed through an increasingly centralized mass media. So it’s no wonder that when these two systems collided in America in the 1990s, the worst of all possible worlds emerged — the internet that we all inhabit today. —YashaPS: We’re also planning a surprise event in San Francisco in a few weeks. We’ll have more info on that soon. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe went to a private preview of Cover-Up, the new Sy Hersh documentary that comes out next month, and stayed for a Q&A with Laura Poitras, its director. In this ep we give our honest appraisal of the film. And, sadly, it’s not a positive one. There are a lot of problems with the film — overproduced yet clunky, boring, superficial, intellectually not there at all, very Wikipedia-like, and with an outdated pre-Trump America feel to it. But perhaps its main crime is that it wasted an opportunity to talk to Hersh about the mythology of journalism in America and journalism’s ultimate lack of power. He spent his entire life exposing secrets — the My Lai Massacre, the CIA’s Operation CHAOS, torture at Abu Ghraib — and yet in that same span of time, America kept getting worse and more corrupt and unequal and more violent and more unaccountable. We’re at point where journalism doesn’t matter at all. And so what good was all his journalism? Was it just a game? Entertainment? A way to pass the time and make a living? A path to fame? A relief valve for society? None of the problems with the film are Sy Hersh’s fault. It seems like he actually gets it. The problem is that Laura Poitras is just not that bright. I guess you could say there is an unintended message in this film and it’s this: Information by itself is not power. You need organization to turn information into power, and journalism by itself does not provide that. At the end of the ep we discuss a Laura Poitras scandal that few know about. It includes her, Jacob Appelbaum, Julian Assange, a very expensive mattress in Berlin, and her documentary Risk. —YashaPS: We discussed the mattress scandal in detail in a previous episode: Triple Threat: Julian Assange. PPS: We also previously reviewed The Beauty And The Bloodshed, a Laura Poitras doc about Nan Goldin and her fight against the highly respected Sackler family, which is actually quite good.

Posting the Q&A Will Menaker and I did after Pistachio Wars screened in NYC’s Roxy Cinema on November 6th, 2025. Chinatown made flesh, insane consumerism, our dead ender industrial civilization, people worked to death so that a few can live in Beverly Hills... Watch Pistachio Wars first and then listen to our discussion. Film’s streaming now on your favorite oligarchic platform!—Yasha---If you’re in New York this weekend, make sure you come out to our talk/book discussion on AI and the politics of technology. Music by Michelle Shocked!This Sunday at the KGB BAR in NYC. 7pm! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

We get back into our old groove of recording right before bed. We talk movies. Specifically we talk about the horrible, senile sequel to the genius original Spinal Tap. Nobody asked for this film. Nobody wanted this film. And really, you can barely call it “a film.” It shouldn’t exist. Should never have been made. Evgenia discusses Christopher Guest’s pioneering approach to filmmaking and goes deep on his aristocratic background (he is a baron), discussing how his comedic interests are always about looking down: he satirizes the bumbling middle class while treating his own English aristocratic social strata seriously and respectfully.PS: We also talk about dumb AI, influencers doing MMA cage fights, and more…PPS: If you are in Oakland, LA, or NYC come out to Yasha’s Pistachio War screenings. SUPPORT THE ARTS! SUBSCRIBE! Want to know more? Read Evgenia’s essay about art and senility. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

We come back from our break to do some light but cutting literary gossip and criticism. Our focus: the millennial essayist Sam Kriss. Kriss is one of the last erudite men of letters and blesses us all with his uber long Substack pieces that weave medieval history and current politics and go for tens of thousands words. Brevity is soul of the wit, as some dead British guy said. But to Kriss verbosity is essential — he needs to make his readers so confused and overwhelmed and so stuffed with facts and obscure tangents that they end up being convinced this is the work of inexplicable genius rather than a product of an insecure over-educated empty vessel. Enjoy the episode. Subscribe to NEFARIOUS RUSSIANS. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe’re posting part two of our conversation with Dmitriy Khvorostov (aka Artur Dugin, son of Alexander Dugin) about politics, art, and culture in Russia today — specifically we discuss what Russian traditionalists think about America’s new right. If you missed part one, you can listen to it here: Sovereign Art.

We had a small 35th anniversary screening of Ghost at Kingston last Saturday and I had a talk with Bruce Joel Rubin, who wrote the screenplay and won an Oscar for it. The movie was the biggest box office hit in 1990 even though it was an original screenplay and a story that was both melodramatic, funny, scary, and spiritual at the same time. “Just like life,” as Bruce would say. It’d be hard to imagine a movie like that would be noticed today or even made when every movie has to be a remake of a new installment of an existing franchise. Bruce also wrote Jacob’s Ladder, which was filmed at the exact same time in New York as Ghost and came out the same year, too. They are in a way the same story, just different manifestations of it. —EvgeniaPS: There was a problem with recording the audio at the event so I’m using my iPhone recording here instead. It starts about a minute into the talk. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

A YASHA LEVINE VAMPIRE CASTLE TRANSMISSION With the Charlie Kirk assassination, political influencers are freaking out. It’s dawning on them that the Spectacle is not just an abstract entity. They’re realizing deep down inside that all the hate and misery they pump out into the Spectacle can be made flesh. And that this flesh can be killed. And that this flesh can be theirs.I wrote about this yesterday but since no one reads anymore, I decided to record a video from the safety of my bathroom. As always, remember:DON’T SHARE.DON’T SUBSCRIBE.GET OFF YOUR MACHINES.—Yasha This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe dial Moscow to talk to art curator and philosopher Dmitriy Khvorostov (aka Artur Dugin, son of Alexander Dugin) about art in Russia and about current attempts by Russians to find a new sovereign identity after the war and their rupture with the west. You can follow Dmitriy on Telegram at Sovereign Art.PS: This is part one of a two-part conversation. The second half — about what Russian traditionalists think about America’s new right — will be posted soon.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe put on our matching army green outfits to talk to Ori Goldberg — a former academic and a dissident Israeli — about what it’s like to live in a society as it commits genocide. (Spoiler alert: They’re mostly fine with it. Ori thinks maybe one out of a hundred Israelis opposes the slaughter in Gaza.)—Yasha

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe had filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov on again to talk Russian politics in the age of war and global realignment. Does the “Russian Idea” have anything to offer? Is there something there that’s unique? Can the Russian people be convinced to be enthusiastic about a centralized capitalism?Andrei was recently arrested and bizarrely held in detention for several months for accidentally filming in front of an FSB building. We had him on before to talk about Russian politics and culture. Check out our eps: History's Revenge and Tarkovsky, a Soviet artist. And be sure to check out Andrei’s great films, including his doc Case and The Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes. This last film caused a huge scandal in America and Europe and was the focus of a long and sleazy largely successful attempt by Bill Browder to smear Andrei and to censor the film. Watch it online here.—YashaSome notes…* Evgenia and I recently talked about her time in Moscow and her thoughts on what to her feels like the dawn of a new era for Russian society.* The “codex” for a new Russia Evgenia mentioned can be read about here.* Evgenia talked about syncretism being attempted in Russia, including bringing together Soviet and Russian Orthodox iconography…like in the new Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces. Here are some photos:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe have a great time chatting with historian Greg Grandin about the end of the American Myth, collapse, America’s war against itself, Clinton and MAGA, how the USSR propped up the social welfare state both in America and Europe, toxic nationalism vs universal nationalism, individualism under capitalism vs communism, Israel…and a bunch of other things that are on our minds. Greg is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian at Yale. Buy his latest book: “America, América: A New History of the New World.”

Been thinking about the Vampire Castle that is the internet and how we’re being drained by information, so I sat down to talk about it a bit.I come across people all the time who can’t read anymore, are revolted by screens, made sick by technology, their minds overstimulated, groaning under the weight of news and shows and infinite content…and yet they still can’t log off. Few of us can. We can’t escape. It is the Vampire Castle, after all. But something has to change. We need new values and a new culture that rejects this impulse to be plugged in, to hoard info…because when we’re plugged in, the vampires feed on us. That’s what the Vampire Castle is for. We need to exit the Vampire Castle — and to exit it more radically than Mark Fisher imagined. It has to be a physical exit, not a symbolic one.—YashaSAY NO TO THE VAMPIRE CASTLE, SUBSCRIBE TO NEFARIOUS RUSSIANS This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

Evgenia joins me on the phone from the Duchy of Moscow for a late night convo about what’s happening in Russia and about what to her feels like the dawn of a new era for Russian society. You heard it here first…Sooner or later, for better or worse, a real monarchy is coming to the Russian Federation.—YashaVintage Lenin for sale This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

We talk to Andrew Kay about the political and cultural aspects of psychiatric disorders — looking specifically at how OCD has gone mainstream because of the kind of society in which we live.We start by talking about Andrew’s great Harper’s essay in which he chronicles his own struggles with OCD and recounts his participation in an OCD convention in San Francisco — where participants paid good money to, among other things, cure their OCD by hugging a homeless man and dumpster driving. And then we go into all sorts of related things: Puritanism and the religious quality of living with OCD, the effect of suburbs and the internet and social alienation on mental health, the totalitarian nature of modern American psychology (if you’re not happy with the way things are, you must be crazy and need be pumped full of pills) and how this compares with the Soviet practice of institutionalizing dissidents in psych wards, the role the Pentagon played in shaping our concept of the mind, my own self-diagnosis of ADHD and pill regimen…Take a listen. And read more stuff by Andrew Kay.—YashaPS: I wrote about how social media has made as all OCD a few weeks before we talked to Andrew. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe got out of bed to talk to Rania Khalek — who joined us from Beirut. What started this conversation was an offhand remark Rania made about how living in Lebanon, a country that is being attacked and invaded, is less stressful than being in America, where it seems everyone seems on edge and nervous and ready to snap. Why is that? From that discussion, we get into all sorts of things — what’s ailing America today, Rania’s childhood in DC and her experience with post-9/11 racism against anyone who vaguely looked Muslim, the power of American culture abroad, the internalized self-orientalism among the Lebanese (and Russians, too), parasitic Western non-profit expats (and journalists) f*****g their way through Beirut, Israel’s sadistic war on Palestine, the hardcore alienation in American society, self-care, seed oils…and a lot more. —YashaPS: Check out Rania’s show. (She had me on last month to talk about Silicon Valley and Gaza.)

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comIf you missed it this morning, here is a recording of our first book club livestream/chat about Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep — about how Philip K. Dick is a philosopher-prophet of our technological age who just so happened to have worked in the pulp sci-fi format and how the novel is a metaphor for the central struggle happening in our world: the fight between the empaths and the sociopaths…between the humans and the androids. —YashaPS: You can still hop on the chat to continue discussing this with each other and us. PPS: We’ll be selecting another book soon for next month’s discussion.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe do some pillow talk about Iran — discussing the year Evgenia spent going native in Tehran, her education as an “Iranist,” and about her experiences and her thoughts on a society that America and Israel now want to obliterate. Most people in the west know next to nothing about Iran and picture it is some kind of barbaric repressive society full of terrorists. Iran is obviously not that. But this ignorance makes it easy to sell people a war.—YashaCome to the next NEFARIOUS RUSSIANS LIVE! NYC. June 22. Get your tickets today!We recorded this on the night of Monday June 16.

We lie in bed, do pillow talk about our attempt to put a pie in Curtis Yarvin’s face and the cowardice of today’s media personalities — and how all fights are purely online now, no one does anything in real life. We also discuss the degeneration of the Red Scare women — who went from being genuinely popular and open to how they are now: keeping the details of shows secret and only inviting tiny groups of adoring fans to their events. I guess this is what happens when you join the vampires; you skulk like the vampires do.We also get into the recent New Yorker profile of Yarvin — about how liberals have no real answer to the reactionary maximalism that he promote and so all they can do is mock him for being awkward and a nerd, which makes them come off worse than they think. And I riff a bit on the corruption implicit in celebrity profiles like this — with a liberal journalist essentially doing PR for her reactionary subject while supposedly covering him critically and doing a “hit piece.”Then we talk about schools and suburbs and how America is segregated by race…before getting too sleepy to continue.—Yasha*** Come to our live event in NYC later this month on the DEATH OF JOURNALISM. June 22. Get your tickets today! *** This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe talk to John Ganz about how the USA began to unravel in the 1990s, when it no longer had the USSR to keep things in check. This 90s identity crisis has gained momentum and is playing out today with the rise of Donald Trump, the crisis of liberalism, and the push to go back to a pre-New Deal America.  Some of the things we discuss include: The USA and USSR being a single meta political entity, with one influencing the other and both now lurching back to 19th century… Israel as a colonial policeman for America and zionist delusions about Israel’s sovereignty... American liberals and progressives having their own Soviet nostalgia moment… Libertarianism, the conservative movement, Cold War liberalism, and the question of what is the real America… all that and more.Buy John’s book When the Clock Broke and check out his Unpopular Front newsletter.*** Get tix to our live event in NYC! JOURNALISM IS DEAD. WELCOME TO THE AGE OF THE SELF-MADE MEDIA W***E. Sunday, June 22. ***

Joe Costello returns to the show (and joins us in our attic) to talk about how the industrial revolution killed American democracy. Among topics we discuss are: the politics of technology, Trump as pure distilled America, the civilizational similarities between the USA and USSR, how technology changes society and induces amnesia, why the internet didn’t lead to democratization, how the USSR was a good place for dissident culture, the outdated US Constitution, which was created before the rise of the industrial corporation when economic power was very local, and…much, much more.—YashaGet tix to our live event in NYC! JOURNALISM IS DEAD. WELCOME TO THE AGE OF THE SELF-MADE MEDIA W***E. Sunday, June 22.PS: Subscribe to Joe Costello’s newsletter, you won’t regret it. Life in the 21st Century. And check out Joe’s previous appearances on NEFARIOUS RUSSIANS. Save yourself, save the world. Subscribe to NEFARIOUS RUSSIANS. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comJohn Dolan (aka the infamous War Nerd) joins us to talk about Philip K. Dick. Some of the topics we discuss: what first got John into Russian culture, sci-fi, growing up in California during America’s golden age, PKD as the 20th century Kafka, American decline, how Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner compares to the original Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, drugs, Gene Wolfe, Jack Vance…and more, including John’s top PKD picks. Subscribe and listen!

We talk to novelist Nick McDonell — whose wonderful book Quiet Street recently reviewed — about his life among the most privileged people on the planet: the Park Avenue set. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe talk to Oliver Bateman about how body building culture, with the help of the internet, took over the world and helped forge a path to our century of the modified self.

We discuss the Twitter scandal I unwittingly caused by talking about the connection between children and art. What was meant as an offhand remark made people angry beyond belief. The thing, as I find out, is that “kids” are a touchy subject in left-liberal creative circles, largely because America is schizophrenic place where the economic reality and culture are very out of sync. As I recently wrote, liberal feminism here liberated women to work and have sex freely, yet motherhood has remained a private matter — there is no subsidized childcare, no maternity leave, no universal healthcare, and all things related to childrearing remain largely unchanged from the 1950s and this has only gotten worse because of how expensive everything has become and how little wages have grown. I keep saying how I increasingly feel like I come form the future — not just in terms of growing up in post-collapse 90s Russia, but also in terms of having Soviet expectations as a woman that are way beyond what American feminists had won here. I grew up with the idea that you can be a mother and a woman and have a career or an art life and be independent of the earning capability of your husband because of things like socialized childcare, healthcare, and leisure activities for kids. It might sound utopian, but all this existed in the USSR and has remained somewhat in place in Russia today. Where I come from — the future — women were fully liberated in 1917…liberated in ways that America still has not reached today. What I’m learning is that at its core America is a profoundly conservative and backwards place that hides this conservatism by peppering it with various cultural freedoms and psyops, slogans and PR spins.Yasha and I discuss how this reality is at the core of the backlash against my tweets. Many people have been convinced they don’t want children, but really they were robbed of the chance at being parents or have been forced to delay it indefinitely. They’re touchy about it and are lashing out. —Evgenia This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe have Branko Milanovic, an economist born in Yugoslavia, on to talk about class and inequality in the USSR. How was power transmitted across generations, if inheritance was abolished? Why did the Soviet Union collapse? One takeaway message: Want more social mobility? Time to do some purges! —YashaBranko probably doesn’t need any introduction. If you’ve never read him, check out his great commentary and essays.

We discuss Evgenia’s essay on Too Hot To Work. Some of the things we talk about are: the crisis of liberal feminism, incels under communism, how socialism is actually good for women and men, the unattractiveness of plastic surgery…and more. —YashaSubscribe to NEFARIOUS RUSSIANS and help yourself thrive in these uncertain times. As always, check out some of Evgenia’s other essays: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe recorded this ep on the centennial anniversary of the Great Gatsby but end up having a wide-ranging convo about culture, religion and politics — people’s obsession with the hereditary rich, the difference between religious vs secular values, meeting Todd Solondz and his vision of what life is like in the suburbs, MAGA and the Great Gatsby, Evgenia’s pre-cog abilities and her epiphany that cinema is a form of religion for her, Soviet morality as Christianity without the metaphysics, having children as the ultimate anti-consumerist act…and more. —Yasha

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comAs promised here’s the live taping of our AGAINST NIHILISM event at the KGB Bar — as a bonus for our subscribers. Don’t worry if you couldn’t make it this time. We’re planning to have another one sometime in the summer. Thanks to everyone who came out. It was great to spend the evening with you all in person. —YashaPS: Thank you to Daniel and Rowan for the photos and for helping us run the show.

We talk to poet and stand-up comedian Joshua Turek about today’s cultural and political crisis and ways to deal with it. We get into Joshua’s journey from child actor to screenwriter to TikTok star and his escape from LA, and wonder how to use this evil internet as a force for good. —EvgeniaYou can get Joshua’s poetry book directly from him here. He’s got an American comedy tour this summer, so get your tickets before they sell out. And of course check him out on TikTok. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

We talk to our friend Joe Costello about Trump’s tariffs, democracy, deindustrialization, the Yeltsinification of America, and the innate human desire for a communal life… We discuss globalization, why being against it has been such a political taboo until Trump, and why these tariffs will probably ultimately fail. We are not the 1950s anymore, when America was the sole industrial world power. This place can never return to what it was. The world has changed. Trump thought he could force things — but with typical American arrogance, he didn’t think that America might not be as powerful as it once was, or that its financial system has been teetering on the edge, held up by toxic over-leveraged debt… Now he’s finding out that the system is a lot more fragile than anyone would admit. Joe has unique insights into American politics. He’s self-taught and naturally brilliant and has in the past helped run some very big American political campaigns — including the presidential runs of Jerry Brown and Howard Dean. As part of that work, he intersected with Peter Nevarro, a big anti-globalist guy who has been shaping Trump’s tariff blitz against China and who used to be an environmentalist NIMBY in San Diego. If you’ve been following the news, Nevarro has been a constant presence on TV, defending Trump’s tariffs. He’s been dunked on by the business press and also had Elon Musk unloading on him on social media, calling Nevarro a retard, a moron, and “dumber than a sack of bricks”… So Nevarro is a man at the center of global, consensus-shattering events.We last spoke to Joe about three years ago about his work on the politics of technology. And we highly recommend his new newsletter, where he writes about many of the things we talk about in this ep. —YashaDon’t forget to come to our AGAINST NIHILISM LIVE! event in NYC. This Sunday, April 13th!Some notes…Wanted to give some links to a couple of things Joe mentioned in the ep: “The Ages of Jackson” by Arthur Schlesinger Jr. And the just-declassified Schlesinger memo to JFK about the need to get rid of the CIA. And some talks by J. Robert Oppenheimer: Lecture at the Princeton Theological Seminary, Lecture at Colorado University, and one on Analogy and Science.Join the NEFARIOUS RUSSIANS, save the world! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

People compare Trump to Hitler or to Putin. But for us the closest historical comparison is Boris Yeltsin. So today we talk to Jacob Silverman about Trump’s shitcoins and other crypto schemes because they remind us so much of 1990s Russia and Yeltsin’s family corrupt deals. Back then in Russia, like with America today, corruption and looting happened right out in the open, with regular people scammed in all sorts of ways — ponzi schemes, illegal privatization of public property, looting of institutions, pensions devalued. The scammers at the top did it brazenly and without a care, and enriched Yeltsin’s family in the process. It bred a deep nihilism among regular people and it caused a total collapse of their belief in democracy, which they associated with ruin and corruption. Dermokratiya people called it — shitocracy. Kinda like what’s happening here in America today. Like Evgenia says, we are from your future. —YashaPS: Don’t forget to preorder Jacob’s book Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley.Get access to all episodes, subscribe to NEFARIOUS RUSSIANS today! Want to know more? Listen to our series on nihilism and America: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comEvgenia and I talk to Will Menaker about the left-right whiplash of the post-Bernie years. Nihilism, idealism, optimism, the politics of winning, the cultural unity of America’s bipartisan politics, a psychoanalysis of the American beta-bully mindset…we discuss it all.Take a listen! —YashaCome to our AGAINST NIHILISM LIVE! event in NYC on April 13th.Want to know more? Read Evgenia’s hit essay “Against Nihilism” and listen to our ongoing series…

We talk with Alexander Melamid, the most famous Soviet-American artist of his generation. He moved to NYC in late 1970s after being an underground artist in Moscow for a decade — part of the creative duo Komar & Melamid.He was a success in the NY art world overnight and knew Warhol and everyone who is anyone in the art scene back in the day. Since then he’s lost his optimistic naivete about art but has kept his High Priest of the Art Church status and has been trying to destroy the art world from within — denouncing it, calling modern art senile, and saying artists are welfare queens. He believes it’s not money that corrupted art — it’s the artist who wanted money, and got it. His advice to young artists is to get the hell out of the profession and he suggests creating reeducation camps for them to become plumbers. Alexander is full of great one liners — “hubris is the definition of our profession,” “trump is the artist in chief”…Enjoy the show.—EvgeniaSubscribe to NEFARIOUS RUSSIANS today! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe talk to our friend Mark Ames about nihilism, cynicism, culture wars, Red Scare, Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, Russia of the 1990s, and the vibe shifts of America’s political culture — from punk to the podcasts of today. —YashaWant to know more? Read Evgenia’s hit essay “Against Nihilism” and listen to our ongoing series…