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The dramatic fall of communism across Eastern Europe cannot be traced to one event, one decision, or one person. But there was a singular wind of change sweeping across the continent in 1989, blowing down the Iron Curtain, and revealing the public's yearning for freedom. RFE/RL interviewed key players in the drama, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and former Czech President Vaclav Havel, in this look back at the European revolutions of 1989.
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev spoke with RFE/RL Moscow correspondent Lyudmila Telen about his role in the disintegration of the Soviet bloc in 1989 and whether today he feels he made mistakes.
On August 17, a massive blast destroyed a turbine at the Sayano-Shushenskaya power station in Siberia, causing major flooding and killing 75 people. A government report found that years of bad decisions and neglect set the stage for the accident. RFE/RL spoke to the survivors who lost friends and family in the disaster.
Josef Stalin’s name and image once graced the walls of the Moscow metro, but disappeared during the era of de-Stalinization in the 1950s. Now, Stalin is reappearing underground -- just as his reputation is slowly being restored throughout Russia.
Former Czech President Vaclav Havel talks in a wide-ranging RFE/RL interview about what he expects to hear from U.S. Vice President Joe Biden when he visits the Czech Republic this week. The man many credit with leading Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution also talks about Russia and NATO enlargement. The interview was conducted by RFE/RL correspondents Jeremy Bransten and Kathleen Moore.
An entire generation of young Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh is reaching adulthood and watching their world change as momentum builds for a final settlement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. It could mean an end to years of isolation and the return of large numbers of Azerbaijanis displaced by the war.
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev spoke with RFE/RL correspondent Lyudmila Telen at the Moscow offices of his Gorbachev Foundation.
The Laleli market in Istanbul, Turkey is a place were historical hatreds and animosities don't seem to matter. Immigrants from all over the former Soviet Union come sell their wares at the market enjoy each other's company, and seem thankful that in Turkey they can earn enough money to feed their families.
In the 1960s, the Soviet Union pursued its own version of the ill-fated U.S. "Plowshare Project," in which scientists used nuclear bombs for infrastructure work. Soviet officials used a peaceful nuclear explosion to blast out a lake in Kazakhstan. But far from being a benefit to the local residents, many fear that the so-called atomic lake has contaminated their environment.
Every Jewish new year, Rosh Hashana, thousands of Jewish pilgrims come to the Ukrainian town of Uman to dance for joy. Why? Because a famous Jewish rabbi asked them to. Play
Volodymyr Perebyjnis was sent to a Soviet labor camp in 1947 for anticommunist agitation. Today, his relatives have turned to the archives of the Ukrainian Secret Service to shed light on their family history -- and on the repression of the Soviet era.
In a seven-part video series, RFE/RL travels with a group of Tajik migrants making the four-day train journey from Dushanbe to Moscow in search of a better life. In the first part, judo instructor Muhammed Ali and schoolteacher Jamshed Nabiev bid farewell to their families and friends. Migrant Express: Full Series
In a seven-part video series, RFE/RL travels with a group of Tajik migrants making the four-day train journey from Dushanbe to Moscow in search of a better life. In the second part, twenty-eight-year-old farmer Umed spends one last dinner with his family in Tajikistan before the start of the long and difficult journey.
The three-day celebration of Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of Ramadan, has come to an end. Many Muslim families took part in great feasts to break the month of fasting. Gifts are given to children, and for many, it is a holiday filled with great joy.
Rovshan Nasirli, a 25-year-old Azerbaijani, was called to the National Security Ministry on August 12 to explain why he voted for an Armenian song in the televised Eurovision Song Contest in May. The officials said Nasirli’s vote for Armenia – Azerbaijan’s long-time rival -- was a matter of national security.
Iranian Supreme Leader delivered an eagerly awaited address at Friday Prayers at Tehran University on June 19. In it, he signaled a hard line against public protests and strong backing for the country's "legitimate" president, Mahmud Ahmadinejad.
It was 60 years ago, on August 29, 1949, that the Soviet Union first tested its nuclear arsenal. In the first of many tests, an atomic bomb was detonated at the Semipalatinsk test site, which would become a main hub of the arms race over the next 40 years.
Big Brother-like pictures of Chechnya's stocky leader Ramzan Kadyrov hang everywhere in the capital, along with signs of praise and thanks. But as RFE/RL discovered during a recent trip to Grozny, there are signs of deep fear beneath the veneer of devoted optimism.
Some 4,500 illegally built homes stand in the Shanyraq settlement on the outskirts of Almaty, Kazakhstan's biggest city. When authorities decided that those homes should be demolished, there was nothing residents could do.
The Russian Patriarch's controversial visit
Politics and society through a painter's eyes
A place of pilgrimage in Lithuania
Portraits Of Life Under The Tsar At The Start Of The 20th Century
Portraits of survivors of the 2004 tragedy
Ancient Kashgar, a Uyghur city threatened by development
A Czech journalist's hitchhiking tour