A Memory Of Information Vacuum: Russia In August 1991

In this long essay, published last month, Mikhail Kaluzhskiy, one of the Open Democracy editors, remembers the days of the "putsch" of August 1991 — the failed coup that eventually led to the dissolution of the USSR. It is a fascinating account of how most Soviet citizens felt during those few summer days: clinging to the wireless, and attempting to get any possible information, from any possible source. Given the disarray that the country was plunged into, that wasn't easy. The TV was useless — the putschists had taken over the federal network, and all it showed was "Swan Lake" ballet. The public had to turn to the tried and tested means of catching foreign stations like Radio Liberty and BBC on the wireless (a banned practice until 1989).

"The situation with Novosibirsk’s local media was unclear, and this lack of clarity was the natural extension of the country’s political chaos. The Novosibirsk city council said it supported Yeltsin, refused to obey the putschists and flew the Russian tricolor flag over city hall. The regional council asked everyone to stay calm and said that the harvest was what was really important now. Two newspapers, the Komsomol’s Youth of Siberia and the independent Siberian newspaper decided to come out with special joint publications to inform people on what was happening, but the printing house, which belonged to regional and party leadership, refused to print them."

Every family has a memory like that: my mother and grandfather, for example, being stuck in a tiny town in the north of Russia, were lucky to catch the BBC on the wireless (and kindly shared the news by writing it on bits of paper and gluing them to the local noticeboard). Today, an information vacuum like that is hardly imaginable — but stories like that are worth reading to remember how valuable access to the news really is.