28 March 2024 by Teresa Cherfas Welcome to the seventeenth edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas.  Our guest today is Zoia Svetova, renowned journalist and human rights activist. She continues to live and work in Moscow.  She is the author of several books, including Priznat’ nevinovnogo vinovnym [To Find the Innocent Guilty]. Her voice is perhaps one of the few authoritative oppositionist voices still heard in Russia today.   This podcast was recorded on 26 March 2024. You can also listen to the podcast here: Y ..read more

25 February 2024 by Teresa Cherfas Welcome to the sixteenth edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas.  We are still in shock at the news of the murder of Aleksei Navalny in a high-security penal colony in the settlement of Kharp.  Aleksei Navalny’s political star rose as a leader of the opposition to the Putin regime in 2011.  That year, 2011, played a significant part in the  political coming of age of  today’s guest – Anastasia Burakova, a Russian human rights lawyer and activist for democratic change in Russia ..read more

12 February 2024 by Teresa Cherfas Welcome to the fifteenth edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas.  My guest today is Anna Karetnikova. Until recently, Anna Karetnikova lived and worked in Moscow.  In 2016, she was appointed lead analyst to the Federal Penitentiary Service – FSIN. Prior to that, she served for eight years as a member of the Public Oversight Commission (POC) in Moscow and worked closely with the human rights organisation “Memorial”. Anna Karetnikova exemplified that rare combination in Russia of someone who was ..read more

9 January 2024 by Teresa Cherfas Welcome to the fourteenth of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas.  Aleksandr Pichugin & Mamuka Kuparadze My guests today are Mamuka Kuparadze, founder of Studio Re in Tbilisi, which works to promote ‘grassroots diplomacy’ through documentary film, and Aleksandr Pichugin, a Russian journalist, originally from Nizhny Novgorod, who left Russia with his family to start a new life in Tbilisi immediately after the announcement of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, th ..read more

24 December 2023 by Teresa Cherfas Welcome to the thirteenth edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas.  My guest today is Lev Aleksandrovich Ponomarev. Lev Ponomarev trained and worked as a physicist in the USSR before devoting more time and energy to issues of human rights in the Soviet Union and subsequently in the Russian Federation. He was one of the founders of  « Memorial » in 1988, and soon became one of the foremost figures  in human rights in Russia. In the dying days of perestroika, Lev Ponomarev went into politics ..read more

4 December 2023 by Teresa Cherfas Welcome to the twelfth edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas.  My guest today is Natalya Zyagina, head of the Moscow branch of Amnesty International, which was shut down by the Russian authorities in 2022. Natalya Zvyagina has a long record as a Russian human rights activist. She is originally from the city of Voronezh, where she worked for many years in the Interregional Human Rights Group. Natalya has also worked at the Institute for Law and Public Policy, a non-profit organization based in Mosco ..read more

17 August 2023 by Teresa Cherfas Welcome to the tenth edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas.  My guest today is the author Maxim Osipov.  Following in the great Russian tradition of Chekhov and Bulgakov, he has pursued a career in medicine in parallel with that of a writer.  For his works of fiction – for the most part short stories that are sharp and witty commentaries on modern-day life in the Russian provinces – Maxim Osipov has won a number of literary prizes, and his plays have been staged as well as broadcast on the ..read more

25 July 2023 by Teresa Cherfas Welcome to the ninth edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas.  My guest today is Tetyana Sokolova, a professional midwife of 40 years at Mariupol Maternity Hospital No. 2, on the left bank of Mariupol near Azovstal, the industrial plant that became a centre of resistance against the Russian invaders.  On 9 March, the city’s Maternity Hospital No. 3 was bombed by Russian aircraft and the whole world watched with horror p ..read more

25 February 2024 by Teresa Cherfas Welcome to the sixteenth edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas.  We are still in shock at the news of the murder of Aleksei Navalny in a high-security penal colony in the settlement of Kharp.  Aleksei Navalny’s political star rose as a leader of the opposition to the Putin regime in 2011.  That year, 2011, played a significant part in the  political coming of age of  today’s guest – Anastasia Burakova, a Russian human rights lawyer and activist for democratic change in Russia ..read more

12 February 2024 by Teresa Cherfas Welcome to the fifteenth edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas.  My guest today is Anna Karetnikova. Until recently, Anna Karetnikova lived and worked in Moscow, where, in 2016, she had been appointed lead analyst for the Federal Penitentiary Service – FSIN. Prior to that, for eight years she had been a member of the Public Oversight Commission (POC) for Moscow and had worked closely with the human rights organization Memorial. Anna Karetnikova is a rare person – someone who has combined her work ..read more