Giuliano Vivaldi

Russia's deeply unsuccessful Matryoshka fake news campaign has now started using Cameo videos to deepfake the voices of celebrities, here's a few examples featuring Bruce Boxleitner, Dolph Lundgren, David Yost, and Neil Newborn.

Admissions that the UK government knows that Israel has committed war crimes. It needs now to publish its full assessment and then be held to account for its support for Israel.

Musei Kino, Krasnopresnenskaya District, Moscow. Russia's missing 1968.

A rather nostalgic substack post on Moscow's Musei Kino in the Krasnopresnenskaya District. Closed down in late 2005, I try to share some of my memories of this legendary place. Its closure, alas, provoked no 1968 unlike in France. giulianovivaldi1.substack.com/p/musei-kino...

European alternatives to Visa and Mastercard ‘urgently’ needed, says banking chief US payment processing companies account for about two-thirds of card transactions in Eurozone

It's quite something to see EU bankers begin to say the same sorts of things about Visa and Mastercard and payment processing that Russian bankers were saying from about 2010 onwards www.ft.com/content/fcc2...

Watching Chantal Akerman's D'Est. Moscow's Yugo-Zapadnaya. Filmic parallels Akerman, Muratova, German Sr, Khutsiev. Memories embodied

Several nights ago I watched Chantal Akerman's D'Est. A strange culmination of a period in my life watching Russian and Post-Soviet cinema almost exclusively. Here are some thoughts on the film's partly Moscow topography and its filming of crowds: giulianovivaldi1.substack.com/p/watching-c...

My discovery and rediscoveries of Stepan Erzia. A Mordvin Sculptor at the Heart of my Topological World.

A new substack post on my fascination for the Mordvin sculptor Stepan Erzia who I keep discovering and rediscovering. He turns up everywhere in my mythical topography (Saransk, Moscow, Buenos Aires & Levanto). I even translated a film script about him. giulianovivaldi1.substack.com/p/my-discove...

A substack piece on a citation returning to one's mind after decades, the topography of my fascination with Roberto Arlt and the difficulty of writing about a topos one has been cut off from, remembering the host of a Triestine osteria. Disparate notes: giulianovivaldi1.substack.com/p/let-the-eu...

Flowers as Remembrance, Flowers as Resistance? A topography of the laying of flowers in recent Russian history.

Flowers as Remembrance, Flowers as Resistance or Flowers as Renunciation. Reading yesterday on the laying of flowers at 1 Prechistenka Street, I tried to write some words on/towards 'political floral topography' in contemporary Russia: giulianovivaldi1.substack.com/p/flowers-as...

A new post: The Slow Death of Patriarch's Ponds, or how influencers enshitified a neighbourhood open.substack.com/pub/kotelnay...

Russian neo-Nazis claim responsibility for vandalizing memorial to slain journalist Anna Politkovskaya — Meduza The Russian neo-Nazi group National Socialism/White Power (NS/WP) has claimed responsibility for the destruction of a memorial plaque honoring Anna Politkovskaya, the Novaya Gazeta journalist who was…

A Russian neo-Nazi group has claimed responsibility for the destruction of a memorial plaque honoring Anna Politkovskaya, the Novaya Gazeta journalist who was assassinated in 2006.
meduza.io/en/feature/2...

Events Remembering Stas Markelov and Nastya Baburova. Tverskoy Bulvard to 1 Prechistenka Street/ Griboyedov Monument, Chistiye Prudi.

Several thoughts on events in Moscow commemorating Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova since 2009. It is part of a new blog on memories and places. I am trying to write something on the topography of the marches that take place annually on January 19. open.substack.com/pub/giuliano...

Places, Encounters and Connections. Notes Towards My Automythopsychogeobiography.

Have decided to post some things on Substack. It aims to be where I will post my thoughts on places and both real and immaginary accounts in these locations: giulianovivaldi1.substack.com/p/places-enc...

Here are some brief preliminary thoughts on this larger project which as I say has the risk of being over solipsistic: elektrichkalandreloaded.blogspot.com/2026/01/subs...

I have started to think about how I can somehow transform an old project into something else. My rather solipsistic idea is to somehow subsume it under a larger project on places which have had some effect upon me. I call it my Automythopsychogeography (apologies to Enrico Baj).

Please join us Thurs 20 Nov, 7pm, to launch this book: English translations of speeches in court by anti-war protesters in Russia. We want to ensure their voices are heard more widely in the English-speaking world. At Pelican House in London, also livestreamed. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/try-me-for...

Great to see our book, Voices Against Putin's War, in the front window at @housmansbookshop.bsky.social. @ensu-resu.bsky.social @ukrainesol.bsky.social

Raging Against Vladimir Putin’s War Machine In Russia and occupied Ukraine, many thousands of civilians have been jailed or forcibly disappeared for speaking out against the invasion. The numbers reflect a crackdown on dissent worse than at any...

jacobin.com/2025/10/puti...

This is a great favourite of mine &, I am pleased to say, it is a view that Elwin Hawthorne would still recognise to this day! This is "Reconstruction at Saltdean" by him from 1934. #ElwinHawthorne #Saltdean #Sussex #EastLondonGroup #MondayMorning

What I said at the Solidarity With Ukraine event in Brussels on Wednesday.

Ukrainian workers, the European Union and war □ An interview with Daria Saburova and Denys Gorbach, by Clement Petitjean, first published in French on the socialist web site Mouvements. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, …

"What challenges does the war present to Ukrainian society & the EU? What tensions & contradictions has it exposed? What changed in the symbolic opposition between the pro-Russian east & pro-European west?" Interview with Daria Saburova & Denys Gorbach.
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/03/18/u...

Ruslan Siddiqi: “You Could Call Me a Partisan” Ruslan Siddiqi's account of his lonely struggle against the genocidal Russian war machine and his torture at the hands of the FSB. Thanks to Mediazona for the original publication, Giuliano Vivaldi for the stellar translation, and Simon Pirani for organizing our joint publication of Giuliano's translation. It makes particularly poignant reading in a country now beset by a pro-Putin, anti-Ukrainian administration.

Russian anarchist Ruslan Siddiqi's own account of his lonely attempt to interfere with the genocidal Russian war machine and his torture at the hands of the FSB.

‘You could call me a partisan.’ Ruslan Siddiqi recounts his anti-war actions. A Russian and Italian citizen, an electrician from [the Russian city of] Ryazan, an industrial tourist, a bike traveller, an anarchist and a partisan – all this can be said about 36-year-old Ruslan…

I have reposted my translation of Ruslan Siddiqi's words on my old Afoniya blog. I would really welcome other websites to repost this important testimony on their sites. It also gives advice on how people can support one of Russia's bravest partisans: afoniya.wordpress.com/2025/02/20/y...

‘You could call me a partisan.’ Ruslan Siddiqi recounts his anti-war actions A Russian and Italian citizen, an electrician from [the Russian city of] Ryazan, an industrial tourist, a bike traveller, an anarchist and a partisan – all this can be said about 36-year-old Ruslan…

Ruslan Siddiki's words have appeared in my translation for the People and Nature website.We must not forget the brave resisters in Russia who have used direct action to sabotage the war. For me Siddiki is a noble heir of European partisans of the 1940s: peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/02/19/y...

E' vitale che Ruslan Sidiqi un italo-russo venga appoggiato con una grande campagna di solidarietà in Italia. Si è parlato (e giustamente) di Cecilia Sala e di Ilaria Salas e grazie a diverse forme di pressione sono state liberate. Anche il partigiano anarchico Ruslan Sidiqi è degna di solidarietà.

Darya Apahonchich: The Accusative Case Yesterday, exiled Petersburg artist, activist and Russian language teacher Daria Apahonchich was placed on Russia's wanted list. Here she reflects on this outrageous decision's impact on her, and in a story she published last summer, she recalls how her pre-exile work teaching Russian to migrant workers and refugees got her in trouble with the authorities.

Yesterday, exiled Petersburg artist, activist and Russian language teacher Daria Apahonchich was placed on Russia's wanted list. Here she reflects on this decision's impact on her, and in a story published last summer, she recalls how teaching Russian to migrant workers got her in trouble.

In memory of Odesa's satirist, Valeriy Khait, who I met in 2011 at the city's Literature Festival and who passed away yesterday.

A personal favourite item on the Walking Museum to the Spanish Civil War. 1938 fundraising stamp from Denmark: Milk for the Spanish Children, issued by social democratic foundation set up to aid political refugees from fascism, named after Italian socialist Giacomo Matteotti murdered in 1924

Aleksandr Skobov tells Russian court: ‘Putin’s dictatorship must be routed militarily’ The closing statement to the Petersburg military court in Russia, made last week by the historian and political activist Aleksandr Skobov, in his trial on charges of publicly condoning terrorism an…

Skobov, twice incarcerated in Soviet times as a socialist dissident, behind bars again. Of the Kremlin's rulers, he told the judge: "Murdering hundreds of 000s of people is how they bolster their self-esteem. They are degenerates, scum, Nazi riffraff." peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/01/21/a...

19 January Anastasia Baburova and Stanislav Markelov Memorial Day

16 years ago, Novaya Gazeta journalist Anastasia Baburova and lawyer Stanislav Markelov, who was defending political activists, including members of the antifascist movement, were shot dead in the centre of Moscow on Prechistenka Street.

Of Oars and Fountains: The Peripatetic Dialectics of my Liguria project. This dialectic of Genoa and its peripheral surroundings still reigns in my thoughts. Partly because out of a kind of unease at a pro...

Another (eclectic) post in my Santon's Notebook blog on walks through Genoa, urban and rural Liguria, finding a new idea of the 'Rodina' in Pasolini's Versuta and discovering a strange statue in Genoa's Foce district after travelling East for two decades: santonsnotebook.blogspot.com/2025/01/of-o...