Teddy Goes to the USSR

Sean Guillory
Teddy Goes to the USSR

Americans believed the Soviet Union was cut off from the West. Nothing went in. And very little came out. Yet, tens of thousands of Americans visited their Cold War rival annually. What did they find behind the Iron Curtain? Teddy Goes to the USSR, a new six-part podcast series follows one such American, Teddy Roe, to shine light on Soviet tourism, police surveillance, consumerism, race, and everyday life through his extraordinary three-month trip to the Soviet Union in 1968.

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  1. A Gift for Stalin, Part Two: The Accursed Share

    2023/04/10

    A Gift for Stalin, Part Two: The Accursed Share

    It all started with a letter to Stalin in 1935. And when a Kremlin clerk opened it, there was a piece of shit inside. Was the turd an insult? A way of saying to Stalin, “You’re a shit. Here’s some shit”? Perhaps. But I ended Part One of a Gift for Stalin on a different note: that the turd addressed to Stalin was no slight at all. It was, in fact, a gift. A little brown present for Comrade Stalin. Every society must deal with shit. Where to put it. What to do with it. It’s a problem unique to humans. One might even say that it defines us as human. The average person excretes about a half a kilo of crap a day. And left untreated, shit is deadly. About 2.6 billion people live without basic sanitation. And as a result, excrement finds its way onto feet, fingers, food, and into water. Scientists estimate people lacking sanitation ingest about 10 grams of fecal a day. Shit-related illnesses account for about 2.2 million deaths a year. Mostly children from extreme diarrhea.So shit happens. All the time. And dealing with it is a life-or-death situation. But human waste has another history. A circular history. Where human excrement is put back into the cycle of production. And many societies have tried just that. They use human waste as fertilizer. Shit— that is, digested food—is returned to the earth to produce more food. Shit may be filth. It may be poison. But it can’t be denied. Waste is part of life. A Gift for Stalin was written, edited, and produced by Sean Guillory. Voiceovers by Maya Haber and Greg Weinstein. Music by Alvaro Antin, Harry Edvino, Future Joust, Lugvig Moulin, Stationary Sign, and Semen Slepakov. Thanks to Eliot Borenstein and Lina Zeldovich for participating and Maya Haber for her ears. For a list of sources consulted for A Gift for Stalin, go to The Eurasian Knot at euraknot.org.

    53分
  2. Ep 5: Teddy Meets the Soviet People

    2022/06/28

    Ep 5: Teddy Meets the Soviet People

    American tourists expected few chances to meet Soviet people. You’d only see what Soviet officials wanted to show you. Touring the USSR, many assumed, was nothing more than a front row seat at a big show. And real Soviet life was hidden under layers upon layers of propaganda. So, if you wanted to see the truth of Soviet life—avoid officials and seek out “regular people.” Teddy wanted to seek out “regular” Soviet people. And he had a few chances to visit people’s homes. What did Teddy discover about “regular Soviet life and people” as a result? And what did it say about the Soviet system as a lived experience? Teddy Goes to the USSR is written, edited and produced by Sean Guillory. Thanks to Dina Fainberg, Alexey Golubev, Robert Hornsby, and Donald Raliegh for their participation. Special thanks to Teddy Roe for sharing his story, diary, and photographs. Music is by Blue Dot Sessions and Eliot Holmes. Funding for Teddy Goes to the USSR was provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh and monthly patrons of the SRB Podcast. If you want to learn more about Teddy’s trip and the Soviet Union go to the series website teddytoussr.com. And if you’re enjoying Teddy Goes to the USSR, please consider becoming a patron of the SRB podcast so we can do more narrative audio. You can become a patron at https://www.patreon.com/seansrussiablog You can follow Teddy Goes to the USSR on your favorite podcast app.

    58分
  3. Ep 4: Teddy Talks about Race

    2022/06/20

    Ep 4: Teddy Talks about Race

    Teddy had few “official” meetings in the USSR. A factory here. A collective farm there. Maybe a school or two. And there was one question Teddy’s hosts always asked: “Why are you still lynching Blacks?” American racism was a global issue during the Cold War. And pointing to it was a strike at America’s Achilles heel. Soviet media devoted a lot of time to the Civil Rights Movement. And Teddy arrived in the USSR just when Martin Luther King was assassinated. So, just what was this Soviet concern for American Blacks? Was it merely a whataboutism, a way to deflect American criticism of Soviet life? Or was there something more to it? Teddy Goes to the USSR is written, edited and produced by Sean Guillory. Thanks to Laura Belmonte, Dina Fainberg, Andrew Jacob, Maxim Mastusevich and Meredith Roman for their participation. Special thanks to Teddy Roe for sharing his story, diary, and photographs. Voice over by Eve Barden. Music is by Blue Dot Sessions and Eliot Holmes. Funding for Teddy Goes to the USSR was provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh and monthly patrons of the SRB Podcast. If you want to learn more about Teddy’s trip and the Soviet Union go to the series website teddytoussr.com. And if you’re enjoying Teddy Goes to the USSR, please consider becoming a patron of the SRB podcast so we can do more narrative audio. You can become a patron at https://www.patreon.com/seansrussiablog You can follow Teddy Goes to the USSR on your favorite podcast app.

    59分
  4. Ep 3: Teddy Goes Shopping

    2022/06/13

    Ep 3: Teddy Goes Shopping

    Like many Americans, Teddy judged the USSR through a consumer lens. What could Soviets buy? How much? And what was up with those long lines and shortages? Teddy wasn’t very impressed. Yet, the “standard of living race” was a front in the Cold War like any other. And Soviet communism was losing. But things were never so simple. By the late 1960s, Soviet people were consuming more than ever. They were becoming consumers just like in the West. So, what was it like to shop in the USSR? And was buying stuff part of the Soviet dream? Teddy Goes to the USSR is written, edited and produced by Sean Guillory. Thanks to Laura Belmonte, Dina Fainberg, Natalia Chernyshova and Don Raleigh for their participation. Special thanks to Teddy Roe for sharing his story, diary, and photographs. Voice over by Gabe Kramer and Trevor Erlacher. Music is by Blue Dot Sessions, Richie Everett, Kevin MacLeod and Eliot Holmes. Funding for Teddy Goes to the USSR was provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh and monthly patrons of the SRB Podcast. If you want to learn more about Teddy’s trip and the Soviet Union go to the series website teddytoussr.com. And if you’re enjoying Teddy Goes to the USSR, please consider becoming a patron of the SRB podcast so we can do more narrative audio. You can become a patron at https://www.patreon.com/seansrussiablog You can follow Teddy Goes to the USSR on your favorite podcast app.

    54分

番組について

Americans believed the Soviet Union was cut off from the West. Nothing went in. And very little came out. Yet, tens of thousands of Americans visited their Cold War rival annually. What did they find behind the Iron Curtain? Teddy Goes to the USSR, a new six-part podcast series follows one such American, Teddy Roe, to shine light on Soviet tourism, police surveillance, consumerism, race, and everyday life through his extraordinary three-month trip to the Soviet Union in 1968.

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