(In bed with) the Russians

Yasha & Evgenia

THE NEFARIOUS RUSSIANS POD. We are from your future. www.nefariousrussians.com

  1. New Year's Eve Banya Session

    JAN 4

    New Year's Eve Banya Session

    We recorded most of this from inside a banya on New Year’s Eve in San Francisco as a rainstorm raged outside. We had to pause several times because the heat was making us woozy, but we persevered and held it together. As promised we are now releasing the ep… Among the topics discussed: influencerism, Olivia Nuzzi and Yasha’s stories about briefly working with her at the start of her career, the cultural emptiness of artificial intelligence, Luddites, the growing importance of controlling distribution channels as filmmaking technology gets cheaper and cheaper, August Lamm and the limitations of the anti-tech flip phone movement…and a lot more. You also get to enjoy authentic sounds of the banya: moans and grunts, water hissing at it hits hot rocks, complaints and bickering. Have a great 2026! С лёгким паром! If you are in the Bay Area, come out to our event tomorrow in SF: INTERNET JUNKIE ANONYMOUS! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

    1h 23m

  2. 12/25/2025

    Epstein Christmas Special ft. Vampire Valley

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.com We dial in on Christmas Day from sleeping gas San Francisco to talk about the two-day power outage (caused by Yasha psi powers), CIA mind control, the Luddites, Trump’s holiday Epstein file dump, Eyes Wide Shut and Kubrick, Russia, Marquis de Sade… Happy Holidays! DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS PODCAST. SPEND TIME WITH YOUR FAMILY AND LOVED ONES INSTEAD. PS: We’ll be holding a live event in SF on Jan 4 to talk about Vampire Valley, the internet as a pacification project, and the spectacle that’s grinding us all down. More info coming soon! And, as always, contribute to Yasha’s film. He can’t make it without your help!

    4 min

  3. 12/13/2025

    Fighting the vampires

    We dial in to talk about my Silicon Valley Soviet immigrant tech bro origins story, my early anti-tech documentary attempts, and the anti-Silicon Valley series I’m making now — Vampire Valley. I’m raising money for the doc right now. So pitch in if you have some extra cash! As we discuss, looking back on it now, there was pretty much no way that the internet would not have turned into the parasitic technology that it is today. On the one hand, it was a tech that had been built by the Pentagon for technocratic control — to surveil, predict, and manage populations. On the other, it was commercialized inside a hyper-consumerist society in the grips of neoliberalism and deregulation, a society that was already full of manipulative marketing techniques and propaganda, managed through an increasingly centralized mass media. So it’s no wonder that when these two systems collided in America in the 1990s, the worst of all possible worlds emerged — the internet that we all inhabit today. —Yasha PS: We’re also planning a surprise event in San Francisco in a few weeks. We’ll have more info on that soon. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

    55 min

  4. 11/24/2025

    The new Sy Hersh doc is a waste of time

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.com We went to a private preview of Cover-Up, the new Sy Hersh documentary that comes out next month, and stayed for a Q&A with Laura Poitras, its director. In this ep we give our honest appraisal of the film. And, sadly, it’s not a positive one. There are a lot of problems with the film — overproduced yet clunky, boring, superficial, intellectually not there at all, very Wikipedia-like, and with an outdated pre-Trump America feel to it. But perhaps its main crime is that it wasted an opportunity to talk to Hersh about the mythology of journalism in America and journalism’s ultimate lack of power. He spent his entire life exposing secrets — the My Lai Massacre, the CIA’s Operation CHAOS, torture at Abu Ghraib — and yet in that same span of time, America kept getting worse and more corrupt and unequal and more violent and more unaccountable. We’re at point where journalism doesn’t matter at all. And so what good was all his journalism? Was it just a game? Entertainment? A way to pass the time and make a living? A path to fame? A relief valve for society? None of the problems with the film are Sy Hersh’s fault. It seems like he actually gets it. The problem is that Laura Poitras is just not that bright. I guess you could say there is an unintended message in this film and it’s this: Information by itself is not power. You need organization to turn information into power, and journalism by itself does not provide that. At the end of the ep we discuss a Laura Poitras scandal that few know about. It includes her, Jacob Appelbaum, Julian Assange, a very expensive mattress in Berlin, and her documentary Risk. —Yasha PS: We discussed the mattress scandal in detail in a previous episode: Triple Threat: Julian Assange. PPS: We also previously reviewed The Beauty And The Bloodshed, a Laura Poitras doc about Nan Goldin and her fight against the highly respected Sackler family, which is actually quite good.

    3 min

  5. 11/21/2025

    Pistachio Wars Q&A at the Roxy — Yasha Levine w/ Will Menaker

    Posting the Q&A Will Menaker and I did after Pistachio Wars screened in NYC’s Roxy Cinema on November 6th, 2025. Chinatown made flesh, insane consumerism, our dead ender industrial civilization, people worked to death so that a few can live in Beverly Hills... Watch Pistachio Wars first and then listen to our discussion. Film’s streaming now on your favorite oligarchic platform! —Yasha --- If you’re in New York this weekend, make sure you come out to our talk/book discussion on AI and the politics of technology. Music by Michelle Shocked! This Sunday at the KGB BAR in NYC. 7pm! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

    41 min

  6. 11/03/2025

    Spinal Tap 2: Senility Files

    We get back into our old groove of recording right before bed. We talk movies. Specifically we talk about the horrible, senile sequel to the genius original Spinal Tap. Nobody asked for this film. Nobody wanted this film. And really, you can barely call it “a film.” It shouldn’t exist. Should never have been made. Evgenia discusses Christopher Guest’s pioneering approach to filmmaking and goes deep on his aristocratic background (he is a baron), discussing how his comedic interests are always about looking down: he satirizes the bumbling middle class while treating his own English aristocratic social strata seriously and respectfully. PS: We also talk about dumb AI, influencers doing MMA cage fights, and more… PPS: If you are in Oakland, LA, or NYC come out to Yasha’s Pistachio War screenings. SUPPORT THE ARTS! SUBSCRIBE! Want to know more? Read Evgenia’s essay about art and senility. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

    1h 16m

  7. 10/06/2025

    Sam Kriss, the empty vessel

    We come back from our break to do some light but cutting literary gossip and criticism. Our focus: the millennial essayist Sam Kriss. Kriss is one of the last erudite men of letters and blesses us all with his uber long Substack pieces that weave medieval history and current politics and go for tens of thousands words. Brevity is soul of the wit, as some dead British guy said. But to Kriss verbosity is essential — he needs to make his readers so confused and overwhelmed and so stuffed with facts and obscure tangents that they end up being convinced this is the work of inexplicable genius rather than a product of an insecure over-educated empty vessel. Enjoy the episode. Subscribe to NEFARIOUS RUSSIANS. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

    1h 2m

  8. 10/01/2025

    What Russians think about the American Right w/Artur Dugin

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.com We’re posting part two of our conversation with Dmitriy Khvorostov (aka Artur Dugin, son of Alexander Dugin) about politics, art, and culture in Russia today — specifically we discuss what Russian traditionalists think about America’s new right. If you missed part one, you can listen to it here: Sovereign Art.

    6 min
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4.6
out of 5
38 Ratings

About

THE NEFARIOUS RUSSIANS POD. We are from your future. www.nefariousrussians.com

Information

  • Creator
    Yasha & Evgenia
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    162
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Yasha Levine
  • Show Website
    (In bed with) the Russians

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