Ladies and gentlemen, the moment you've all been waiting for in our Romanov series has arrived! Dive deep into the turbulent era of Peter the Great, the Tsar who towered above the rest - both figuratively and literally. Venture back in time to witness the seismic shifts Peter introduced to Russia. From his ambition to westernize a sprawling empire, to founding the iconic city of St. Petersburg, the Tsar's visions were as vast as the Russian landscapes. Learn how he dragged Russia, sometimes by sheer force of will, into a new age, setting it on a path to become a European powerhouse, forever changing its fate.

It would not be a great exaggeration to say that the figure of Peter the Great, in itself of simply gigantic scale, set the course for the development for Russia for many centuries ahead. To this day, to some extent, we still follow his path. Peter is "our everything", perhaps even more so than Pushkin. For better or worse, we owe everything to Peter the Great. From toy armies to Life Guards, from kaftans to German coats, from derelict Dutch frigates to the first Russian Navy, Peter changed just about everything, including the calendar and the language.

Mikhail Pogodin, one of Russia's most eminent 19th century historians, put it this way:

“We wake up. What day is it today? January 1st, 1842 — Peter the Great ordered to count the years from the Birth of Christ, Peter the Great ordered to count the months from January.

It's time to get dressed — our dress is tailored to the fashion set by Peter the First, the uniform is of his design. The cloth is woven at the factory he established; the wool is sheared from the sheep he bred.

A book catches your eye — Peter the Great introduced this typeface and carved the letters himself. You begin to read it — under Peter the First, this language became written, literary, replacing the previous, ecclesiastical one.

They bring you the newspapers — Peter the Great started them.

You need to buy various things — everything from a silk handkerchief to a shoe sole will remind you of Peter the Great...”

Join us in our journey to delve into the rule of one of the most influential figures in Russian history, period, in the fifth installment of our Romanov series, OUT NOW, and available to everyone, on both Patreon and Gumroad.

How often do you think of the Waffen SS?

Time and necessity can normalize anything, no matter how absurd or vile it is. After seven decades, it is the turn of the post-WW2 consensus that Nazis were the bad guys to be upended, and the very same Nazis and their allies, particularly the Baltic and Ukrainian Waffen SS volunteers, to be seen in another, positive light, their numerous crimes excused, all in the name of serving the new unifying cause-fighting Russia.

Perhaps, and contrary to the immediate aftermath of this very telling incident, the presence of an SS volunteer on the Canadian parliament will be remembered as the turning point. Here, we delve on the vectors and processes that seem to inexorably lead to this normalization

Read our new article by Ioannis Andris on RWA Samizdat substack: https://rwasamizdat.substack.com/p/how-often-do-you-think-of-the-waffen

Musk launches his first Ukrainian zrada-propelled rocket into space 🇺🇦 🚀

Don't tell them that this faux-Soviet aesthetic looks cool as hell

Cold War Boomers at least had Stallone et al to counter the Stone Cold High T Soviet swagger

But now all that the Nu-Cold Warriors have at their disposal is a picture of a gay reddit dog from 2016 and a self-inflicted mental illness. I love it. Reality is developing in an entirely correct direction!

Ukrainian forces using cluster artillery munitions for counter-battery against a Russian MLRS; the latter getting ready to switch positions, quite happy that the former missed: “Beautiful, bright, colorful, bitch, but missed! Suck a dick!”

The news we deserve:

“Shamans from the south of Russia constantly hold ceremonies to protect border towns from negative influences and to support fighters on the front, the supreme shaman of the Southern Federal District (SFD) and representative of the supreme shaman of Russia, Alena Muravyeva, told RIA News.”

Putin just now: "Odessa is a Russian city. And a little bit Jewish"

Some other Putin's quotes from Valdai

– We are for justice for all

– No one has the right to rule the world for others

– I do not know which civilization is being defended on the other side of the frontline

– Russia is not going to impose itself on Europe - we are not slamming the door, but Europe is creating an iron curtain at their own expense

– The pause of American military support for Ukraine is tied to problems with their budget, but in the end, they will find the money, they will just print more.
It costs nothing for the United States to print money and scatter it around the world, during the covid period they printed more than $9 trillion

All those who come to Crimea with weapons will be either killed or imprisoned - Head of Crimea Sergey Aksyonov

Odessa, Nikolayev, Kharkov - these are the cities that should be with Russia by historical right

No land operation is threatening Crimea

Putin just now at Valdai

- The West has forgotten what compromise is, they want to pursue their interests at any cost - let's see what happens out of it

- We did not start the so-called war in Ukraine.

- No one wanted to listen and hear us.

- The arrogance of our so-called partners was off the scale.

- Well, you can brainwash millions of people, but we all know what happened in Donbass

- We are facing, in fact, the task of building peace.

- The history of the West is a chronicle of endless expansion.

- We supported Crimeans and Sevastopol residents, we did not intimidate them with ethnic cleansing in the Nazi spirit, we did not try to subjugate Donbas by bombing them.

- The West, a certain part of the Western elites, always needs an enemy

- Unilateral steps will inevitably be met with retaliation

- Our counterparties have lost their sense of reality

- The special military operation is aimed at stopping the war that the West has been waging for ten years now.

Putin goes on:

Russia has never objected or expressed negativity about Ukraine's accession to the EU, but we are against its membership in NATO

The Ukrainian economy can no longer exist without external support, without external injections everything will go down there

Not only do i have friends in Germany, but their number is even growing

BTW today we were guests on TNT radio for about 30 minutes. Do you know this platform? Simeon Boikov dragged us there! Very weird experience to be on a "professional" kind of broadcast. A Russian female host spoke in that mysterious RT accent and everything had a сertain stamp on it. It's cool that two scoundrels like us have experienced what it feels to be state-approved english-speaking experts, so thanks for the opportunity!

But it's a big relief to not do that on the regular basis. I'm posting Putin's quotes not because i am particularly amazed or required to but i figure that they are quite important because Russia is a nation which is built on literature - and by extension - public speeches with transcripts. What is written with a pen cannot be cut out with an ax and all that. And hey, this speech is not too bad.

And speaking of Simeon Boikov aka Aussie Cossack. We have recorded a big interview with the man where we argued about the role of Cossacks, talked about his ancestors and discussed the current state of Russian Soft Power. We will upload it tomorrow on youtube, patreon, everywhere. So stay tuned!

Some parting Putin's quotes. He spoke about Prigozhin's death, Global financial system and Ukraine

– 19 million people that remain in Ukraine need to be fed.

– The world financial system created that was based on dollar is gradually collapsing.

– It's not about territories, but about guarantees of security for people who consider Russia their homeland, and we consider them our people.

– There are no PMCs in Russia, we did not have them and they do not exist.

– 335 thousand people have already signed the contracts with the Ministry of Defense.

– During a search of Prigozhin's office, 5 kilograms of cocaine were found.

– Bastrykin reported to me that grenade fragments were found in the bodies of those killed in the plane crash, there was no external impact on the plane

Putin's remarks about "drugs and grenades" having anything to do with the death of Prigozhin did not please a lot of people on Russian telegram. But i've noticed something else. Prigozhin now seems like an echo of warriors and adventurers of the yesteryear. Or even some ancient fable, even though it happened a few months ago. Time flies insanely fast in Russia.

This is the post that i wrote shortly after Prigozhin's death: https://t.me/RWApodcast/521

Many of you have heard of Simeon Boikov aka the @AUSSIECOSSACK. Both a red-blooded Australian patriot and a proud Russian Cossack.

He visited the RWA studio to talk about national identity, his Cossack ancestors and the modern role of Cossacks, the similarities and differences between Russians and Australians, Zhirinovsky's legacy, the information war front and much more. Tune in, the episode's free!

Available now on Youtube, also there's an audio version on Patreon and Gumroad.

Whenever you hear something like "Israeli army is from 22 century", "American troops are the most elite force on this planet" or previously in our case "Russia is an invincible superpower" — disregard all of this as peacetime propaganda mostly made up by PR firms and wishful thinking

Logistics and intelligence aside, war is about dirt, spilled guts, resolve, sacrifice, tube artillery, cheap drones, mangled legs and scrambled brains. A start of the real war is always characterized by chaos and spoiled adult diapers of the decision makers

So called military powerhouses got way too complacent genociding hapless civilians and aboriginals for so long that they started believing their own fantasies

Russia has already woken up from our own pre-2022 delusions and excessive 5D chess diplomacy (admittedly, we are fighting an unconvential battle against most of NATO industrial output)

As we see right now in the news, Israel is next in line for a rude awakening