NEFARIOUS RUSSIANS
THE NEFARIOUS RUSSIANS POD. We are from your future. The podcast is hosted by Yasha and Evgenia, and covers topics related to Russia and its future. It is available on Substack and Apple Podcasts.
Episodes
NEFARIOUS RUSSIAN MINDSET: MASTERCLASS ON SURVIVING COLLAPSE
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comThis is our live event at the KBG Bar in New York — recorded on June 7th. If you weren’t there in person, here’s your chance to take a passive part in our 13 Step Program: Learn how you can survive and even thrive during American decline.==🚨 Don’t forget to buy tickets to our SOVIET COLLAPSE CINEMA SERIES in Bro
Eduard Limonov: Soviet Forrest Gump
The NEFARIOUS RUSSIANS are back — our first video podcast from our undisclosed bunker location. We discuss Eduard Limonov as the Soviet Forrest Gump who was somehow able to in the right place in the right time to experience the entire spectrum of international boomer existence. Unlike Gump, he wrote about his experiences and was able to synthesize them into political insight and wisdom.We also dis
Individualism keeps males submissive and exploited
We use the occasion of Andrew Tate getting an invite to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum to discuss the big psyop that’s been waged on gender relations in America. Liberal lean-in feminism is pushed on women; alpha predator men’s rights is pushed on men — all while keeping everyone trapped in an individualistic society where you have no one to depend on except yourself. To quote fro
Putin conquers Hollywood
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comThe NEFARIOUS RUSSIANS return to discuss Wizard of the Kremlin, a new film about Putin’s rise to power, where Jude Law plays Putin. Yeah, Jude Law. While formally it’s a pretty bad film that feels like an illustrated wikipedia article, we were still surprised by it. Because, for a mainstream film, it offered a f
PROGRESS PROPAGANDA
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comI talk to Samuel Miller McDonald about his new book on the history of the idea of progress and how this idea has been used to justify parasitic super-stratified societies that have been denuding and killing our world, going back into antiquity. Pretty much everyone believes in the notion of progress these days.
Assassins & Precogs
The NEFARIOUS RUSSIANS return to discuss their favorite topics: fame, movies, morality of media, power, cults, collapse, similarities between the Soviet Union and the United States… We also discuss Evgenia’s ongoing precog abilities: she sensed that there would be a White House correspondents’ dinner shooting the morning before it happened and talked about it.Due to technical issues (aka sabotage)
Silicon Valley's war on children
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comFor this Vamp Valley stream, I speak to Josh Golin about how commercialization and consumerist brainwashing of children, already dominant in American society before the internet, has been very consciously turbocharged by the tech overlords that mediate our reality. We discuss problems facing children in the age
REVOLT AGAINST AI/Joe Costello
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comToday I chat with Joe Costello about the backlash to data centers and why he thinks this national grassroots movement just might be the very first time Americans are engaging in politics in many, many decades. Joe recently published a great book — The Politics of Ape and Machine. Also check out his newsletter: L
Chatting about movies, liberalism, and American collapse
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comMarried with podcast, we catch up on some topics dear to our hearts. Among things discussed: Evgenia’s films, the ghettoization of feminist (and minority) filmmaking in a liberal society, Yorgos Lanthimos, Kathryn Bigelow, Sophia Coppola…Then we move on to discussing the saga of the Feiyue sneaker and how it ill
GETTING DRONED
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comFor this vamp valley stream, I had Peter Korotaev on to talk about drones and war. Drones, which I see as very much related to the internet, have made big leaps in battlefield adoption in the last few years: first in the Russian-Ukraine war and now in the Israeli-American war on Iran.The United States pioneered
The Politics of Ape and Machine w/Joe Costello
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comFor this week’s vamp valley stream, I’m publishing a talk that Evgenia and I did with Joe Costello about his wonderful new book, The Politics of Ape and Machine.We’re in the middle of another industrial power grab. We talked to Joe to make sense of the situation. We talked about AI, the parasitic internet, indus
INFORMATION IS PACIFICATION W/DANIEL BESSNER
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comFor this week’s vamp valley stream, I’m joined by Daniel Bessner to talk about how our politics are in the grips of a powerful decadent rationalist illusion: it’s the idea that information is power. But as Daniel points out, despite having all the information regular people have no effect on politics. We know ev
WE'RE ALL TRAPPED IN THE VAMPIRE CASTLE
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comFor this week’s vamp valley stream, I talked to C. Derick Varn about the backstory of Mark Fisher’s controversial (at the time) and influential “Exiting the Vampire Castle” essay and why it still matters today.I wrote about Fisher’s essay last summer as part of my attempt to understand the way hyper-connected co
Pistachio Wars and Doom and Gloom
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comRowan and I were at UC Santa Barbara last month presenting Pistachio Wars. We had a wonderful Q&A after the screening, which you can see below. Subscribers can listen to it on our usual podcast feed and read a cleaned up transcript below. Thank you to Rich Farell and everyone at Carsey-Wolf Center for having us
PLATFORMS WANT TO INGEST AND DESTROY
For this anti-vamp stream from my newly established NY basement studio, I’m joined by Mike Pepi, author of Against Platforms. We talk about the failed utopian promises of the internet and how the tech platforms that now dominate our world are concentrators of power and destroyers of all other forms of organization that came before them. This monopolization/destruction isn’t an aberration or a corr
Requiem for Nikolai Komyagin
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comEvgenia pays tribute to Nikolai Komyagin, the frontman of the Russian cult band Shortparis. He died recently — tragically and unexpectedly ay 39.As Evgenia explains, he was a true poet — and a total artist. With his music and videos, he did something that no one else had done yet. He captured on a pure emotional
WE ARE ALL LUDDITES NOW
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comFor this anti-vamp stream from my newly established basement studio, I’m joined by internet by Brian Merchant, author of the wonderful book Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech. It’s a book about the rise and fall of the Luddites, a decentralized 19th movement of English textile wo
Exiting the Slop Shop
We record this on President’s Day to talk about the slop machine we all now inhabit and how all internet culture is an abusive psyop meant to keep us tethered and addicted and pacified. Everyone knows this. But few of us can escape.Sam Kriss, slop merchant to the overly educated, makes an appearance in our talk. We also discuss how America’s ruling class hasn’t just psyoped the masses with this fe
Jeffrey Epstein, American Exceptionalism, and a lesson from Russia
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe talk about how the Jeffrey Epstein scandal/spectacle fits into the larger context of American decline and collapse. And Evgenia explains how normalized all the Epstein revelations are to someone like her who grew up in 1990s Russia — a collapsed society that ran (and still does) on “Epstein ethics” and where
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 cul
Epstein Christmas Special ft. Vampire Valley
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe 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 YO
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
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.comWe 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, b
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
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 dee
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 verbosi
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.comWe’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.
Ghost
We had a small 35th anniversary screening of Ghost at Kingston last Saturday and I had a talk with Bruce Joel Rubin, who wrote the screenplay and won an Oscar for it. The movie was the biggest box office hit in 1990 even though it was an original screenplay and a story that was both melodramatic, funny, scary, and spiritual at the same time. “Just like life,” as Bruce would say. It’d be hard to im
CHARLIE KIRK AND THE INFLUENCER MADE FLESH
A YASHA LEVINE VAMPIRE CASTLE TRANSMISSION With the Charlie Kirk assassination, political influencers are freaking out. It’s dawning on them that the Spectacle is not just an abstract entity. They’re realizing deep down inside that all the hate and misery they pump out into the Spectacle can be made flesh. And that this flesh can be killed. And that this flesh can be theirs.I wrote about this yes
Sovereign Art
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe dial Moscow to talk to art curator and philosopher Dmitriy Khvorostov (aka Artur Dugin, son of Alexander Dugin) about art in Russia and about current attempts by Russians to find a new sovereign identity after the war and their rupture with the west. You can follow Dmitriy on Telegram at Sovereign Art.PS: Thi
Israel through the looking glass
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe put on our matching army green outfits to talk to Ori Goldberg — a former academic and a dissident Israeli — about what it’s like to live in a society as it commits genocide. (Spoiler alert: They’re mostly fine with it. Ori thinks maybe one out of a hundred Israelis opposes the slaughter in Gaza.)—Yasha
Russia looking for a new idea
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe had filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov on again to talk Russian politics in the age of war and global realignment. Does the “Russian Idea” have anything to offer? Is there something there that’s unique? Can the Russian people be convinced to be enthusiastic about a centralized capitalism?Andrei was recently arrested a
Cannibalistic America w/Greg Grandin
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe have a great time chatting with historian Greg Grandin about the end of the American Myth, collapse, America’s war against itself, Clinton and MAGA, how the USSR propped up the social welfare state both in America and Europe, toxic nationalism vs universal nationalism, individualism under capitalism vs commun
All the info and no power
Been thinking about the Vampire Castle that is the internet and how we’re being drained by information, so I sat down to talk about it a bit.I come across people all the time who can’t read anymore, are revolted by screens, made sick by technology, their minds overstimulated, groaning under the weight of news and shows and infinite content…and yet they still can’t log off. Few of us can. We can’t
Dialing in from Moscow
Evgenia joins me on the phone from the Duchy of Moscow for a late night convo about what’s happening in Russia and about what to her feels like the dawn of a new era for Russian society. You heard it here first…Sooner or later, for better or worse, a real monarchy is coming to the Russian Federation.—YashaVintage Lenin for sale This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other sub
We are all sick in the head now
We talk to Andrew Kay about the political and cultural aspects of psychiatric disorders — looking specifically at how OCD has gone mainstream because of the kind of society in which we live.We start by talking about Andrew’s great Harper’s essay in which he chronicles his own struggles with OCD and recounts his participation in an OCD convention in San Francisco — where participants paid good mone
White Devils w/Rania Khalek
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe got out of bed to talk to Rania Khalek — who joined us from Beirut. What started this conversation was an offhand remark Rania made about how living in Lebanon, a country that is being attacked and invaded, is less stressful than being in America, where it seems everyone seems on edge and nervous and ready to
BOOK CLUB #1: Alienated by design
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comIf you missed it this morning, here is a recording of our first book club livestream/chat about Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep — about how Philip K. Dick is a philosopher-prophet of our technological age who just so happened to have worked in the pulp sci-fi format and how the novel is a metaphor for the ce
DON'T BOMB IRAN
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe do some pillow talk about Iran — discussing the year Evgenia spent going native in Tehran, her education as an “Iranist,” and about her experiences and her thoughts on a society that America and Israel now want to obliterate. Most people in the west know next to nothing about Iran and picture it is some kind
With the vampires
We lie in bed, do pillow talk about our attempt to put a pie in Curtis Yarvin’s face and the cowardice of today’s media personalities — and how all fights are purely online now, no one does anything in real life. We also discuss the degeneration of the Red Scare women — who went from being genuinely popular and open to how they are now: keeping the details of shows secret and only inviting tiny gr
American Identity Crisis w/John Ganz
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe talk to John Ganz about how the USA began to unravel in the 1990s, when it no longer had the USSR to keep things in check. This 90s identity crisis has gained momentum and is playing out today with the rise of Donald Trump, the crisis of liberalism, and the push to go back to a pre-New Deal America. Some of
The Industrial Revolution Killed Democracy w/Joe Costello
Joe Costello returns to the show (and joins us in our attic) to talk about how the industrial revolution killed American democracy. Among topics we discuss are: the politics of technology, Trump as pure distilled America, the civilizational similarities between the USA and USSR, how technology changes society and induces amnesia, why the internet didn’t lead to democratization, how the USSR was a
Who gets Dick? w/John Dolan
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comJohn Dolan (aka the infamous War Nerd) joins us to talk about Philip K. Dick. Some of the topics we discuss: what first got John into Russian culture, sci-fi, growing up in California during America’s golden age, PKD as the 20th century Kafka, American decline, how Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner compares to the ori
Park Avenue Whistleblower w/Nick McDonell
We talk to novelist Nick McDonell — whose wonderful book Quiet Street recently reviewed — about his life among the most privileged people on the planet: the Park Avenue set. 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
The Century of the Modified Self w/Oliver Bateman
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe talk to Oliver Bateman about how body building culture, with the help of the internet, took over the world and helped forge a path to our century of the modified self.
Eunuchs by choice?
We discuss the Twitter scandal I unwittingly caused by talking about the connection between children and art. What was meant as an offhand remark made people angry beyond belief. The thing, as I find out, is that “kids” are a touchy subject in left-liberal creative circles, largely because America is schizophrenic place where the economic reality and culture are very out of sync. As I recently wro
Red Bourgeoisie w/Branko Milanovic
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe have Branko Milanovic, an economist born in Yugoslavia, on to talk about class and inequality in the USSR. How was power transmitted across generations, if inheritance was abolished? Why did the Soviet Union collapse? One takeaway message: Want more social mobility? Time to do some purges! —YashaBranko probab
Talking about "Too Hot To Work" and other harem/incel fantasies
We discuss Evgenia’s essay on Too Hot To Work. Some of the things we talk about are: the crisis of liberal feminism, incels under communism, how socialism is actually good for women and men, the unattractiveness of plastic surgery…and more. —YashaSubscribe to NEFARIOUS RUSSIANS and help yourself thrive in these uncertain times. As always, check out some of Evgenia’s other essays: This is a public
All is not well here
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe recorded this ep on the centennial anniversary of the Great Gatsby but end up having a wide-ranging convo about culture, religion and politics — people’s obsession with the hereditary rich, the difference between religious vs secular values, meeting Todd Solondz and his vision of what life is like in the subu
NEFARIOUS RUSSIANS LIVE! #1
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comAs promised here’s the live taping of our AGAINST NIHILISM event at the KGB Bar — as a bonus for our subscribers. Don’t worry if you couldn’t make it this time. We’re planning to have another one sometime in the summer. Thanks to everyone who came out. It was great to spend the evening with you all in person. —
Hollywood Refugee w/Joshua Turek
We talk to poet and stand-up comedian Joshua Turek about today’s cultural and political crisis and ways to deal with it. We get into Joshua’s journey from child actor to screenwriter to TikTok star and his escape from LA, and wonder how to use this evil internet as a force for good. —EvgeniaYou can get Joshua’s poetry book directly from him here. He’s got an American comedy tour this summer, so ge
Trump and Tariffs and Political Taboos w/Joe Costello
We talk to our friend Joe Costello about Trump’s tariffs, democracy, deindustrialization, the Yeltsinification of America, and the innate human desire for a communal life… We discuss globalization, why being against it has been such a political taboo until Trump, and why these tariffs will probably ultimately fail. We are not the 1950s anymore, when America was the sole industrial world power. Thi
Shitcoins for shitocracy w/Jacob Silverman
People compare Trump to Hitler or to Putin. But for us the closest historical comparison is Boris Yeltsin. So today we talk to Jacob Silverman about Trump’s shitcoins and other crypto schemes because they remind us so much of 1990s Russia and Yeltsin’s family corrupt deals. Back then in Russia, like with America today, corruption and looting happened right out in the open, with regular people scam
Nobody likes being a loser w/Will Menaker
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comEvgenia and I talk to Will Menaker about the left-right whiplash of the post-Bernie years. Nihilism, idealism, optimism, the politics of winning, the cultural unity of America’s bipartisan politics, a psychoanalysis of the American beta-bully mindset…we discuss it all.Take a listen! —YashaCome to our AGAINST NIH
Art Church w/Alexander Melamid
We talk with Alexander Melamid, the most famous Soviet-American artist of his generation. He moved to NYC in late 1970s after being an underground artist in Moscow for a decade — part of the creative duo Komar & Melamid.He was a success in the NY art world overnight and knew Warhol and everyone who is anyone in the art scene back in the day. Since then he’s lost his optimistic naivete about art bu
Vibe Shifts w/Mark Ames
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe talk to our friend Mark Ames about nihilism, cynicism, culture wars, Red Scare, Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, Russia of the 1990s, and the vibe shifts of America’s political culture — from punk to the podcasts of today. —YashaWant to know more? Read Evgenia’s hit essay “Against Nihilism” and listen to our ong
Red Scare Bonus Pillow Talk
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe recorded this in bed over a week ago while we were in Miami — mostly for our ourselves…to talk through some ideas and concepts. We weren’t going to release it. But I gave it a listen and I thought we had a great conversation — genuine pillow talk before going to bed.Some of the things we discuss: the start of
"Anora" and Russians at the Oscars
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe record an emergency ep to talk about Sean Baker’s sweep at the Oscars with his new film Anora. We talk about Sean Baker’s sentimental style and his “changemaker” interest in stories of marginalized people. He comes from good New Jersey suburb but the only layer of American society he’s interested in are the
Red Scared
We continue our discussion of Red Scare’s turn into a real red scare platform. We have been doing deconstruction of their rhetoric on Twitter the past week, which has been going viral and has been drawing all the nastiness and poison of the Red Scare universe to the surface for everyone to see. And we’ve come to a very grim conclusion about the nature of this podcast project, and it’s this: What R
Back to the Future
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe talk about my recent epiphany that the scary and volatile world of Russia that I grew up in post-collapse in the 1990s might be the future of America, rather than a distant, embarrassing past that I used to think was irrelevant to my new life here. Turns out I’m a time traveler of sorts. I am from your future
Red Scare's Wake
We talk about the rise and fall of Red Scare, America’s once-coolest Soviet immigrant podcast. They lost their edge. We’re #1 now.Want to know more? * The Secret Power of Lex Fridman* Konstantin Kisin's KGB Konnektions* …other eps — and subscribe! 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/subscri
The Theatre Experience with Matthew Gasda
We talk to playwright and theatre director Matthew Gasda about his plays, his theatre company Brooklyn Centre for Theatre Research, and the zeitgeist of the post-COVID downtown New York scene. We talk about how theater is a peculiar art form for a millennial to be engaged with, as it is completely offline and intentionally unrecorded, un-televised, and impossible to make viral on social media. In
Soviet lit for kids with Nika Dubrovsky
Artist and author (and mother) Nika Dubrovsky is back on the show to talk about Soviet cartoons and Soviet literature for kids and the unique radical progressive ethos children’s culture had in post-revolutionary Soviet society. We talk about the utopian book series Dunno, about poems by Marshak and Chukovsky, who is considered the Russian Dr. Seuss, and we compare them to the American publishing
Konstantin Kisin's KGB Konnektions
We continue our journey through the weaponized immigrant podcaster universe — this time with Konstantin Kisin. Konstantin, a hack comedian turned political podcaster, is a classic weaponized immigrant — or a “court Russian,” as Evgenia calls it. He embodies all the tropes of one: gross subservience to “Western civilization,” trafficking in stereotypes about the savage totalitarianism of Russian so
David Lynch, LA fires and influencers
Evgenia and I sit down in the attic to talk about David Lynch’s passing, my failed attempt to make a Lynch film in my early 20s, and the similarities between Lynch and Philip K. Dick. We also talk about the end of California and how America’s vibe has shifted east to Florida and Miami — a full-speed-ahead death drive into the abyss with gaudy partying and conspicuous consumption. We also talk abou
LA fires, billionaire farmers, and the end of the Hollywood dream
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe talk about the fires in Los Angeles, Evgenia’s precog abilities that stopped us from moving back there, the similarities between me and Roman Polanski, and my reporting on the billionaire farmers and old oligarchic land speculators that built LA and California. And of course water — we talk about water.—Yasha
The Secret Power of Lex Fridman
We dissect the phenomenon of Lex Fridman, America’s newest and biggest court Russian, who leaves Masha Gessen in the dust.As fellow Russian immigrants we get Lex like no one else in the English speaking world. We think we cracked the secret to his success. We think we know what stands behind his sudden rise to fame and fortune. Without doing a big reveal here (you’ll have to listen to the ep for t
New Year Epiphanies
Happy Near Year! We start off 2025 with this episode — recorded today in Turin. We talk about Yasha’s pneumonia, the struggles and insights we had in 2024, and the things we wish for 2025. The spiritual death of suburbia, the priesthood of filmmaking, morality and genocide, power and god, the great immigrant battle that’s engulfing America…we cover it all in one go. —The RussiansKovda and Gogol in
"The Russia That We Have Lost"
We talk to Pavel Khazanov about the delusional ideations of the generation that ended the Soviet Union…children of serfs who began to identify themselves with Russia’s old nobility.Pavel is a professor at Rutgers. He recently wrote a book that inspired our talk: The Russia That We Have Lost: Pre-Soviet Past as Anti-Soviet Discourse. A lot of our eps are for paying subscribers. Join the lying flat
Producing culture while the world burns
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe have a nice morning conversation. We talk about Yasha’s blossoming music career (and our plans to start a band). We discuss Evgenia’s attendance of a screening of From Ground Zero, an anthology of short films shot in Gaza this year that’ll be competing in the Oscars. We talk about the blurry lines between fic
Birthday Epiphanies
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comOn the eve of my birthday we talk about the final disillusionment I had with American culture after joining the middle class suburban normie wife life and felt like I had been teleported to a different planet, a planet just for breeders. We also talk about the outliers of whom there are plenty in our generation
The Elex Ep: Make America Great Again and Again
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe broadcast to you from bed, barely awake, to talk about the election — Kamala, Trump, what we’d do if we had to choose between the lib and the MAGA camps…we even manage to get into a fight. So strap in and get ready for some real scenes from a marriage. —Yasha
The Third Temple and the End of Judaism
We get out of bed to talk with Rachel Feldman about messianic zionism and the Temple Movement, which wants to end Judaism as we know it and replace it with an Israelite theocracy in the Holy Land complete with animal sacrifices — to go back more than 2,000 years to before Rome destroyed Jerusalem and ended Jewish rule. We also discuss the core of Rachel’s research: Noahidism, a new global religion
Paul Schrader's Third Act
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comIn this bonus ep for subscribers we lie flat in bed late at night on the edge of sleep as Evgenia talks about seeing Paul Schrader present his latest film — Oh, Canada — at the Woodstock Film Festival. We also discuss the upscale boomers of the Hudson Valley, Yasha’s anti-rabbi TikTok optimization, Jewish identi
St. Francis of Hollywood
Late at night in bed we talk about Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola’s self-financed new film. Unlike most people out there, we were impressed and touched by it. Coppola dissects American society and its media propaganda machine only the way foreigners usually managed to do in the past — people like Paul Verhoeven with Starship Troopers and Robocop or Neil Blomkamp with Elysium. Maybe that’s why m
Exiting the art world with Andrew Norman Wilson
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe got out of bed to talk to artist and filmmaker Andrew Norman Wilson about his work and his viral essay in the Baffler about the impoverished jet-setting life of an artist without a trust fund. He’s now turned the essay into a talk/stand up show he performs in New York. What he talks about is relevant to all m
October 7, 2024
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe’re back in bed, struggling to stay awake, talking about October 7…one year on. Things we discuss include our wedding anniversary, the genocide, losing friends, the limits of rationalism, Yasha’s zi-fi novel, Zone of Interest, Philip K. Dick…the Black Iron Prison has captured us all. Full episode available to
Black Iron Prison
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe took our podcasting from bed concept to its logical conclusion: Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage style video content. We finally went full internet. We’re streamers now.We talk about Philip K. Dick and his wife Tessa who seems to be living in poverty, PKD’s concept of the Black Iron Prison, VALIS, gnos
The Hebrew god and Israeli bombs
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comFor the first half hour we talk about the Hebrew god, zionism, and Yasha’s newfound vocation as the self-appointed Chief Rabbi of All Jews. Then we discuss the opening salvo of Israel’s digital device bombing campaign in Lebanon and about all the nukes that Yahweh has. And in the last twenty minutes we talk abou
Pavel Durov, tech billionaire dissident?
We get out of bed again to do a quick ep on Pavel Durov, his arrest in France, what happens when you run a successful international tech business like Telegram without playing by the rules, and how this all fits into the thesis of my book Surveillance Valley. The fact that Durov isn’t tied into the US imperial-military complex like his biggest competitors — including Signal, which was launched wit
