Sex in the Soviet Union (2025) Movie Script
So, I gather from your book...
That normal,
common words like...
Fuck, cock, pussy,
masturbate, orgasm.
These words don't
exist, Soviets say only:
"It."
Many factors lead
to the fact that...
In the Soviet
Union, normal sex...
As in the West doesn't exist.
This is tied to the
totalitarian system.
Which impacts all
areas of human life.
If you want to understand
the Soviet Union...
The best way to do so...
Is to understand
Soviet sexuality.
"We will destroy this world
of violence to the foundation."
My name is Dr. Michael Stern.
I was conceived the night
of the October Revolution...
Which unleashed repressed desires
for political, social and sexual freedom.
People were drunk on possibility
and launched a series of rash...
Radical, utopian reforms.
The Bolshevik criminal code
was the best in the whole Europe.
They reformed everything.
The priority for women
workers now is to...
Cast off the burden
of raising their children.
Help the Communist Party...
To build a new shining life!
The Bolsheviks claimed sex
should be treated as casually...
As drinking a glass of water.
Artists explored sexual themes.
And museums displayed erotic
photographs for the first time.
The intelligentsia
threw off their clothes...
along with centuries of
repression and shame.
Naked calisthenics was popular as
people rejoiced in their newfound skin.
A nude beach appeared
just steps from the Kremlin.
Students hand published
pornographic magazines.
Authorities drew up plans
for public sex booths...
And orgies and free
love leagues proliferated.
Same-sex relationships
were decriminalized.
They said, "Okay, no
problem, we decriminalize it."
Why the Bolsheviks did it?
They decided that they
will conquer Europe...
With these new ideas.
At that time, everything
was communal.
A girl couldn't refuse sex.
A man has desires...
No one asked about
the woman's desires.
He needed sex,
he got it. Period.
Because everything
was belonging...
To "the People."
So the female genitals...
Were considered to
be private property...
If a woman said "no."
There are so many
heartbreaking stories of women...
Who were just broken...
By this revolutionary
experiment of the 20s.
When the Soviets came...
They took over and lived well.
They had everything and
we didn't even have bread.
Lenin's social experiment
began to collapse.
Pervasive sex in filthy conditions
led to widespread sickness.
Venereal disease was so common
among civilians and the military...
That the Red Army created
an entire syphilitic platoon.
Meanwhile, Soviet society was breeding a
dangerous generation of homeless orphans.
The destruction of social
and sexual norms, religion...
And the family led not to
utopia, But to savage brutishness.
The pendulum of sexual
freedom had to swing back.
If it didn't, it had to
be pulled back forcibly.
Then Stalin appeared.
A totally different personality.
Of the worst possible type.
Stalin was cruel.
When his daughter
Sveta was six years old...
He said: "Take off this
skirt! Put my shirt on her!"
"The girl's body
should be all covered!"
Stalin was very
cruel with his Nadya.
He made her his
lover against her will.
By the way, I think she
wasn't even 16 years old yet.
He dehumanized her,
he crossed her out.
He even beat her.
She committed suicide.
She shot herself.
I'm convinced 100%
that he was sexually sick.
I think it's connected
with his own problems.
That he became impotent early.
His aura, his energy...
It then spread throughout
the entire Soviet Union.
Naturally! Society
follows the leader.
The authorities quickly
understood that...
In sex, a person
must be themselves.
And should feel free.
But in the
totalitarian system...
Where sex is an
enemy of the ideology...
Everything is
done in order to...
De-eroticize sex.
"Have you read Marx?"
"Yes."
"And how was it?"
"Very interesting."
Stalin produced
all Soviet cinema...
Because film builds the person.
And it coincided with
Bolshevik ideology.
The construction of a new life.
What qualities should
a Communist have?
Chastity.
Why chastity?
The bourgeoisie perverted sex...
Because of the power of money.
Now capitalism is gone...
These feelings
regained their purity.
You really don't get it?
The idea was to train
young men and women...
For the army.
All these men and
women parading in shorts.
Exposing their bodies.
At the same time,
they shut down...
The whole topic of sexuality.
What an interesting
book I have here!
Everyone will be jealous.
And here's the most
important chapter.
"Never show intimate
relations to anyone anywhere."
Art depicting nudity was
censored throughout the empire.
The monumental statue, Girl
with an Oar, was destroyed.
Recently celebrated
photographers and artists...
Were sent to the Gulag as their
work was reclassified as pornography.
The opera Lady Macbeth
was banned for 30 years...
Because a musical movement
reminded Stalin of sex on a squeaky bed.
Homosexuality, adultery,
abortion, premarital sex...
And even masturbation
were criminalized.
And divorce became
extremely difficult.
Soviet women were required to dress
modestly, men to remain monogamous.
And housewives were warned
against preparing spicy meals.
Which could lead to
unwanted sexual arousal.
Sex education was
banned from school.
And on Stalin's orders kissing
was scrubbed from cinema.
The word sex itself vanished
from the encyclopedia.
Today I took out the
encyclopedia and looked up sex.
It just says "gender."
We didn't use this word.
It was considered a swear word.
We didn't even talk
about it among friends.
We didn't even
have words for it.
I didn't know what sex was.
There was love, or
something like that.
No need to call for Love...
It will appear uninvited...
And then spread joy all around.
"You will arrive one day..."
"Tenderly desired..."
"My truest friend."
"Happy New Year."
Everyone's watching,
you should be ashamed!
We were simply ashamed.
Neither mom nor dad had any
conversations with me about it.
Nothing was taught at school.
Everything you heard
you picked up on the street.
Everything from the
knees to the throat...
It doesn't exist.
Especially the female body.
There was no sex.
Sex, Bye, It's
Western, it's dirty.
It's only reproduction, there
is no sex, only reproduction.
I got married and got
my first experience.
Inexperienced first experience.
I lived with my husband
for several years.
I never undressed
completely in front of him.
I felt ashamed he might see me.
Every pleasure a
person can feel...
They tried to minimize
as much as possible.
It was useful for them
to make sex a taboo.
Because then they
could use it as a tool.
My first kiss?
That was my first kiss,
when he kissed me.
Hrysha, my husband.
What do you want?
I married at 17.
Who else could I have kissed?
Where could I have gone?
But his kissing was awful.
Some guys are good at kissing...
But he licked my whole face.
I had to run home to
wash it was so sticky.
Because there was no
place also where to have sex.
Because we all were
living with our parents.
So, many guys and girls... They
were getting married at 18, 19...
Because they just
wanted to have sex.
I wanted to say another word.
And then they were
getting married...
Just to be able to fuck.
In our times, if
a guy likes a girl,
If he falls in love with
her. He can possess her...
Only by marrying
her! No other way!
Otherwise he won't
have her. Absolutely.
Such were the rules, that
a girl should get married...
She must be a
virgin without fail.
Everyone was very
proud that she was a virgin.
He's her first. There were even
such traditions at weddings...
The groom's mother would lead
the newlyweds to the bedroom.
She would wait to see how
the first intercourse went.
And if blood dripped
on the sheet...
Then they would parade around
this sheet. He took an honest bride.
And if not, they would
say all sorts of nasty things.
You're cursed.
If we knew... that she
was like this, like that...
This woman was condemned.
We had a military doctor.
A surgeon.
We brought those girls who needed to get
married, who wanted to be virgins again.
For a certain fee he would sew
back what remained of the hymen.
And she became a virgin anew.
During sex...
Everything was
the same. It hurt her.
Blood flowed. And
the man felt tension.
A thrust, a rip and that's it.
It's the parents who go.
They drag their daughter to the
doctor. And ask like this and that.
And ask him to do such and such.
For cash they fix it
so she is honest again.
Let the husband try
to prove she's impure!
And afterwards he
would bring out the sheet.
And show everyone the
blood stains on the sheet.
That yes, he took
an honest wife.
In a family, a woman
had no right to say "no."
There was no "Sorry,
Dear, I have a headache."
That's not heard.
She's there that's it.
There was no such
thing as foreplay.
Here's the woman.
You go.
Many women didn't like it
because with no foreplay...
It's a rather painful act.
It's not always orgasm, but...
It's superiority.
You as a man enforce
your superiority on a woman.
Penetrate her forcefully. You
know if you do it with force...
Apply your brutal
power like a man...
You know you just take her.
What kind of sex are
you talking about...
When five families
lived in our apartment?
19 people.
It's called a "communalka."
Where can you have sex?
Russia is a huge country.
The biggest country in the world.
But actually their private
space is always tiny.
It's crazy.
Communalkas
were very interesting.
It was a ruse they thought up...
To use the huge
mansions of the rich...
That were originally
8 room homes.
The communists put
one family in each room.
Come on in...
Take a look how we live...
Three families. I
have two children.
A neighbor lives here.
She just left.
We don't know how
to divide the room.
Where to put her crib.
When I was pregnant
with my second child...
I asked for another
room. They refused.
They answered:
"The more the merrier."
It's impossible to live
like this. Impossible.
They blame us for everything.
I don't say it's perfectly tidy...
But a dormitory is dormitory.
And a lot of people live here.
I can't bring someone to visit. I'm just
ashamed that I live in such conditions.
There weren't even
doors in these rooms.
It was just an open space.
Up to 30-40 people
lived in these places.
And from this
group around 10%...
Worked for the KGB,
controlling the masses.
A lot of people who told
their thoughts in the kitchen...
And the next day they'd
be arrested and shot.
Millions of people.
After Stalin's death in 1953...
Nikita Khrushchev
became premier...
And started to open society.
One of the most extraordinary
signs of this thaw...
Was the World
Youth Festival of 1957.
34 thousand delegates
from 131 countries...
Came to Moscow with
the desire for peace...
And friendship.
Billed as the largest
festival in history.
For two full weeks delighted
crowds frolicked across the capital.
It was the first time many
Soviets had ever met a foreigner.
But what was intended as propaganda for
international friendship had unexpected results.
Tipped off by
concerned parents...
The authorities assembled
nighttime raids on parks and fields.
What they found was described
as an epic international orgy.
The foreigners
were escorted home.
But the Soviet girls were punished
by having half their heads shaved.
The next year,
hundreds of mixed race...
So-called festival
babies were born.
I was at that exact festival.
And our girls...
Decided to sleep with the ns.
A once-in-a-lifetime chance.
She saw a n...
And she was ready for anything.
So many little black
babies were born.
Everybody wanted one.
The forbidden fruit is sweetest.
It was an incredible trip.
Some great ego trip.
Not following the
rules of the officialdom.
If they say "no sex
before marriage."
You just go and
you, sorry, fuck...
Everybody in sight.
And you protest. It's
not only dissidents...
But you did it in your way.
Just breaking the laws,
break the regulations...
Of the Communist Party.
And you felt sort of
double ingratiated.
First of all, you
had this woman.
Secondly, you fucked,
sorry, The Communist Party.
The soul of the Soviet Union...
If you want one word:
Hypocrisy.
What a person says
is not what he thinks.
What he thinks is not
what he'd like to think.
And he relates to others
not in the way that he should.
This is hypocrisy.
Sex, sex, sex. And
not just sex at home.
But the best sex
is sex on the side.
I haven't seen a
single honest man.
My husband, his
brother, another brother.
They're all skirt-chasers.
My husband Grysha.
He had Olya, Katya, Galya...
Three beautiful girls.
And he went to that
one, that one, that one.
There's no man
who doesn't cheat.
There are some women
who are honorable.
But they're a tiny percent.
The rest are whores.
Give her a bauble,
she's ready to go.
Your friends will fuck her.
Cheating is "jumping
into buckwheat."
"Jump into buckwheat"
is to find sex on the side.
The buckwheat hides you.
It smells good when it blooms.
And it's cozy there.
But we had no
buckwheat to jump into.
You can't bring her
home because of the wife.
They only let you into
hotels with passports.
Hotels only allowed
married couples.
The scariest person
was the manager.
"Reception"
Her main and only task was...
To prevent anyone...
Entering your room. God forbid!
Several times unknown persons
were invited into the rooms.
Total unknowns.
Without even a passport.
We decided to punish them.
Revoked their right
to live in the city.
The number of times
I had sex outdoors...
Zero.
Somehow you don't
understand anything.
People could find
privacy in parks...
In shady alleys.
There were benches.
And of course, the theater.
In the back row...
You could kiss as
much as you liked.
And be pleasured by your lover.
We had sheds. Near the house.
It's possible.
There were gardens.
Also possible.
Find a toilet.
Any toilet works.
You do it standing up.
Or in a basement.
You could find a place.
This is disgusting.
We didn't have it.
Categorically I tell you.
On the stairs or under a tree...
Didn't happen.
Disgusting.
What you're asking
is just odious.
In the summer you
could drive to a quiet spot.
And enjoy yourself.
But what to do in
winter? When it's cold.
There was only one
place left - in the garage.
A lot of couples,
when they got cold...
Turned on the engine.
They didn't know
that the fumes...
Could make them
fall asleep such that...
They would never wake up.
Everyone always said...
There are no brothels
in the Soviet Union.
We don't need brothels.
We have sanitoriums.
The government distributed
vouchers for sanatoriums.
Usually it was
located on a sea coast.
But it wasn't easy
to take your family.
You'd need two
vouchers. Impossible!
Come on, guys...
Say goodbye to dad.
Take care back here!
It was a place of
sanctioned lechery.
Where Soviet people could relax.
When you went to sanatorium, it
was always, you know, looking for sex.
Oh, they go to the
sanatorium to look for...
To find a harem.
My roommate was a sporty sailor.
The first thing he said was...
"Remember well, if my shorts
are on this side of the balcony..."
"Do not enter!"
"If they're on the other
side, you can enter."
"And you do the same."
It's the sailor's
rule: three days...
New shift.
Sex and vodka, vodka,
sex, sex and vodka,
They only noticed the sea on
the last day and then went home.
After his fun he comes
home to his family.
But his lover is not a fool.
She gave a birth to twin girls.
She came and left
them on the doorstep.
When the door was
opened, she said:
"Here's a present
from the sanatorium."
My mom told my father:
"Look, you're with me all year."
"But I'll give you one month."
"Go wherever you want."
"But beware not
one single bitch..."
"Comes to me and says
she slept with my husband."
I had very wise parents.
My friend went to a sanatorium.
She never had an
orgasm with her husband.
She never even knew what it was.
But at the sanitorium she
found some guys to teach her.
I had the same experience.
Just like my friend I
never have an orgasm.
It all depends on the man.
He is responsible,
not the woman.
If he's experienced and
knows what he's doing...
He can make her orgasm.
That I know how to give a blowjob
and am "Queen of the Bedroom."
None of my four
husbands ever knew.
Not the second...
Not the third.
Certainly not the fourth.
None had a clue I
could give a blowjob.
And the first one was
a total flop anyway.
What's up here?
Hi sweetie.
"I'm waiting for you.
I have time now..."
You're home? Please
honey, just wait a bit longer.
Who was that?
My lover.
My husband asked,
"Do you love me?"
I said, "Buddy, is the
word 'love' in 'husband'?"
A lover is for love.
A husband is a duty.
You mean
con-tra-cep-tion, right?
In my life, there
was none of that.
What's it called? Condoms.
Maybe smart people
had them somewhere.
But not fools like us.
We didn't understand this.
Even condoms were in shortage.
We never heard of the pills.
Pills were something that
existed only in the Western movies.
When they appeared...
So-called "Rubber Item #4."
Many were ashamed to buy them.
We told the pharmacist:
"A pack of aspirin..."
With a wink.
There were two in a
pack and very thick.
The condoms were so thick.
Three times thicker
than air balloons.
But they burst at
the critical moment.
Pregnancy was
the biggest danger.
Oh, problem number
one - not to get pregnant.
Who needs it?
Because it was
problem with apartments.
Difficulties with kindergarten.
Men have this saying:
"Giving birth is not our chore;
In and out and off for more."
It was on the women to provide.
Whoever got her
pregnant doesn't care.
It's her problem.
Most of my female
lovers they were married.
So even if she gets pregnant...
It's her problem, not mine,
Because she has a husband.
So it was safe for me to have
a sexual relationship with her.
Because using condom...
Unfortunately, it always
turned out for me that...
All the time she
was in a condition...
She got upset with me.
I couldn't control myself, so...
Abortions happened.
Then we made love even better.
Without protection.
And he comes inside me!
I asked him not to
get me pregnant...
"I'm not coming inside!"
And he comes inside!
And then I'm pregnant again.
But abortions will happen, because
contraceptives are very expensive.
Much more than the
cost of an abortion.
"So you're 17 years old..."
"How long have you
been sexually active?"
Four months.
"You're 11 weeks pregnant.
What do you want to do?"
I have no idea
how this happened.
I told her how to
douche with hot water.
"Mom, I want to
try something else."
I said, "No! Just
use hot water."
"So much for your
hot water, mom!"
Stalin banned abortion.
In USSR abortion was forbidden.
After the war...
Many people had been
killed, there were no people.
So to build the population
they forbade abortion.
So more soldier-boys
would be born.
They needed to
increase the population.
They needed canon fodder.
But to get an abortion,
it was a big hassle.
Then they would report it at
your place of study or work.
It was a shame for her.
Because she was
universally condemned.
You come and they write
"abortion" in your medical record.
And maybe not everyone
wanted for this to be public.
So girls went for
criminal abortions.
Abortion in Russia remains one
of the most dangerous operations.
Last year 243 women
died during its performance.
Half of those who had abortions get
complications and various diseases.
Nevertheless, Russia remains one of the leaders
in the number of abortions in the world.
Last year 3 million
were performed.
This is almost 10 times more
than in Western European countries.
Despite the fact that this
operation is legal in Russia,
For each legal recorded abortion,
ten illegal abortions are performed.
Catapult! Training
apparatus for pilots.
We pilots had an idea.
We had catapult simulator.
In the first trimester...
We strapped her in
and catapulted her!
The uterus stays in place,
and the embryo detaches.
In few days... presto!
The pregnancy was terminated.
Without any surgical
intervention or consequences.
We saved these girls.
For that they repaid us...
As only a girl can.
Lordy, my darlings.
People would do anything:
Drank kerosine.
Girls poked with
nails down there.
People performed
abortions in their homes.
Grannies did abortions.
Many young girls died from this.
Because if you tell
anyone they'll try to help.
But if they help
they go to jail.
Both jailed: You and
whoever helped you.
Girls would die before
telling who did the abortion.
The first thing I
would like to say...
So no one has any illusions.
Dear viewers,
abortion is baby murder.
It's a mortal sin.
The second thing I want to
say is that all contraceptives...
Hormonal, IUDs,
diaphragms, condoms.
And all these horrific devilish
devices shown on television...
They all lead to
abortion, which is murder.
A 16 year old girl was
raped and got pregnant.
And she was given a lecture
like what we just heard.
That abortion is murder.
And you will be a murderer
if you have an abortion.
So she hanged herself.
Anybody else want to comment?
Abortions in minors...
Is a national
catastrophe for Russia.
Because a woman who
has an abortion before 21...
Can never have a baby,
according to medical data.
After the rape, if she
can't raise the child...
At least give birth to it.
Give the child life and
preserve your own health.
I want to ask you Father,
about these 3 million women.
Should we line them up and
shoot them for being murderers?
Or do you want to
put them all in prison?
Allow me to ask
one more question.
When we say we need
to wage wars of liberation,
When we say the government
must maintain its sovereignty.
Isn't there a possibility of
killing innocent civilians?
Why aren't you protesting
against this, dear Father?
And it's time to stop placing the state's
irresponsibility towards its future...
On the powerless
shoulders of women.
Catastrophe! It
was a catastrophe.
Women had a lot of abortions.
Backstreet abortions
were seriously punished.
People went to jail.
I know a woman with three
kids, who died from an abortion.
And the woman who helped her also
had three kids; she served seven years.
My neighbor Sanka Alyoshiha...
She was asked in the
hospital: "Who did this?"
"A grass snake bit me."
"Grass snakes don't bite,
somebody did an abortion."
Someone tore her uterus and
she was bleeding everywhere.
They demanded:
"Who did this to you?"
"A snake, a snake."
"So we won't help you."
And they didn't.
So she died and got buried.
So many girls committed suicide.
Because they didn't
see another way out.
My sister came and said:
I need help; I'm pregnant.
She bribed a doctor.
Right on that table...
We put a sheet,
my sister lays down.
She sits, he opens her
womb, blood runs everywhere.
I almost fell there.
I almost fainted.
"Calm down, you
have to help me."
And she got an infection.
She was in the hospital
for a whole month.
In a huge room
with 20 other women.
Everyone died
except my sister Yulia.
I was knocked up
many times myself.
So many times.
How many times?
More than ten abortions.
Every five months I
run for new abortion.
I also found myself
on that operating table.
A gynecologist named Mueller.
He said: "Do you want
to avoid pregnancies?"
I said, "Of course!"
"Have sex right
away with many men."
"I'm giving you
a hint," he said.
Abortions were
the only available...
Means of birth control, in fact.
It was just having your body as
a battle, as a constant battlefield.
Again I'm off to the hospital.
Such a handsome
young doctor was there.
He looked at me and says:
"Do you have children?"
Meanwhile, he's
scraping inside me.
"Yes, I do."
"Look, no offense,
but I'll do something..."
"So you never come back to me."
After that, no more abortions.
Thank the Lord for him.
If he hadn't done that...
I'd be dead.
Tell me, what is
homosexuality for you?
I was probably born this way.
Because women
never interested me.
I don't understand.
I've never hurt
anyone in my entire life.
I don't know why God
punished me like this.
In our country you don't
even control your own ass.
In your own way.
Because everything goes
straight to the Party committee.
They try to brainwash
you in any way they can.
So you become
identical to everyone else.
To be the same as everyone. Think
like everyone, work like everyone...
And to fuck like everyone else.
I tried to hide my orientation.
Because if God forbid
anyone found out.
You lose your humanity
and become a scapegoat.
You must be
physically eliminated.
Same-sex lovers
are nature's mistakes.
Genetic mistake, there's
nothing to be done.
They're a monstrosity
that must be destroyed.
I was thinking "What's
wrong with me?"
See? Because no, I was not gay.
Gay? No, it's not a word
you put in your mouth.
"Ooh. Dirty. No, I'm
not gay, I'm normal."
So complicated because
you want to survive.
Mom says: "Yura, you're
getting older, you should marry."
So I married.
But something was wrong.
I was ruining both our lives.
Thank god, my wife
understood everything.
And we agreed to divorce.
Back then, there were a
lot of places to pick up a guy.
And clubs.
All people would go to the bath.
They could spend whole day...
With all those activities.
And come back to their wives
and children in the evening.
When Maksim Gorkiy
learned his son was gay.
He told Stalin and
Stalin added this law.
Homosexuality was made unlawful.
Before that it was allowed.
I know the story of
Parajanov's arrest quite well.
We were walking down the street.
He pointed to a
policeman: "See him?"
"What about him?"
"I screwed him yesterday."
He constantly broke
the frame of sexual life.
He boasted, shockingly:
"I already had all the
Politburo members."
Was he homosexual?
That's not why
they imprisoned him.
He set such an example.
That a free-thinking
man is a beautiful man.
A person you want to emulate.
They imprisoned him so he wouldn't
infect others with the virus of freedom.
Because they don't
need independent people.
A freedom-loving person
won't give them anything good.
There were called
"Enemies of the People."
But in fact they were
enemies of the system.
I understood there were some
informants among people around me.
Then one day they called
me to come to the KGB office.
There were two gay...
Uh... two KGB persons.
The discussion
lasted for 8 hours.
If I were not a member
of Communist Party,
And my relatives were
not members of KGB.
I think I wouldn't survive.
Tell me, what is
homosexuality for you?
It's a worldview
and a way of life.
Soviet men generally
humiliate women.
Or licks her boots.
Is this a relationship?
Only in a "deviant"
gay relationship...
Is the true, sincere
merger of souls possible...
Through authentic
male tenderness.
Any human being needs...
Not only sex, but
also a soulmate.
We had a long-term relationship.
He was arrested.
When I found out...
I rushed to rescue him.
I went to the KGB office.
I said: "We're roommates."
And they arrested me as well.
"We are friends
living together."
"What's the matter?"
How I can prove anything?
They beat me for three days.
"Confess you're one of those!"
I relented. "Yeah, yeah."
At the trial was a woman judge.
She said: "You're a monstrosity
who should be destroyed."
"You do not belong
among normal people."
So my sentence was one year.
I'm nobody, a nothing.
If they repeat: "You're
a pig, a pig, a pig."
At some point you'll "oink."
I think they forged a link:
gay, prison, rape, filth.
For all its anti-homosexual
propaganda...
The Soviet government
itself created conditions...
for the spread of this
so-called pathology.
By building entire cities
dedicated to one industry...
Men in factory towns
and women in textile cities.
Massive gender
imbalances were created.
Citizens craving human
connection found it where they could.
Lesbianism was particularly
common due to a lack of men...
And widespread alcoholism
among those who existed.
I spit on them,
I can't stand it.
How is this possible? A
woman lying with a woman!
Just thinking about
it makes me tremble.
Women lived with
women in Soviet times.
It just wasn't publicized.
And they joked as follows, "The
pleasure is no worse than with a man.
Plus, you won't get pregnant."
Vera and Lyuda.
They lived together
like man and wife.
Holding hands and
sleeping together.
We all wondered how they did it?
If it's a man,
then it's like this.
But what can girls do?
Poke your finger there or what?
Tell me, how? How is this?
May God protect us from evil.
This is beyond everything!
I had a task to find
some gay women.
Well, that is the first time
we see gay women here.
There was one writer
who played the guitar.
"Let the guards
strip search us."
"Hey, pour a glass
for the homeland."
"We girls don't mind
toasting with another shot."
"To the suffering lesbians..."
"For their first wedding night."
I tried concealing
my crime in the camp.
Statute #122.
God forbid they find out there.
They'll drag you
against your will.
Even in that society you're
not a human anymore.
I worked on a
woodworking machine.
And my hand got
caught into the gears.
They called a surgeon.
He took a look, and
asked: "What crime?"
"Oh, you're a pedarast.
No anesthesia for you then."
So I had the surgery
without anesthesia.
Nobody touches such a person.
The only way for them
is to go to the bitchboys.
They had a separate
table in the canteen.
If you sit at that table, that's
it, you're a "bitchboy" too.
Understand?
Sometimes I go
to sleep and think..
How did I manage
to survive this hell?
They think it's normal
to humiliate people.
What exactly does it mean?
You are put in a
cell with others.
"Homos," as they say.
And they rape you.
What do you do if
10-20 people attack you?
I served my term in
Kharkov Camp #12.
Nightmarish memories
of it still keep me awake.
I served in the Gulag
#12 from 1974 to 1975.
Along with Dr. Stern.
Yes, we had dissidents.
These people undermined the
Soviet system, made speeches...
Pushed anti-Soviet propaganda.
Thanks to people like
Dr. Stern, we survived.
We first heard about
human rights from Dr. Stern.
He said, "It's temporary."
"This is the worst they can do."
"Don't let them
destroy your humanity."
Let me tell you an
interesting story.
I conducted experiments.
I wanted to extinguish their
traditions, education, norms.
To forget completely
their free life.
When you have a
straight jacket on...
You wanna take a
breath, but you can't.
Then a female
doctor comes and...
Stands over you while
you're on the floor.
She has no panties on, and says:
"Take a peak..."
"Before you die."
I was building their
moral character.
Our motto: "Every
officer is a tutor."
I loved my job.
Of course, 100%.
You go in normal and come
out a totally different person.
Stern was treated
worst than others.
They killed the
human inside him.
They handcuffed him,
put a condom on a baton.
And shoved it up his butt.
It was a signal.
If you act and
speak like Stern...
The same thing
will happen to you.
He never said exactly
that he was raped.
But I was keen to
know, and hinted at it.
I came to the conclusion that he
was raped, and over a long period.
Stern said: "When I get
out I'll write everything."
"In my memoirs."
Pornography is universal, but in
the Soviet Union it was also a weapon.
Yuri Vasilchenko was a Pravda photographer
who took nude photos of his wife after work.
When their marriage soured, she
sent the pictures to the secret police.
And he was sentenced
to five years in prison.
When he later became my patient,
he suffered from a terror of intimacy...
Having learned the hard lesson that true
privacy does not exist in the Soviet Union.
Pornography was against the law.
And this law
comprised everything...
That was related to sexuality.
It was called
"pornography distribution."
And for this you
get a prison term.
Deaf-mutes would
go through the trains,
They sold all kinds
of picture cards,
With all sorts of erotic scenes.
Why deaf-mutes?
Because it's not
worth arresting them.
It was headache. What
you will do with him?
If you put him
into the prison...
He can't work there.
He walks by, put a deck
of cards in front of you.
You quickly put it in you
pocket before anyone sees.
And then it's a pity
to throw it away.
That shit was
everywhere, my God!
They saw who had a lot of
money and offered to them.
Even old farts bought them.
Usually it came from
overseas, from sailors.
Vladimir Vladimirovitch
heads Odesa customs.
Economic and ideological
contraband come together.
We will never allow such
depravity into the USSR.
Whether it's bourgeois magazines deciding to
play on anti-Soviet sensation or a tabloid...
With cheap porn that
makes the eyes ashamed.
Fighting this gave me
a certain state of mind.
It's in my blood.
If I don't confiscate
something, I feel sick.
Many hours are spent
looking through such movies.
Every single day.
In later years porn
movies appeared.
However, where do we check? Where
do we check what's on these tapes?
In the Black Sea
administration there's no VCR.
In our department
there's no VCR,
I don't have one. In the Mariupol
police department there's no VCR.
But we knew who sold videotapes.
If he's selling tapes,
he must have a VCR.
Our offer:
"Next time we catch
you, you can go free."
"But now let us watch these
three tapes on your VCR."
We photographed
incriminating scenes.
And presented
evidence to the court.
We were dependent
on the porn dealers.
We had no choice.
The police started
catching them.
But how? They
knocked on the door...
Immediately they
hid the cassette.
So the police shut off the
power to the apartment.
So you couldn't remove
the cassette from the VCR.
When I was a student in Leningrad
we opened a home video club.
Then I was charged with
"Distribution of Obscene Propaganda."
We showed the film "Emmanuelle."
That night I was arrested.
They scared me very much.
At first they told me
that I'd get 15 years.
And they started talking
to me about a bribe,
And we agreed on 1500 rubles.
I paid, but I was kicked out of
university and left St. Petersburg.
There's no work.
There's no money at
home. And what to do?
Prostitution.
No choice.
I was a part of a police
assistance squad.
The senior policeman
then tells me:
"Chase away the prostitutes."
I say, "What prostitutes?
We don't have prostitutes."
It wasn't like you could
go buy a girl on the street.
I never saw or
heard of such a thing.
A dime a dozen.
Prostitutes were everywhere!
They're fucking on every corner.
On the street, the plague!
In the parks,
everywhere, my God!
I walked down Khreshchatyk.
Started looking
carefully in this direction.
I got the feeling
everyone was a prostitute.
You're walking
down the street...
You see a woman in a fur coat.
She sees you...
Checks you out.
And does like this...
She has nothing on.
Absolutely!
Absolutely naked!
In the daytime.
Especially in the Soviet Union.
Salaries were so low.
No work, no money. What to do?
I became a prostitute
about a year ago.
We're mostly minors under 18.
By the way, in our city there's a
shortage of prostitutes, of course.
Because there is a huge demand.
If there are clients,
there are pimps.
This is forbidden. You'll
immediately get 10 years.
I don't consider
the punishment fair.
But is too late.
My parents didn't
know what I was doing.
I told them I was working.
Only at the trial it became
clear what I was doing.
There were no
official prostitutes.
But a certain amount
of women was allowed.
To practice it and
report on the others
Who were not registered
with the secret police.
So they had a
function in this society.
Nice man.
Do you like me? Yes, I like you.
I like you too.
And you came into the hotel?
To you hotel I come.
I like present.
There was prostitution
in the USSR.
But it was illegal and
had a different form.
Many women had been compromised.
They didn't send
them to prison, but...
They threatened to reopen the case if
they didn't obey and send them to jail.
"I eat from dumpsters."
"I drink from puddles."
"The rain soaks
me, it's my shower."
"I'm the worst; much
worse than you."
"I'm the most useless.
I'm nasty. I'm dirt."
I'm a loser.
What are you here for?
For prostitution?
Foreign currency
exchange and theft...
Of property from foreigners.
By engaging in prostitution?
No, for possessing
foreign currency.
It's easier to convict that way.
It's no problem to jail
an ordinary person.
It is very surprising to
see all this in your country.
If in Brazil I was told about the
existence of prostitutes in the USSR,
I wouldn't have believed it.
Why is prostitution immoral?
Because it's for money?
When husbands cheat
on their wives, is it moral?
When teenagers
arrange orgies, is it moral?
How are dealings
with foreigners?
Of course, they're great.
He values me as a
woman, you understand?
He pays me for this.
What about Russians?
Russians.
Russians annoy me.
With their behavior. They have
no upbringing, no manners, nothing.
The thing is...
It's not just the human
body that's for sale.
Much is for sale
that shouldn't be.
If a person is taught to
deceive from childhood...
It's not difficult for
them to live a double life.
Sex is everywhere.
Always has been, always will be.
You approach the
chair with a flying gait.
Sit down. Pull up your skirt,
even if it's not necessary.
And completely synchronously
fold your arms, head, and legs.
And we start with one of the
standard phrases like: "Are you angry?
There's so much
indignation in your voice...
You're silent... You don't
even want to talk to me."
Lift your eyes to him and smile.
Look confused.
After this, all your actions
will be kindly accepted. Try it.
Come on. Come on.
Come on. Come on.
Open that little mouth.
Let's see the lips.
Where are those lips? Where?
Relax, relax, relax.
To be charming you
must learn to smile.
Smile with a naive,
ecstatic, mysterious smile.
Like Women's Day.
What is Women's Day?
Women's Day is the day
when all the men drink.
To their women, thanking them...
That they are so beautiful and
that they are so supportive...
And that they are so inspiring,
"Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah."
"Thank you so much, Darling.
Get your tulip and go to hell."
"To beat is to love."
"To beat is to love."
"To beat is to love."
That's how to make
a woman happy.
Beating her shows his love.
That's the psychology
of our women. Either...
Sex or beating.
Otherwise, it means
he has a mistress.
This saying was accepted.
People said, "To
beat is to love."
The system created this.
It was a complete degradation.
Through some sort
of mass hypnosis.
One newlywed complained,
"Why don't you beat me?"
"You don't love me." "What do
you mean? I do everything for you."
"You don't beat me,
so you don't love me."
So he started beating her.
He eventually beat her to
death. That was his "love."
The first time my
husband hit me...
He was a police officer,
so he knew how to do it.
For what?
I was young. I had
beautiful straight white teeth.
Like pearls.
He said to me...
"Stop smiling! When you
smile your wrinkles show."
Do you hear? 21 years old,
I have wrinkles on my face.
One night we went to a party.
Probably I started smiling.
I can't help it, I'm
smiley by nature.
When we got home it started.
Powerful punches in
my belly and solar plexus.
He's trying to elevate
her through beating.
She accepts it as
part of her education.
He beat me, beat me.
He comes home, takes off
his belt with an iron buckle.
When he hit me, blood
started running from my nose.
I grabbed him: "If you
ever touch me again..."
"I'll kill you, you bastard."
Since then he didn't
touch me anymore.
The family is the cell
of communist society.
In order to protect this "cell."
The Party used all their force.
Everything was
taken under control.
Not just how you work, what you
think, But what you do at home,
How you sleep or don't sleep with
your wife, What you talk about there.
Family issues were
resolved at Party meetings.
Will you be a family or not?
"You disgrace the
Communist Party."
"Such a person is not
worthy among our ranks."
If a woman comes to
the Party committee...
And complains about
her cheating husband.
The Party takes care of it.
He was condemned and
shamed by a hundred people.
"You shouldn't
cheat on your wife!"
"You're destroying
the unit of society."
So, I had to indicate
a serious reason.
On the basis of which
I'm getting divorced.
This was announced
in the newspaper.
It was shameful,
it was very difficult.
The party did more
harm than good here.
Because the woman complains
about her bad husband.
But the Party
makes her life worse.
He gets fired.
And now everyone knows
about this messed up family.
They said they were
re-educating them.
They put them on the right path.
Listovsky with his
disgraceful acts...
Forced the Komsomol committee...
To discuss his behavior at a
general Komsomol meeting.
And his behavior in the family?
Disgraceful!
It was easy to "expose" a
neighbor or acquaintance.
Whom you didn't like.
And get rid of him
with no evidence.
Anonymous letters were
written on wives and husbands.
Well, for example, that your husband
is cheating on you with so-and-so.
They wrote bullshit
and didn't sign.
And then it gets to the leadership
and they start investigating.
The Party had to analyze
all these anonymous letters.
There was this really
good girl, my colleague.
But her husband wasn't so good.
He wrote a letter
to the Party...
Asking us to
investigate her behavior.
Because she performed
oral sex on him.
And he says, "How can she, a
party member, engage in this?"
It was considered terribly bad.
"Uncle Five Kopeks"
was his nickname.
He wrote anonymous
letters against everyone.
Later in life, when
he was an old man...
He mourned, "How many
people have I sent to prison?"
In any hotel in
Leningrad or Moscow...
I saw it myself,
there were prostitutes.
But they were all KGB people.
Women are the best spies.
They can accomplish anything.
She will eliminate
you upon command.
Of course all of our top
missions included female spies.
The government had to know
what threats were among us.
People they wanted to
imprison for political reasons...
The KGB framed them.
They would send a
female KGB worker.
Mykola Horbal, for instance.
Intelligent guy,
walking down the street.
Suddenly a girl
nearby starts to yell:
"Help! Help! I'm
being raped and killed!"
She tore a button off herself.
The KGB was on the
stakeout, of course.
I was not the first,
thousands went to jail this way.
The courts were just
an extension of the KGB.
The judge repeated
whatever the KGB said.
I got five years in prison.
For attempted rape.
Yes. Woman is the
hunter; man is the hunted.
While glamorized
in popular culture...
The reality of the Soviet sex
spy program was mostly mundane.
Thousands started their intensive
training with foreign languages...
International etiquette,
and Karl Marx.
In 1956, the Soviet premier set one
of the most elaborate sex traps ever.
The French Ambassador
Maurice Dejean...
Blessed by de Gaulle and considered a
favorite for the next president of France...
Arrived in Moscow with his
wife, but was quickly seduced...
By several Bolshoi ballerinas.
Larissa Kronberg
was his favorite.
And as an experienced spy,
she arranged for his wife...
To leave for a long
sail up the Moscow river.
While she procured the
necessary compromising material.
When promised no one
would see the photos...
Maurice agreed to cooperate with
the Russian Secret Service for life.
His colleague, Colonel Louis
Gibeau, suffered a worse fate.
When presented with pictures of himself
in bed with a Russian spy in 1962...
He refused to collaborate.
Instead, he shot
himself in the head.
She seems so kind and caring.
But she'll bring you
unfathomable evil.
You don't have to forget...
There was a special
department of KGB...
Which was in charge of
sort of training women...
In order to get the
foreigners in bed.
We called these girls
"Legion," or "Legionaries."
Our orders came from the top.
Why "Legion"? Because
we were on guard.
And, naturally, all
this was based on sex.
A sex spy needs everything.
She should be smart,
crafty and cultured.
They had to wear makeup,
smell nice, be well-dressed.
In short, they had to
stand out from Soviet girls.
They had to fire-up the target.
We didn't recruit
Legionaires from the streets.
They selected them
from 12-14 years old.
From various organizations
like sport clubs.
I was doing ballet when I
first met a strange old guy.
They looked us over
and photographed us.
That was the start of
the recruitment process.
This was the first
photo they took of me.
I was thirteen.
First they fully
investigate your family.
Then they vet the actual girl.
They analyzed years
of my behavior in school.
All the skeletons in
my closet, everything.
I knew everything about them.
For instance: "Why are you
wearing these stockings today?"
"And not yesterday's?
Because they got ripped?"
I had to know this.
If they groomed her for Legion,
they taught her everything.
How to do makeup,
how to dress fashionably.
How to set a table.
Western etiquette.
Only then, did they teach sex.
At home we were
girls in ponytails...
In public we were femme fatales.
Before you formally
join the service...
Because this is official work...
You had to pass an exam.
That you're not a
simple prostitute.
That you can add value.
A bunch of serious
old guys led the exams.
We had to catwalk
naked in a sauna.
Your physical flexibility,
capabilities and strength.
Then blow jobs, massages
and everything else.
She finishes with one
man; another arrives.
She needs endurance.
If she can pleasure
2-3 men in an hour...
They had to be
satisfied and in ecstasy.
Then she's ready to start work.
This is me at 14.
At this age we
officially joined.
He said, "See you've
caught that man's eye?"
"Can seduce him
to leave with you?"
"Where?" I asked. "At
a rest house nearby."
I grabbed a bottle of
champagne and I did it.
He filmed us.
We had a room
with hidden cameras.
After a week...
He came to me
and said, "Well..."
"Quite marvelous." And
he showed me photos...
Of the victim crying as he
lost his Party membership.
"That was your doing,
and here is your payment."
I received 900 rubles...
When an engineer
got 120 per month.
I went wherever they sent me.
For instance, a board room
with a lone Party member.
"Uncle dear, could
you please sign this?"
"And who are you?"
"I'm simply Lenochka."
"Well, 'simply Lenochka'
I'm not signing any paper."
I said "Uncle,
have a look here..."
"I'll tear my shirt and there
are two guards outside."
"I'll scream 'He's raping
me and I'm only 17!'"
He signed everything.
And I was back at
HQ in 90 minutes.
And some of the women
were very, very successful.
Like the wife of a very
famous sculptor, Konenkov.
She was the
mistress of Einstein.
And of course she
worked for KGB because...
Konenkova was allowed
to work in New York.
And the Manhattan Project was...
Penetrated.
Personally, I think I
deserve the honor.
If all my girls complete
their missions.
Working efficiently...
And don't discredit
me or themselves.
Because in reality
it's me doing this.
I guided her through these jobs.
They promised the
girls mountains of gold.
But they couldn't care
less about us girls.
We were just disposable
objects they could use.
We had a file of compromising
material on every girl.
She knows I have
a file this thick...
And any second...
I can pass some
pages to the KGB...
And she'll be on
trial for these crimes.
It's not possible
to leave Legion.
Except in a body bag.
If we're successfully
controlling their lives...
We know she'll never
get away from us.
Every day I must know
exactly what's in her head...
Or I'm not worth a penny.
Because she will outsmart you.
None of the girls are left.
Nadya.
She was promising,
she went off to Kyiv.
She got drunk and
blabbed some secret.
Then she was hit by a car.
This was my friend Tanya.
The brunette, Tanyachka.
Should ruined an
important mission somehow.
Despite my hopes, I
knew should wouldn't live.
She was drowned.
This girl is Victoria.
She fell in love with an Italian
she was supposed to recruit.
She had just about succeeded.
But at their last meeting
she told him the truth.
They sent her to a
psychiatric hospital.
And turned her into a vegetable.
You know...
With the perspective
of all these years...
It seems to me now...
In my heart and soul I
shouldn't have done that.
But by law I was
required to do it.
Bosses were out of
control in the Soviet Union.
They didn't listen neither
to police nor to prosecutors.
He was god and tsar.
He did whatever he wanted.
Everything happened
with the help of boss.
Wife's job: Him.
Husband's promotion: Him.
Apartment: Him.
Everything is Him.
If you are higher up...
In this echelon of power...
You're allowed to do more
things and get away with that.
So sex was one
of the privileges.
Women who were ambitious...
To make a career to the top.
They had to accept sexual
assault as part of their social lifting.
You've got this
elite hospital...
Where the nurses were
obliged to go to bed...
With the high placed patients.
And the high-placed
patients would say:
"We want some full
breasted nurses."
It was very, very complicated
to say no for a nurse.
One of my female trainees
was married to a doctor.
Her husband wanted a
transfer to a regional hospital.
So he sent his wife to sleep
with the other hospital director.
Even getting an apartment...
Because you couldn't buy one.
Even if you had money.
Apartments were state property.
To get a flat you had to be
employed and wait in line.
You could wait your
whole life and not get one.
But sleep with your boss...
You'll get a flat right away
in the best neighborhood.
Yakov Pavlovich
Osadchy is 68 years old.
Half his life he's run a
pipe production factory.
First we allocate apartments
to good employees.
We pay special
attention to women.
Because God gave
them better figures.
Do you have a name? Yes.
What is your name, dear?
Shura.
Shura-baby... How
long have you suffered?
Many years Mr. Pavlovich.
How many without an apartment?
I've been first in
line since 1964.
So, you've been
waiting for 10 years, huh?
Have patience for
half a year more.
So the Director told me:
"You've been at the
front of the line five years."
I was first!
Can you imagine?
While we were talking
a fly landed on me.
He said: "You push me away but
even the flies know you're sweet."
These kinds of hints.
"You'll get an apartment
when I get sex."
When a girl suddenly
starts to rise at work...
Immediately there
is a suspicion...
That her success is because
she's the boss's lover.
There was no other way.
Especially secretaries.
They were the
number one prostitutes.
They were "Secre-tutes."
From the words...
"Secretary" and "prostitute."
If you don't "serve" your
boss, you won't work.
How else? Gotta
undress, sit down...
Men are sassy. If he likes a
woman, he'll turn her life into hell.
As soon as he
notices the wench...
She's a goner.
They raped them and
no one paid a price.
Especially bosses.
The boss was Melnyk...
Oleg Vasilievich.
"If you sleep with me you'll get
your full salary and no demerits."
"If you don't, you get nothing."
He gave me potatoes and flour.
Poverty was so bad.
Girls screwed for
food, for anything.
Where to complain? To whom?
They lived however they wanted.
They did everything they wanted.
Their lechery was at a
level you can't even imagine.
In the army there were these
art collectives, like ensembles.
The girls there had to go to bed
with the highly placed military.
They could organize orgies
and invite these young dancers.
The regional heads
invited young girls.
And arranged various games.
The most popular
was "The Daisy."
The girls were lined in a circle
and the man had each one.
The contest is how
many girls he could do.
What the hell are you
raping young girls for?
Bastards, aren't there enough
women so you're raping children?
Such filthy pleasures.
They satisfied them at the
expense of people's lives.
At the expense
of souls and blood.
Soviets came: bosses,
directors, snakes.
Did what they wanted with women.
This is not true.
She asked for it. She
gave him a reason.
"If the bitch doesn't
want to fuck..."
"Then the dog is out of luck."
He can't do anything
if the girl doesn't agree.
How can you make me have sex?
My mom came home,
crying and bleeding.
They dragged her into a barn.
Two men stood on her
arms and the third one...
They all raped her by turn.
The elite ignored the Soviet
ideals of austerity, modesty,
and sobriety.
And they were far from chaste.
Stalin himself collected
nude male drawings.
And scribbled obscene notes in
the margins during his free time.
At 35 He began an affair
with a thirteen-year-old orphan.
His next lover was a
sixteen-year-old runaway.
The secret police
codenamed "Glamourpuss."
The Soviet Minister of Culture
used his position to commandeer...
A harem of young actresses,
ballerinas and schoolgirls.
Whom he and many of his
colleagues routinely raped.
It was only when one jumped
from her dormitory window...
And her mother read the suicide
note that the ring was exposed.
Another leader, Sergei Kirov, was
infamous for his nightly requests...
That the most beautiful
ballerinas be sent to his apartment.
He was following in the footsteps
of the KGB chief Lavrentiy Beria...
Who sent his driver on
daily hunts for schoolgirls...
To kidnap and bring
back to his cottage.
He raped and
murdered countless girls.
Without a free
press or courts...
And the threat of
punishment against women...
Should they resist, the
Soviet Union was in essence...
A continent-sized sexual
hunting ground for the powerful.
Whether a local party boss or
the General Secretary himself.
How could a warm-blooded
people like the Russians...
Could just sweep sex under the
rug? Surely there will be an explosion.
This is actually a
political question...
That appears in other
areas of human life.
Do the illustrious
Russian people...
Conduct themselves
as normal people?
In regard to human rights, real
elections, real voting and not fictions?
But after so much repression,
there might be some explosion?
The sexual
revolution in Russia...
Will not proceed in
a civilized manner.
This sexual revolution could
result in a social cataclysm.
Perestroika lit
a fire in society.
And then the film
"Little Vera" appeared.
It was the first time a woman was
shown to be in charge during sex.
In many ways that film marked...
The end of the Soviet system.
The 1980s saw economic
and political chaos...
And the AIDS epidemic brutalized
Russia as the Soviet Union collapsed.
The 1990s brought
further social disintegration.
Sex was everywhere. TV broadcasters
stripped naked while reporting the news.
Street corners filled with
pornography and prostitutes.
Sexpionage did not die
with the Soviet Union.
When Vladimir Putin took
over the secret police...
He orchestrated the
national broadcast...
Of a sex sting operation against
a political enemy of Boris Yeltsin.
He was rewarded with
the job of Prime Minister.
Setting the stage for his
rise to absolute power.
Totalitarianism did
not vanish in 1991.
All these fears remained.
It's horrific that in
the 21st century...
This plague is still
infecting people.
And draws them to their death.
A person dies there.
It's not a country
but a pile of shit.
And it's stinky.
The whole world should unite...
Around the idea
to destroy this evil.
An 86 year-old man
assaulted in his home...
Who died last night...
Was Russian
dissident Mikhael Stern.
He was a world famous dissident.
Along with Sakharov,
Solzhenitsyn and Sharansky.
After a campaign was
organized to free him...
By Jean-Paul Sartre
and Simone de Beauvoir...
He was released from gulag
and settled in Amsterdam...
Where, almost thirty years
later, he met this tragic end.
That normal,
common words like...
Fuck, cock, pussy,
masturbate, orgasm.
These words don't
exist, Soviets say only:
"It."
Many factors lead
to the fact that...
In the Soviet
Union, normal sex...
As in the West doesn't exist.
This is tied to the
totalitarian system.
Which impacts all
areas of human life.
If you want to understand
the Soviet Union...
The best way to do so...
Is to understand
Soviet sexuality.
"We will destroy this world
of violence to the foundation."
My name is Dr. Michael Stern.
I was conceived the night
of the October Revolution...
Which unleashed repressed desires
for political, social and sexual freedom.
People were drunk on possibility
and launched a series of rash...
Radical, utopian reforms.
The Bolshevik criminal code
was the best in the whole Europe.
They reformed everything.
The priority for women
workers now is to...
Cast off the burden
of raising their children.
Help the Communist Party...
To build a new shining life!
The Bolsheviks claimed sex
should be treated as casually...
As drinking a glass of water.
Artists explored sexual themes.
And museums displayed erotic
photographs for the first time.
The intelligentsia
threw off their clothes...
along with centuries of
repression and shame.
Naked calisthenics was popular as
people rejoiced in their newfound skin.
A nude beach appeared
just steps from the Kremlin.
Students hand published
pornographic magazines.
Authorities drew up plans
for public sex booths...
And orgies and free
love leagues proliferated.
Same-sex relationships
were decriminalized.
They said, "Okay, no
problem, we decriminalize it."
Why the Bolsheviks did it?
They decided that they
will conquer Europe...
With these new ideas.
At that time, everything
was communal.
A girl couldn't refuse sex.
A man has desires...
No one asked about
the woman's desires.
He needed sex,
he got it. Period.
Because everything
was belonging...
To "the People."
So the female genitals...
Were considered to
be private property...
If a woman said "no."
There are so many
heartbreaking stories of women...
Who were just broken...
By this revolutionary
experiment of the 20s.
When the Soviets came...
They took over and lived well.
They had everything and
we didn't even have bread.
Lenin's social experiment
began to collapse.
Pervasive sex in filthy conditions
led to widespread sickness.
Venereal disease was so common
among civilians and the military...
That the Red Army created
an entire syphilitic platoon.
Meanwhile, Soviet society was breeding a
dangerous generation of homeless orphans.
The destruction of social
and sexual norms, religion...
And the family led not to
utopia, But to savage brutishness.
The pendulum of sexual
freedom had to swing back.
If it didn't, it had to
be pulled back forcibly.
Then Stalin appeared.
A totally different personality.
Of the worst possible type.
Stalin was cruel.
When his daughter
Sveta was six years old...
He said: "Take off this
skirt! Put my shirt on her!"
"The girl's body
should be all covered!"
Stalin was very
cruel with his Nadya.
He made her his
lover against her will.
By the way, I think she
wasn't even 16 years old yet.
He dehumanized her,
he crossed her out.
He even beat her.
She committed suicide.
She shot herself.
I'm convinced 100%
that he was sexually sick.
I think it's connected
with his own problems.
That he became impotent early.
His aura, his energy...
It then spread throughout
the entire Soviet Union.
Naturally! Society
follows the leader.
The authorities quickly
understood that...
In sex, a person
must be themselves.
And should feel free.
But in the
totalitarian system...
Where sex is an
enemy of the ideology...
Everything is
done in order to...
De-eroticize sex.
"Have you read Marx?"
"Yes."
"And how was it?"
"Very interesting."
Stalin produced
all Soviet cinema...
Because film builds the person.
And it coincided with
Bolshevik ideology.
The construction of a new life.
What qualities should
a Communist have?
Chastity.
Why chastity?
The bourgeoisie perverted sex...
Because of the power of money.
Now capitalism is gone...
These feelings
regained their purity.
You really don't get it?
The idea was to train
young men and women...
For the army.
All these men and
women parading in shorts.
Exposing their bodies.
At the same time,
they shut down...
The whole topic of sexuality.
What an interesting
book I have here!
Everyone will be jealous.
And here's the most
important chapter.
"Never show intimate
relations to anyone anywhere."
Art depicting nudity was
censored throughout the empire.
The monumental statue, Girl
with an Oar, was destroyed.
Recently celebrated
photographers and artists...
Were sent to the Gulag as their
work was reclassified as pornography.
The opera Lady Macbeth
was banned for 30 years...
Because a musical movement
reminded Stalin of sex on a squeaky bed.
Homosexuality, adultery,
abortion, premarital sex...
And even masturbation
were criminalized.
And divorce became
extremely difficult.
Soviet women were required to dress
modestly, men to remain monogamous.
And housewives were warned
against preparing spicy meals.
Which could lead to
unwanted sexual arousal.
Sex education was
banned from school.
And on Stalin's orders kissing
was scrubbed from cinema.
The word sex itself vanished
from the encyclopedia.
Today I took out the
encyclopedia and looked up sex.
It just says "gender."
We didn't use this word.
It was considered a swear word.
We didn't even talk
about it among friends.
We didn't even
have words for it.
I didn't know what sex was.
There was love, or
something like that.
No need to call for Love...
It will appear uninvited...
And then spread joy all around.
"You will arrive one day..."
"Tenderly desired..."
"My truest friend."
"Happy New Year."
Everyone's watching,
you should be ashamed!
We were simply ashamed.
Neither mom nor dad had any
conversations with me about it.
Nothing was taught at school.
Everything you heard
you picked up on the street.
Everything from the
knees to the throat...
It doesn't exist.
Especially the female body.
There was no sex.
Sex, Bye, It's
Western, it's dirty.
It's only reproduction, there
is no sex, only reproduction.
I got married and got
my first experience.
Inexperienced first experience.
I lived with my husband
for several years.
I never undressed
completely in front of him.
I felt ashamed he might see me.
Every pleasure a
person can feel...
They tried to minimize
as much as possible.
It was useful for them
to make sex a taboo.
Because then they
could use it as a tool.
My first kiss?
That was my first kiss,
when he kissed me.
Hrysha, my husband.
What do you want?
I married at 17.
Who else could I have kissed?
Where could I have gone?
But his kissing was awful.
Some guys are good at kissing...
But he licked my whole face.
I had to run home to
wash it was so sticky.
Because there was no
place also where to have sex.
Because we all were
living with our parents.
So, many guys and girls... They
were getting married at 18, 19...
Because they just
wanted to have sex.
I wanted to say another word.
And then they were
getting married...
Just to be able to fuck.
In our times, if
a guy likes a girl,
If he falls in love with
her. He can possess her...
Only by marrying
her! No other way!
Otherwise he won't
have her. Absolutely.
Such were the rules, that
a girl should get married...
She must be a
virgin without fail.
Everyone was very
proud that she was a virgin.
He's her first. There were even
such traditions at weddings...
The groom's mother would lead
the newlyweds to the bedroom.
She would wait to see how
the first intercourse went.
And if blood dripped
on the sheet...
Then they would parade around
this sheet. He took an honest bride.
And if not, they would
say all sorts of nasty things.
You're cursed.
If we knew... that she
was like this, like that...
This woman was condemned.
We had a military doctor.
A surgeon.
We brought those girls who needed to get
married, who wanted to be virgins again.
For a certain fee he would sew
back what remained of the hymen.
And she became a virgin anew.
During sex...
Everything was
the same. It hurt her.
Blood flowed. And
the man felt tension.
A thrust, a rip and that's it.
It's the parents who go.
They drag their daughter to the
doctor. And ask like this and that.
And ask him to do such and such.
For cash they fix it
so she is honest again.
Let the husband try
to prove she's impure!
And afterwards he
would bring out the sheet.
And show everyone the
blood stains on the sheet.
That yes, he took
an honest wife.
In a family, a woman
had no right to say "no."
There was no "Sorry,
Dear, I have a headache."
That's not heard.
She's there that's it.
There was no such
thing as foreplay.
Here's the woman.
You go.
Many women didn't like it
because with no foreplay...
It's a rather painful act.
It's not always orgasm, but...
It's superiority.
You as a man enforce
your superiority on a woman.
Penetrate her forcefully. You
know if you do it with force...
Apply your brutal
power like a man...
You know you just take her.
What kind of sex are
you talking about...
When five families
lived in our apartment?
19 people.
It's called a "communalka."
Where can you have sex?
Russia is a huge country.
The biggest country in the world.
But actually their private
space is always tiny.
It's crazy.
Communalkas
were very interesting.
It was a ruse they thought up...
To use the huge
mansions of the rich...
That were originally
8 room homes.
The communists put
one family in each room.
Come on in...
Take a look how we live...
Three families. I
have two children.
A neighbor lives here.
She just left.
We don't know how
to divide the room.
Where to put her crib.
When I was pregnant
with my second child...
I asked for another
room. They refused.
They answered:
"The more the merrier."
It's impossible to live
like this. Impossible.
They blame us for everything.
I don't say it's perfectly tidy...
But a dormitory is dormitory.
And a lot of people live here.
I can't bring someone to visit. I'm just
ashamed that I live in such conditions.
There weren't even
doors in these rooms.
It was just an open space.
Up to 30-40 people
lived in these places.
And from this
group around 10%...
Worked for the KGB,
controlling the masses.
A lot of people who told
their thoughts in the kitchen...
And the next day they'd
be arrested and shot.
Millions of people.
After Stalin's death in 1953...
Nikita Khrushchev
became premier...
And started to open society.
One of the most extraordinary
signs of this thaw...
Was the World
Youth Festival of 1957.
34 thousand delegates
from 131 countries...
Came to Moscow with
the desire for peace...
And friendship.
Billed as the largest
festival in history.
For two full weeks delighted
crowds frolicked across the capital.
It was the first time many
Soviets had ever met a foreigner.
But what was intended as propaganda for
international friendship had unexpected results.
Tipped off by
concerned parents...
The authorities assembled
nighttime raids on parks and fields.
What they found was described
as an epic international orgy.
The foreigners
were escorted home.
But the Soviet girls were punished
by having half their heads shaved.
The next year,
hundreds of mixed race...
So-called festival
babies were born.
I was at that exact festival.
And our girls...
Decided to sleep with the ns.
A once-in-a-lifetime chance.
She saw a n...
And she was ready for anything.
So many little black
babies were born.
Everybody wanted one.
The forbidden fruit is sweetest.
It was an incredible trip.
Some great ego trip.
Not following the
rules of the officialdom.
If they say "no sex
before marriage."
You just go and
you, sorry, fuck...
Everybody in sight.
And you protest. It's
not only dissidents...
But you did it in your way.
Just breaking the laws,
break the regulations...
Of the Communist Party.
And you felt sort of
double ingratiated.
First of all, you
had this woman.
Secondly, you fucked,
sorry, The Communist Party.
The soul of the Soviet Union...
If you want one word:
Hypocrisy.
What a person says
is not what he thinks.
What he thinks is not
what he'd like to think.
And he relates to others
not in the way that he should.
This is hypocrisy.
Sex, sex, sex. And
not just sex at home.
But the best sex
is sex on the side.
I haven't seen a
single honest man.
My husband, his
brother, another brother.
They're all skirt-chasers.
My husband Grysha.
He had Olya, Katya, Galya...
Three beautiful girls.
And he went to that
one, that one, that one.
There's no man
who doesn't cheat.
There are some women
who are honorable.
But they're a tiny percent.
The rest are whores.
Give her a bauble,
she's ready to go.
Your friends will fuck her.
Cheating is "jumping
into buckwheat."
"Jump into buckwheat"
is to find sex on the side.
The buckwheat hides you.
It smells good when it blooms.
And it's cozy there.
But we had no
buckwheat to jump into.
You can't bring her
home because of the wife.
They only let you into
hotels with passports.
Hotels only allowed
married couples.
The scariest person
was the manager.
"Reception"
Her main and only task was...
To prevent anyone...
Entering your room. God forbid!
Several times unknown persons
were invited into the rooms.
Total unknowns.
Without even a passport.
We decided to punish them.
Revoked their right
to live in the city.
The number of times
I had sex outdoors...
Zero.
Somehow you don't
understand anything.
People could find
privacy in parks...
In shady alleys.
There were benches.
And of course, the theater.
In the back row...
You could kiss as
much as you liked.
And be pleasured by your lover.
We had sheds. Near the house.
It's possible.
There were gardens.
Also possible.
Find a toilet.
Any toilet works.
You do it standing up.
Or in a basement.
You could find a place.
This is disgusting.
We didn't have it.
Categorically I tell you.
On the stairs or under a tree...
Didn't happen.
Disgusting.
What you're asking
is just odious.
In the summer you
could drive to a quiet spot.
And enjoy yourself.
But what to do in
winter? When it's cold.
There was only one
place left - in the garage.
A lot of couples,
when they got cold...
Turned on the engine.
They didn't know
that the fumes...
Could make them
fall asleep such that...
They would never wake up.
Everyone always said...
There are no brothels
in the Soviet Union.
We don't need brothels.
We have sanitoriums.
The government distributed
vouchers for sanatoriums.
Usually it was
located on a sea coast.
But it wasn't easy
to take your family.
You'd need two
vouchers. Impossible!
Come on, guys...
Say goodbye to dad.
Take care back here!
It was a place of
sanctioned lechery.
Where Soviet people could relax.
When you went to sanatorium, it
was always, you know, looking for sex.
Oh, they go to the
sanatorium to look for...
To find a harem.
My roommate was a sporty sailor.
The first thing he said was...
"Remember well, if my shorts
are on this side of the balcony..."
"Do not enter!"
"If they're on the other
side, you can enter."
"And you do the same."
It's the sailor's
rule: three days...
New shift.
Sex and vodka, vodka,
sex, sex and vodka,
They only noticed the sea on
the last day and then went home.
After his fun he comes
home to his family.
But his lover is not a fool.
She gave a birth to twin girls.
She came and left
them on the doorstep.
When the door was
opened, she said:
"Here's a present
from the sanatorium."
My mom told my father:
"Look, you're with me all year."
"But I'll give you one month."
"Go wherever you want."
"But beware not
one single bitch..."
"Comes to me and says
she slept with my husband."
I had very wise parents.
My friend went to a sanatorium.
She never had an
orgasm with her husband.
She never even knew what it was.
But at the sanitorium she
found some guys to teach her.
I had the same experience.
Just like my friend I
never have an orgasm.
It all depends on the man.
He is responsible,
not the woman.
If he's experienced and
knows what he's doing...
He can make her orgasm.
That I know how to give a blowjob
and am "Queen of the Bedroom."
None of my four
husbands ever knew.
Not the second...
Not the third.
Certainly not the fourth.
None had a clue I
could give a blowjob.
And the first one was
a total flop anyway.
What's up here?
Hi sweetie.
"I'm waiting for you.
I have time now..."
You're home? Please
honey, just wait a bit longer.
Who was that?
My lover.
My husband asked,
"Do you love me?"
I said, "Buddy, is the
word 'love' in 'husband'?"
A lover is for love.
A husband is a duty.
You mean
con-tra-cep-tion, right?
In my life, there
was none of that.
What's it called? Condoms.
Maybe smart people
had them somewhere.
But not fools like us.
We didn't understand this.
Even condoms were in shortage.
We never heard of the pills.
Pills were something that
existed only in the Western movies.
When they appeared...
So-called "Rubber Item #4."
Many were ashamed to buy them.
We told the pharmacist:
"A pack of aspirin..."
With a wink.
There were two in a
pack and very thick.
The condoms were so thick.
Three times thicker
than air balloons.
But they burst at
the critical moment.
Pregnancy was
the biggest danger.
Oh, problem number
one - not to get pregnant.
Who needs it?
Because it was
problem with apartments.
Difficulties with kindergarten.
Men have this saying:
"Giving birth is not our chore;
In and out and off for more."
It was on the women to provide.
Whoever got her
pregnant doesn't care.
It's her problem.
Most of my female
lovers they were married.
So even if she gets pregnant...
It's her problem, not mine,
Because she has a husband.
So it was safe for me to have
a sexual relationship with her.
Because using condom...
Unfortunately, it always
turned out for me that...
All the time she
was in a condition...
She got upset with me.
I couldn't control myself, so...
Abortions happened.
Then we made love even better.
Without protection.
And he comes inside me!
I asked him not to
get me pregnant...
"I'm not coming inside!"
And he comes inside!
And then I'm pregnant again.
But abortions will happen, because
contraceptives are very expensive.
Much more than the
cost of an abortion.
"So you're 17 years old..."
"How long have you
been sexually active?"
Four months.
"You're 11 weeks pregnant.
What do you want to do?"
I have no idea
how this happened.
I told her how to
douche with hot water.
"Mom, I want to
try something else."
I said, "No! Just
use hot water."
"So much for your
hot water, mom!"
Stalin banned abortion.
In USSR abortion was forbidden.
After the war...
Many people had been
killed, there were no people.
So to build the population
they forbade abortion.
So more soldier-boys
would be born.
They needed to
increase the population.
They needed canon fodder.
But to get an abortion,
it was a big hassle.
Then they would report it at
your place of study or work.
It was a shame for her.
Because she was
universally condemned.
You come and they write
"abortion" in your medical record.
And maybe not everyone
wanted for this to be public.
So girls went for
criminal abortions.
Abortion in Russia remains one
of the most dangerous operations.
Last year 243 women
died during its performance.
Half of those who had abortions get
complications and various diseases.
Nevertheless, Russia remains one of the leaders
in the number of abortions in the world.
Last year 3 million
were performed.
This is almost 10 times more
than in Western European countries.
Despite the fact that this
operation is legal in Russia,
For each legal recorded abortion,
ten illegal abortions are performed.
Catapult! Training
apparatus for pilots.
We pilots had an idea.
We had catapult simulator.
In the first trimester...
We strapped her in
and catapulted her!
The uterus stays in place,
and the embryo detaches.
In few days... presto!
The pregnancy was terminated.
Without any surgical
intervention or consequences.
We saved these girls.
For that they repaid us...
As only a girl can.
Lordy, my darlings.
People would do anything:
Drank kerosine.
Girls poked with
nails down there.
People performed
abortions in their homes.
Grannies did abortions.
Many young girls died from this.
Because if you tell
anyone they'll try to help.
But if they help
they go to jail.
Both jailed: You and
whoever helped you.
Girls would die before
telling who did the abortion.
The first thing I
would like to say...
So no one has any illusions.
Dear viewers,
abortion is baby murder.
It's a mortal sin.
The second thing I want to
say is that all contraceptives...
Hormonal, IUDs,
diaphragms, condoms.
And all these horrific devilish
devices shown on television...
They all lead to
abortion, which is murder.
A 16 year old girl was
raped and got pregnant.
And she was given a lecture
like what we just heard.
That abortion is murder.
And you will be a murderer
if you have an abortion.
So she hanged herself.
Anybody else want to comment?
Abortions in minors...
Is a national
catastrophe for Russia.
Because a woman who
has an abortion before 21...
Can never have a baby,
according to medical data.
After the rape, if she
can't raise the child...
At least give birth to it.
Give the child life and
preserve your own health.
I want to ask you Father,
about these 3 million women.
Should we line them up and
shoot them for being murderers?
Or do you want to
put them all in prison?
Allow me to ask
one more question.
When we say we need
to wage wars of liberation,
When we say the government
must maintain its sovereignty.
Isn't there a possibility of
killing innocent civilians?
Why aren't you protesting
against this, dear Father?
And it's time to stop placing the state's
irresponsibility towards its future...
On the powerless
shoulders of women.
Catastrophe! It
was a catastrophe.
Women had a lot of abortions.
Backstreet abortions
were seriously punished.
People went to jail.
I know a woman with three
kids, who died from an abortion.
And the woman who helped her also
had three kids; she served seven years.
My neighbor Sanka Alyoshiha...
She was asked in the
hospital: "Who did this?"
"A grass snake bit me."
"Grass snakes don't bite,
somebody did an abortion."
Someone tore her uterus and
she was bleeding everywhere.
They demanded:
"Who did this to you?"
"A snake, a snake."
"So we won't help you."
And they didn't.
So she died and got buried.
So many girls committed suicide.
Because they didn't
see another way out.
My sister came and said:
I need help; I'm pregnant.
She bribed a doctor.
Right on that table...
We put a sheet,
my sister lays down.
She sits, he opens her
womb, blood runs everywhere.
I almost fell there.
I almost fainted.
"Calm down, you
have to help me."
And she got an infection.
She was in the hospital
for a whole month.
In a huge room
with 20 other women.
Everyone died
except my sister Yulia.
I was knocked up
many times myself.
So many times.
How many times?
More than ten abortions.
Every five months I
run for new abortion.
I also found myself
on that operating table.
A gynecologist named Mueller.
He said: "Do you want
to avoid pregnancies?"
I said, "Of course!"
"Have sex right
away with many men."
"I'm giving you
a hint," he said.
Abortions were
the only available...
Means of birth control, in fact.
It was just having your body as
a battle, as a constant battlefield.
Again I'm off to the hospital.
Such a handsome
young doctor was there.
He looked at me and says:
"Do you have children?"
Meanwhile, he's
scraping inside me.
"Yes, I do."
"Look, no offense,
but I'll do something..."
"So you never come back to me."
After that, no more abortions.
Thank the Lord for him.
If he hadn't done that...
I'd be dead.
Tell me, what is
homosexuality for you?
I was probably born this way.
Because women
never interested me.
I don't understand.
I've never hurt
anyone in my entire life.
I don't know why God
punished me like this.
In our country you don't
even control your own ass.
In your own way.
Because everything goes
straight to the Party committee.
They try to brainwash
you in any way they can.
So you become
identical to everyone else.
To be the same as everyone. Think
like everyone, work like everyone...
And to fuck like everyone else.
I tried to hide my orientation.
Because if God forbid
anyone found out.
You lose your humanity
and become a scapegoat.
You must be
physically eliminated.
Same-sex lovers
are nature's mistakes.
Genetic mistake, there's
nothing to be done.
They're a monstrosity
that must be destroyed.
I was thinking "What's
wrong with me?"
See? Because no, I was not gay.
Gay? No, it's not a word
you put in your mouth.
"Ooh. Dirty. No, I'm
not gay, I'm normal."
So complicated because
you want to survive.
Mom says: "Yura, you're
getting older, you should marry."
So I married.
But something was wrong.
I was ruining both our lives.
Thank god, my wife
understood everything.
And we agreed to divorce.
Back then, there were a
lot of places to pick up a guy.
And clubs.
All people would go to the bath.
They could spend whole day...
With all those activities.
And come back to their wives
and children in the evening.
When Maksim Gorkiy
learned his son was gay.
He told Stalin and
Stalin added this law.
Homosexuality was made unlawful.
Before that it was allowed.
I know the story of
Parajanov's arrest quite well.
We were walking down the street.
He pointed to a
policeman: "See him?"
"What about him?"
"I screwed him yesterday."
He constantly broke
the frame of sexual life.
He boasted, shockingly:
"I already had all the
Politburo members."
Was he homosexual?
That's not why
they imprisoned him.
He set such an example.
That a free-thinking
man is a beautiful man.
A person you want to emulate.
They imprisoned him so he wouldn't
infect others with the virus of freedom.
Because they don't
need independent people.
A freedom-loving person
won't give them anything good.
There were called
"Enemies of the People."
But in fact they were
enemies of the system.
I understood there were some
informants among people around me.
Then one day they called
me to come to the KGB office.
There were two gay...
Uh... two KGB persons.
The discussion
lasted for 8 hours.
If I were not a member
of Communist Party,
And my relatives were
not members of KGB.
I think I wouldn't survive.
Tell me, what is
homosexuality for you?
It's a worldview
and a way of life.
Soviet men generally
humiliate women.
Or licks her boots.
Is this a relationship?
Only in a "deviant"
gay relationship...
Is the true, sincere
merger of souls possible...
Through authentic
male tenderness.
Any human being needs...
Not only sex, but
also a soulmate.
We had a long-term relationship.
He was arrested.
When I found out...
I rushed to rescue him.
I went to the KGB office.
I said: "We're roommates."
And they arrested me as well.
"We are friends
living together."
"What's the matter?"
How I can prove anything?
They beat me for three days.
"Confess you're one of those!"
I relented. "Yeah, yeah."
At the trial was a woman judge.
She said: "You're a monstrosity
who should be destroyed."
"You do not belong
among normal people."
So my sentence was one year.
I'm nobody, a nothing.
If they repeat: "You're
a pig, a pig, a pig."
At some point you'll "oink."
I think they forged a link:
gay, prison, rape, filth.
For all its anti-homosexual
propaganda...
The Soviet government
itself created conditions...
for the spread of this
so-called pathology.
By building entire cities
dedicated to one industry...
Men in factory towns
and women in textile cities.
Massive gender
imbalances were created.
Citizens craving human
connection found it where they could.
Lesbianism was particularly
common due to a lack of men...
And widespread alcoholism
among those who existed.
I spit on them,
I can't stand it.
How is this possible? A
woman lying with a woman!
Just thinking about
it makes me tremble.
Women lived with
women in Soviet times.
It just wasn't publicized.
And they joked as follows, "The
pleasure is no worse than with a man.
Plus, you won't get pregnant."
Vera and Lyuda.
They lived together
like man and wife.
Holding hands and
sleeping together.
We all wondered how they did it?
If it's a man,
then it's like this.
But what can girls do?
Poke your finger there or what?
Tell me, how? How is this?
May God protect us from evil.
This is beyond everything!
I had a task to find
some gay women.
Well, that is the first time
we see gay women here.
There was one writer
who played the guitar.
"Let the guards
strip search us."
"Hey, pour a glass
for the homeland."
"We girls don't mind
toasting with another shot."
"To the suffering lesbians..."
"For their first wedding night."
I tried concealing
my crime in the camp.
Statute #122.
God forbid they find out there.
They'll drag you
against your will.
Even in that society you're
not a human anymore.
I worked on a
woodworking machine.
And my hand got
caught into the gears.
They called a surgeon.
He took a look, and
asked: "What crime?"
"Oh, you're a pedarast.
No anesthesia for you then."
So I had the surgery
without anesthesia.
Nobody touches such a person.
The only way for them
is to go to the bitchboys.
They had a separate
table in the canteen.
If you sit at that table, that's
it, you're a "bitchboy" too.
Understand?
Sometimes I go
to sleep and think..
How did I manage
to survive this hell?
They think it's normal
to humiliate people.
What exactly does it mean?
You are put in a
cell with others.
"Homos," as they say.
And they rape you.
What do you do if
10-20 people attack you?
I served my term in
Kharkov Camp #12.
Nightmarish memories
of it still keep me awake.
I served in the Gulag
#12 from 1974 to 1975.
Along with Dr. Stern.
Yes, we had dissidents.
These people undermined the
Soviet system, made speeches...
Pushed anti-Soviet propaganda.
Thanks to people like
Dr. Stern, we survived.
We first heard about
human rights from Dr. Stern.
He said, "It's temporary."
"This is the worst they can do."
"Don't let them
destroy your humanity."
Let me tell you an
interesting story.
I conducted experiments.
I wanted to extinguish their
traditions, education, norms.
To forget completely
their free life.
When you have a
straight jacket on...
You wanna take a
breath, but you can't.
Then a female
doctor comes and...
Stands over you while
you're on the floor.
She has no panties on, and says:
"Take a peak..."
"Before you die."
I was building their
moral character.
Our motto: "Every
officer is a tutor."
I loved my job.
Of course, 100%.
You go in normal and come
out a totally different person.
Stern was treated
worst than others.
They killed the
human inside him.
They handcuffed him,
put a condom on a baton.
And shoved it up his butt.
It was a signal.
If you act and
speak like Stern...
The same thing
will happen to you.
He never said exactly
that he was raped.
But I was keen to
know, and hinted at it.
I came to the conclusion that he
was raped, and over a long period.
Stern said: "When I get
out I'll write everything."
"In my memoirs."
Pornography is universal, but in
the Soviet Union it was also a weapon.
Yuri Vasilchenko was a Pravda photographer
who took nude photos of his wife after work.
When their marriage soured, she
sent the pictures to the secret police.
And he was sentenced
to five years in prison.
When he later became my patient,
he suffered from a terror of intimacy...
Having learned the hard lesson that true
privacy does not exist in the Soviet Union.
Pornography was against the law.
And this law
comprised everything...
That was related to sexuality.
It was called
"pornography distribution."
And for this you
get a prison term.
Deaf-mutes would
go through the trains,
They sold all kinds
of picture cards,
With all sorts of erotic scenes.
Why deaf-mutes?
Because it's not
worth arresting them.
It was headache. What
you will do with him?
If you put him
into the prison...
He can't work there.
He walks by, put a deck
of cards in front of you.
You quickly put it in you
pocket before anyone sees.
And then it's a pity
to throw it away.
That shit was
everywhere, my God!
They saw who had a lot of
money and offered to them.
Even old farts bought them.
Usually it came from
overseas, from sailors.
Vladimir Vladimirovitch
heads Odesa customs.
Economic and ideological
contraband come together.
We will never allow such
depravity into the USSR.
Whether it's bourgeois magazines deciding to
play on anti-Soviet sensation or a tabloid...
With cheap porn that
makes the eyes ashamed.
Fighting this gave me
a certain state of mind.
It's in my blood.
If I don't confiscate
something, I feel sick.
Many hours are spent
looking through such movies.
Every single day.
In later years porn
movies appeared.
However, where do we check? Where
do we check what's on these tapes?
In the Black Sea
administration there's no VCR.
In our department
there's no VCR,
I don't have one. In the Mariupol
police department there's no VCR.
But we knew who sold videotapes.
If he's selling tapes,
he must have a VCR.
Our offer:
"Next time we catch
you, you can go free."
"But now let us watch these
three tapes on your VCR."
We photographed
incriminating scenes.
And presented
evidence to the court.
We were dependent
on the porn dealers.
We had no choice.
The police started
catching them.
But how? They
knocked on the door...
Immediately they
hid the cassette.
So the police shut off the
power to the apartment.
So you couldn't remove
the cassette from the VCR.
When I was a student in Leningrad
we opened a home video club.
Then I was charged with
"Distribution of Obscene Propaganda."
We showed the film "Emmanuelle."
That night I was arrested.
They scared me very much.
At first they told me
that I'd get 15 years.
And they started talking
to me about a bribe,
And we agreed on 1500 rubles.
I paid, but I was kicked out of
university and left St. Petersburg.
There's no work.
There's no money at
home. And what to do?
Prostitution.
No choice.
I was a part of a police
assistance squad.
The senior policeman
then tells me:
"Chase away the prostitutes."
I say, "What prostitutes?
We don't have prostitutes."
It wasn't like you could
go buy a girl on the street.
I never saw or
heard of such a thing.
A dime a dozen.
Prostitutes were everywhere!
They're fucking on every corner.
On the street, the plague!
In the parks,
everywhere, my God!
I walked down Khreshchatyk.
Started looking
carefully in this direction.
I got the feeling
everyone was a prostitute.
You're walking
down the street...
You see a woman in a fur coat.
She sees you...
Checks you out.
And does like this...
She has nothing on.
Absolutely!
Absolutely naked!
In the daytime.
Especially in the Soviet Union.
Salaries were so low.
No work, no money. What to do?
I became a prostitute
about a year ago.
We're mostly minors under 18.
By the way, in our city there's a
shortage of prostitutes, of course.
Because there is a huge demand.
If there are clients,
there are pimps.
This is forbidden. You'll
immediately get 10 years.
I don't consider
the punishment fair.
But is too late.
My parents didn't
know what I was doing.
I told them I was working.
Only at the trial it became
clear what I was doing.
There were no
official prostitutes.
But a certain amount
of women was allowed.
To practice it and
report on the others
Who were not registered
with the secret police.
So they had a
function in this society.
Nice man.
Do you like me? Yes, I like you.
I like you too.
And you came into the hotel?
To you hotel I come.
I like present.
There was prostitution
in the USSR.
But it was illegal and
had a different form.
Many women had been compromised.
They didn't send
them to prison, but...
They threatened to reopen the case if
they didn't obey and send them to jail.
"I eat from dumpsters."
"I drink from puddles."
"The rain soaks
me, it's my shower."
"I'm the worst; much
worse than you."
"I'm the most useless.
I'm nasty. I'm dirt."
I'm a loser.
What are you here for?
For prostitution?
Foreign currency
exchange and theft...
Of property from foreigners.
By engaging in prostitution?
No, for possessing
foreign currency.
It's easier to convict that way.
It's no problem to jail
an ordinary person.
It is very surprising to
see all this in your country.
If in Brazil I was told about the
existence of prostitutes in the USSR,
I wouldn't have believed it.
Why is prostitution immoral?
Because it's for money?
When husbands cheat
on their wives, is it moral?
When teenagers
arrange orgies, is it moral?
How are dealings
with foreigners?
Of course, they're great.
He values me as a
woman, you understand?
He pays me for this.
What about Russians?
Russians.
Russians annoy me.
With their behavior. They have
no upbringing, no manners, nothing.
The thing is...
It's not just the human
body that's for sale.
Much is for sale
that shouldn't be.
If a person is taught to
deceive from childhood...
It's not difficult for
them to live a double life.
Sex is everywhere.
Always has been, always will be.
You approach the
chair with a flying gait.
Sit down. Pull up your skirt,
even if it's not necessary.
And completely synchronously
fold your arms, head, and legs.
And we start with one of the
standard phrases like: "Are you angry?
There's so much
indignation in your voice...
You're silent... You don't
even want to talk to me."
Lift your eyes to him and smile.
Look confused.
After this, all your actions
will be kindly accepted. Try it.
Come on. Come on.
Come on. Come on.
Open that little mouth.
Let's see the lips.
Where are those lips? Where?
Relax, relax, relax.
To be charming you
must learn to smile.
Smile with a naive,
ecstatic, mysterious smile.
Like Women's Day.
What is Women's Day?
Women's Day is the day
when all the men drink.
To their women, thanking them...
That they are so beautiful and
that they are so supportive...
And that they are so inspiring,
"Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah."
"Thank you so much, Darling.
Get your tulip and go to hell."
"To beat is to love."
"To beat is to love."
"To beat is to love."
That's how to make
a woman happy.
Beating her shows his love.
That's the psychology
of our women. Either...
Sex or beating.
Otherwise, it means
he has a mistress.
This saying was accepted.
People said, "To
beat is to love."
The system created this.
It was a complete degradation.
Through some sort
of mass hypnosis.
One newlywed complained,
"Why don't you beat me?"
"You don't love me." "What do
you mean? I do everything for you."
"You don't beat me,
so you don't love me."
So he started beating her.
He eventually beat her to
death. That was his "love."
The first time my
husband hit me...
He was a police officer,
so he knew how to do it.
For what?
I was young. I had
beautiful straight white teeth.
Like pearls.
He said to me...
"Stop smiling! When you
smile your wrinkles show."
Do you hear? 21 years old,
I have wrinkles on my face.
One night we went to a party.
Probably I started smiling.
I can't help it, I'm
smiley by nature.
When we got home it started.
Powerful punches in
my belly and solar plexus.
He's trying to elevate
her through beating.
She accepts it as
part of her education.
He beat me, beat me.
He comes home, takes off
his belt with an iron buckle.
When he hit me, blood
started running from my nose.
I grabbed him: "If you
ever touch me again..."
"I'll kill you, you bastard."
Since then he didn't
touch me anymore.
The family is the cell
of communist society.
In order to protect this "cell."
The Party used all their force.
Everything was
taken under control.
Not just how you work, what you
think, But what you do at home,
How you sleep or don't sleep with
your wife, What you talk about there.
Family issues were
resolved at Party meetings.
Will you be a family or not?
"You disgrace the
Communist Party."
"Such a person is not
worthy among our ranks."
If a woman comes to
the Party committee...
And complains about
her cheating husband.
The Party takes care of it.
He was condemned and
shamed by a hundred people.
"You shouldn't
cheat on your wife!"
"You're destroying
the unit of society."
So, I had to indicate
a serious reason.
On the basis of which
I'm getting divorced.
This was announced
in the newspaper.
It was shameful,
it was very difficult.
The party did more
harm than good here.
Because the woman complains
about her bad husband.
But the Party
makes her life worse.
He gets fired.
And now everyone knows
about this messed up family.
They said they were
re-educating them.
They put them on the right path.
Listovsky with his
disgraceful acts...
Forced the Komsomol committee...
To discuss his behavior at a
general Komsomol meeting.
And his behavior in the family?
Disgraceful!
It was easy to "expose" a
neighbor or acquaintance.
Whom you didn't like.
And get rid of him
with no evidence.
Anonymous letters were
written on wives and husbands.
Well, for example, that your husband
is cheating on you with so-and-so.
They wrote bullshit
and didn't sign.
And then it gets to the leadership
and they start investigating.
The Party had to analyze
all these anonymous letters.
There was this really
good girl, my colleague.
But her husband wasn't so good.
He wrote a letter
to the Party...
Asking us to
investigate her behavior.
Because she performed
oral sex on him.
And he says, "How can she, a
party member, engage in this?"
It was considered terribly bad.
"Uncle Five Kopeks"
was his nickname.
He wrote anonymous
letters against everyone.
Later in life, when
he was an old man...
He mourned, "How many
people have I sent to prison?"
In any hotel in
Leningrad or Moscow...
I saw it myself,
there were prostitutes.
But they were all KGB people.
Women are the best spies.
They can accomplish anything.
She will eliminate
you upon command.
Of course all of our top
missions included female spies.
The government had to know
what threats were among us.
People they wanted to
imprison for political reasons...
The KGB framed them.
They would send a
female KGB worker.
Mykola Horbal, for instance.
Intelligent guy,
walking down the street.
Suddenly a girl
nearby starts to yell:
"Help! Help! I'm
being raped and killed!"
She tore a button off herself.
The KGB was on the
stakeout, of course.
I was not the first,
thousands went to jail this way.
The courts were just
an extension of the KGB.
The judge repeated
whatever the KGB said.
I got five years in prison.
For attempted rape.
Yes. Woman is the
hunter; man is the hunted.
While glamorized
in popular culture...
The reality of the Soviet sex
spy program was mostly mundane.
Thousands started their intensive
training with foreign languages...
International etiquette,
and Karl Marx.
In 1956, the Soviet premier set one
of the most elaborate sex traps ever.
The French Ambassador
Maurice Dejean...
Blessed by de Gaulle and considered a
favorite for the next president of France...
Arrived in Moscow with his
wife, but was quickly seduced...
By several Bolshoi ballerinas.
Larissa Kronberg
was his favorite.
And as an experienced spy,
she arranged for his wife...
To leave for a long
sail up the Moscow river.
While she procured the
necessary compromising material.
When promised no one
would see the photos...
Maurice agreed to cooperate with
the Russian Secret Service for life.
His colleague, Colonel Louis
Gibeau, suffered a worse fate.
When presented with pictures of himself
in bed with a Russian spy in 1962...
He refused to collaborate.
Instead, he shot
himself in the head.
She seems so kind and caring.
But she'll bring you
unfathomable evil.
You don't have to forget...
There was a special
department of KGB...
Which was in charge of
sort of training women...
In order to get the
foreigners in bed.
We called these girls
"Legion," or "Legionaries."
Our orders came from the top.
Why "Legion"? Because
we were on guard.
And, naturally, all
this was based on sex.
A sex spy needs everything.
She should be smart,
crafty and cultured.
They had to wear makeup,
smell nice, be well-dressed.
In short, they had to
stand out from Soviet girls.
They had to fire-up the target.
We didn't recruit
Legionaires from the streets.
They selected them
from 12-14 years old.
From various organizations
like sport clubs.
I was doing ballet when I
first met a strange old guy.
They looked us over
and photographed us.
That was the start of
the recruitment process.
This was the first
photo they took of me.
I was thirteen.
First they fully
investigate your family.
Then they vet the actual girl.
They analyzed years
of my behavior in school.
All the skeletons in
my closet, everything.
I knew everything about them.
For instance: "Why are you
wearing these stockings today?"
"And not yesterday's?
Because they got ripped?"
I had to know this.
If they groomed her for Legion,
they taught her everything.
How to do makeup,
how to dress fashionably.
How to set a table.
Western etiquette.
Only then, did they teach sex.
At home we were
girls in ponytails...
In public we were femme fatales.
Before you formally
join the service...
Because this is official work...
You had to pass an exam.
That you're not a
simple prostitute.
That you can add value.
A bunch of serious
old guys led the exams.
We had to catwalk
naked in a sauna.
Your physical flexibility,
capabilities and strength.
Then blow jobs, massages
and everything else.
She finishes with one
man; another arrives.
She needs endurance.
If she can pleasure
2-3 men in an hour...
They had to be
satisfied and in ecstasy.
Then she's ready to start work.
This is me at 14.
At this age we
officially joined.
He said, "See you've
caught that man's eye?"
"Can seduce him
to leave with you?"
"Where?" I asked. "At
a rest house nearby."
I grabbed a bottle of
champagne and I did it.
He filmed us.
We had a room
with hidden cameras.
After a week...
He came to me
and said, "Well..."
"Quite marvelous." And
he showed me photos...
Of the victim crying as he
lost his Party membership.
"That was your doing,
and here is your payment."
I received 900 rubles...
When an engineer
got 120 per month.
I went wherever they sent me.
For instance, a board room
with a lone Party member.
"Uncle dear, could
you please sign this?"
"And who are you?"
"I'm simply Lenochka."
"Well, 'simply Lenochka'
I'm not signing any paper."
I said "Uncle,
have a look here..."
"I'll tear my shirt and there
are two guards outside."
"I'll scream 'He's raping
me and I'm only 17!'"
He signed everything.
And I was back at
HQ in 90 minutes.
And some of the women
were very, very successful.
Like the wife of a very
famous sculptor, Konenkov.
She was the
mistress of Einstein.
And of course she
worked for KGB because...
Konenkova was allowed
to work in New York.
And the Manhattan Project was...
Penetrated.
Personally, I think I
deserve the honor.
If all my girls complete
their missions.
Working efficiently...
And don't discredit
me or themselves.
Because in reality
it's me doing this.
I guided her through these jobs.
They promised the
girls mountains of gold.
But they couldn't care
less about us girls.
We were just disposable
objects they could use.
We had a file of compromising
material on every girl.
She knows I have
a file this thick...
And any second...
I can pass some
pages to the KGB...
And she'll be on
trial for these crimes.
It's not possible
to leave Legion.
Except in a body bag.
If we're successfully
controlling their lives...
We know she'll never
get away from us.
Every day I must know
exactly what's in her head...
Or I'm not worth a penny.
Because she will outsmart you.
None of the girls are left.
Nadya.
She was promising,
she went off to Kyiv.
She got drunk and
blabbed some secret.
Then she was hit by a car.
This was my friend Tanya.
The brunette, Tanyachka.
Should ruined an
important mission somehow.
Despite my hopes, I
knew should wouldn't live.
She was drowned.
This girl is Victoria.
She fell in love with an Italian
she was supposed to recruit.
She had just about succeeded.
But at their last meeting
she told him the truth.
They sent her to a
psychiatric hospital.
And turned her into a vegetable.
You know...
With the perspective
of all these years...
It seems to me now...
In my heart and soul I
shouldn't have done that.
But by law I was
required to do it.
Bosses were out of
control in the Soviet Union.
They didn't listen neither
to police nor to prosecutors.
He was god and tsar.
He did whatever he wanted.
Everything happened
with the help of boss.
Wife's job: Him.
Husband's promotion: Him.
Apartment: Him.
Everything is Him.
If you are higher up...
In this echelon of power...
You're allowed to do more
things and get away with that.
So sex was one
of the privileges.
Women who were ambitious...
To make a career to the top.
They had to accept sexual
assault as part of their social lifting.
You've got this
elite hospital...
Where the nurses were
obliged to go to bed...
With the high placed patients.
And the high-placed
patients would say:
"We want some full
breasted nurses."
It was very, very complicated
to say no for a nurse.
One of my female trainees
was married to a doctor.
Her husband wanted a
transfer to a regional hospital.
So he sent his wife to sleep
with the other hospital director.
Even getting an apartment...
Because you couldn't buy one.
Even if you had money.
Apartments were state property.
To get a flat you had to be
employed and wait in line.
You could wait your
whole life and not get one.
But sleep with your boss...
You'll get a flat right away
in the best neighborhood.
Yakov Pavlovich
Osadchy is 68 years old.
Half his life he's run a
pipe production factory.
First we allocate apartments
to good employees.
We pay special
attention to women.
Because God gave
them better figures.
Do you have a name? Yes.
What is your name, dear?
Shura.
Shura-baby... How
long have you suffered?
Many years Mr. Pavlovich.
How many without an apartment?
I've been first in
line since 1964.
So, you've been
waiting for 10 years, huh?
Have patience for
half a year more.
So the Director told me:
"You've been at the
front of the line five years."
I was first!
Can you imagine?
While we were talking
a fly landed on me.
He said: "You push me away but
even the flies know you're sweet."
These kinds of hints.
"You'll get an apartment
when I get sex."
When a girl suddenly
starts to rise at work...
Immediately there
is a suspicion...
That her success is because
she's the boss's lover.
There was no other way.
Especially secretaries.
They were the
number one prostitutes.
They were "Secre-tutes."
From the words...
"Secretary" and "prostitute."
If you don't "serve" your
boss, you won't work.
How else? Gotta
undress, sit down...
Men are sassy. If he likes a
woman, he'll turn her life into hell.
As soon as he
notices the wench...
She's a goner.
They raped them and
no one paid a price.
Especially bosses.
The boss was Melnyk...
Oleg Vasilievich.
"If you sleep with me you'll get
your full salary and no demerits."
"If you don't, you get nothing."
He gave me potatoes and flour.
Poverty was so bad.
Girls screwed for
food, for anything.
Where to complain? To whom?
They lived however they wanted.
They did everything they wanted.
Their lechery was at a
level you can't even imagine.
In the army there were these
art collectives, like ensembles.
The girls there had to go to bed
with the highly placed military.
They could organize orgies
and invite these young dancers.
The regional heads
invited young girls.
And arranged various games.
The most popular
was "The Daisy."
The girls were lined in a circle
and the man had each one.
The contest is how
many girls he could do.
What the hell are you
raping young girls for?
Bastards, aren't there enough
women so you're raping children?
Such filthy pleasures.
They satisfied them at the
expense of people's lives.
At the expense
of souls and blood.
Soviets came: bosses,
directors, snakes.
Did what they wanted with women.
This is not true.
She asked for it. She
gave him a reason.
"If the bitch doesn't
want to fuck..."
"Then the dog is out of luck."
He can't do anything
if the girl doesn't agree.
How can you make me have sex?
My mom came home,
crying and bleeding.
They dragged her into a barn.
Two men stood on her
arms and the third one...
They all raped her by turn.
The elite ignored the Soviet
ideals of austerity, modesty,
and sobriety.
And they were far from chaste.
Stalin himself collected
nude male drawings.
And scribbled obscene notes in
the margins during his free time.
At 35 He began an affair
with a thirteen-year-old orphan.
His next lover was a
sixteen-year-old runaway.
The secret police
codenamed "Glamourpuss."
The Soviet Minister of Culture
used his position to commandeer...
A harem of young actresses,
ballerinas and schoolgirls.
Whom he and many of his
colleagues routinely raped.
It was only when one jumped
from her dormitory window...
And her mother read the suicide
note that the ring was exposed.
Another leader, Sergei Kirov, was
infamous for his nightly requests...
That the most beautiful
ballerinas be sent to his apartment.
He was following in the footsteps
of the KGB chief Lavrentiy Beria...
Who sent his driver on
daily hunts for schoolgirls...
To kidnap and bring
back to his cottage.
He raped and
murdered countless girls.
Without a free
press or courts...
And the threat of
punishment against women...
Should they resist, the
Soviet Union was in essence...
A continent-sized sexual
hunting ground for the powerful.
Whether a local party boss or
the General Secretary himself.
How could a warm-blooded
people like the Russians...
Could just sweep sex under the
rug? Surely there will be an explosion.
This is actually a
political question...
That appears in other
areas of human life.
Do the illustrious
Russian people...
Conduct themselves
as normal people?
In regard to human rights, real
elections, real voting and not fictions?
But after so much repression,
there might be some explosion?
The sexual
revolution in Russia...
Will not proceed in
a civilized manner.
This sexual revolution could
result in a social cataclysm.
Perestroika lit
a fire in society.
And then the film
"Little Vera" appeared.
It was the first time a woman was
shown to be in charge during sex.
In many ways that film marked...
The end of the Soviet system.
The 1980s saw economic
and political chaos...
And the AIDS epidemic brutalized
Russia as the Soviet Union collapsed.
The 1990s brought
further social disintegration.
Sex was everywhere. TV broadcasters
stripped naked while reporting the news.
Street corners filled with
pornography and prostitutes.
Sexpionage did not die
with the Soviet Union.
When Vladimir Putin took
over the secret police...
He orchestrated the
national broadcast...
Of a sex sting operation against
a political enemy of Boris Yeltsin.
He was rewarded with
the job of Prime Minister.
Setting the stage for his
rise to absolute power.
Totalitarianism did
not vanish in 1991.
All these fears remained.
It's horrific that in
the 21st century...
This plague is still
infecting people.
And draws them to their death.
A person dies there.
It's not a country
but a pile of shit.
And it's stinky.
The whole world should unite...
Around the idea
to destroy this evil.
An 86 year-old man
assaulted in his home...
Who died last night...
Was Russian
dissident Mikhael Stern.
He was a world famous dissident.
Along with Sakharov,
Solzhenitsyn and Sharansky.
After a campaign was
organized to free him...
By Jean-Paul Sartre
and Simone de Beauvoir...
He was released from gulag
and settled in Amsterdam...
Where, almost thirty years
later, he met this tragic end.