(In bed with) the Russians

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We had a small 35th anniversary screening of Ghost at Kingston last Saturday and I had a talk with Bruce Joel Rubin, who wrote the screenplay and won an Oscar for it. The movie was the biggest box office hit in 1990 even though it was an original screenplay and a story that was both melodramatic, funny, scary, and spiritual at the same time. “Just like life,” as Bruce would say. It’d be hard to imagine a movie like that would be noticed today or even made when every movie has to be a remake of a new installment of an existing franchise. Bruce also wrote Jacob’s Ladder, which was filmed at the exact same time in New York as Ghost and came out the same year, too. They are in a way the same story, just different manifestations of it. —EvgeniaPS: There was a problem with recording the audio at the event so I’m using my iPhone recording here instead. It starts about a minute into the talk. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

A YASHA LEVINE VAMPIRE CASTLE TRANSMISSION With the Charlie Kirk assassination, political influencers are freaking out. It’s dawning on them that the Spectacle is not just an abstract entity. They’re realizing deep down inside that all the hate and misery they pump out into the Spectacle can be made flesh. And that this flesh can be killed. And that this flesh can be theirs.I wrote about this yesterday but since no one reads anymore, I decided to record a video from the safety of my bathroom. As always, remember:DON’T SHARE.DON’T SUBSCRIBE.GET OFF YOUR MACHINES.—Yasha This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe dial Moscow to talk to art curator and philosopher Dmitriy Khvorostov (aka Artur Dugin, son of Alexander Dugin) about art in Russia and about current attempts by Russians to find a new sovereign identity after the war and their rupture with the west. You can follow Dmitriy on Telegram at Sovereign Art.PS: This is part one of a two-part conversation. The second half — about what Russian traditionalists think about America’s new right — will be posted soon.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe put on our matching army green outfits to talk to Ori Goldberg — a former academic and a dissident Israeli — about what it’s like to live in a society as it commits genocide. (Spoiler alert: They’re mostly fine with it. Ori thinks maybe one out of a hundred Israelis opposes the slaughter in Gaza.)—Yasha

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe had filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov on again to talk Russian politics in the age of war and global realignment. Does the “Russian Idea” have anything to offer? Is there something there that’s unique? Can the Russian people be convinced to be enthusiastic about a centralized capitalism?Andrei was recently arrested and bizarrely held in detention for several months for accidentally filming in front of an FSB building. We had him on before to talk about Russian politics and culture. Check out our eps: History's Revenge and Tarkovsky, a Soviet artist. And be sure to check out Andrei’s great films, including his doc Case and The Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes. This last film caused a huge scandal in America and Europe and was the focus of a long and sleazy largely successful attempt by Bill Browder to smear Andrei and to censor the film. Watch it online here.—YashaSome notes…* Evgenia and I recently talked about her time in Moscow and her thoughts on what to her feels like the dawn of a new era for Russian society.* The “codex” for a new Russia Evgenia mentioned can be read about here.* Evgenia talked about syncretism being attempted in Russia, including bringing together Soviet and Russian Orthodox iconography…like in the new Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces. Here are some photos:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe have a great time chatting with historian Greg Grandin about the end of the American Myth, collapse, America’s war against itself, Clinton and MAGA, how the USSR propped up the social welfare state both in America and Europe, toxic nationalism vs universal nationalism, individualism under capitalism vs communism, Israel…and a bunch of other things that are on our minds. Greg is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian at Yale. Buy his latest book: “America, América: A New History of the New World.”

Been thinking about the Vampire Castle that is the internet and how we’re being drained by information, so I sat down to talk about it a bit.I come across people all the time who can’t read anymore, are revolted by screens, made sick by technology, their minds overstimulated, groaning under the weight of news and shows and infinite content…and yet they still can’t log off. Few of us can. We can’t escape. It is the Vampire Castle, after all. But something has to change. We need new values and a new culture that rejects this impulse to be plugged in, to hoard info…because when we’re plugged in, the vampires feed on us. That’s what the Vampire Castle is for. We need to exit the Vampire Castle — and to exit it more radically than Mark Fisher imagined. It has to be a physical exit, not a symbolic one.—YashaSAY NO TO THE VAMPIRE CASTLE, SUBSCRIBE TO NEFARIOUS RUSSIANS This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

Evgenia joins me on the phone from the Duchy of Moscow for a late night convo about what’s happening in Russia and about what to her feels like the dawn of a new era for Russian society. You heard it here first…Sooner or later, for better or worse, a real monarchy is coming to the Russian Federation.—YashaVintage Lenin for sale This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

We talk to Andrew Kay about the political and cultural aspects of psychiatric disorders — looking specifically at how OCD has gone mainstream because of the kind of society in which we live.We start by talking about Andrew’s great Harper’s essay in which he chronicles his own struggles with OCD and recounts his participation in an OCD convention in San Francisco — where participants paid good money to, among other things, cure their OCD by hugging a homeless man and dumpster driving. And then we go into all sorts of related things: Puritanism and the religious quality of living with OCD, the effect of suburbs and the internet and social alienation on mental health, the totalitarian nature of modern American psychology (if you’re not happy with the way things are, you must be crazy and need be pumped full of pills) and how this compares with the Soviet practice of institutionalizing dissidents in psych wards, the role the Pentagon played in shaping our concept of the mind, my own self-diagnosis of ADHD and pill regimen…Take a listen. And read more stuff by Andrew Kay.—YashaPS: I wrote about how social media has made as all OCD a few weeks before we talked to Andrew. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe got out of bed to talk to Rania Khalek — who joined us from Beirut. What started this conversation was an offhand remark Rania made about how living in Lebanon, a country that is being attacked and invaded, is less stressful than being in America, where it seems everyone seems on edge and nervous and ready to snap. Why is that? From that discussion, we get into all sorts of things — what’s ailing America today, Rania’s childhood in DC and her experience with post-9/11 racism against anyone who vaguely looked Muslim, the power of American culture abroad, the internalized self-orientalism among the Lebanese (and Russians, too), parasitic Western non-profit expats (and journalists) f*****g their way through Beirut, Israel’s sadistic war on Palestine, the hardcore alienation in American society, self-care, seed oils…and a lot more. —YashaPS: Check out Rania’s show. (She had me on last month to talk about Silicon Valley and Gaza.)

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comIf you missed it this morning, here is a recording of our first book club livestream/chat about Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep — about how Philip K. Dick is a philosopher-prophet of our technological age who just so happened to have worked in the pulp sci-fi format and how the novel is a metaphor for the central struggle happening in our world: the fight between the empaths and the sociopaths…between the humans and the androids. —YashaPS: You can still hop on the chat to continue discussing this with each other and us. PPS: We’ll be selecting another book soon for next month’s discussion.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe do some pillow talk about Iran — discussing the year Evgenia spent going native in Tehran, her education as an “Iranist,” and about her experiences and her thoughts on a society that America and Israel now want to obliterate. Most people in the west know next to nothing about Iran and picture it is some kind of barbaric repressive society full of terrorists. Iran is obviously not that. But this ignorance makes it easy to sell people a war.—YashaCome to the next NEFARIOUS RUSSIANS LIVE! NYC. June 22. Get your tickets today!We recorded this on the night of Monday June 16.