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Initially built in 1073-1078, the cathedral survived for centuries before being blown up by the retreating Soviet army in 1941.

It was restored after Ukraine regained independence, in 2000.

The result, as one journalist told Forbes, is that “there will be two realities”: one version of every song, every book, every film that exists on legal Russian platforms and another version that will be preserved as pirated downloads or in private archives. The piracy that the Russian publishing industry spent two decades trying to suppress has become the only mechanism for Russians to maintain access to their own cultural history in its original form. The artifacts being preserved and shielded from government suppression include much of the popular culture long enjoyed by the Russian middle class, just as the Soviet samizdat (the underground publication network to evade the official censors) included not only highbrow forbidden literature like Gulag Archipelago but also smuggled yoga manuals, sewing patterns, and erotica.

Thirty-two years after the release of “Opium for Nobody,” band member Vadim Samoylov—who has spoken in favor of the Ukraine war and anti-LGBT laws, rationalized the song’s removal to a radio interviewer: “We will soon make some changes. Just cross out some words.” He said it without apparent distress, even adding that the law struck him as sensible. This must be how Soviet self-censorship worked too: Don’t offend the powers that be, just make sure you can get back to work. Meanwhile, the band’s audience is stocking up on old MP3 players and firing up Torrent clients to assemble a samizdat archive at the point in time when contemporary Russian culture splits in two: the raw and intact version that existed before March 1 and the sanitized version approved by the Kremlin.

sunbeams and dewdrops come to life

Andrew Daugherty

Sun, June 14, 2026 at 6:00 AM MST

James Talarico has been found guilty of quoting Jesus. The sentence he uttered, according to right-wing media, was "demonic" and "blasphemous," exposing him as a "fake Christian." Talarico is running for the U.S. Senate in Texas on a platform The New Yorker recently described as basically the New Testament. One Newsmax host accused him of using fake Bible passages.

The passages in question are familiar ones, found in Matthew 22 and Matthew 25. Love God and love your neighbor. Feed the hungry, heal the sick, welcome the stranger. They are, in fact, in the Bible.

The right's attacks on Talarico aren't about him, or at least not entirely. They're about a much older argument — one progressive Christianity has been losing in public for 50 years — about whose version of the faith gets to count as real. The answer to that question has consequences far beyond any Senate race. When Christianity becomes a tool of power rather than a challenge to it, it doesn't just damage the church. It destabilizes democracy. We are watching that happen in real time.