Radio Moscow

Overview[]

Voice of Russia (Russian: Голос России) is the Russian government's international radio broadcasting service. Its predecessor Radio Moscow was the official international broadcasting station of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Russia in the early 1990s.

History[]

Early years[]

Radio Moscow began broadcasting in 1922 with a transmitter station RV-1 in the Moscow region. In 1925 a second broadcasting centre came on air at Leningrad. Radio Moscow was broadcasting (on mediumwave and shortwave) in English, French, Indonesian, German, Italian and Arabic by 1939. Radio Moscow did express concern over the rise of German dictator Adolf Hitler during the 1930s, and its Italian mediumwave service specifically was jammed by an order of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini during the late 1930s.

The Cold War years[]

The U.S. was first targeted by Radio Moscow during the early 1950s, with transmitters in the Moscow region. Later Western North America was targeted by the newly constructed Vladivostok and Magadan relay stations. The first broadcasts to Africa went on the air in the late 1950s in English and French.

In 1961 Radio Moscow for the first time spoke in three African languages: Amharic, Swahili and Hausa. Over time, listeners in Africa got a chance to tune into Radio Moscow in another eight African languages.

The first centralized news bulletin went on the air in August 1963 and reached out to listeners all over the world. In the years of the Cold War most news reports and commentaries focused on the relations between the United States and Soviet Union.

In the 1970s the cream of Radio Moscow's commentator teams united in a radio journal, called "News and Views". Taking part in the ambitious project were Viktor Glazunov, Leonid Rassadin, Yuri Shalygin, Alexander Kushnir, Yuri Solton and Vladislav Chernukha. Over the years the journal grew into a major information and analytical program of the Radio Moscow foreign service.

Changes 1980s–1997[]

In the late 1970s its English language service was renamed Radio Moscow World Service. The project was launched and supervised by a long-time Radio Moscow journalist and manager Alexander Evstafiev. Later a North American service, African service and even a "UK & Ireland" service (all in English) operated for a few hours per day alongside the regular (24 Hour) English World Service as well as services in other languages, the "Radio Peace and Progress" service and a small number of programmes from some of the USSR republics.

Broadcasting Soviet information was Radio Moscow's primary function. All programmes (except for short newsbreaks) had to be cleared by a "Programming Directorate", a form of censorship that was only removed in 1991.

At its peak, Radio Moscow broadcast in over 70 languages using transmitters in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and Cuba.

Radio Moscow's interval signal was 'My Country's Vast' (Russian: Широка страна моя родная), played on chimes. This has been changed to Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky in 1991. A move has been made in an attempt to drift away from the image of the communist propaganda media.

One of the most popular programmes on air in the 1980s, due to its informal presentation that contrasted with most other shows, was the 'Listeners’ Request Club' hosted by prominent radio presenter Vasily Strelnikov. Another popular feature which began on Radio Moscow was Moscow Mailbag, which answered listeners' questions in English about the former Soviet Union and later about Russia. For almost five decades, between 1957 and 2005, the programme was presented by Joe Adamov, who was known for his command of the English language and his good humour. Radio Moscow continued to broadcast until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, and was renamed the World Service of the Voice of Russia on 22nd December 1993.

Transmission network[]

The Voice of Russia continues to broadcast to most of the world on shortwave and mediumwave, satellite, via the World Radio Network and via the Internet. Interestingly, broadcasts with strong signals targeted at Europe continue. Many major international broadcasters no longer target shortwave broadcasts at Europe, including the Cold War rivals of Radio Moscow: the Voice of America and BBC World Service (China Radio International continues, and has expanded, short wave broadcasts to Europe).

Radio Moscow's and Voice of Russia's shortwave (SW) transmission network has never been equalled in its transmission power, directivity and reach. During the station's peak in the 1980s the same programmes could often be heard on anything up to forty frequencies on the (heavily overcrowded) shortwave bands although the station never published its complete or accurate time/frequency schedule. It is unclear whether the station's staff knew what freqencies it was broadcasting on.

The transmission network consisted of at least 30 high-power transmission sites (West to East, with first transmission dates):

Wachenbrunn, East Germany (1000 kW carrier power, MW)
Bolshakovo (2500 kW carrier power, MW)
Saint Petersburg (1961) [16 × 200 kW SW]
Moscow (5 known high-power SW transmission sites)
Krasnodar (1967) [8 × 100 kW SW, 8 × 500 kW SW]
Volgograd
Kamo, Armenia (site ceded to Armenia, but operated by RMOC)
Samara [6 × 250 kW SW, 3 × 200 kW SW, 7 × 100 kW SW]
Yekaterinburg [9 × 100 kW SW]
Tashkent (1000 kW carrier power?)
Dushanbe (1000 kW carrier power)
Omsk
Novosibirsk (1956) [17 × 100 kW SW, but 1000 kW carrier power capable]
Irkutsk (Angarsk, 1971) [2 × 100 kW, 4 × 250 kW SW, 8 × 500-kW)
Chita
Yakutsk
Vladivostok (1000 kW carrier power?)
Komsomolsk-on-Amur
Petropavlovsk-Magadan (1000 kW carrier power?)
Havana, Cuba at one time in 1980, Radio Moscow had transmissions on the Medium Wave broadcast on 600 kHz from Cuba which reached the Caribbean islands and US State of Florida

Voice of Russia broadcast in short, medium and longwave formats, in DAB+, DRM, HD-Radio, as well as through cable, satellite transmission and in mobile networks. VOR’s Internet coverage comes in as many as 38 languages

Voice of Russia announced on 1 July 2004, the successful implementation, and planned expansion, of its DRM broadcasts on short-wave and medium-wave. In September 2009 the Russian State Commission for Radio Frequencies, the national regulator of broadcasting, has decided on the DRM has the standard for mediumwave and shortwave services.

Starting in March 2013, VOR has been broadcasting in the digital HD Radio format in Washington and Chicago, and in Switzerland using its digital DAB+ multiplex.

VOR closed down on 9 November 2014.;

Communist world! (1922-1991)
The Warsaw Pact and the military	Warsaw Pact - People's Republic of Albania (left) - German Democratic Republic- Czech Socialist Republic- Warsaw Pact Rail - USSR -People's Republic of Poland - Hungarian People's Republic - Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - People's Republic of Bulgaria - Polish People's Republic - Romanian Popular Republic - Romanian People's Republic - Soviet 5.45x39mm - Soviet Southern Group of Forces -Seven days to the River Rhine (1979) - Jüterbog Airfield -Topoľčany Army Barracks and bunker system - Brezhnev Doctrine - Soviet war in Afghanistan - Vladivostok Navel base - Murmansk Navel base - Archangelsk Navel base - Kaliningrad Navel base - Sevastopol Navel base - Kazan Higher Tank Command School and related tank factory - Burevestnik Airport - People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (de facto, but not de jure) - AK-47\Kalashnikov assault rifle - Red Army - Kartsev-Venediktov Design Bureau (OKB-520) - KhPZ Factory No. 183 in Kharkiv/Malyshev Factory - Mikhail Kalashnikov - Soviet Opytnoye Konstruktorskoye Buros (OKBs) - Eastern bloc - Tupolev Tu-160- 9M14 Malyutka - RPG-7 - R-7 ICBM - Tupolev Tu-95 - M73 Spetsnaz Boot - M73 Romanian helmet
The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (ComEcom) nations	Council for Mutual Economic Assistance - SovRoms - Mongolian People's Republic - Cuba - Vietnam - North Vietnam - German Democratic Republic- Czech Socialist Republic - USSR - Mongolian People's Republic - People's Republic of Poland - Hungarian People's Republic - Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - People's Republic of Bulgaria - Polish People's Republic - People's Republic of Albania (left) - ‎Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (never fully joined) - Romanian Popular Republic -Romanian People's Republic - North Korea (de facto, but not [de jure to avoid worrying the PRC) - Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (wanted to join, but never got round to doing so) - People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (de facto, but not de jure) - Eastern bloc
Other Soviet allies.	People's Republic of the Congo - People's Republic of Benin – Republic of Seychelles – Democratic Republic of Madagascar - Provisional Military Government of Socialist Ethiopia - People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia - People's Revolutionary Government (Grenada) - Junta of National Reconstruction (Nicaragua) - Libyan Arab Jamahiriya - People's Democratic Republic of Algeria - Jamaica - Grenada
The ones with nukes	USSR - Cuba (gave them up) - Cuban Missile Crisis - Tupolev Tu-160 - R-7 ICBM - Tupolev Tu-95 - People's Republic of China - Novaya Zemlya Archipelago - Tsar Bomba
The inter-communist splits	Sino-Soviet Split - USSR -Tankie Communists - Zhou Enlai - Nikita Khrushchev - Mao Zedong - Pol Pot - People's Republic of China - Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) - People's Republic of Albania - The inter-communist splits
The end of it	Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 - Fall of the Berlin wall - Soviet "Era of Stagnation" - Dissolution of the Soviet Union - Singing Revolution - Baltic Republics of the Soviet Union- The political dissolution of the Soviet Union and why it broke up afterwards - Soviet war in Afghanistan - Chernobyl disaster -Glasnost - Perestroika
Economics	Agrokomerc Affair - Sakhalin Island - Life under communism - Food cards- Collective farms- Yugoslavian Agricoles - Political Committee of the Communist Party of China - Soviet political organs - Soviet Social Apparatus - The purveyors of crappy Cold War era Easter Block cars - Mirny Diamond Mine - Magnitogorsk - Virgin Lands campaign - Soviet Opytnoye Konstruktorskoye Buros (OKBs) - The Agrokomerc Affair - Wuxi (diode) Factory 742 - Jiangnan Radio Factory - Agrokomerc - Kartsev-Venediktov Design Bureau (OKB-520) - KhPZ Factory No. 183 in Kharkiv/Malyshev Factory- Eastern bloc - Gorki Auto Plant - GAZ Group Holding - ZiL - SovRom
Politics and Geo-politics	Sakhalin Island - Stalin Monument (Budapest)‎‎ - Communist Party of the Soviet Union - Khrushchev Thaw- Tito–Stalin Split‎-‎‎ Life under communism - Hungarian Revolution of 1956 - Cold War - Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia - Soviet "Era of Stagnation" - Soviet 'oligophrenics' and 'oligophrenia' - Soviet political organs - Soviet Social Apparatus - Russian and Soviet Leaders between 1917 and 2018 - Stalin's purges and ethnic cleansing- Closed Soviet locations - Gulags - Berlin Wall - Détente - Sino-Soviet Split - Brezhnev Doctrine - Stalin's cult of personality - De-Stalinisation -Glasnost - Perestroika - Kuril Islands - Rybachy Peninsula - Kaliningrad Oblast - Eastern bloc - The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union - 1952 Egyptian revolution -Sandinistas - Cuban Revolution - Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948 - Yugoslavia's Informbiro Period
Technology and outer space	Sputnik 1 - Soviet Space Program - Mirny Diamond Mine - Magnitogorsk- Soviet Space Program - space race - Virgin Lands campaign - Tatra trams T3 and T3R.P trams - Sputnik crisis - M62 locomotive - TEP80 locomotive -Soviet MSI nMOS chip - Soviet Ice Breaker Lenin - Chernobyl disaster - AK-47\Kalashnikov assault rifle -Soviet Opytnoye Konstruktorskoye Buros (OKBs)- The Space Race - Mikhail Kalashnikov - Yuri Gagarin - Vostok rocket-Soyuz rocket - Baikonur Cosmodrome - Plesetsk Cosmodrome - Zenit 2 - Tupolev Tu-160 - R-7 ICBM - Phobos 1 - Tsar Bomba
People	Stalin Monument (Budapest)‎‎ - Vladimir Lenin - Leonid Brezhnev - Yury Andropov - Horloogiyn Choybalsan - Mikhail Kalashnikov - Yuri Gagarin - Nikita Khrushchev - Joseph Stalin - Stalin's cult of personality - De-Stalinisation - Mikhail Gorbachev - Ho Chi Minh - Fidel Castro - Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej - Mohammad Najibullah - Maurice Bishop - Zhou Enlai - Salvador Allende - Dr. Kwame Nkrumah - Gamal Abdel Nasser - Michael Manley - Maurice Bishop - Yury Andropov - Vladimir Lenin - Mikhail Gorbachev - Leonid Brezhnev - Lavrentiy Beria- Joseph Stalin - Georgy Zhukov - Fidel Castro - Georgy Malenkov
Important places	Sakhalin island - Moscow - Nakhodka Port - Gorki Auto Plant - Vladivostok Navel base - Murmansk Navel base - Arkangelsk Navel base - Kalinningrad Navel base - Sevastopol Navel base - Kazan Higher Tank Command School and related tank factory -Burevestnik Airport- Jüterbog Airfield - Topoľčany Army Barracks and bunker system - Kuril Islands - Berlin Wall - Mirny Diamond Mine - Magnitogorsk - Rybachy Peninsula - St. Petersburg‎ - Closed Soviet locations - Kaliningrad Oblast - Wuxi (diode) Factory 742 - Jiangnan Radio Factory - Agrokomerc -KhPZ Factory No. 183 in Kharkiv/Malyshev Factory - Wuxi (diode) Factory 742 - Jiangnan Radio Factory - Agrokomerc - Baikonur Cosmodrome - Plesetsk Cosmodrome - Novaya Zemlya Archipelago
Systems of state repression	What is a police state? - Státní bezpečnost/Štátna bezpečnosť (StB/ŠtB) - Committee for State Security (KGB) - Glavnoye razvedyvatel'noye upravleniye (GRU) - Stasi - Securitate -Gulag - Political disappearances - Berlin Wall - A Bulgarian umbrella assassination – Komitet za dǎržavna sigurnost (CSS) - Censorship East Germany - Communist Party of the Soviet Union - The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union
The political heretics who were not really true communists	People's Republic of Albania (criminal dictatorship) - Mao Zedong (mad) - Enver Hoxha (a mafia don) - Pol Pot (evil) - Nicolae Ceauşescu (evil) - Democratic Kampuchea (evil) - Khmer Rouge (evil) - The PRC (evil then state capitalist) - Communist Party of Kampuchea (evil) - The Shining Path (evil) - North Korea (despotism)- Red Brigades (in Italy) (criminal syndicate) - Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) (criminal syndicate) - Daniel Ortega (evil) - Kim Il-Sung (despot) - People's Republic of China (evil then state capitalist) - Provisional Military Government of Socialist Ethiopia (evil) - People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (evil) - Somali Democratic Republic (Black nationalist) – People's Republic of Mozambique (Black nationalist) – People's Republic of Angola (criminal syndicate) - People's Revolutionary Government (Grenada) (not fully communist and liked the UK as much as they did Cuba) - Junta of National Reconstruction (Nicaragua) (evil) - Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (evil) - People's Democratic Republic of Algeria (not fully communist) - Grenada (not fully communist and liked the UK as much as they did Cuba) - Jamaica (not fully communist and liked the UK as much as they did Cuba) - Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (not fully communist) - Michael Manley (not fully communist and liked the UK as much as they did Cuba) - Maurice Bishop (not fully communist and liked the UK as much as they did Cuba) - Colonel Muammar Gaddafi (evil) - Mengistu Haile Mariam (despot)
The founding nations	Russian SFSR - Ukrainian SSR - Byelorussian SSR - Transcaucasian SFSR - Bukharan People's Soviet Republic - Khorezm People's Soviet Republic - Tashkent Soviet -Communist Party of the Soviet Union - The Bolshevik Party
Bolshevik\Soviet annexations	Estonia (annexed) - Latvia (annexed) - Lithuania (annexed) - Kaliningrad Oblast (annexed) - Finnish Civil War (the Reds lost) - Mongolian People's Republic (annexation failed) - The Far Eastern Republic (annexed) - Far Eastern Republic (annexed) - Tuvan People's Republic (annexed) - Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (annexed) - State of Buryat-Mongolia (annexed) - Mountain Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (annexed) - Kronstadt Republic (crushed) - Soviet Socialist Republic of Belarus (SSRB) (crushed)- The Belarusian People's Republic (BNR) (crushed)
Other former European, Central Asian and Iranian puppet or client states	Litbell - Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (LSSR) - Lithuanian–Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic - Soviet Republic of Naissaar - Latvian SSR of 1919-1920 - The Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR) - Bolshavik Russia - Lemko-Rusyn People's Republic- West Ukrainian People's Republic - Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic - Hungarian Soviet Republic - People's State of Bavaria - Bavarian Soviet Republic - The Soviet Republic of Odessa - Kiev called the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR) - Petrograd Soviet - East Turkestan Republic (ETR) - Persian Socialist Soviet Republic - Soviet Republic of Gilan - Azerbaijan People's Government - Republic of Mahabad (1946) - Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic
Military and wars	Sputnik 1- When is not a Yugo to a Yugo? - Vietnam War - 1950–1953 Korean War - Soviet medals‎ - Colombian conflict (1964–present) - Movimiento de Liberación Nacional-Tupamaros - Peruvian conflict - Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement - Cambodian genocide - The WW2 Jewish Holocaust and Roma Porajmos in the Baltic states - Colombian conflict (1964–present) - Peruvian conflict - 1979 Nicaraguan Revolution - Sandinistas - Guerrilla Army of the Poor - Viet Cong - Pathet Lao - New Jewel Movement - bomber gap - missile gap - arms race - submarine race - Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov- Whiskey-class submarine -Red Army - Red Navy- Red Air Force - Soviet Army - Soviet Navy - Soviet Air Force - Soviet Afghan War - People's Liberation Army (of China) - 1927–1949 Chinese Civil War
Corruption	The fish case - The Sochi-Krasnodar case
Other stuff	Russian Civil War (1917–1922) - Life under communism - Sputnik 1- Khrushchyovka - When is not a Yugo to a Yugo? - The purveyors of crappy Cold War era Easter Block cars- Family in the Soviet Union - Radio Moscow - Tatra trams T3 and T3R.P trams - M62 locomotive - TEP80 locomotive - Stalin's cult of personality - De-Stalinisation - Soviet medals‎ - The Agrokomerc Affair - The Jewish Holocaust and Roma Porajmos in the Baltic states - "Reds under the bed" - Stalin's purges and ethnic cleansing -The Holodomor - Soviet 'oligophrenics' and 'oligophrenia' - New Jewel Movement - The 'false' Cold War theory - All the Communist countries during the Cold War - People's Liberation Army (of China) - People's Republic of China - GAZ Group Holding -Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) - Polish United Workers' Party