Viktor Popkov: between Soviet canon and personal tragedy

Viktor Popkov: between Soviet canon and personal tragedy

Viktor Popkov’s work moves between the language of Soviet representation and something far more fragile and personal. This episode looks at how collective narratives of labor and heroism break against images of grief, absence, and lives left unfulfilled. Created using an LLM, with an original jingle, and based on texts first published on the Tararumbia blog.

Uglich myth: the murdered prince and the pardoned bell

Uglich as a site of historical myth-making: from the death of Tsarevich Dmitry to centuries of political narratives reshaping Russia’s past for legitimacy. This episode is composed from multiple layered sources, generated with the help of an LLM, set to an original jingle, and based on texts first published on the Tararumbia blog.

Poetry as a survival guide

Russian poetry across centuries reflects power, suffering, and resilience. This episode connects Voloshin and Sumarokov to explore how Moscow becomes a symbol of history, tyranny, and endurance — and why these voices still matter today.

Rust and routine: on the problem of contemporary art

A sink, an open tap, rust-coloured water. In Daily Table, Anton Morokov turns a familiar ritual – standing by the sink, trying to come to your senses – into something quietly obsessive and hard to ignore. Constructed, appropriately, through layers of mediation, this episode was created using an LLM, set to an original jingle, and draws on texts first published on the Tararumbia blog.

How to build a church and keep it standing: from Chernivtsi to Curtea de Argeș

From Chernivtsi (Bukovina, Ukraine) to Curtea de Argeș (Romania), this episode moves between clean architectural logic and a stubborn legend of sacrifice said to keep the walls from falling apart. The cross-in-square plan, the illusion of ‘twisted’ domes, trace how Byzantine precision blends with Neoromanian flair—while the story quietly asks what really holds these structures together: engineering, tradition, or something less measurable. As with the buildings themselves, this episode is assembled from layered sources—created using an LLM, set to an original jingle, and rooted in texts first published on the Tararumbia blog.