Registration REQUIRED by 4pm on October 20, 2025 in order to attend this event.
Please join the Harriman Institute for the opening reception of the exhibit Romanticists of Gorbachev’s Perestroika: A Dialogue Between a Russian and an American Journalist.
This exhibit is devoted to a time of hope in U.S.-Soviet relations and the civil dialogue that began during Mikhail Gorbachev’s period of liberalization in the USSR and put an end to the Cold War.
Both Russian and American journalists played a crucial role in this process. In 1988, Yuri Shchekochikhin, an investigative journalist from the liberal Literaturnaya Gazeta, was the first to report on mafia and organized crime in Russia. Shortly after, Gorbachev ordered the establishment of a special department within the Ministry of Internal Affairs to combat organized crime and corruption.
Shchekochikhin became one of the most prominent voices reporting on Gorbachev’s perestroika. He wrote about corruption, crimes during Stalin’s rule, and the KGB. He was also the first to report on the shootings at the worker’s strike in Novocherkassk in 1962, the Katyn massacre, antisemitism in the USSR among other issues.
John Kohan, chief of Time Magazine’s Moscow bureau, arrived in Russia in 1988, and interviewed Shchekochikhin soon after. Both journalists were enthusiastic about Gorbachev’s reforms and improving U.S.-Soviet relations. They became friends and collaborators. Their trip to the Russian provinces was the first (and perhaps only) successful joint journalistic project of the Perestroika period.
This exhibition depicts the collaboration between Shchekochikhin and Kohan. The photographs were taken by Shchekochikhin’s colleague from Literaturnaya Gazeta, Vladimir Bogdanov (1937-2019). The images from that time capture their creative spirit, along with their expectations, dreams and efforts toward a better future free from political, ideological and military strife. These romanticists of Gorbachev’s perestroika continue to inspire us and give us hope.
