A joint project with the StraightForward Foundation.
The foundation helps publish nonfiction literature about contemporary Russia in different languages—books that currently cannot be published inside the country.
While thinking through ways to convey the foundation’s mission to the audience, trying out various approaches and techniques, I eventually arrived at the most obvious and straightforward option: to speak directly—using text on walls—about things that have only recently acquired names in our country. This newspeak, or rather necrospeak, is a recent phenomenon, yet it is incredibly important for understanding what is happening inside Russia and what ideas and practices the Putin regime is exporting outward. Language shapes our thinking, and when, for example, an extrajudicial killing is called a “reset,” we distance ourselves, depersonalize the participants, erase emotions, and blur the problem. It is a horrifying, strange, and fascinating process, one that many scholars from Russia are studying.
Our task, however, was to communicate and explain these new words from the Russian lexicon to audiences in different countries. For a foreigner far removed from the Russian context, it can be difficult to explain who “foreign agents” are (my personal pain point), what a “meat assault” is, and what kind of content in Russia is labeled “discrediting the army” or “extremism,” and so on down the list.
And how can one understand or explain what is happening to our country right now without all of this?
Entering the graffiti environment allowed us, on the one hand, to blend into the city’s visual noise, and on the other, to place our message in the most visible and unexpected spot—where no one expects to encounter it. I like this tactic of guerrilla hacking the city: finding cracks and vulnerabilities and using them for your own purposes, penetrating the urban fabric, mimicking and disguising yourself like a spy behind enemy lines. The more unprepared the viewer—a resident of a major metropolis in Europe, the United States, Latin America, or Israel—the stronger the effect of an unexpected encounter with words from our dictionary of contemporary Russia should be.
But that’s how it should be. Whether you like it or not, what is happening to Russia right now concerns you as well. And if you want to know more about contemporary Russia, let us explain.
8 cities, 8 concepts from newspeak, 7 countries. Thanks to everyone who helped us bring this project to life.
The full glossary can be found at the link here.
“OBNULENIYE”, Los-Angeles, USA.
Obnuleniye / Zeroing – the Russian name for extrajudicial killings on the frontlines of the war in Ukraine. Before 2022, the word was used to describe new constitutional amendments that allowed Putin to stay the president of Russia for two more terms.
“INOAGENT”, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Inoagent / Foreign agent – a person proclaimed “a foreign agent” by the Russian government — usually for speaking truth to power. Two of StraightForward cofounders and eight of our authors had been slapped with the label.
“MOBIK”, Berlin, Germany.
Mobik – a Russian person called up for obligatory military service during “partial mobilization” proclaimed by Putin. Mobiks usually receive very little training and die in droves on the frontlines of the Ukraine war.
“SILOVIK”, London, UK.
Silovik – an FSB agent, a cop, or a spy: in Putin’s Russia, a member of a privileged social class that holds business and government under control.
“DED”, NYC, USA.
Ded / Grandpa – a nickname for Russian president Vladimir Putin, widely used by the members of the Russian elite.
“ESHNIK”, Buenos-Aires, Argentina.
Eshnik – an employee of the Center for Countering Extremism — a special department of the InteriorMinistry dedicated to combating extremism. In practice, eshniks’ actions usually entail monitoring protest activities, harassing activists, journalists, independent religious groups and LGBTQ+ people, and creating criminal cases out of thin air.
“ZETNIK”, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
Zetnik – a person who wholeheartedly supports Putin’s war in Ukraine. The term is derived from Z, a letter which became one of the “patriotic” war symbols in Russia.
“DVYKHSOTIYE”, Paris, France.
Dvukhsotiye/200s – dead combatants in Russian military slang. The term derives from “cargo 200”, which, in Soviet times, was a codename for the transportation of military fatalities.
