Show Notes
James C. Pearce, Jeremy Morris and Jonny Tickle trace how the Russian state reaches from hospitals to housing, schools to smartphones. They break down its four layers – bureaucracy, surveillance, economic direction and moral oversight – and ask where public service ends and supervision begins. The discussion moves from Gosuslugi and CCTV to patriotic education, corporate loyalty and cultural bans, exploring how order and convenience coexist with limits on independence in daily life.
This podcast is an independent project and does not represent the views of our employers or affiliated institutions.
More from Russia Unfiltered
This week on Russia Unfiltered, Jonny Tickle, Jeremy Morris, and James Pearce are joined by their first ever guest: Dr. Jeff Hawn, research fellow in international history at the London School of Economics. Together, they dive deep into the political chaos of the 1990s and ask one of the biggest questions in modern Russian history: was Putin’s Russia inevitable?
This week on Russia Unfiltered, Jonny Tickle, Jeremy Morris and James Pearce take a closer look at the state of Russia-focused academia in the West.
This week on Russia Unfiltered, Jonny Tickle, Jeremy Morris and James C Pearce take a deep dive into Mr. Nobody Against Putin — the Oscar-winning documentary that’s now been banned in Russia.
James C Pearce, Jeremy Morris and Jonny Tickle examine the sudden mobile internet outages across central Moscow and what they reveal about how a hyper-digital city functions when connectivity breaks down. They discuss the practical consequences, from payments and taxis to everyday routines that now depend entirely on mobile data, and why even short disruptions expose deeper vulnerabilities in a system built on constant connectivity. The conversation explores competing explanations, from security measures and infrastructure testing to a broader pattern of increasing control over digital space. They look at the logic behind restricting access not just to platforms but to the internet itself, and how this fits into a wider trend of tightening oversight during wartime. They also turn to the future of messaging in Russia, including the push toward domestic alternatives like Max, the resilience of Telegram, and the growing arms race between regulation and workarounds such as VPNs and alternative apps. Along the way, they discuss fraud, digital dependence, and whether Russia is moving toward a more controlled, self-contained internet model. This podcast is an independent project and does not represent the views of our employers or affiliated institutions.
Jonny Tickle is joined in person by Jeremy Morris for a rare walk-and-talk episode recorded in Moscow at the end of his research trip. They discuss first impressions from Moscow, Penza and St Petersburg, focusing on the small, everyday details that are easy to miss but reveal deeper economic and social shifts. The conversation explores churn in the hospitality sector, labour shortages, changing migration patterns and the uneven realities of the war economy, from packed holiday weekends to empty midweek cafés. They compare Moscow with the regions, asking what you can only learn by being there, and why conversations in kitchens, bars and on the street often tell a different story from polling and media narratives. They also discuss shifting expectations about the future, from postponed life plans to a broader sense of pessimism, alongside the resilience of small businesses and the lingering legacy of Soviet-era infrastructure. The episode ends with a wider reflection on fieldwork, access and the limits of studying Russia from a distance. This podcast is an independent project and does not represent the views of our employers or affiliated institutions.