Samantha Berkhead

Amsterdam, Moscow

Senior Editor at The Moscow Times

Editor-in-chief @MoscowTimes | 🖋 @thetimes | all opinions my own etc

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Articles

Exiled Electronic Duo AIGEL Crashes the Dancefloor With ‘Killer Qız’

3 weeks ago | themoscowtimes.com | Samantha Berkhead

It’s murder on the dancefloor. In the propulsive opening track to exiled electronic duo AIGEL’s new album, vocalist Aigel Gaisina inhabits the role of a DJ whose beats kill a “fool old man” on the dancefloor for “drinking my people’s blood.”“Dirty job, dirty cash, dirty stuff / Though my soul is pure,” she intones.
Alla Gutnikova: ‘Dictatorships End, Walls Fall and Prisons Burn’

1 month ago | themoscowtimes.com | Samantha Berkhead

LONDON — Alla Gutnikova’s story reflects Russia’s descent into repression in recent years. As a university student, she became politically active while protesting in support of jailed journalist Ivan Golunov and protesters jailed for rallying for free elections in the summer of 2019.
Freed U.S.-Russian Journalist Alsu Kurmasheva: ‘Our Work Right Now Is to Be a Witness to History’

Nov 21, 2024 | themoscowtimes.com | Samantha Berkhead

Alsu Kurmasheva, a longtime journalist for the U.S.-funded RFE/RL news outlet’s Tatar-Bashkir service, became the second U.S. journalist to be jailed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine when she was detained in October 2023. The dual U.S.-Russian citizen, who lives in Prague, was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison in July on charges of spreading “false information” about the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine that her family and employer denied. Just weeks later on Aug.
In ‘No Nation Without Culture,’ Vladlena Sandu Reckons With Chechnya’s Lost Identity

Nov 12, 2024 | themoscowtimes.com | Samantha Berkhead

While Russia was amassing troops and tanks along the Ukrainian border in the spring of 2021, film and theatre director Vladlena Sandu was in the Chechen capital of Grozny to film a documentary based on her memories of growing up during the Chechen Wars.Two decades after it was flattened by Russian bombs during Chechnya’s wars for independence from Moscow, Grozny has been rebuilt with Kremlin money and is ruled with an iron fist by Ramzan Kadyrov.
‘If You Talk, You’ll Go in a Bag’: Freed Russian Political Prisoners Recount Harrowing, Surprising Prison Swap - The Moscow Times

Aug 2, 2024 | themoscowtimes.com | Samantha Berkhead

Sasha Skochilenko did not know what was happening as she was taken from her St. Petersburg prison cell to Moscow, where men in balaclavas escorted her onto a plane with several other prisoners. “We were accompanied by a dozen people in balaclavas,” said the 33-year-old St. Petersburg artist, who was freed Thursday from a seven-year prison sentence for replacing supermarket price tags with anti-war messages. “They didn’t let us [prisoners] sit together on the bus.
The Revolutionary Rage of Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova

Jun 21, 2024 | themoscowtimes.com | Samantha Berkhead

LINZ, Austria — For Nadya Tolokonnikova, rage has always been an antidote to her despair at the Kremlin’s repressions. “When something terrible happens, I’m free to choose — either I lay low in tears, or I rage. And through my rage, the better world starts to manifest,” the founder of the Pussy Riot feminist protest art collective says.
Hold the hotpants … it’s Putin’s puritanical take on Eurovision

Jun 9, 2024 | thetimes.com | Samantha Berkhead

As President Putin stews at all the perceived injustices he faces on the world stage, there is one that appears to particularly rankle: Russia’s exclusion from the Eurovision Song Contest after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. No longer content to watch Europe’s most beloved spectacle of camp and cringe from the sidelines, the Russian president is reported to have made progress in readying a homegrown version of the contest, featuring contestants from compliant nations.
Outrage in Amsterdam as Russian TV Celebrities Take the Stage

May 29, 2024 | themoscowtimes.com | Samantha Berkhead |Pyotr Kozlov

AMSTERDAM — A live event headlined by two Russian television celebrities has sparked controversy in the Netherlands, with critics decrying the presence of what they call Russian propagandists on European stages during Moscow’s war on Ukraine. Veteran Channel One host Vladimir Pozner and late-night talk show host Ivan Urgant’s European tour, called “The Travels of Pozner and Urgant,” kicked off in Amsterdam on Tuesday and will be followed by stops in Zurich, Berlin and Frankfurt.
‘There Will Be No Beautiful Russia of the Future Unless We Take Responsibility’: Activist Anastasia Shevchenko

Apr 13, 2024 | themoscowtimes.com | Samantha Berkhead

AMSTERDAM — “My point is to talk to everyone,” says Anastasia Shevchenko. After losing a child while under house arrest in Russia and witnessing the atrocities of the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, the exiled civil activist sees it as her mission to speak to Russians across the political spectrum and win over as many minds as she can.
‘A Very Grim Milestone’: Evan Gershkovich Marks 1 Year in Russian Jail

Mar 29, 2024 | themoscowtimes.com | Samantha Berkhead

A year after Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was jailed in Russia, his parents and friends say they remain hopeful that he will soon be freed. “One year is way too long for Evan to be behind bars on these completely bogus charges,” said Pjotr Sauer, The Guardian’s Russia correspondent and Evan’s close friend. “It's a very grim milestone, of course,” Sauer told The Moscow Times. “At the same time, I'm incredibly proud of how Evan has carried himself through this whole time.