Voice of Russia
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Radio Moscow was the official international broadcasting station of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
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Early years
Radio Moscow began broadcasting in 1922 with a transmitter station RV-1 in the Moscow region. In 1925 a second broadcasting centre came on air at Leningrad. Radio Moscow was broadcasting (on mediumwave and shortwave) in English, French, German, Italian and Arabic by 1939. Radio Moscow did express concern over the rise of Hitler in Germany during the 1930s, and its Italian mediumwave service specifically was jammed by an order of Mussolini during the late 1930s.
The Cold War years
The U.S. was first targeted by Radio Moscow during the early 1950s, with transmitters in the Moscow region. Later Western North America was targeted by the newly constructed Vladivostok and Magadan relay stations.
The first broadcasts to Africa went on the air in the late 1950s in English and French. In 1961 Radio Moscow for the first time spoke in three African languages: Amharic, Swahili and Hausa. Over time, listeners in Africa got a chance to tune in to Radio Moscow in another eight African languages.
The first centralized news bulletin went on the air in August 1963 and reached out to listeners all over the world. In the years of the Cold War most news reports and commentaries focused on the relations between the United States and Soviet Union.
In the 1970s the cream of Radio Moscow's commentator teams united in a radio journal, called "News and Views". Taking part in the ambitious project were Viktor Glazunov, Leonid Rassadin, Yuri Shalygin, Alexander Kushnir, Yuri Solton and Vladislav Chernukha. Over the years the journal grew into a major information and analytical program of the Radio Moscow foreign service.
Changes 1980s–1991
In the 1980s its English language service was renamed Radio Moscow World Service, in imitation of the BBC World Service.
After the fall of the USSR in 1991 it was renamed the World Service of the Voice of Russia.
For a brief time during the changes, Radio Moscow was playing Cheech and Chong's Christmas Album. Also they were selling Radio Moscow coffee mugs using VISA credit cards.
Radio Moscow continued to broadcast until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Radio Moscow was the first European broadcaster to broadcast to western Europe in a variety of languages, doing so in 1922.
Broadcasting pro-Soviet propaganda was Radio Moscow's primary function. Why the use of "propaganda"? Until 1991 all programmes (except for short newsbreaks) had to be cleared by a "Programming Directorate". With the 1991 re-structuring, the "Programming Directorate" ceased to exist.
The usage of "Radio Moscow" coupled with "propaganda" is a near universal usage among those with coercive political leanings in the English speaking world. With respect to true Cold War "propaganda" broadcasting, it had ceased by 1985.
At its peak, Radio Moscow broadcast in over 50 languages using transmitters in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and Cuba.
Radio Moscow's interval signal was "Moscow Nights", played on chimes. Since then, Voice of Russia World Service has used two further interval signals, "Midnight in Moscow", a version played by Ricky King, and also its current signal, Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky
One of the most popular programmes spanning both the Radio Moscow and Voice of Russia services is New Market, a programme looking at the Economic Climate and General Economic matters in Russia. Its current presenter is Eugene Nikitenko, but when it first started, it was hosted by two people, Joe Osipova and Magda Korlacheynko.
It was Radio Moscow that gave Margaret Thatcher the nickname "The Iron Lady".
Transmission network
Radio Moscow's and Voice of Russia's shortwave (SW) transmission network has never been equalled in its transmission power, directivity and reach.
The transmission network consisted of at least 30 high-power transmission sites (West to East, with first transmission dates):
- Wachenbrunn, Germany (1000 kW carrier power, MW)
- Bolshakovo (2500 kW carrier power, MW)
- Vilnius (site ceeded to Lithuania, operated by Radio Vilnius)
- Moscow (10 known high-power SW transmission sites, 1960s: 30)
- Saint Petersburg (1961) [16 × 200-kW SW]
- Volgograd
- Yekaterinburg [9 × 100-kW SW]
- Samara [6 × 250-kW SW, 3 × 200-kW SW, 7 × 100-kW SW]
- Kamo, Armenia (site ceded to Armenia, but operated by RMOC)
- Omsk
- Arkhangelsk (Angarsk, 1971) [2 × 100-kW, 4 × 250-kW SW, 8 × 500-kW)
- Tashkent (1000 kW carrier power?)
- Krasnodar (1967) [8 × 100-kW SW, 8 × 500 kW SW]
- Novosibirsk (1956) [17 × 100-kW SW, but 1000 kW carrier power capable]
- Chita
- Yakutsk
- Komsomolsk-on-Amur
- Dushanbe (1000 kW carrier power)
- Vladivostok (1000 kW carrier power?)
- Petropavlovsk-Magadan (1000 kW carrier power?)
The transmission network is partially documented here: http://www.tdp.info/rus.html
The USSR pioneered the use of HRS 8/8/1 antennas (horizontal dipole curtain, eight columns, eight rows, with electrically steerable pattern) for highly targeted shortwave broadcasting long before HRS 12/6/1 technology became available in the west. HRS 8/8/1 curtain arrays create a 10-degree beam of shortwave energy, and can provide a highly audible signal to a target area some 7,000 km away.
The full extent of Russia's shortwave antenna directivity research is unknown, although it is understood that some ionospheric heating experiments were carried out at the Kamo and Dushanbe relay stations in the late 1980s to 1990.
HRS 6/4/1 and HRS 12/6/1 curtain arrays are sold by an U.S. company TCI [1] (http://tcibr.com/) in California. Marconi (UK) sold two HRS 6/4/1 antennas to Voice of America-IBB before terminating all sales and service for its longwave/mediumwave and shortwave products in the late 1990s.
The full list of available shortwave relay stations is only known by the Russian Ministry of Communications. These transmission facilities can be rented by contractual agreement. The Voice of America, Deutsche Welle and other international broadcasters have leased facilities in the past and currently possess lease agreements with Russia's MOC.
All shortwave relay station facilities in Russia and the former USSR are owned and operated by the Russian Ministry of Communications, with a few exceptions where the facilities were ceded to national governments.
Radio Wolga
There was also a radio station for Russian soldiers in former East Germany called Radio Wolga.
External links
- Voice of Russia World Service website (http://www.vor.ru/)de:Stimme Russlands