Vspyshka by Irina Roldugina and Katerina Suverina, Individuum

Вспышка (Vspyshka; “Flash”) is a non-fiction book by Irina Roldugina and Katerina Suverina. The softcover was designed by me, Maxim Balabin, and published by Individuum.

About the book (translated):

When HIV was first identified in 1983, Soviet authorities dismissed it as a “virus of drug addicts and homosexuals,” a biological weapon supposedly engineered by American intelligence. Facts were buried, sex education was nonexistent, and contraception was virtually unavailable in a society where “there is no sex,” as a popular Soviet catchphrase once declared.

Vspyshka offers a sobering documentary portrait of late-Soviet society on the cusp of an epidemic it refused to name. Drawing on a trove of archival records, press coverage, and firsthand accounts, historians Irina Roldugina and Katerina Suverina trace how doctors, activists, scientists, journalists—and ordinary citizens—grappled with a virus that seemed both inescapable and unmentionable. The Soviet Union ultimately collapsed, but HIV did not.

Richly illustrated with posters, collages, and photographs—many published here for the first time—this book brings into focus not only the human cost of denial, but the cultural and political systems that allowed the crisis to fester.

“Analyzing the mistakes of the Soviet era is more urgent than ever, as over one million Russians now live with HIV. What was once hypothetical has become undeniable.”
— Vadim Pokrovsky, Academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Head of the Federal AIDS Centre

“This book helps explain why, decades later, we still know so little about HIV.”
— Rita Loginova, journalist and host of ‘Одни плюсы’, a podcast about life with HIV