«Russians Are Coming» is an author-driven book project dedicated to investigating mass anti-communist paranoia in American society.
Each notebook examines a distinct sphere of American society and illustrates how an atmosphere of fear, political tension, and the expectation of threat permeated everyday life, media, architecture, consumption, and visual culture.
The publication’s structure is fundamentally built as a system of autonomous yet interconnected parts. Each booklet features its own cover, stylized after mainstream comic books. This device underscores the specific nature of capitalist culture, within which any event—regardless of its scale or genuine significance—is transformed into easily consumable spectacle—into content inevitably accompanied by advertising.
All notebooks are arranged according to a unified compositional principle. In the first part of each one, the theme is explored in detail, sequentially, and almost documentarily. However, toward the end, the visual system begins to change: the layout transforms, colors invert, and images turn red. In this section, the flip side of the familiar order is revealed—the consequences of universal paranoia that gradually integrate into daily life. For example, the notebook dedicated to architecture examines the mass proliferation of shelters as an integral part of the living environment amid the threat of nuclear attack.
The book regularly features authentic advertising posters that interrupt the main narrative, functioning as a metaphor for an «advertisement break.» These insertions not only reproduce the visual language of the era but also highlight how fear, anxiety, and political tension were integrated into the mechanisms of mass culture and consumption.
The author’s method is fundamentally important to the project. The book avoids direct moral judgment and does not offer a single interpretation. On the contrary, its goal is to explore the topic and present a factual account using the coldest, most objective language possible. This is why the project consciously excludes external illustrations: the entire visual narrative is built upon actual documents.
Format — 180 × 260 mm
Volume — 120 sheets
Binding — Saddle-stitched
Color — 4/4
Paper — 120 g/m²
Box made of chipboard with silk-screened single-color sealing
Typefaces used — DM Sans, Kommuna
Author: Matvey Tarasovich Kostenko
Curator: Maxim Nikolaevich Rodin
Stroganov State Art Institute of Culture
2025