Radio Moscow's first foreign language broadcast was in German on 29 October 1929; English and French services soon followed. Previously, Radio Moscow broadcast in 1922 with a transmitter station RV-1 in the Moscow region, and a second broadcasting centre came on air at Leningrad in 1925. By 1939, Radio Moscow was broadcasting in English, French, Indonesian, German, Italian and Arabic. During the 1930s, Radio Moscow expressed concern about Nazi Germany and its dictator Adolf Hitler, while its Italian mediumwave service was jammed under the orders of Italy's fascist dictator Benito Mussolini during the late 1930s. During World War II, Radio Moscow operated an effective international service to Germany and occupied Europe.
The United States 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 began to transmit broadcasts in three African languages: Amharic, Swahili and Hausa. Over time, speakers of another eight African languages were able to listen to services from Radio Moscow. 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, Radio Moscow's commentators broadcast in the "News and Views" program. The participants were Viktor Glazunov, Leonid Rassadin, Yuri Shalygin, Alexander Kushnir, Yuri Solton and Vladislav Chernukha.
Changes late 1970s–1980s
In the late 1970s, the English language service was renamed Radio Moscow World Service. The project was launched and supervised by a long-time Radio Moscow journalist and manager Alexander Evstafiev. Later, North American, African and British Isles services operated for a few hours per day alongside the regular English World Service. At one time in 1980, Radio Moscow had transmissions on the Medium Wave broadcast on 600 kHz from Havana, Cuba which reached the Caribbean islands and US State of Florida. One of the most popular programmes on air in the 1980s, due to its informal presentation that contrasted with most other shows, was the "Listeners' Request Club", hosted by prominent radio presenter Vasily Strelnikov. Another popular feature which began on Radio Moscow was Moscow Mailbag, which answered listeners' questions in English about the Soviet Union. Since 1957, the programme was presented by Joe Adamov, who was known for his command of the English language and his good humour.
End
On 22 December 1993, the Russian presidentBoris Yeltsin issued a decree which reorganized Radio Moscow with a new name: Voice of Russia.
Languages
Languages of Radio Moscow
By 1931, when Radio Moscow came under the control of the newly established Gosteleradio, the service comprised eight languages: English, French, German, Czech, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish. By the 1970s there were 64 languages:
Until 1988 there was no Russian service of Radio Moscow. Instead there were several other services for Russians abroad like the Fifth programme of the All-Union Radio, Radio Motherland of the Soviet Committee for Cultural Relations with Fellow-Countrymen Abroad or for fishermen Radio Pacific Ocean from Vladivostok and Radio Atlantic from Murmansk.
USSR Shortwave broadcasting innovations
The USSR pioneered the use of HRS 8/8/1 antennas 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.
