Voice of Russia

For the blues rock band, see Radio Moscow (band).

Russian State Radio Company Voice of Russia

Type	Radio network
Country	Russia
Availability	International
Owner	All-Russia State Television and Radio Company
Key people	Andrey Bystritskiy (Chairman); Maxim Krasovsky (Editor-in-Chief, World Service in English)
Launch date	29 October 1929
Former names	Radio Moscow
Official website	ruvr.ru

Voice of Russia (Russian: Голос России) is the Russian government's international radio broadcasting service. Its predecessor Radio Moscow was the official international broadcasting station of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

History

Early years

Antenna of "Voice of Russia" in Wachenbrunn, Germany

Radio Moscow pennant from late 1980s

Stamp of 1979

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, Indonesian, German, Italian and Arabic by 1939. Radio Moscow did express concern over the rise of German dictator Adolf Hitler during the 1930s, and its Italian mediumwave service specifically was jammed by an order of Italian dictator Benito 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 into 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.

A sample of a Radio Moscow shortwave broadcast from the late 1980s.

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 late 1970s its 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 a North American service, African service and even a "UK & Ireland" service (all in English) operated for a few hours per day alongside the regular (24 Hour) English World Service as well as services in other languages, the "Radio Peace and Progress" service and a small number of programmes from some of the USSR republics.

Broadcasting Soviet information was Radio Moscow's primary function. All programmes (except for short newsbreaks) had to be cleared by a "Programming Directorate", a form of censorship that was only removed in 1991.

At its peak, Radio Moscow broadcast in over 70 languages using transmitters in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and Cuba.

Radio Moscow's interval signal was 'My Country's Vast' (Russian: Широка страна моя родная), played on chimes. This has been changed to Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky in 1991. A move has been made in an attempt to drift away from the image of the communist propaganda media.

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 former Soviet Union and later about Russia. For almost five decades, between 1957 and 2005, the programme was presented by Joe Adamov, who was known for his command of the English language and his good humour. Radio Moscow continued to broadcast until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, and was renamed the World Service of the Voice of Russia.

Transmission network

The Voice of Russia continues to broadcast to most of the world on shortwave and mediumwave, satellite, via the World Radio Network and via the Internet. Interestingly, broadcasts with strong signals targeted at Europe continue. Many major international broadcasters no longer target shortwave broadcasts at Europe, including the Cold War rivals of Radio Moscow: the Voice of America and BBC World Service (China Radio International continues, and has expanded, short wave broadcasts to Europe).

Radio Moscow's and Voice of Russia's shortwave (SW) transmission network has never been equalled in its transmission power, directivity and reach. During the station's peak in the 1980s the same programmes could often be heard on anything up to forty frequencies on the (heavily overcrowded) shortwave bands although the station never published its complete or accurate time/frequency schedule. It is unclear whether the station's staff knew what freqencies it was broadcasting on.

The transmission network consisted of at least 30 high-power transmission sites (West to East, with first transmission dates):

• Wachenbrunn, East Germany (1000 kW carrier power, MW)
• Bolshakovo (2500 kW carrier power, MW)
• Saint Petersburg (1961) [16 × 200 kW SW]
• Moscow (5 known high-power SW transmission sites)
• Krasnodar (1967) [8 × 100 kW SW, 8 × 500 kW SW]
• Volgograd
• Kamo, Armenia (site ceded to Armenia, but operated by RMOC)
• Samara [6 × 250 kW SW, 3 × 200 kW SW, 7 × 100 kW SW]
• Yekaterinburg [9 × 100 kW SW]
• Tashkent (1000 kW carrier power?)
• Dushanbe (1000 kW carrier power)
• Omsk
• Novosibirsk (1956) [17 × 100 kW SW, but 1000 kW carrier power capable]
• Irkutsk (Angarsk, 1971) [2 × 100 kW, 4 × 250 kW SW, 8 × 500-kW)
• Chita
• Yakutsk
• Vladivostok (1000 kW carrier power?)
• Komsomolsk-on-Amur
• Petropavlovsk-Magadan (1000 kW carrier power?)
• Havana, Cuba at one time in 1980, Radio Moscow had transmissions on the Medium Wave broadcast on 600 khz from Cuba which reached the Caribbean islands and US State of Florida

Voice of Russia broadcast in short, medium and longwave formats, in DAB+, DRM, HD-Radio, as well as through cable, satellite transmission and in mobile networks. VOR’s Internet coverage comes in as many as 38 languages

Voice of Russia announced on 1 July 2004, the successful implementation, and planned expansion, of its DRM broadcasts on short-wave and medium-wave. In September 2009 the Russian State Commission for Radio Frequencies, the national regulator of broadcasting, has decided on the DRM has the standard for mediumwave and shortwave services.

Starting in March 2013, VOR has been broadcasting in the digital HD Radio format in Washington and Chicago, and in Switzerland using its digital DAB+ multiplex.

Broadcast languages

As of 2011 the Voice of Russia broadcasts in 39 languages, including:

Albanian Armenian Arabic Azerbaijani Bulgarian Chinese Czech Dari English French German

Hausa Hindi Italian Japanese Kurdish Kyrgyz Moldovan Mongolian Norwegian Pashto Persian

Polish Portuguese Russian Serbian Spanish Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Uzbek

VOR output compared to other broadcasters

For a comparison of VOR (RM) to other broadcasters see

Estimated total direct programme hours per week of some external radio broadcasters for 1996

Broadcaster	1950	1960	1970	1980	1990	1996[1]
VOA, RFE/RL & Radio Martí	497	1,495	1,907	1,901	2,611	1,821
China Radio International	66	687	1,267	1,350	1,515	1,620
BBC World Service	643	589	723	719	796	1,036
Radio Moscow / Voice of Russia[2]	533	1,015	1,908	2,094	1,876	726
Deutsche Welle	0	315	779	804	848	655
Radio Cairo / ERTU	0	301	540	546	605	604
IRIB World Service	12	24	155	175	400	575
All India Radio	116	157	271	389	456	500
NHK World Radio Japan	0	203	259	259	343	468
Radio France Internationale	198	326	200	125	379	459
Radio Netherlands Worldwide	127	178	335	289	323	392
Israel Radio International	0	91	158	210	253	365
Voice of Turkey	40	77	88	199	322	364
Radio Pyongyang / Voice of Korea	0	159	330	597	534	364
Radio Bulgaria	30	117	164	236	320	338
Radio Australia	181	257	350	333	330	307
Radio Tirana	26	63	487	560	451	303
Radio Romania International	30	159	185	198	199	298
Radio Exterior de España	68	202	251	239	403	270
RDP Internacional	46	133	295	214	203	226
Radio Havana Cuba	0	0	320	424	352	203
Rai Italia Radio	170	205	165	169	181	203
Radio Canada International	85	80	98	134	195	175
Radio Polonia	131	232	334	337	292	171
Radio RSA / Channel Africa	0	63	150	183	156	159
Sveriges Radio International	28	114	140	155	167	149
Magyar Rádió	76	120	105	127	102	144
Radio Prague[3]	119	196	202	255	131	131
Voice of Nigeria	0	0	62	170	120	127
Radio Belgrade	80	70	76	72	96	68

Source: International Broadcast Audience Research, June 1996

The list includes about a quarter of the world's external broadcasters whose output is both publicly funded and worldwide. Among those excluded are Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea and various international commercial and religious stations.

Notes:

1. 1996 figures as at June; all other years as at December.
2. Before 1991, broadcasting for the former USSR.
3. Before 1996, broadcasting for the former Czechoslovakia.

In 1996, the USA's international radio consisted of 992 hours per week by VOA, 667 hpw by RFE/RL, and 162 hpw by Radio Marti.

USSR Shortwave broadcasting milestones and innovations

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] in California. Marconi (UK) sold two HRS 6/4/1 antennas to Voice of America-BBG 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.

See also

• Eastern Bloc information dissemination
• Radio Wolga - radio station for Soviet Soldiers in former East Germany, until 1990.

External links

• Voice of Russia World Service website (in Russian)
• Voice of Russia World Service website (in English)
• Russia Today TV (in English)
• Around 30 min Audio from Radio Moscow May 1980.