The Russian Federation—like its predecessor, the USSR—has a network of some forty “closed cities,” entry into which requires special permission, both for Russians as well as for foreigners. The Hoover Institution has been fortunate to acquire an almost complete run of a human rights newspaper entitled Otkrytaia pozitsiia (Open Position) published in one such closed city: Snezhinsk in Cheliabinsk province. The newspaper was established in March 1996; the sixtieth issue came out in May 2008. Acquisitions such as this ensure that our Soviet and post-Soviet independent publications collection remains an unparalleled and unique resource for the study of the Soviet Union and its successor states.
