Red Whaling

 The Soviet Union was a latecomer to the whaling industry. But after a bumbling start, by the 1960s, Soviet whalers were slaughtering over 20,000 whales a year. The decimation of the world’s whales in the 20th century, a genocide in which the Soviets played no small part, has had catastrophic results on the world’s ocean environments. Ryan Tucker Jones tells us about the Soviet whaling industry, the lives of Soviet whalers, their attitudes toward their craft, and the lasting trauma of the hunt the ocean’s majestic creatures. Ryan Tucker Jones is a professor history at the University of Oregon. He’s the author of Empire of Extinction: Russians and the Strange Beasts of the Sea (Oxford, 2014) and most recently, Red Leviathan: The Soviet Union and the Secret Destruction of the World’s Whales published by the University of Chicago Press. Red Whaling was edited by Sean Guillory “Luper” and “Bauxite” by Blue Dot Sessions. Archival Clips: Китовый промысел (Охота на кита №2) 1940s Whaling in the Antarctic First Greenpeace Whale Rescue Mission | A Fierce Green Fire | American Masters Леонид Утесов “Песенка китобоя” (1956) Песенка о трех китах (из к/ф “Трест, который лопнул”)