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This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

My friend Julia Barton.

That's me.

He's in a New York City apartment with Michael Eidov.

My name is Michael Eidov and I'm the editor of Made in Russia, Unsung icons of Soviet design.

And Lawrence. A parrot that sounds exactly like the building's door buzzer.

No matter how hard we try.

To cut out Lawrence.

His door buzzer imitation cannot be denied.

But maybe that's okay because Eidov's new book on Soviet design is an homage to the stuff of ordinary Soviet life.

Cigarettes, drinking glasses, subway token machines.

And it might be hard for outsiders to see what this seemingly random collection of Soviet consumer goods have in common.

But Eidov believes there's something that unites them all.

To define this aesthetic, you first need to realize that most of these items were rip offs of western sources.

You know, of varying qualities.

They are imitations. Like the way Lawrence the parrot is imitating the door buzzer.

Shut up, Lawrence.

One look at the items in this book.

...