"A Gentleman In Moscow" series (Ewan McGregor)

A bit chuffed, lad. And the funniest part is it looks like there be a second interracial relationship brewing, with Count Rostov now apparently courting a dusky dame himself (obviously the first was an African man with a gorgeous blonde, per usual).

Actually, it would have been much more likely to have an interracial couple in Russia in the 20s than it would have been in the U.S. (Probably not at that hotel, but then again, I would guess most Africans in Russia were pretty wealthy themselves). I had a Russian teacher in school who used to talk about how they were way ahead of the times in the early 1900s before backtracking big time. Kind of interesting, but here is a little more info:

Officially, all citizens of the USSR were considered equal regardless of the race or ethnicity (called 'nationality' in the documents) from the very beginning or even slightly before. The RSFRS constitution proclaimed on 10th July 1918 stated in the article 22 that 'Russian Republic recognizes equal rights of all citizens regardless of their racial or national affiliation and proclaims that any privileges related to the latter or any oppression against national minorities or restriction of their rights would violate basic laws of the Republic'*. Similar provision can be found in the Constitution of RFSFR of 1925 (article 13) that was extended by the inclusion of freedom of using native languages in official and private settings). Constitution of RSFSR of 1937 maintained that 'equality of all citizens regardless of race and nationality in relation to all economic, official, cultural and socially-political activities is considered an inalienable right' while introducing explicitly outlawing any 'direct or indirect restriction of said rights and, conversely, establishment of any privileges based on the racial and national affiliation of the citizens [...] as well as any form of racial or national exclusion, hate or neglect' (article 127). Very similar provisions were also found in the Constitution of the USSR of 1936 (article 123) and 1977 (article 36). So, as long as the official law was concerned, any form of discrimination against an USSR citizen on the grounds of their race or ethnicity was outright illegal. The only exception was the period between 15th February 1947 and 26th November 1953, when the citizens of USSR were forbidden from marrying anyone holding foreign citizenship.

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You should really read more about how Communism works out.

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Communism sucks arse. But not everything that came out of Russia sucks arse. Vodka, Swan Lake, and the AK47 are pretty good.

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This is true for sure.

But I definitely would not have thought that to be the case.

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The Bolsheviks leaned heavily into respecting the various nationalities and ethnicities in the Russian Empire as a way to build support amongst the masses. That is why they set up so many ethnic SFSRs. That all changed under Stalin who pushed Russification heavily.

Loved this series.

Surprised the commies in Hollywood let something slip out that is firmly anti-Communist.