600 Seconds

600 Seconds (Russian: 600 секунд; 1987 to 1993) was an immensely popular TV news program that aired in the Soviet Union and briefly in post-Soviet Russia. It was a nightly broadcast from Leningrad TV with anchor Alexander Nevzorov.[1]

The program of the glasnost period was distinguished by its fast tempo and the display of the countdown from 600 to zero.[1] The anchor Nevzorov used the broadcast in order to criticize corrupt Soviet officials and promote preserving the Soviet Union (in the Baltic States, he is known as a fierce opponent of the national independence movements). Later – during the early Yeltsin years – the broadcast became a mouthpiece of Russian Nationalist opposition to Yeltsin's policies and was banned twice – definitively after Yeltsin's victory in his conflict with the rebel parliament. The Letter of Forty-Two called for the program to be cancelled.[2]