A couple of other interesting WaPo articles: Susan B. Glasser on Vladimir Arkhipov's collection illustrating life in consumer hell:

In Soviet times, the centrally planned economy begat chronic shortages and perpetual consumer angst -- a situation where a missing spare part could become a crisis for a factory and individual needs never registered in the deep recesses of the bureaucracy. With no obvious way to change the system, individual Soviets did what they could to live within it, and at-home inventors created a thousand items missing from the stores.

Theola Labbé: Iraqis of African Descent Are a Largely Overlooked Link to Slavery.