The guest lecture took place online at the invitation of Prof. Dr. Jeronim Perovic, Director of the Center for Eastern European Studies (CEES) at the University of Zurich. The lecture spanned an arc from the beginning of the industrialization of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, via Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms and the economic crash of the 1990s, to Russia’s current economic problems and challenges.

The “Applied History” course at the University of Zurich is a two-year, part-time training program with 32 modules that are mainly taught on weekends. The majority of the 60 students are in the middle of their professional careers, with professional backgrounds in politics, diplomacy, economics, teaching, management, as well as the media and cultural sector.