Sean Guillory is the founder and host of the Eurasian Knot. He's a historian of Russia/Soviet Union and a podcaster. But has since embraced the art of audio narrative. Sean works in the University of Pittsburgh's Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies Center where he holds the undistinguished title of Digital Scholarship Curator. He's a Los Angeleno at heart and misses three things about the City of Angels: the Lakers, In-N-Out Burger, and the weather. He lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for reasons he's still trying to figure out.

Rusana Novikova is a sociocultural anthropologist, documentarian, and podcaster based at the University of Michigan. Her research examines land, infrastructure, abandonment, and recolonization in Russia’s Far East, with a particular focus on the Hectare program. This research grew out of her fascination with the Far Eastern countryside that has been going through a dramatic change following the collapse of the Soviet Union, widespread industry closures, and massive outmigration.

When she's not writing or wandering into the weeds, she likes to interview fellow travelers for the Eurasian Knot. In 2023, she released Ainu Fever (https://www.euraknot.org/ainu-fever/), an audio documentary that grew out of her fieldwork and explores conservation, land rights, and the layered colonial history of Sakhalin Island by following a complicated friendship between a Russian environmentalist and an Ainu community leader.