To Russia With Hjalte & Nik — ‘Firesides’ by Ben Chadourne

The crew from 2018’s eastern European road trip video, “Glory Push,” is back — this time going further east into earth’s largest country.

Like Jacob Harris before him, Ben Chadourne also brought along Nik Stain to chase around in circles through marble remnants of the Soviet Union. Unlike the Atlantic Drift auteur, Ben shot his video on a camera that did not cease production in the same decade that the Soviet Union ceased to exist ;)

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Bags of Sand

Broadcasting live from the Lefrak City building ♬ If you haven’t listened to it yet, the Bronze 56k radio mixtape is incredible. The music is mostly time-tested hits from their videos (including a F.C.C-mandated run-back of “Dap You Up“), but the commercials are gold. Laughed out loud 10+ times on first listen.

Listen to Hjalte’s beautiful voice on the latest episode of The Bunt ♥ Stingwater also made a GROeTH remix as an accompaniment to the interview.

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The Best Skate Video Parts of the 2010s — QS Reader Survey Results

Illustration by Cosme Studio

Back in October, we asked QS visitors to choose their favorite video parts of the 2010s. If civilization and skateboarding were to end today, which five parts would you bury in a weather-and-nuclear-proof time capsule for post-apocalyptic earth dwellers to reference when they rediscover skate culture of these past ten years?

QS prides itself as being a destination for people who think a lot about skateboarding. Rather than poll a few close colleagues for their favorites, we felt we had a wide enough reverberation in the skate nerd universe to try and crowdsource a canon of the 2010s from anyone willing to sit down and think about it. I can emphatically say that in reviewing the mountain of ballots, everyone took their votes seriously — save maybe the guy who voted for five Micky Papa parts.

As we tallied the results, consistent trends in the count were apparent. Any fears about a recency bias went out the window; there’s only one part from 2019, and the average year of the top 25 is 2014. QS obviously has its own breed of skate nerd audience — this poll would look different if taken by Thrasher or Free — but I would bet that their lists wouldn’t be TOO far off from this one.

Presented without comment for the top 25-11, and then via a lot of favors from writer friends on the internet for the top 10: here are the 25 best video parts of the past ten years.

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Polar Skate Co. In Puerto Rico

Once synonymous with men flown by Super-8 umbrellas and the occasional gas-masked Swedish penis, Polar has taken a refreshing 2.0 turn in its video output these past twelve months. The cuts are still quick — the Polarian fingerprint remains — but the skating has began to gain in its armwrestling match with the art.

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