January 06, 2022

Weak Stomachs, Romanov Reboot, and Ciao to 2021


Weak Stomachs, Romanov Reboot, and Ciao to 2021
In Odder News

In this week's Odder News, say "Ciao" to 2021, say "Privyet" to someone living intentionally with a carbon footprint of zero, and prepare for another retelling of the last of the Romanovs.

  • We were right: Ivan Urgant's (er, Giovanni Urganti's) "Ciao 2021" variety/talk show on January 1 was as weird as expected. It was completely in Italian, with Russian subtitles, with fake suntanned and coiffed audience members in 70s wear on Russia's Channel 1. The best part was President Putin's speech that ended the show: the clock struck midnight on a different tower, and Putin addressed the nation in deepfake Italian in front of the Colosseum, here. Check out the entire show – if you have way too much time on your hands – here.
  • Russian-speaking Ukrainian blogger Stas Asket is showing the world that a completely eco-friendly life is not only possible but also internet-glamorous. Asket – which means “Ascetic” – gets everything he needs from a local landfill, including food, and millions of people are watching him do it. The 25- or 27-year-old (it's complicated) was born in the rundown house he lives in, and his parents left it to him when he turned 18. Ascetic will eat nearly all food that he finds in the landfill, arguing, "There is no stale food, there are only weak stomachs." According to his pictures, Ascetic has a dog but, we are guessing, no wife or girlfriend.
  • Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin has proudly announced that Moscow has 3.5 times fewer orphans than in 2010. What that really means is that Moscow is shifting to a foster care model, so there are 3.5 times fewer children living in orphanages. A whopping 93.4% of orphaned Muscovite children are not being raised in institutions anymore. At the end of December, Sobyanin gave awards to both foster and adoptive families that are helping to solve the problem of orphaned children. The "Family of the Year" has five adopted children. Sobyanin emphasized that not terminating parental rights, but returning children to their biological parents, is the system's priority.
  • Sergei Kozlov's The Romanovs: Loyalty and Betrayal is being turned into a Russian movie, and actress Milla Jovovich wants to play Tsarina Alexandra, the wife of Nicholas II. In an interview, Kozlov and producer/screenwriter Oleg Urushev said that Alexandra was a foreigner anyway, so the native Russian-Serbian Milla Jovovich who went to school in the United States and does not have perfect Russian should be a great fit. Filming is expected to begin in late 2022. In the concept photo, does anyone else think that Jovovich looks like Nancy Kerrigan?

You Might Also Like

Reconnecting Adoptees
  • January 01, 2008

Reconnecting Adoptees

Russia remains one of America's largest sources of foreign adoption. Now, after more than a decade of cross-cultural adoptions, thousands of children from Russia are bound to begin wondering about their roots. Some, in fact, are already digging.
The World Cup Whirlwind Begins
  • June 14, 2018

The World Cup Whirlwind Begins

Is it football or soccer? Either way, TWERF prepares for the start of the World Cup by examining Russia’s chances (not great), while still paying attention to a few other stories before the madness begins.
Finding Her Russian Roots
  • July 18, 2021

Finding Her Russian Roots

How a conversation led one of 60,000 Russian adoptees in the United States on a journey to her past.
Not All Eco-Heroes Wear Capes
  • October 06, 2021

Not All Eco-Heroes Wear Capes

Meet Khokhulya: he's a Russian desman, the official eco-hero of the Kaluga Region, and now an internet personality to boot. 
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar

The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar

The fables of Ivan Krylov are rich fonts of Russian cultural wisdom and experience – reading and understanding them is vital to grasping the Russian worldview. This new edition of 62 of Krylov’s tales presents them side-by-side in English and Russian. The wonderfully lyrical translations by Lydia Razran Stone are accompanied by original, whimsical color illustrations by Katya Korobkina.
Jews in Service to the Tsar

Jews in Service to the Tsar

Benjamin Disraeli advised, “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” With Jews in Service to the Tsar, Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe’s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history.
The Latchkey Murders

The Latchkey Murders

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin is back on the case in this prequel to the popular mystery Murder at the Dacha, in which a serial killer is on the loose in Khrushchev’s Moscow...
Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

This astonishingly gripping autobiography by the founder of the Russian Women’s Death Battallion in World War I is an eye-opening documentary of life before, during and after the Bolshevik Revolution.
Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

A book that dares to explore the humanity of priests and pilgrims, saints and sinners, Faith & Humor has been both a runaway bestseller in Russia and the focus of heated controversy – as often happens when a thoughtful writer takes on sacred cows. The stories, aphorisms, anecdotes, dialogues and adventures in this volume comprise an encyclopedia of modern Russian Orthodoxy, and thereby of Russian life.
The Samovar Murders

The Samovar Murders

The murder of a poet is always more than a murder. When a famous writer is brutally stabbed on the campus of Moscow’s Lumumba University, the son of a recently deposed African president confesses, and the case assumes political implications that no one wants any part of.
Murder at the Dacha

Murder at the Dacha

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin has a problem. Several, actually. Not the least of them is the fact that a powerful Soviet boss has been murdered, and Matyushkin's surly commander has given him an unreasonably short time frame to close the case.
22 Russian Crosswords

22 Russian Crosswords

Test your knowledge of the Russian language, Russian history and society with these 22 challenging puzzles taken from the pages of Russian Life magazine. Most all the clues are in English, but you must fill in the answers in Russian. If you get stumped, of course all the puzzles have answers printed at the back of the book.
Steppe / Степь

Steppe / Степь

This is the work that made Chekhov, launching his career as a writer and playwright of national and international renown. Retranslated and updated, this new bilingual edition is a super way to improve your Russian.
Marooned in Moscow

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955