This week, Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill met in Havana. Why was this such a big deal?

The destruction of 97 kiosks around Moscow opens up the controversies of architectural preservation, the plight of small businesses, and the rebuilding of history itself. 

A few books we have received recently that we thought Russophiles should know about.

In honor of Evgeny Zamyatin's birthday, here are eight Russian sci-fi novels that reveal something about Russia and the world beyond.

Today is Chekhov's birthday (he's 156). We celebrate by kicking of several months of Daily Chekhov quotes, and share a few other things...

Quite often, I am intrigued by the juxtaposition of events that show up in our "On This Day" listings. It is almost as if there were a thin thread across time, linking things together that one might never expect.

The classic work of Russian journalism, Moscow and Muscovites, by journalist Vladimir Gilyarovsky (translated by Brendan Kiernan), received the prestigious 2015 AATSEEL Award for Best Scholarly Translation into English.

Under Stalin, a poem could mean life or death. For many poets, it was a one-way ticket to the Gulag. Today, poems can be a means to face cultural memories of arrests in the night, forced labor, and the silence demanded of people fearing those fates. 

The Congress of Paris in 1856 settled the outcome of the Crimean War, where Russia's loss set the stage for the next fifty years of history.

One hundred and fifty-eight years ago, Russia’s first photojournalist was born... ?as a serf. How he overcame his difficult youth is a great story. How he turned photography into a tool for social change is an even better one.

A small war was raging in Rus in January and February 1456.