Russian alcohol deaths are down, thanks to a mild January.

In this week's Odder News, cheerleaders and lawmakers band together, croquet culture spreads to Russia, and youthful exuberance leads to a joyride.

In this week's Odder News: Putin's smartphone habits, Russian homophones make a headache for the police, and a coronavirus serenade.

“Maybe we should change our perspective on how to communicate with patients? What technologies and working methods should we use?”

– Minister of Health Mikhail Murashko

A family in Yekaterinburg raised 153 million rubles ($2.3 million) to save their five-month-old daughter's life.

In this week's Odder News, regions work on ethnic villages, presidents get songs written about them, and coronavirus countermeasures take a surprising twist.

The threat of coronavirus is not funny, but advertisements for tongue-in-cheek “remedies” are catching on among entrepreneurial Russians.

Two young Russians fall in love in the midst of a Coronavirus quarantine.

This week's Odder News: Belarus, the "Switzerland of the East," quiet hours, and tank-fueled wedding proposals.

“We wanted to draw attention to the problem: a lack of medical masks in pharmacies, the lack of information on the coronavirus. We were not trying to scare our compatriots or laugh at a hot topic. We just set up a social experiment.”

– One of two men fined for their video pranking the coronavirus

Curious about vodka stats? Russia's Research Center for the Federal and Regional Alcohol Markets has you covered.

From salty baths to salt caves, sanatoriums throughout Eurasia have, over the centuries, changed in form, but not in spirit.