December 13, 2007 Russian Orthodox Christmas The Church's celebration of the Nativity is on January 7th; information about the Feasts of Christ's coming into the world and Scripture readings for the services and Liturgies. Holidays Religion Russia File
December 11, 2007 Solzhenitsyn's Birthday For 18 years, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - writer, Nobel laureate and political dissident - lived with his family in Cavendish, Vermont. Exiled from the Soviet Union in 1974 for cataloguing the crimes of the Gulag, he spent long days at the family's Vermont home, writing and researching... Russia File
December 10, 2007 Putin Lite or False Dmitry? And so the choice has been made.Dmitry Medvedev will be the next president of Russia, having gotten the nod from Putin, United Russia and all the other powers that matter.Now the chatter will begin discussing whether Medvedev is more liberal, how he is the "softer" choice than would have been the candidate of the siloviki, Sergei Ivanov.Don't believe a word of it.Medvedev and Putin have worked hand in glove for the past 17 years. Medvedev, in his m Russia File
December 04, 2007 Holiday Gift Ideas Where we reveal where to buy everything from Russian cologne to Russian videos. Holidays Russia File
November 29, 2007 Prianiki for the Holidays Brief history of Russian prianiki (gingerbread) and a traditional recipe to enjoy during the holidays or anytime throughout the year; especially with a nice hot pot of tea! Culture Food & Drink Holidays Russia File
October 20, 2007 Living Through the Cuban Missile Crisis [This aired as a Commentary on Vermont Public Radio on October 19, 2007. Streaming audio can be found here.]Forty five years ago, I had barely just arrived. I was trying to put a little weight on, getting used to the sights and smells. Then suddenly this new world I had fallen into was teetering on the brink of nuclear annihilation. It's hard not to be affected by that sort of thing.On Russia File
October 16, 2007 Putin, Stalin and Teheran When news broke that Putin was traveling to Teheran despite death threats from terrorists, I was reminded that the last Russian leader who traveled to Teheran - Josef Stalin - also went there despite a death threat against him (and Roosevelt and Churchill, as the Big Three were traveling there in 1943 for the Teheran Conference). The plot against the Big Three was first uncovered by Soviet spy Nikolai Kuznetsov. Parachuted behind enemy lines at Rovno, Ukraine, Kuznetsov posed as Germa Russia File
October 09, 2007 Women's Day? A look at the origins of International Womens Day (March 8), how it was celebrated in Soviet times, and how it is changing today. Holidays Russia File
October 07, 2007 Avast, there be pirates! To quote Dave Barry, I am not making this up... Visit this top level site for a very proud and propagandistic video of Putin accepting the nomination to head the Unified Russia party in the upcoming Duma elections. Very nicely and professionally done, even if a bit, well, over the top. But the fun part is this. Listen very closely to the soundtrack (much easier if you don't understand Russian). The music which is playing just a Russia File
October 03, 2007 Putinâ??s Plan I saw this coming. Really, I did...For months, I have been privately sharing a prediction about Putin's succession plan. Unfortunately, I really cannot prove it, since I never committed the prediction to print. So you're going to have to trust me on this. Same thing happened back in the 1980s, when I correctly predicted the Andropov-Chernenko-Gorbachev succession before each slogging step. But of course I did not put that in print either. There were no blogs back then. Russia File
September 27, 2007 Ancient Peoples of the Russian Steppes Scythians, Sarmatians, Amazons; all ancient inhabitants of Russia's southern steppes. These Mesopotamic, nomadic tribes were feared warriors and accomplished horsemen who warded off the mightiest rulers including Darius and Alexander. History Russia File
September 21, 2007 Russian Corporatism This ran in the Wall Street Journal yesterday and was circulated on the esteemed Johnson's List. It is so intriguing, I felt it deserved quoting in its entirety.The Board Members of Russia, Inc.By Garry KasparovIt has been both amusing and disturbing to watch the Western media chase its tail after the appointment of Viktor Zubkov to the post of Russian prime minister.Amusing because these are the same experts and pundits who wr Russia File
