September 21, 2021 Bring Out the Chainsaw! By Haley Bader As policy dictates, election staff must now dispose of unused ballots in Russia's State Duma elections – and you’ll find that some have been cutting corners. Chainsaw, anyone? Cities & Towns Government Humor Politics Russia File
September 08, 2021 Moscow Neighborhoods Due for a Face Lift By Haley Bader “They are different projects, but they have the same goal: to create a high-quality urban environment and new opportunities for recreation and sports close to home.” – Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin, announcing plans to improve Moscow’s public spaces. Cities & Towns Moscow Urban Life Quote
September 01, 2021 Fate's Debt Register By Yevgenia Volunkova In which we visit a rather unique store in the Karelian village of Vedlozero. Which of course is far more than a store. Business Cities & Towns Regions Rural Life
August 30, 2021 Concrete Jungle By Alexandra Curtis A shawarma shop accidentally delves into urban agriculture, much to the delight of city residents. Agriculture Cities & Towns Food & Drink Russia File
August 25, 2021 Throw in the Mayor with the Banya Water By Haley Bader “Today, the city bath house needs support because, due to last year's lengthy six-month shutdown associated with the coronavirus, the banya cannot pull itself out of debt." – Mikhail Valov, Mayor of Sayanogorsk, inviting citizens to save his city’s municipal bathhouse from the economic ravages of the Coronavirus on August 23. Cities & Towns Culture Government Health Quote
August 18, 2021 What's in a Name? By Alexandra Curtis Yandex.Maps has completed a surprising study of all the places in Russia, and they even figured out how to get from the Moon to Mars. Cities & Towns Geography Language Russia File
August 04, 2021 Are You Ready for Some... Football? By Amanda Shirnina Look out NFL – the Russian Super Bowl was held in the Moscow region last weekend. Cities & Towns Culture Int'l Relations Sports Russia File
August 04, 2021 Tourism in the Time of Covid By Haley Bader “These people do not go to relax in other resorts, they settle in neighboring hotels: the more restrictions are imposed on legal business, the more it plays into the hands of those who work in the dark.” – Natalia Stambulnikova, Chairman of the Association of Small Hotels of Crimea, warning of the ominous nature of coronavirus restrictions that impede tourism. Cities & Towns Government Health Travel Quote
August 03, 2021 Fountain Frolicking Forbidden By Griffin Edwards The St. Petersburg city government has threatened to prevent traditional celebrations of VDV Day by turning off its fountains. Such grinches. Cities & Towns Government Men Military Russia File
July 30, 2021 The False Borises By Griffin Edwards Imitation is the highest form of flattery, especially when it comes to one's name on a ballot. Cities & Towns Government Politics St. Petersburg Russia File
July 24, 2021 An Architectural Crime; or, Shedquarters By Griffin Edwards A new village police station, unveiled with much pomp, occupies what appears to be a repurposed corrugated metal shed. Cities & Towns Government Humor Russia File
July 21, 2021 Let Sleeping Bears Lie By Alexandra Curtis A Russian zoo will open its very first exhibit to allow the observation of hibernating bears, but will it allow the bears to get some good shut-eye? Animals Cities & Towns Environment Russia File
October 15, 2021 to April 03, 2022 Icons for Our Time: Orthodox Art from Around the World Museum of Russian Icons | Clinton, MA Fifteen contemporary icons from fifteen countries explore iconography today. Presented in celebration of the museum's 15th Anniversary. Art Exhibit
October 09, 2021 to October 23, 2021 48th Annual Russian Food Festival, 2021 Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church | Baltimore, MD This year we are conducting a scaled-down festival in the parish hall on three consecutive Saturdays in October 2021 to allow for social distancing and for the safety of our guests and volunteers. But don't worry, the food will not be scaled down! Festival
November 01, 2021 to November 30, 2021 Yuri Gorbachev's 18th Annual Exhibition at the Byrne Gallery in Middleburg, Virginia The Byrne Gallery | Middleburg, VA Susan Byrne and Bill Byrne are celebrating their Gallery's 26th anniversary this year in Middleburg with a celebration and exhibition of the vivid oil and enamel paintings of internationally-acclaimed artist Yuri Gorbachev. Art Exhibit
September 01, 2021 to October 17, 2021 Communism Through the Lens: Everyday Life Captured by Women Photographers in the Dodge Collection Dodge Wing Lower Level | New Brunswick, NJ Spanning almost the entirety of the Soviet Union's history from the 1920s through the 1990s, this exhibition of rarely seen images explores themes of political art, documentary photography, and gender, offering a historical look at how women photographers interpreted life in the communist state. Art Exhibit
Resilience ~ The Russian Version (Переживем) Call it resilience, grit, or just perseverance – it takes a special sort of person to have survived the last 100 years of Russian and Soviet history.
Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices Stargorod is a mid-sized provincial city that exists only in Russian metaphorical space. It has its roots in Gogol, and Ilf and Petrov, and is a place far from Moscow, but close to Russian hearts. It is a place of mystery and normality, of provincial innocence and Black Earth wisdom. Strange, inexplicable things happen in Stargorod. So do good things. And bad things. A lot like life everywhere, one might say. Only with a heavy dose of vodka, longing and mystery.
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.
Driving Down Russia's Spine The story of the epic Spine of Russia trip, intertwining fascinating subject profiles with digressions into historical and cultural themes relevant to understanding modern Russia.
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 Spine of Russia This coffee table book is the photographic journal of an epic 6000-kilometer road trip. The book includes over 200 compelling images of Russians and Russian places met along the way, plus a dozen texts (in both English and Russian) on everything from business to education, from roads to fools.
Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka In this comprehensive, quixotic and addictive book, Edwin Trommelen explores all facets of the Russian obsession with vodka. Peering chiefly through the lenses of history and literature, Trommelen offers up an appropriately complex, rich and bittersweet portrait, based on great respect for Russian culture.
The Little Golden Calf Our edition of The Little Golden Calf, one of the greatest Russian satires ever, is the first new translation of this classic novel in nearly fifty years. It is also the first unabridged, uncensored English translation ever, and is 100% true to the original 1931 serial publication in the Russian journal 30 Dnei. Anne O. Fisher’s translation is copiously annotated, and includes an introduction by Alexandra Ilf, the daughter of one of the book’s two co-authors.
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.
At the Circus This wonderful novella by Alexander Kuprin tells the story of the wrestler Arbuzov and his battle against a renowned American wrestler. Rich in detail and characterization, At the Circus brims with excitement and life. You can smell the sawdust in the big top, see the vivid and colorful characters, sense the tension build as Arbuzov readies to face off against the American.
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.
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.
September 01, 2021 Censored Roots: Russian Life at 65 By Haley Bader The progenitor of Russian Life got its start 65 years ago this fall. We talk to one of its famous early editors about what it was like to write about Russia for the world in that era. History Journalism
May 07, 2015 The Most Useful Russian Inventions By Eugenia Sokolskaya What do radio, television, the periodic table, and helicopters have in common? Russians were involved in developing all of them – and more! Reference Science
September 01, 2021 Profiles in Courage By Paul E. Richardson It takes something special in a human being to create a thing from scratch, to see a slab of stone and carve it into a sculpture, to see an empty storefront and turn it into a store, to sketch out a multistory building on paper and then shepherd it into existence in the real world. History Journalism
August 22, 2016 Magical Kefir By Philip Seifi Kefir is the most popular fermented milk in Russia. But it did not get there overnight. Kefir and Russia have a long history... Food & Drink History
March 14, 2020 Coronavirus Coping: Russian Lit has the Answers By The Editors Russian literature has an answer for everything. In the times of coronovirus, this is your guide. Art Literature CVSG
April 23, 2014 Peace, Land, Bread By Eugenia Sokolskaya Peace! Land! Bread! This was the battle cry of the 1917 October Revolution (old calendar) that changed the history of Russia and indeed the entire world. Since the time of Ivan the Terrible, the tsars concentrated on centralization of their power and control. The most common way of doing this was to take power away from the nobility, appeasing them by giving them dominion over their land and workers. This soon developed into the oppressive, slave-style condition known as serfdom. History
