All I want for Christmas is to smell like Putin. (Unboxing a mysterious Putin-esque cologne.)

After being made redundant as a lighthouse keeper on a remote White Sea island, Lyudmila has taken it upon herself to defend her dying village from government indifference.

Yury Luzhkov, who died in December from complications during routine heart surgery, is difficult to pin to a particular pantheon of Russian political figures.

"Russia's strict state, with a harsh, or, more exactly, cruel law enforcement system... has raised a generation of citizens to match."

A journalist meets a painter in the distant outback of Siberia. They share a love for the untamed wilderness, and we learn a thing or two about the challenges of painting in the wild.

After years of threatening to ban cheap dormitory-like hostels and any other accomodation in residential buildings, Russian lawmakers have approved a measure that could cause many private individuals to stop renting out beds, driving up lodging costs for young travelers.

Other assorted items from around the Russian world.

In the spring of 1989, elections were held: “alternative elections.” This redundant phrase, which today provokes smirks, back then had everyone in a state of euphoria. We had a choice!

"A classical authoritarian power... does not pay that much attention to what the population thinks, and when it does, this attention is usually limited to a bunch of platitudes loudly proclaimed as the official ideology..."

A mysterious tragedy that killed nine students in the Urals in 1959 is suddenly making headlines in Russia.

Living on ice, the boorocracy, profiling perps, naming cities, and where smoking holds sway.

In which we review books on empire and disasters.