March 17, 2024 A Pancake a Day... A recommendation on how many pancakes you should eat during Maslenitsa. Food & Drink Holidays Religion Russia File
March 03, 2024 Gifts for That Special Woman in Your Life A survey reveals the top gifts for Women's Day in 2024. Holidays Statistics Women Russia File
February 04, 2024 No Fog for This Hedgehog A Krasnoyarsk Zoo hedgehog has predicted an early spring. Animals Culture Holidays Russia File
January 01, 2024 Wishing on a Tsar Russians share their hopes for 2024. Holidays Social Issues Statistics Russia File
July 23, 2023 What's in a Name? Stalin. Every September 3, and on nine other days of the year, the city of Volgograd will change its name back to Stalingrad. Cities & Towns History Holidays Military War Russia File
May 10, 2023 Zelensky's Bold Move Zelensky proclaims May 9 "Europe Day" before the WWII anniversary. Holidays Politics War Russia File
January 17, 2023 Dubai is the New Vologda A United Russia legislator pretended to be in Vologda but was actually in Dubai. A picture with Ksenia Shoigu gave him away. Government Holidays Politics Travel Russia File
January 02, 2023 War or Celebration? Ukraine, parts of Russia, and cities in Latvia banned fireworks for New Year's celebrations over concerns about the war. Cities & Towns Holidays Int'l Relations Regions War Russia File
October 18, 2022 Ded Moroz Is Still Comin' to Town The Russian military has assured local governments that they don't need to worry about canceling New Years' festivities because of the mobilization and conflict in Ukraine. Cities & Towns Culture Holidays Military Russia File
August 31, 2022 The Essence of Freedom “Independence Day will have a different meaning this year. Us Ukrainians love our freedom. We can say what we believe. My friends in Russia say they have a democracy. What kind of democracy is it if you cannot call a war a war?” – A Russian living in Ukraine, Tatyana Antonova History Holidays Russians Abroad War Quote
June 08, 2022 Over 100 Days and 32 Lost “This year’s Journalist’s Day has a special taste of bitterness. The fourth month of a full–scale war – and we lost 32 journalists… In eight years of war we lost even more. Eternal memory to our fighters of the advanced information front." – Ukrainian Minister of Culture and Information Policy Oleksandr Tkachenko Holidays Journalism Media War Quote
June 04, 2022 Flowers in Kyiv Floral creations are spread throughout Ukraine's capital city to honor the Day of Kyiv. Art Cities & Towns Holidays Military War Russia File
November 11, 2023 to September 15, 2024 Visions of Transcendence: Creating Space in East and West Wende Museum | Culver City, CA This exhibit highlights the resilience and creative power of people deprived of their freedom or their own place to live. Art Exhibit
February 28, 2022 to December 31, 2024 Free Russian Language Guided Tours Metropolitan Museum of Art | New York, NY Russian-speaking guides conduct tours of the museum's highlights every Monday at 11 am. Art Exhibit
White Magic The thirteen tales in this volume – all written by Russian émigrés, writers who fled their native country in the early twentieth century – contain a fair dose of magic and mysticism, of terror and the supernatural. There are Petersburg revenants, grief-stricken avengers, Lithuanian vampires, flying skeletons, murders and duels, and even a ghostly Edgar Allen Poe.
Bears in the Caviar Bears in the Caviar is a hilarious and insightful memoir by a diplomat who was “present at the creation” of US-Soviet relations. Charles Thayer headed off to Russia in 1933, calculating that if he could just learn Russian and be on the spot when the US and USSR established relations, he could make himself indispensable and start a career in the foreign service. Remarkably, he pulled it of.
The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas This exciting new trilogy by a Russian author – who has been compared to Orhan Pamuk and Umberto Eco – vividly recreates a lost world, yet its passions and characters are entirely relevant to the present day. Full of mystery, memorable characters, and non-stop adventure, The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas is a must read for lovers of historical fiction and international thrillers.
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.
East of the Sun: The Epic Conquest and Tragic History of Siberia The very word Siberia evokes a history and reputation as awesome as it is enthralling. In this acclaimed book on Russia’s conquest of its eastern realms, Benson Bobrick offers a story that is both rich and subtle, broad and deep.
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 and the Muse KGB Chief Andropov has tapped Matyushkin to solve a brazen jewel heist from Picasso’s wife at the posh Metropole Hotel. But when the case bleeds over into murder, machinations, and international intrigue, not everyone is eager to see where the clues might lead.
Survival Russian Survival Russian is an intensely practical guide to conversational, colloquial and culture-rich Russian. It uses humor, current events and thematically-driven essays to deepen readers’ understanding of Russian language and culture. This enlarged Second Edition of Survival Russian includes over 90 essays and illuminates over 2000 invaluable Russian phrases and words.
A Taste of Chekhov This compact volume is an introduction to the works of Chekhov the master storyteller, via nine stories spanning the last twenty years of his life.
93 Untranslatable Russian Words Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.
The Moscow Eccentric Advance reviewers are calling this new translation "a coup" and "a remarkable achievement." This rediscovered gem of a novel by one of Russia's finest writers explores some of the thorniest issues of the early twentieth century.
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.
May 07, 2015 The Most Useful Russian Inventions What do radio, television, the periodic table, and helicopters have in common? Russians were involved in developing all of them – and more! Reference Science Russia File
November 18, 2016 Famous Americans with Russian Roots America is a land built by immigrants. We researched famous Americans with Russian roots and offer this compilation. History Reference Russians Abroad Russia File
January 10, 2014 Why Don't Russians Smile? It is a common trope that Russians never smile. Which of course is interpreted to mean they are unfriendly, gloomy, sullen – positively Dostoyevskian. This, of course, is a complete misreading of body language and cultural norms. Culture Humor Language Russia File
April 06, 2020 A Russian Gift A look at how the Jesuits, Pope Francis, and Georgetown University all share an interesting connection to Russia. History Int'l Relations Religion Russia File
April 23, 2014 Peace, Land, Bread 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 Russia File
August 22, 2020 Sad Smiles and Kremlin Corruption Recounting a 2008 meeting with activist Alexei Navalny, before he rose to prominence. Government Politics Russia File