May 10, 2020 An Understandable Mistake? By Griffin Edwards A grassroots campaign to remember the WWII fallen goes south. Cities & Towns History Holidays Internet Military Russia File
May 01, 2020 In the Trenches of Stalingrad By Victor Nekrasov On the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII, we offer two excerpts from a new translation of Viktor Nekrasov’s In the Trenches of Stalingrad. History Military War
May 01, 2020 Visions of War By Tamara Eidelman On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II this May, we look back at how Soviet and Russian cinema has depicted the war. Film & TV Military War
April 30, 2020 TBT: A Terrible Defection By The Editors On this day in 1564, one of Terrible's most trusted confidantes defected. But they kept in touch. History Int'l Relations Military TBT
April 23, 2020 Puppies, Mummies, and Jet Engines By The Editors This week inventiveness takes on coronavirus, men need red meat, and Victory Day is the pandemic's latest casualty. Animals Economy Food & Drink Health Men Military Moscow Regions Science Odder News
April 16, 2020 TBT: The Treaty of Rapallo By The Editors This little-known treaty actually set the stage for the devastation of Europe that was to come. History Int'l Relations Military War TBT
March 31, 2020 Tanks for the Update By Griffin Edwards 30 restored T-34 tanks have arrived in Moscow and now await Victory Day. History Holidays Military Moscow War Russia File
March 25, 2020 Some Things to Enjoy with Your Stacks of Toilet Paper By The Editors In this week's Odder News: post-Soviet leaders propose innovative treatments for coronavirus, phone chargers go bad, and Russian buyers have an opening in the European real estate market. Agriculture Food & Drink Health Holidays Military Rural Life Odder News
March 23, 2020 A Modest Proposal By Griffin Edwards If Russia has its way, NATO training would be postponed. Not because of coronavirus, but to preserve the memory of the dead of World War II. History Int'l Relations Military War Russia File
March 01, 2020 Victory Train: Coming Soon to a Hero-City Near You By Griffin Edwards Russia's "Echelon of Victory" train-borne museum prepares to educate this spring. History Military Transportation War Russia File
February 19, 2020 Sleeping Naked, Oh, and Tanks By The Editors This week's Odder News: Belarus, the "Switzerland of the East," quiet hours, and tank-fueled wedding proposals. Government Health Int'l Relations Military Odder News
February 06, 2020 #TBT Yalta Conference By The Editors Tuesday was 75th anniversary of the start of the Yalta Conference, the first step in rebuilding the post-War world. History Int'l Relations Military War TBT
May 01, 2021 to May 31, 2021 20th Annual Russian Arts and Culture Festival Virtual | N/A, N/A The City of West Hollywood administration invites everyone to join a virtual celebration of Russian Arts and Culture this May. An array of musical events, activities for kids, workshops, virtual tours, concerts, contests, interviews with interesting people, and much more will comprise a month-long celebration. The program of our events will be published on the website of the festival and in the Facebook group. Festival
Russia Rules From the shores of the White Sea to Moscow and the Northern Caucasus, Russian Rules is a high-speed thriller based on actual events, terrifying possibilities, and some really stupid decisions.
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.
The Samovar Murders The murder of a poet is always more than a murder. When a famous writer is brutally stabbed on the campus of Moscow’s Lumumba University, the son of a recently deposed African president confesses, and the case assumes political implications that no one wants any part of.
The Latchkey Murders Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin is back on the case in this prequel to the popular mystery Murder at the Dacha, in which a serial killer is on the loose in Khrushchev’s Moscow...
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.
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.
Moscow and Muscovites Vladimir Gilyarovsky's classic portrait of the Russian capital is one of Russians’ most beloved books. Yet it has never before been translated into English. Until now! It is a spectactular verbal pastiche: conversation, from gutter gibberish to the drawing room; oratory, from illiterates to aristocrats; prose, from boilerplate to Tolstoy; poetry, from earthy humor to Pushkin.
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.
The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar The fables of Ivan Krylov are rich fonts of Russian cultural wisdom and experience – reading and understanding them is vital to grasping the Russian worldview. This new edition of 62 of Krylov’s tales presents them side-by-side in English and Russian. The wonderfully lyrical translations by Lydia Razran Stone are accompanied by original, whimsical color illustrations by Katya Korobkina.
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.
301 Things Everyone Should Know About Russia How do you begin to get a handle on the world's largest country? This colorful, illustrated guide will get you started...
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.
November 18, 2016 Famous Americans with Russian Roots By Letitia Rydjeski America is a land built by immigrants. We researched famous Americans with Russian roots and offer this compilation. History Reference Russians Abroad
May 26, 2016 Two Miracles of Russian Love Poetry By Anatoly Liberman On the occasion of Pushkin's birthday, we offer a post on the challenge of translating his most famous love lyrics, "Я вас любил," with a bonus look at Innokenty Annensky's "Среди миров." Literature
January 10, 2014 Why Don't Russians Smile? By The Editors 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
September 01, 2013 Why Russians Don't Run By Paul E. Richardson A tale of two long distance road races – Russia’s oldest and its most prestigious – and what they tell us about the state of running and fitness in Russia. Sports
September 01, 2019 Bite Marks By Paul E. Richardson Is Russia somehow different from other nations, or is it just like any other? History Int'l Relations
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
