The nuclear research city of Sarov has been closed to outsiders since the 1940s. What is it like to live in a city with no future of opening up?

This week: Russian telecomms habits shift, a St. Petersburg entrepreneur gets crafty, and being stuck at home means more alcohol intake.

“People here usually say to me: you are different than we thought and from the way American people are shown on TV. And I am happy.” 

– Sean Quirk, an American who has been living in Tuva, Siberia for almost 20 years, and knowns the Tuvan language better than Russian

This week inventiveness takes on coronavirus, men need red meat, and Victory Day is the pandemic's latest casualty.

One region is finding the funds to buy tracking bracelets for certain coronavirus patients.

One of Russia’s regions is discussing a tax for dog owners.

A group of intrepid preservationists toil quietly in Russia’s northern realms to preserve old wooden churches and izbas that are just a snowstorm away from perishing.

If a vessel is unlucky enough to be berthed as a river ferry in Yakutsk, it will spend most of its life frozen into the surface of the Lena River.

The weather has been all over the place in Russia, and future forecasts predict more of the same.

Five Russian oblasts have schooled the rest in good socio-economic policy, according to recent awards from the Expert Institute of Social Research.

Approximately 600 fishermen were stuck on an ice floe, despite being warned about the dangerous ice.

Everyone’s a kid at Christmastime, and, beginning this holiday season, pensioners in Kostroma Oblast can be kids year-round at Russia’s first “kindergarten” for pensioners.