Culture & Customs

We are excited to announce the eighth book in our popular Bilingual series: Alexander Griboyedov's classic Woe from Wit.

Where we look back at a 1912 feast, scrutinizing the menu to learn how the upper crust of Russian society ate.

How are busy, young Russians coping in the era of Tinder and online dating? Our reporter finds it to be largely a world of scammers and sketchy apps.

Are you sure you know how to appease the Fire Monkey and get your New Year off to a good start? We have tips! Learn how to decorate your house, what food to serve, and what to wear to ensure good luck in 2016.

As a metal, Silver means second place; as a period of poetic production in Russia, the Silver Age is unparalleled. The years 1890-1925 (give or take) stand out for the explosion of poetic voices, forms, and innovations. With help from the recently published Russian Silver Age Poetry, we explore what sets that period apart.

There's plenty of talk about how Russia is dark and dismal, its writers pathologically depressed, and the general mood among the populace about as cheery as a Siberian winter. These stereotypes give short shrift to Russian humor...

On the one hand, social media of late was overtaken by reaction to a bigoted act against the special needs sister of a famous model; on the other hand, controversy arose about Russians being a bit too nostalgic about the 1990s.

Syrian refugees are also streaming through Russia to Europe, only along a not very hospitable path, and are forced to make the last leg on bicycles.

Moscow has seen a surge in food truck festivals. Jennifer Eremeeva went to check one out and found one of the most popular proprietors on site was offering an old Georgian drink filled with nostalgia... and tarragon.

The news is filled with stories of refugees, migrants and barbed wire, to say nothing of xenophobic laws and sanctions. So when we came across this award-winning comic book tale by a Yekaterinburg-based artist, we had to share it.

Vodka gets its fair share of PR as far as Russia is concerned. But is it always for the right reasons? October 24 marks the birth of Venedikt Erofeev, at least as well known for his drinking and vagrancy as for his writing.

The nineteenth-century St. Petersburg aristocrat Petr Pavlovich Durnovo regularly entertained at his mansion on the city’s fashionable English Embankment. Thanks to a trove of his dinner menus from 1857-1858, we can get a good sense of the foods that the mid-century aristocracy enjoyed.