Culture & Customs

What comes to mind when you think of a Russian national icon? Vodka, matryoshkas, bears? Fyodor Dostoyevsky? Alla Pugacheva? Cheburashka? Surprisingly few people, including Russians themselves, mention babushkas, the omnipresent grandmothers in head scarves.  Yet their influence is huge. Red Square huge. Katyusha rocket huge. So it pays to know how to please them...

A book that dares to explore the humanity of priests and pilgrims, saints and sinners, Faith & Humor has been both a runaway bestseller in Russia and the focus of heated controversy – as often happens when a thoughtful writer takes on sacred cows. The stories, aphorisms, anecdotes, dialogues and adventures in this volume comprise an encyclopedia of modern Russian Orthodoxy, and thereby of Russian life.

How ice cream came to become a Soviet passion.

It was the last, most difficult part of the Trans-Siberian to build – a 90 km stretch of railway bending around Lake Baikal’s southern coast. To this day it preserves the ethos of its age and is the symbolic heart of the 9,289 kilometer rail line.

A round up of political jokes and jabs being bandied about in the wake of Putin's announcement that he will be running for the presidency again.

Top WNBA players are streaming to Russia to play pro basketball. And while they are unquestionably having an effect on Russian basketball, Russia is having its effect on them.

A look back at the many variants of Soviet Fast Food.

As Russian elections inch closer, the perfect climate has developed for satire...