Culture & Customs

In this week's Odder News, a wedding that sends the cast of a French musical to Africa, Moscow's new tiny flats, and Russia's trash is piling up.

Meet Khokhulya: he's a Russian desman, the official eco-hero of the Kaluga Region, and now an internet personality to boot. 

"We did not have a fox in the monastery, definitely not ours, but it’s probably someone’s pet. They write that someone [at the monastery] was scared, but the fox was the most scared of all – a hundred people chased after her with their phones;  she is the main victim.”

– A resident of the Srtensky Monastery in Moscow denied that a young fox accused of terrorizing parishioners had come from the premises.

The new head of Yekaterinburg's youth commission is perhaps a little older than one might expect.

How has Russia changed since the last time you were there, pre-pandemic?

Life in a remote Siberian village can teach you a lot about adaptability, nature, food, and, most importantly, folklore. 

The journey between Moscow and St. Petersburg is about to get a lot faster.

Formerly an editor of “glossy publications,” Russian writer and editor Alexei Korolev has released his debut novel, Death of Pure Reason. The novel’s “hero” is one Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov.

In this week's Odder News, blind dueting, cats at work, and the mice who love COVID.

"The world is absolutely clear to me :) CHEERS.”

– Elena, wine-bearing marathon runner in September’s Galaxy Vladivostok Marathon.

You can find lots of unique and unexpected things when you take a trip into the woods in search of edible mushrooms, but a camel in Nizhny Novgorod seems to be the most outlandish find yet.  

Archaeologists have just completed digging through layers of cultural strata in the middle of the Kremlin, unearthing some interesting finds they totally forgot were down there.