Culture & Customs

In this week's Odder News, kids expect glamping and instead get camping, a missing baby is found after days of wandering, and a bouquet of flowers drives the internet wild.

“Today, the city bath house needs support because, due to last year's lengthy six-month shutdown associated with the coronavirus, the banya cannot pull itself out of debt."

– Mikhail Valov, Mayor of Sayanogorsk, inviting citizens to save his city’s municipal bathhouse from the economic ravages of the Coronavirus on August 23.

A very uncharacteristic tweet about a famous Soviet rockstar has many Russians scratching their heads. Apparently, even communist party leader Gennady Zyuganov can't resist a catchy tune. 

In Russia, mascots only get better. Imagine a child cracking a smile not JUST for a man bungling in a hot costume, but for a role model who looks like a beloved teatime treat…

Remnants of the Imperial Russian past are all over Alaska – and California, too.

A little levity can be good for the Covid blues, and expert Khadizhat Omarova of Russia’s Rospotrebnadzor has given a variety of advice to accelerate recovery. Why not give your lungs a good stretch and practice your folk song, too?

In this week's Odder News, a horse dung walking trail, a seal with a very proper name, and Mrs. Russia takes the stage.

“Don't believe it, don't click it, don't pay!”

– Sergey Volodkhin, director of the Russian company “Antiphishing,” explaining how online scammers bait their hooks,

The highest mountain in Russia has a bit of a trashy problem. 

Not-Russia took home more Olympic medals than it thought it would, placing third in the overall medal count race.

A Russian woman is suing McDonald's for producing advertising so effective she gave up on Lent.

In this week's Odder News, the biggest pot of borscht you'll ever see, a new birthday gift idea, and piranhas hit Sakhalin.