January/February 2015

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against communists, per se. Some of my best friends were communists.

As the economy's crisis deepens, President Putin is increasingly focusing on intangibles.

Stats and graphs on everything from Russians leaving the country, to Google search trends.

All the news that fit.

Everything of note on the travel front.

Moscow is purging theaters, clubs and a media outlet that was at the forefront of covering protest actions.

In December 1564, Ivan the Terrible abdicated the Russian throne. The consequences were dire and continue to affect Russian society, 450 years on.

Born in 1865, Valentin Serov was one of Russia's greatest painters of the 19th and 20th centuries. His painting, 110 years ago, of Bloody Sunday, captured the tragedy and carnage of that pivotal event.

The year 1715 began with several innovations introduced by Tsar Peter I.

Boris Pasternak was born 125 years ago. We look back at how he has been remembered.

For centuries, the Russian Church strove to shield Muscovy from foreign influences, believing that they would weaken faith and put the kingdom in peril.

On January 8, 1815 was the monumental "meeting" of Alexander Pushkin and Gavrila Derzhavin, the greatest poets of their respective generations.

Some well know short idioms actually have longer context that helps illuminate their deeper meanings.

This issue's Uchites Russian language learning section includes an excerpt from Doctor Zhivago and a poem by Boris Pasternak.

Originally known as “Pozhar,” then “Torg,” Red Square is a repository of Russian historical memory, the altar of the motherland and, in general, the center of the Russian universe. But how did it all come together?

Birth was no easy thing in rural Russia in the nineteenth century, not for mother or child. All manner of bizarre and unsafe practices reigned, from being “corrected,” to getting popped in the oven, to being left alone all day while mom worked in the fields.

Mikhail Mordasov has been traveling all over Crimea since the annexation last spring. He shares this moving photo feature.

It seems the more removed in time the USSR becomes, the more nostalgia grows for its symbols and traditions. Increasingly, these elements are worming their way back into Russian life. If they ever left.

The new year is a perfect time to try borshch, which has an interesting history.

A review of two books on megalomaniacal personalities, The Baron's Cloak, by Willard Sunderland, and Limonov by Emmanuel Carrere. See our reviews section for full reviews.

Why the teachings of Marx and Lenin just won't go away, and why Russia's current ruling generation is the most Soviet of all time.