October 25, 2018

Lawmakers versus Troublemakers


Lawmakers versus Troublemakers
Them’s fightin’ words!

1. Challenge accepted! Prominent opposition leader Alexei Navalny accepted head of the Russian National Guard Viktor Zolotov’s challenge to a duel. However, he did so on his own terms. Zolotov had initially suggested that he and Navalny engage in a duel after an unflattering investigation by Navalny into the National Guard. Navalny has now accepted the duel (while reiterating and repeating his claims of corruption and nepotism; link shows video with subtitles), though he stipulated that he is entitled to choose the weapon and the location. What weapon and location did he choose? A debate on a federal television channel. Zolotov’s reaction? Well, apparently he had “something else” in mind.

2. You’re never safe from the narcs, not even on the *high* seas. This week police raided a floating marijuana farm in the Arkhangelsk region of Russia, confiscating 230 cannabis plants and other products used to grow marijuana. A video of the raid shows Russian police officers raiding the vessel and finding both the plants and the people growing them. Let’s be *blunt* though, maybe floating your weed farm on a boat is not the best idea.

The High Seas

Photo: Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia

3. Is throwing money out the window of a Bentley making a political statement or just being obnoxious? Whatever the right answer, these rich Russian kids are doing it. Literally, the “Rich Russian Kids” instagram account posted a video of a man in a gem-encrusted balaclava stating that working all one’s life for money is pointless, then making it rain cash as he drives around in his Bentley (the account has since been set to “Private”). Although this isn’t technically illegal, two businessmen have been fined in relation to the episode for traffic violations. Apparently, wealthy people telling regular people they shouldn’t work for money is a poor joke.

In Odder News:

 

  • Ok, ok, we know this hilarious dub of the Russian national anthem didn’t come out this week. But let’s just pretend it did, just so that we can all get in a good laugh.

  • Congratulations! You just won a… parcel of land in the Far East? That you could have gotten for free? [Special thanks to reader David Edwards]

  • Steven Seagal was whipped to become an honorary Russian Cossack

Quote of the Week:

“Since there’s no law banning the throwing of money, you can always look into traffic violations.”

— An unnamed Russian law enforcement officer, ruminating on how to trip up self-satisfied rich kids

Want more where this comes from? Give your inbox the gift of TWERF, our Thursday newsletter on the quirkiest, obscurest, and Russianest of Russian happenings of the week.

Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

At the Circus (bilingual)

At the Circus (bilingual)

This wonderful novella by Alexander Kuprin tells the story of the wrestler Arbuzov and his battle against a renowned American wrestler. Rich in detail and characterization, At the Circus brims with excitement and life. You can smell the sawdust in the big top, see the vivid and colorful characters, sense the tension build as Arbuzov readies to face off against the American.
The Moscow Eccentric

The Moscow Eccentric

Advance reviewers are calling this new translation "a coup" and "a remarkable achievement." This rediscovered gem of a novel by one of Russia's finest writers explores some of the thorniest issues of the early twentieth century.
Murder at the Dacha

Murder at the Dacha

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin has a problem. Several, actually. Not the least of them is the fact that a powerful Soviet boss has been murdered, and Matyushkin's surly commander has given him an unreasonably short time frame to close the case.
Turgenev Bilingual

Turgenev Bilingual

A sampling of Ivan Turgenev's masterful short stories, plays, novellas and novels. Bilingual, with English and accented Russian texts running side by side on adjoining pages.
Moscow and Muscovites

Moscow and Muscovites

Vladimir Gilyarovsky's classic portrait of the Russian capital is one of Russians’ most beloved books. Yet it has never before been translated into English. Until now! It is a spectactular verbal pastiche: conversation, from gutter gibberish to the drawing room; oratory, from illiterates to aristocrats; prose, from boilerplate to Tolstoy; poetry, from earthy humor to Pushkin. 
Driving Down Russia's Spine

Driving Down Russia's Spine

The story of the epic Spine of Russia trip, intertwining fascinating subject profiles with digressions into historical and cultural themes relevant to understanding modern Russia. 
Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Bilingual series of short, lesser known, but highly significant works that show the traditional view of Dostoyevsky as a dour, intense, philosophical writer to be unnecessarily one-sided. 
Marooned in Moscow

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.
Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod is a mid-sized provincial city that exists only in Russian metaphorical space. It has its roots in Gogol, and Ilf and Petrov, and is a place far from Moscow, but close to Russian hearts. It is a place of mystery and normality, of provincial innocence and Black Earth wisdom. Strange, inexplicable things happen in Stargorod. So do good things. And bad things. A lot like life everywhere, one might say. Only with a heavy dose of vodka, longing and mystery.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955