June 06, 2019

Opposite Day in the World's Smallest Country


Opposite Day in the World's Smallest Country
It turns out the water is always greener on the other side of the strip-of-Europe fence between mainland Russia and Kaliningrad. (See In odder news, below.)  Newkalingrad.ru

Throwback Thursday

С днем рождения (happy birthday) to Russia’s everything, the father of the Russian language, the genius poet Alexander Sergeivich Pushkin. If you didn’t memorize a line of his poetry at some point, have you really studied Russian? Так дай Вам, Александр Сергеевич, бог любимым быть другим народом – нами. (May God grant that you, Alexander Sergeevich, be so loved by another people – us. One of Pushkin’s most famous lines of poetry, with additions.)

Go on a pilgrimage with the help of our article on places Pushkin visited, or enjoy Pushkin memes from home. 

 

As the students say, I'm dead. Except, opposite day, so it's not funny.

1. A gravedigger in Astrakhan dug his own grave by failing to pay child support, accumulating R200,000 ($3,600) in debt. Then he literally dug himself a grave and played dead in it when the bailiff came knocking at his workplace. It turned out he wasn’t such a dead ringer for a corpse though; his name was the only magic word needed to bring him back to life. Child support delinquency is a grave problem among working men in Russia, who outnumber women in failing to meet child support requirements, most of whom are unemployed, four to one. 

2. Tick bites and short holiday breaks get the Russian scientific stamp of approval. Honored Doctor of the Russian Federation and former First Lady of Krasnoyarsk Natalya Tolokonskaya announced that she believes tick bites are partly responsible for Siberians’ heightened immunity to viruses. Meanwhile, the rest of Russia is ticked off about next year’s official winter holidays being shortened from ten days to eight, yet psychologist Anetta Orlova said that shorter holidays might actually help prevent boredom and family fights. 

3. Students at the State Agricultural University in Tyumen studied their scholarships away. After a 31% increase in students passing their exams, the scholarship fund had to be divided between many more students, meaning less rubles for everyone, especially the best students, some of whom saw their stipends cut in half. The administration is asking for more funding from the government, but, in the meantime, we hope that this does not put friendships to the test, as students become stingy with their notes and homework help. 

 

In odder news

  • “Friends, aliens did not poison the fountain,” said the administration of Kaliningrad on VKontakte when the  city’s water turned bright green after someone dumped antifreeze in it.
  • An official in Kiselyovsk downed a cup of water full of worms in an attempt to calm residents worried about the larvae coming out of their tap
Russian official drinks worms
Not one to worm his way out of an awkward situation. / Rambler.ru
Stolen bridge
Won’t be crossing that bridge when we come to it. / kirap51 / Vkontakte

 

Quote of the week

“Everything is going well, that’s what’s bad!” 

– Mikhail Zhvanetskiy, writer and satirist, complaining that success is demotivating. 

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Some of our Books

Fish
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Fish

This mesmerizing novel from one of Russia’s most important modern authors traces the life journey of a selfless Russian everywoman. In the wake of the Soviet breakup, inexorable forces drag Vera across the breadth of the Russian empire. Facing a relentless onslaught of human and social trials, she swims against the current of life, countering adversity and pain with compassion and hope, in many ways personifying Mother Russia’s torment and resilience amid the Soviet disintegration.

Faith & Humor
December 01, 2011

Faith & Humor

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.

Jews in Service to the Tsar
October 09, 2011

Jews in Service to the Tsar

Benjamin Disraeli advised, “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” With Jews in Service to the Tsar, Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe’s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history.

At the Circus
January 01, 2013

At the Circus

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
December 01, 2016

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.

Marooned in Moscow
May 01, 2011

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.

Driving Down Russia's Spine
June 01, 2016

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. 

White Magic
June 01, 2021

White Magic

The thirteen tales in this volume – all written by Russian émigrés, writers who fled their native country in the early twentieth century – contain a fair dose of magic and mysticism, of terror and the supernatural. There are Petersburg revenants, grief-stricken avengers, Lithuanian vampires, flying skeletons, murders and duels, and even a ghostly Edgar Allen Poe.

The Samovar Murders
November 01, 2019

The Samovar Murders

The murder of a poet is always more than a murder. When a famous writer is brutally stabbed on the campus of Moscow’s Lumumba University, the son of a recently deposed African president confesses, and the case assumes political implications that no one wants any part of.

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