July 20, 2017

Royal(ish) Weddings and Toys for the Opposition


Royal(ish) Weddings and Toys for the Opposition
Unions, Mergers, and Spinning Tales

1. Weddings are happy occasions for celebrating love, bringing together family, and, in the case of a judge’s daughter’s wedding last week in Krasnodar, getting mired in controversy involving pop star performances, Bentleys, and shady money. Responding to accusations that the family blew $2 million of possibly ill-gotten gains on the wedding,  Judge Elena Khakhaleva, the mother of the bride, called the allegations “barefaced pressure” on her family based on her rulings against powerful people. Others allege that the judge has snatched farming land for herself and reached unjust verdicts. Who knew tying the knot could get so tangled?

2. Those fidget spinners everyone’s playing with aren’t just the latest fad in toys. According to Russian consumer rights watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, they’re hazardous to children’s health. And beyond that, the spinner toys are the opposition’s devilish plan to win the hearts and minds of Russian youth. According to a Rossiya 24 news segment on the dastardly links between the popular toy and the opposition, YouTube channels that include videos about fidget spinners as well as politics may be using the toys to seduce a “potential protest audience.” Well, that’s one way to spin it.

3. In a win for Russian ride-sharing, Yandex.Taxi and Uber have merged services in Russia and surrounding countries. The deal looks a lot better for Yandex, whose shares rose 25% after the news broke that Yandex will invest $100 million to Uber’s $225 million in the new company and control 59.3% of it. Customers can order rides through either app, but drivers will be moved onto a new platform filtering orders from both Uber and Yandex.Taxi. Looks like a lot of people are getting taken for a ride, but luckily, they want to.

In Odder News 
  • In Omsk, even the pigeons wear raincoats. Luckily, the residents also take the time to help out a bird in need.

  • The strictest vacation of your life: holidays in North Korea and why Russians are into it.
  • Here’s a roundup of Russia’s richest women in government. Note: the judge who threw her daughter a $2-million wedding isn’t one of them.
Quote of the Week

“This is not just a feast at a time of plague. This is a spit in the face. In all our faces!”
—Lawyer Sergei Zhorin, who attended Khakhaleva’s daughter’s wedding and subsequently posted footage of the wedding to draw attention to the expense.

Quote #2. Because why not?

“These toys are popular not only among high school and college students. More than once, they’ve been spotted in the hands of representatives of the non-systemic opposition.”
—Alexey Kazakov, the host of the news program “Vesti,” on the report that fidget spinner toys are a new tactic by members of the opposition.

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

A Taste of Chekhov

A Taste of Chekhov

This compact volume is an introduction to the works of Chekhov the master storyteller, via nine stories spanning the last twenty years of his life.
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.
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. 
Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

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.
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.
How Russia Got That Way

How Russia Got That Way

A fast-paced crash course in Russian history, from Norsemen to Navalny, that explores the ways the Kremlin uses history to achieve its ends.
Chekhov Bilingual

Chekhov Bilingual

Some of Chekhov's most beloved stories, with English and accented Russian on facing pages throughout. 
Survival Russian

Survival Russian

Survival Russian is an intensely practical guide to conversational, colloquial and culture-rich Russian. It uses humor, current events and thematically-driven essays to deepen readers’ understanding of Russian language and culture. This enlarged Second Edition of Survival Russian includes over 90 essays and illuminates over 2000 invaluable Russian phrases and words.
The Little Golden Calf

The Little Golden Calf

Our edition of The Little Golden Calf, one of the greatest Russian satires ever, is the first new translation of this classic novel in nearly fifty years. It is also the first unabridged, uncensored English translation ever, and is 100% true to the original 1931 serial publication in the Russian journal 30 Dnei. Anne O. Fisher’s translation is copiously annotated, and includes an introduction by Alexandra Ilf, the daughter of one of the book’s two co-authors.
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.
Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

The Life Stories collection is a nice introduction to contemporary Russian fiction: many of the 19 authors featured here have won major Russian literary prizes and/or become bestsellers. These are life-affirming stories of love, family, hope, rebirth, mystery and imagination, masterfully translated by some of the best Russian-English translators working today. The selections reassert the power of Russian literature to affect readers of all cultures in profound and lasting ways. Best of all, 100% of the profits from the sale of this book are going to benefit Russian hospice—not-for-profit care for fellow human beings who are nearing the end of their own life stories.

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