November 29, 2018

Russian Fairy Tales of Royalty and Rappers


Russian Fairy Tales of Royalty and Rappers

Don’t know what’s happening in the Kerch Strait? Here’s a nice explainer that captures the main points of what may be a quick-to-change situation.

Rapper under Wraps

1. Rock on! One Russian rapper was jailed last Thursday for performing on his car, which he did after prosecutors prevented him from playing a gig. Russian prosecutors told local venues in Krasnodar that Russian rapper Husky’s work contained elements of extremism, which led to the whole playing-on-car situation. Husky is known for performing music that is critical of authorities and calls out police brutality. Luckily for Husky and his fans, the rapper was released Sunday, prior to a support concert being hosted for the artist.

2. What’s going on with the upside-down umbrella carrying several men over the Kremlin? Nothing, nothing at all says Russia’s Federal Protective Service (think Secret Service, but Russian). Well, you can judge for yourself, but, based on the video, we think there might be a secret plot to reincarnate Mary Poppins and bring her powers to Russia.

 

3. Think fairy tales don’t exist? Tell that to the Russian beauty queen who just became a real-life queen by marrying the king of Malaysia. Oksana Voyevodina, formerly Miss Moscow 2015, just became Rihana Oxana Gorbatenko and married King Sultan Muhammad V of Malaysia. The name change isn’t the only update: the bride also converted to Islam earlier this year. Regardless of religion, age, or whether status of pauper or prince, we offer this couple the same congratulations we offer any other: Поздравляем с днем свадьбы!

Malaysia and Russia United

Photo: Nursafhia

In Odder News:
Quote of the Week:

“Nothing unusual took place.”

— The Federal Protective Service, regarding something we think highly unusual

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.

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Some of our Books

Moscow and Muscovites
November 26, 2013

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. 

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.

The Latchkey Murders
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The Latchkey Murders

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin is back on the case in this prequel to the popular mystery Murder at the Dacha, in which a serial killer is on the loose in Khrushchev’s Moscow...

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.

A Taste of Chekhov
December 24, 2022

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.

Little Golden Calf
February 01, 2010

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.

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