June 14, 2018

The World Cup Whirlwind Begins


The World Cup Whirlwind Begins
Mustaches of Hope Spring Eternal

1. Today, June 14, marks the first day of the 2018 World Cup, which Russia is hosting (if you didn’t know that, please let us help you out from under the rock that you’ve been living under). The festivities begin with a match between Saudi Arabia and Russia, but, unfortunately for Team Russia and its fans, Russia is now the lowest ranked team in the tournament. However, television personality Ivan Urgant has a bold plan to rescue Russia’s chances in the World Cup: grow a mustache (or, at the very least, paste one on). This large-scale campaign, called Mustaches of Hope, draws inspiration from the mustachioed Russian coach, Stanislav Cherchesov, and it has already garnered a wide array of adherents from fans of all ages, genders, and even species. Will Team Russia really benefit from the proliferation of handlebars and goatees? We mustache you to wait and see.

Photo: валерия кристовкая

2. A schoolteacher in Omsk, Viktoria Popova, made a splash after a modelling agency posted photos of her in a bathing suit in a pinup style, and she was fired from her job. However, every splash has an opposite and equal counter-splash (that’s Newton’s third law of splashes for you), and dozens of teachers across the country posted photos of themselves in bathing suits with the hashtag “teachers are humans too” (#учителятожелюди) As a result, school administrators offered Popova her job back. Maybe things will actually go as swimmingly as the first pictures indicated!

3. Here’s a little ray of sunshine to brighten everyone’s day. “Does the Sun Have an Off-Switch?” is the title of a book produced by a group of Russians who are transitioning to life after prison. The book, an anthology that engages with an excerpt of Plato’s “Republic,” is the result of a creative writing workshop called “Freedom Words.” The workshop was led by an American University of Chicago student who engaged participants with readings, discussions, and writing exercises. The workshop generated healing and growth for those who participated (not to mention a deep dive into Plato!).

In Odder News:

Photo: Meduza

  • For sale: a “life in Krasnoyarsk.” One man is auctioning off his whole life (which, if you’re curious, includes an apartment, a dacha, two cars, and even a cafe)

  • One German is driving to Russia for the World Cup in a tractor with a small house attached, which travels at the quick clip of 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) per hour: it should only take him 10 days!

  • June 12 was Russia Day, which was celebrated in style across the country

  • A picture of a missing Russian creepily follows you. In Russia, the poster reads you!

Quote of the Week:

“Everything is against him now: expectations, the weather, the laws of physics, the anatomy of certain footballers and just plain-old logic.”

— Ivan Urgant, referring to Stanislav Cherchesov and Russia’s chances of succeeding in the 2018 World Cup

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

Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar is a hilarious and insightful memoir by a diplomat who was “present at the creation” of US-Soviet relations. Charles Thayer headed off to Russia in 1933, calculating that if he could just learn Russian and be on the spot when the US and USSR established relations, he could make himself indispensable and start a career in the foreign service. Remarkably, he pulled it of.
White Magic

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.
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.
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.
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.
Jews in Service to the Tsar

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.
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.
Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

This astonishingly gripping autobiography by the founder of the Russian Women’s Death Battallion in World War I is an eye-opening documentary of life before, during and after the Bolshevik Revolution.
The Samovar Murders

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.
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.

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