January 01, 1996 Sailing with the Sun: The Return of Christmas Like everything else in Russia, the celebration of Christmas is in transition. Our author traces the turbulent history of Russia's Christmas and New Year's holidays.
January 01, 1996 The Irony of Fate A profile of Russians' favorite holiday movie, "The Irony of Fate."
December 01, 1996 The Little Angel This short Christmas story by Andreyev was first published in 1916.
November 01, 2019 Grandpa Cuckoo What do you do with a thief and miscreant who just won’t stop thieving? Why, send him off to St. Petersburg of course.
January 01, 2020 A Dish for All Seasons January 7 is Russian Orthodox Christmas, which calls for a Christmas dish. But the chosen one, kutya, is much more than a winter holiday treat.
November 18, 2014 Grandfather Frost: More than Just Santa Claus Don't be fooled: the old man with a white beard and red coat is not Santa Claus. It's Grandfather Frost! Learn how to tell the two apart with this handy list.
December 12, 2019 Exorcising the Spirit of Upside-Down Christmas Ded Moroz and kindergarten parents conceive of the Christmas spirit very differently. Also, Russians may have domesticated the first dog.
January 07, 2020 A Very Russian Christmas For a few Muscovites, Christmas came early, in the form of free Metro rides.
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.
Tolstoy Bilingual This compact, yet surprisingly broad look at the life and work of Tolstoy spans from one of his earliest stories to one of his last, looking at works that made him famous and others that made him notorious.
Woe From Wit (bilingual) One of the most famous works of Russian literature, the four-act comedy in verse Woe from Wit skewers staid, nineteenth century Russian society, and it positively teems with “winged phrases” that are essential colloquialisms for students of Russian and Russian culture.
Resilience ~ The Russian Version (Переживем) Call it resilience, grit, or just perseverance – it takes a special sort of person to have survived the last 100 years of Russian and Soviet history.
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.
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.
Red Star Tales: A Century of Russian and Soviet Science Fiction For over 100 years, most of the science fiction produced by the world’s largest country has been beyond the reach of Western readers. This new collection changes that, bringing a large body of influential works into the English orbit.
A Taste of Russia The definitive modern cookbook on Russian cuisine has been totally updated and redesigned in a 30th Anniversary Edition. Layering superbly researched recipes with informative essays on the dishes' rich historical and cultural context, A Taste of Russia includes over 200 recipes on everything from borshch to blini, from Salmon Coulibiac to Beef Stew with Rum, from Marinated Mushrooms to Walnut-honey Filled Pies. A Taste of Russia shows off the best that Russian cooking has to offer. Full of great quotes from Russian literature about Russian food and designed in a convenient wide format that stays open during use.
Far & Away ~ Tales from Rural Russia 33 original stories about modern (and not so modern) life in rural Russia.
The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas This exciting new trilogy by a Russian author – who has been compared to Orhan Pamuk and Umberto Eco – vividly recreates a lost world, yet its passions and characters are entirely relevant to the present day. Full of mystery, memorable characters, and non-stop adventure, The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas is a must read for lovers of historical fiction and international thrillers.
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.
Fish: A History of One Migration 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.