March 05, 2021

A Cold-Blooded Eviction


A Cold-Blooded Eviction
Do you need legs to claim squatter's rights? Isabela Kronemberger | unsplash.com

It's not uncommon for random things to get left behind after a move, like useless furniture, heavy books, or half-used jars of spices. However, when a resident in the village Naziya (Leningrad Region) cleaned out their apartment, they left behind an interesting resident: a 13-foot long python

Apparently, the creature had been living there unattended for 3 months before federal authorities were able to come and kindly escort the scaly inhabitant from his lodgings. Luckily for the snake, the kind (and very brave) residents of the apartment building had taken it upon themselves to feed the creature while it was left alone. 

Residents and authorities also tried to locate the serpent’s rightful owner but to no luck. So instead the snake was transported to the St. Petersburg Zoo where it will be able to live rent-free for as long as it pleases. 

Somehow this isn't the only case we've covered within the past year of a lengthy python being found somewhere it should not be. 

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Some of our Books

Murder at the Dacha
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Murder at the Dacha

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin has a problem. Several, actually. Not the least of them is the fact that a powerful Soviet boss has been murdered, and Matyushkin's surly commander has given him an unreasonably short time frame to close the case.

Woe From Wit (bilingual)
June 20, 2017

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.

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.

Murder and the Muse
December 12, 2016

Murder and the Muse

KGB Chief Andropov has tapped Matyushkin to solve a brazen jewel heist from Picasso’s wife at the posh Metropole Hotel. But when the case bleeds over into murder, machinations, and international intrigue, not everyone is eager to see where the clues might lead.

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.

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