July 25, 2019

A Cross Wrapped in a Card, Inside a Khinkali


A Cross Wrapped in a Card, Inside a Khinkali
Pelmeni (allegedly). Wikimedia Commons

Throwback Thursday

Vladimir Vysotsky
Vladimir Vysotsky. / Wikimedia Commons

On this day in 1980, the legendary bard singer Vladimir Vysotsky died. His legacy lives on in the dozens of Russian rock groups who directly or indirectly pay tribute to him. But it also lives on through his films and poetry (Vysotsky was an actor and poet, too). In one of his poems, Vysotsky commented wryly on the Sino-Soviet split, writing a sardonic “open letter” to the Chinese government from workers in Tambov. Read a translation of his poem from the Sep/Oct 2013 issue of Russian Life.


Street Art and Artful Renaming

1. A khinkali by any other name… Long ago, a famous Communist made Georgian cuisine popular in Russia. So it’s ironic that today Communists decry the popularity of Georgian food in Russia. “They spit at us, but we wipe it off,” declared one deputy, referring not just to the current Georgia-Russia spat, but also to the fact that Russians like Georgian food. They propose renaming khachapuri as pyshki (fried dough) and khinkali as pelmeni. Clearly, as one satirist puts it, this will once and for all restore the dignity of “disgraced Russia.”

2. Three, seven, king? In the gamble for Internet fame, one graffitist played their cards right. An intricately illustrated quadriptych at a Kamensk-Uralsky bus stop depicts four Russian politicians as face cards: Putin as the King of Spades, Dmitri Medvedev as the King of Hearts, Patriarch Kirill as the King of Clubs, and spokesman Dmitri Peskov as the King of Diamonds. The impromptu exhibition abruptly ended after four hours, when a resident started erasing Medvedev’s portrait. Nevertheless, viewers retain fond impressions of the drawings. “It’s clear the author meant to say a lot with this,” reflected one resident.

Graffiti of Russian politicians as face cards
No jokers in sight. / Podslushano Kamensk-Uralsky

3. An asphalty cross to bear. Yekaterinburg authorities crossed a few wires when they approved a new work of street art — a giant cross in the middle of a main square. But they drew even more wrath when street pavers inadvertently paved over part of the cross. The incident was “a crime against art, culture, and the city,” declared one news editor, while Instagrammers joked that they should start painting crosses over potholes to get them fixed. Fortunately, the artist, though justifiably annoyed, has volunteered to restore the artwork. He bears no grudges against the pavers… or, we might say, he isn’t terribly cross.

The original cross artwork
The original artwork. / Pokras Lampas

Blog Spotlight

In these tough political times, can you be both a Russophile and a Ukrainophile? Katrina Keegan says yes.

In Odder News

  • Muscovites started the weekend by staging an epic cake fight (albeit clad in protective clothing).
Muscovites throwing cake at each other
Get caked! / Moslenta
  • Creative Russian environmentalists hijacked the comments of Leonardo DiCaprio’s Instagram. (Story credits to David Edwards.)
  • While gathering food in an Arkhangelsk forest, a boy got lost. Fortunately, he was found safe and sound seven hours later. His only complaint? He couldn’t find berries for his mom to bake pies with.

Quote of the Week

“well, Alexei”

— Photographer Evgeny Feldman, responding to oppositioner Alexei Navalny’s plagiarism of his iconic photo of the ongoing Moscow protests

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93 Untranslatable Russian Words

93 Untranslatable Russian Words

Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.
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A Taste of Russia

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Turgenev Bilingual

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The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

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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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Woe From Wit (bilingual)

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The Moscow Eccentric

The Moscow Eccentric

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A Taste of Chekhov

A Taste of Chekhov

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Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

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