May 23, 2019

A Place for Everything


A Place for Everything
An amphitheater built around the spontaneous discovery of part of a 16th century wall in Moscow. KB Strelka Media Center.

Urban transformations, underwear conversations, devil invocations

1. Word on the street is that Moscow has done some good urban planning. The project “Moya Ulitsa,” meaning “my street,” was the only European project shortlisted for the Urban Land Institute Global Awards for Excellence. The massive project – the largest in modern Moscow history – began in 2015 with survey input from Moscow residents, and has transformed 92 kilometers of streets and planted 7,000 trees, among other things. The changes seem to be up everyone’s alley, because the project has concrete (greenspace?) results: 23% more pedestrians and 30% faster traffic.

2. A Russian journalist accidentally wore underwear as headwear half the day, and the internet decided it was a fashion statement. She tweeted about how she used the panties to to tie up her hair in the shower, and then, half a work day and two formal meetings later, realized she had forgotten to take them off. In a second tweet she complained that “not one b**** told me,” dismantling the myth that Russian babushki will always correct your clothing choices. (Then again, maybe the babushki approved, since any form of headwear does keep the head warmer.) In comments, however, Russians encouraged her to embrace it, saying that everyone was respecting underwear on the head as a “message to the world,” and “a great person creates fashion trends.”

3. A literature teacher at a village school in the Ural region spoke of the devil (of sorts) in class, and several parents thought his goal was that Satan actually “doth appear.The teacher was in fact trying to get his students off their phones, to pay attention. He was reading aloud a nonsense language section from “The Call of Cthulhu,” a classic horror short story by H. P. Lovecraft, about the secret cult of a sea monster-god. The getting-off-phones part didn’t work out so well, because one of the students filmed the scene, causing parental complaints and the school administrator’s decision to give him hell. The teacher was fired, but said he plans to dispute the decision while finishing his thesis. 

Russian teacher calling on devil
The devil is in the details, like the allegedly satanic drawing on the blackboard.

In Odder News

  • You (or your prison sentence) have been chopped! Moscow inmates competed in a Chopped-style cooking competition; winners may be able to use their certificates to get earlier parole. 
  • Mark your calendars: August 18 in the Russian Federation will from now on be the Day of Geographers. A new law designed to put the profession on the map includes improved geography classes in schools and universities and creating the title Honored Geographer of the Russian Federation. (This year, the mappers will have some competition, however, as Day of the Russian Air Fleet lands on the third Sunday in August, which this year happens to be the 18th.) 
  • Putin doesn’t have time for Game of Thrones. Now that more than 10% of the Russian population’s watch has ended, it’s good to clear up that Putin’s watch of the show never started.  

Quote of the Week

“[In Africa] there are a lot of young, unmarried men. And in China there are even more. It’s not a problem [...] Take one and leave! The world is round.”

– The head of the Russian Orthodox Church commission for family issues, recommending that Russian women who have not found suitable husbands at home can look for their soulmate on other continents. 

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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.
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.
Driving Down Russia's Spine

Driving Down Russia's Spine

The story of the epic Spine of Russia trip, intertwining fascinating subject profiles with digressions into historical and cultural themes relevant to understanding modern Russia. 
At the Circus (bilingual)

At the Circus (bilingual)

This wonderful novella by Alexander Kuprin tells the story of the wrestler Arbuzov and his battle against a renowned American wrestler. Rich in detail and characterization, At the Circus brims with excitement and life. You can smell the sawdust in the big top, see the vivid and colorful characters, sense the tension build as Arbuzov readies to face off against the American.
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.
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.
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.
Chekhov Bilingual

Chekhov Bilingual

Some of Chekhov's most beloved stories, with English and accented Russian on facing pages throughout. 
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Russian Rules

From the shores of the White Sea to Moscow and the Northern Caucasus, Russian Rules is a high-speed thriller based on actual events, terrifying possibilities, and some really stupid decisions.
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.
Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

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.

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