December 01, 2016

Art and politics on thin ice


Art and politics on thin ice

Controversy, Castro, Cat Videos

1. Two Russian figure skaters are getting heat for a Holocaust-themed ice performance. Their act is based on Life is Beautiful, a movie about surviving a concentration camp by making it a game, but many saw the ice dance as a bit too gamey. It’d be nice to divorce art from politics, but the fact that one of the skaters is married to Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov didn’t curtail the critiques. Is their dance a mockery of tragedy, or a call to remember the horrors of the past so that they can never happen again? Watch now to decide for yourself:

2. Cuban Leader Fidel Castro is as controversial dead as he was alive. Most Kremlin officials expressed praise, recognition, or sympathy, President Putin calling Castro “a symbol of a whole era.” Opposition figures, on the other hand, focused on the struggling Cuba he left behind. A communist to the end, Castro had his ups and downs with the Soviet Union in its time, but remains a symbol of revolution in Russia and elsewhere.

3. Streaming cat videos could have been a thing of the past. But Russia’s much-rumored lawsuit against YouTube has turned out to be a no-go. The last few days saw a frenzy over a proposed law to limit foreign ownership of companies providing audio-visual services to a daily audience of over 100,000 (a.k.a., what YouTube does). But government officials have confirmed that the restrictions will not apply to YouTube. Celebration is in order: cue up the baby animal videos.

In Odder News

  • Biologists in Siberia are aiming to save an endangered species from extinction with embryos of wild cats crossed with domestic cats. And it’s pretty darn adorable.
rbth.com
  • A Mongolian rap star and a Russian diplomat allegedly got into a bloody fight. The reports have not been confirmed.
  • The trout industry in Russia may have had to swim upstream in today’s economy, but the new sector is becoming the big fish in the pond.

Quote of the Week

“We should be thankful for anything being made about resistance during the Holocaust and about spirit, whether it’s a book, a film, a dance, or whatever.”
—Alla Gerber, the founder of Moscow’s Holocaust Center Foundation, on the backlash to a Holocaust-themed ice-skating routine.

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

Survival Russian

Survival Russian

Survival Russian is an intensely practical guide to conversational, colloquial and culture-rich Russian. It uses humor, current events and thematically-driven essays to deepen readers’ understanding of Russian language and culture. This enlarged Second Edition of Survival Russian includes over 90 essays and illuminates over 2000 invaluable Russian phrases and words.
The Latchkey Murders

The Latchkey Murders

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin is back on the case in this prequel to the popular mystery Murder at the Dacha, in which a serial killer is on the loose in Khrushchev’s Moscow...
Marooned in Moscow

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.
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.
Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

In this comprehensive, quixotic and addictive book, Edwin Trommelen explores all facets of the Russian obsession with vodka. Peering chiefly through the lenses of history and literature, Trommelen offers up an appropriately complex, rich and bittersweet portrait, based on great respect for Russian culture.
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. 
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.
22 Russian Crosswords

22 Russian Crosswords

Test your knowledge of the Russian language, Russian history and society with these 22 challenging puzzles taken from the pages of Russian Life magazine. Most all the clues are in English, but you must fill in the answers in Russian. If you get stumped, of course all the puzzles have answers printed at the back of the book.
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.
The Little Humpbacked Horse

The Little Humpbacked Horse

A beloved Russian classic about a resourceful Russian peasant, Vanya, and his miracle-working horse, who together undergo various trials, exploits and adventures at the whim of a laughable tsar, told in rich, narrative poetry.

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