January 22, 2020

Booting a Boot, Selling a Psychic Cat, and Eating Leftovers


Booting a Boot, Selling a Psychic Cat, and Eating Leftovers
In Odder News
  • A Russian prisoner booted a valenka (traditional Russian felt boot) pretty far in a contest. Twenty-eight meters, to be exact.
  • A psychic cat has been put up for sale for $320,000. Jeez, what is it with Russian animals these days?
  • Have too much leftover Salat Olivye from the holidays? Or did you eat too much, and now need a diet plan? Either way, enterprising Russians have a solution for you. [English Translation]
  • A whole bunch of Ded Morozes (Russian Santas) really put one foot in front of the other for a costumed run in Vladimir on Old New Year’s Eve. 
  • An immersive Pushkin-flavored theme park is planned for St. Petersburg, opening in 2023. Of the three "zones," a dueling field is not included.
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A fast-paced crash course in Russian history, from Norsemen to Navalny, that explores the ways the Kremlin uses history to achieve its ends.

White Magic
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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.

Moscow and Muscovites
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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. 

Jews in Service to the Tsar
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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.

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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.

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