August 22, 2019

Come Hell or High Horses, Let's Save This Plane!


Come Hell or High Horses, Let's Save This Plane!
Twenty-first-century convenience meets eighteenth-century flair. Tipichny Saratov

Quote of the Week

“Of all my hobbies, I like problems with self-esteem the most.”

— What one Russian bot thinks a female Elon Musk would sound like

Road Trips through Inferno, Horse Trips to Your House

1. If, in 2009, you asked Damir Yusupov what he’d be doing in ten years, he probably wouldn’t have said “crash-landing a plane to safety.” But that’s exactly what the lawyer-turned-pilot did last Thursday. When a flock of seagulls flew into the engines of their plane, Yusupov (and his 23-year-old co-pilot) had almost no time to react. But, thanks to their rapid thinking and extensive training, they landed the plane in a nearby cornfield — and everyone lived to tell the tale. “I don’t think I’m a hero,” Yusupov said afterwards. But when the president gives you a Hero of Russia award… then yeah, you’re a hero.


A woman in the background describes it as a “second birth.” / Deniz G via Youtube
 

2. Sometimes the road to hell is paved with… nothing. Driving along a newly paved road to Yaroslavl, Maxim Malkin reached the city limit and discovered that the road ended in a dirt path. He struggled across the “kilometer-long hell,” during which he saw horrors fit for Dante’s Inferno: a huge clearing with no lane markers, an abandoned construction site, and potholes the size of craters. “If you’re really going to finish restoring part of the road, then you might as well sweep the entire road away with a dirty broom,” Malkin fumed on VKontakte. The mayor has now promised to fix the road, though, so even this street has a sunny side.

A road ending in a dirt path
Not the road to hell so much as a hellish road. / Maxim Malkin via VKontakte

3. What’s better than getting your lunch delivered? Getting your lunch delivered on horseback. Saratov food deliverer Alexei Savelyev has eschewed the traditional car, opting instead to deliver food astride his glamly saddled white horse. (He used to teach horseback riding, so he’s not soe kind of greenhorn.) His employer has offered him an electric scooter, but Savelyev insists that at least he should be allowed to alternate. So, if you get delivery from him when you feel like you could eat a horse, well, no.

In Odder News

  • Paragliding is fun, but have you tried paragliding off a construction crane? These construction workers in Siberia did, and it looks like fun. (Don’t try this at home, or at your under-construction future home.)
Paragliding off a construction crane
Whee! / Anastasia Verevkina
  • Twenty-eight years ago, the August Coup against Gorbachev began. It was the last in a series of events precipitating the end of the Soviet Union. Check out photos of the coup by a foreigner who saw it with his own eyes.
  • Need a gift for a Russian friend? A new poll says you should buy them books.
Pushkin's self-portrait
This guy would approve. / Wikimedia Commons

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Woe From Wit (bilingual)

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.
A Taste of Chekhov

A Taste of Chekhov

This compact volume is an introduction to the works of Chekhov the master storyteller, via nine stories spanning the last twenty years of his life.
Moscow and Muscovites

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. 
Murder at the Dacha

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.
How Russia Got That Way

How Russia Got That Way

A fast-paced crash course in Russian history, from Norsemen to Navalny, that explores the ways the Kremlin uses history to achieve its ends.
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.
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...
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.
Murder and the Muse

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.
Russian Rules

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.

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