September 05, 2019

Cosmic Robots, Cosmonaut Rituals, and Classrooms Resplendent


Cosmic Robots, Cosmonaut Rituals, and Classrooms Resplendent
Setting a new standard for alumni contributions. Учителя тоже люди

Quote of the Week

“On the road by the sea, I’ll buy watermelons.
On the beach, we’ll eat corn.
Then, we’ll look at the red sun.
And again, I will sincerely say:
If there is a heaven on earth, it is Krasnodarsky Krai.”

— A viral rap about the beauties of Krasnodarsky Krai

1. Most rich alumni give back to their schools and some may even get a building named after them. But one Yekaterinburg alum went above and beyond all that, redesigning his entire school in the style of a palace. The school now features ceiling mosaics, marble bathrooms, Roman pillars, and gold trimmings that Louis XIV would envy. Explaining his design choices, the alum said he chose this lavish style, “So that the kids don’t have to go to Versailles or the Louvre. It will immediately give them a better mood.” Who said altruism and fancy tastes were mutually exclusive?

2. Having conquered soccer fields and military academies, Russian robots are now conquering the skies. Robot Fedor, an anthropomorphic AI robot, arrived aboard the ISS on August 27 and will head home on September 7 after learning the secrets of dangerous space-borne operations. Although he was dogged with snark from the start, Fedor is learning fast. In just the last few days, he tested the ISS exoskeleton, requested a name change, and gave an interview to human cosmonauts (no video, but reportedly he responded “adequately”). So, never underestimate someone/something that might become your overlord.

Fedor works with a screwdriver. / FEDOR37516789
 

3. In other space-related news, due to a spacesuit redesign, Russian cosmonauts won’t be able to pee from their spacesuits anymore. This may sound trivial (people in space wear diapers on spacewalks), but it’s actually a big deal. Cosmonauts have a surprising number of weird traditions, one of which is urinating on the back wheel of the bus taking them to the launch pad. The new spacesuit designer has heard of this tradition, but he doesn’t really care and argues that the convenience of his new spacesuit is worth it. One small step for convenience, but a leap backwards for cosmonaut camaraderie.

In Odder News

  • Wholesome Thursdays: A brave Muscovite ran across three lanes of traffic in order to rescue a cat.
Cat rescue from highway
Cat hero of the highways. / Moslenta
  • To celebrate the start of the school year, kids in Chelyabinsk were treated to… songs about vodka. (It later emerged that that was more for the parents than the kids.)
  • Many Russian orphans leave orphanages with little support and know-how for surviving the outside world. This NGO seeks to change that.

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Fish: A History of One Migration

This mesmerizing novel from one of Russia’s most important modern authors traces the life journey of a selfless Russian everywoman. In the wake of the Soviet breakup, inexorable forces drag Vera across the breadth of the Russian empire. Facing a relentless onslaught of human and social trials, she swims against the current of life, countering adversity and pain with compassion and hope, in many ways personifying Mother Russia’s torment and resilience amid the Soviet disintegration.
The Samovar Murders

The Samovar Murders

The murder of a poet is always more than a murder. When a famous writer is brutally stabbed on the campus of Moscow’s Lumumba University, the son of a recently deposed African president confesses, and the case assumes political implications that no one wants any part of.
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.
The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar

The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar

The fables of Ivan Krylov are rich fonts of Russian cultural wisdom and experience – reading and understanding them is vital to grasping the Russian worldview. This new edition of 62 of Krylov’s tales presents them side-by-side in English and Russian. The wonderfully lyrical translations by Lydia Razran Stone are accompanied by original, whimsical color illustrations by Katya Korobkina.
Steppe / Степь

Steppe / Степь

This is the work that made Chekhov, launching his career as a writer and playwright of national and international renown. Retranslated and updated, this new bilingual edition is a super way to improve your Russian.
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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. 
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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.

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