March 30, 2021

Heavily Taxed


Heavily Taxed
50 pounds of rubles is decidedly no small amount of change.  Paolinio | pixabay.com

It seems like a resident of Severodvinsk wanted to get their arm-day workout in while they brought their tax payment to the bank: they paid their entire R78,715 (approximately $630 USD) total in cold hard coins. The whole sum had to be brought in two large metal boxes and weighed nearly 50 pounds.

Tax season is hitting us all pretty hard, but at least you aren't one of the bank tellers who had to count the payment out by hand! Although it appears that someone may have made a counting mistake, as revealed by the math-wizards over at meduza.io.

By calculating the weight of an individual R10 coin, they were able to determine that in the 22-kilogram payment there must have at least a dividend of R200 (approximately $3 USD). That's a fairly small amount for such a hefty collection, but given that the payment was actually made in a mixture of R10, R1, 50-kopek, and 10-kopek coins, it's likely that the true amount of money is a lot more (like American "cents," there are 100 kopeks in a ruble).

Who knows, maybe a couple of pieces of paper money were slid in and not mentioned in the paper report. Or maybe the poor bailiffs just got too exhausted and miscounted a few coins. We aren't sure, and who could blame them!

Although, they can't possibly have the worst job in Russia. 

 

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Faith & Humor

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
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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.

Little Golden Calf
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Little Golden Calf

Our edition of The Little Golden Calf, one of the greatest Russian satires ever, is the first new translation of this classic novel in nearly fifty years. It is also the first unabridged, uncensored English translation ever, and is 100% true to the original 1931 serial publication in the Russian journal 30 Dnei. Anne O. Fisher’s translation is copiously annotated, and includes an introduction by Alexandra Ilf, the daughter of one of the book’s two co-authors.

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This exciting new trilogy by a Russian author – who has been compared to Orhan Pamuk and Umberto Eco – vividly recreates a lost world, yet its passions and characters are entirely relevant to the present day. Full of mystery, memorable characters, and non-stop adventure, The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas is a must read for lovers of historical fiction and international thrillers.

 
Jews in Service to the Tsar
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The Moscow Eccentric
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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.

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