April 18, 2022

Help the Earth and Fight Putin


Help the Earth and Fight Putin
A green solution to a hefty problem? Lesya Polyakova

German economists warn against going cold-turkey with Russian energy, believing it could lead to a 2023 recession. Germany's solution? Ride your bike.

Germany currently opposes a complete embargo on Russian energy and still receives 40% of its gas and 25% of its oil from Russia. Thus, Vice-Chancellor Habeck, who is also economics minister and co-leader of the Greens, has suggested multiple ways that Germans can lower their energy usage, such as riding their bikes instead or driving, lowering the thermostat a degree, drawing the curtains to retain heat, and even recommending to bosses that employees work from home once or twice a week.

In an interview with the BBC, President Zelensky said that, as long as Russia continues to profit from oil exports, it has no reason to be serious about peace talks. As such, saving energy in German homes is a peaceful method for fighting Russian aggression.

All of these efforts can of course help limit dependency on Russian energy, but Zelensky and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba are still looking to Germany for more substantial ways to help fight the invasion.

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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. 
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.
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.
Chekhov Bilingual

Chekhov Bilingual

Some of Chekhov's most beloved stories, with English and accented Russian on facing pages throughout. 
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.
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Fish: A History of One Migration

Fish: A History of One Migration

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Survival Russian

Survival Russian

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Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

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The Moscow Eccentric

The Moscow Eccentric

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At the Circus (bilingual)

This wonderful novella by Alexander Kuprin tells the story of the wrestler Arbuzov and his battle against a renowned American wrestler. Rich in detail and characterization, At the Circus brims with excitement and life. You can smell the sawdust in the big top, see the vivid and colorful characters, sense the tension build as Arbuzov readies to face off against the American.

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