September 12, 2019

Homecoming to Mother Russia


Homecoming to Mother Russia
No Russian "welcome home" is complete without (an odd number of) flowers. the Institution Responsible for the Rights of Children | Facebook

Quote of the Week

“It turned out that Ukraine was not prepared to elect a president-father and “tsar” [like in Russia], but rather a president-cute son (or even boyfriend), whom Ukraine is ready to befriend.

– Ksenia Sobchak, journalist and former Russian presidential candidate, expressed her approval of Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s new president, on a recent trip to Kyiv

 

There is no place like home, unless you don’t have the paperwork to live at home.

1. Elections this past week were held all over Russia, and when elections aren’t really all that competitive, you have to get creative to draw voters to the polls. For example, belly dancing with a live peacock. Preferring Russian national symbols – or just having more access to fish in the Far East – authorities in Sakhalin went with 5,000 free caviar sandwiches. And if you want a mix of foreign and domestic policy? Try hockey players, but with Viking hats. As it turns out, turnout was not just affected by local election officials being weird, but also by the least weird, most dull and ordinary thing possible. The current mayor of Sevastopl didn’t vote because his landlord still hadn’t bothered to give him a propiska (housing registration document dating back to the Soviet era), two months after he was sent there by Putin. Turns out that even if Putin’s party can win elections, he can’t force people to fulfill their bureaucratic responsibilities.

Peacock and belly dancer at Russian elections
Alec Luhn | Twitter
Viking hockey players at Russian elections
nskkp | Instagram

2. Russia played a lot of non-so-fun lost and found this week. A 15-year-old boy went mushroom gathering in the taiga, got lost, and ended up eating only mushrooms for thirteen days until he was rescued. The hunt for Russia’s iconic autumn mushrooms also ensnared two babushki, who climbed into a hunter’s treehouse to escape bears overnight. Sometimes nightmares are a little closer to home: police and volunteers searched for 24 hours for a 10-year-old boy, who was eventually found hiding under his own bed. The person that was probably most at a loss for words, though, was the mother whose son returned home six months after she recognized a body that looked like him, cremated and buried him. He was busy being homeless and thinking about the meaning of life. We hope he at least managed to find himself. 
 
3. Four young Russian children were released from Syrian prison. They were born to Russian women imprisoned in Syria for fighting on the side of the rebels. According to the Russian Children’s ombudsman, they didn’t see the sun for a year, and ate food with cockroaches in it; on the plane ride they looked with interest through the windows and ate hungrily. They are currently in the hospital, and while they do not seem to have physical injuries, they have suffered severe psychological trauma. In a few days they will return to their families in Chechnya and Dagestan. It is a bittersweet homecoming, because there are still hundreds of children in Syrian prisons who were born to Russian parents in Syria.

 

In Odder News

Moscow mural of woman and man kissing
Alex Senna | Instagram
  • A Moscow suburb was declared to have some of the best street art in the world. 
  • Many women are excited to start the formerly illegal career of driving Moscow metro trains.
  • The wife of Putin’s press secretary and a woman who runs a giant portion of Russia’s state-owned press, Margarita Simonyan, made the news not for, well, making the news, but rather for nearly getting into a fistfight over… borsch recipes. 

 

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Some of Our Books

Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

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.
The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

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.
Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

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 Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas

The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas

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.  
Fish: A History of One Migration

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.
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. 
The Little Golden Calf

The 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.
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.

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