September 01, 2012 The Age of Aquarium For 40 years, Boris Grebenshchikov and Aquarium have made music like no other band in Russia, combining poetry and beautiful, often quizzical instrumentals into a charming sound that is at once entirely unique and entirely Russian.
May 01, 2012 Victor Tsoy No rock musician has had such a profound, lasting effect on Russian culture as Victor Tsoy.
May 01, 2015 Siberian Punk Who knew? The heart of Siberia, a place best known for its severe winters, was the birthplace of one of the most original, raw rock movements ever to hit the USSR.
April 25, 2012 Tsoy Lives! There is not a single other figure in Russian rock – living or dead – who has attained the same sort of cult status as Victor Tsoy, who would have been 50 on June 21. And while Tsoy’s biography is well-known, it hardly explains how it is that the person and legacy of Victor Tsoy continues to this day to play such an important role in Russian culture - even in Russian mass culture.
November 27, 2013 Boris Grebenshikov, a Founding Father of Soviet Rock When the music you sing is banned, when the entire genre is identified with the enemy, how do you find the courage to keep singing? Just ask Boris Grebenshikov!
March 28, 2016 5 St. Petersburg Bands You Should Know St. Petersburg (or Leningrad) has always occupied a special place in the world of Russian music. Famous for its rich classical traditions, especially at the Mariinsky Theater, in the second part of the twentieth century St. Petersburg became the epicenter of underground and experimental music.
April 29, 2019 The Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Russian Rock Curious about Russian rock but don’t know where to start? Here are five bands to start your playlist.
August 30, 2019 What Russian Rock Music Says About the Motherland “Mother Russia” is much more than a stereotype. Everyone has opinions on it, Russian rock musicians included.
301 Things Everyone Should Know About Russia How do you begin to get a handle on the world's largest country? This colorful, illustrated guide will get you started...
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 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.
Far & Away ~ Tales from Rural Russia 33 original stories about modern (and not so modern) life in rural Russia.
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.
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...
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.
Fearful Majesty This acclaimed biography of one of Russia’s most important and tyrannical rulers is not only a rich, readable biography, it is also surprisingly timely, revealing how many of the issues Russia faces today have their roots in Ivan’s reign.
Turgenev Bilingual A sampling of Ivan Turgenev's masterful short stories, plays, novellas and novels. Bilingual, with English and accented Russian texts running side by side on adjoining pages.
Driving Down Russia's Spine The story of the epic Spine of Russia trip, intertwining fascinating subject profiles with digressions into historical and cultural themes relevant to understanding modern Russia.
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.
The Moscow Eccentric Advance reviewers are calling this new translation "a coup" and "a remarkable achievement." This rediscovered gem of a novel by one of Russia's finest writers explores some of the thorniest issues of the early twentieth century.