October 24, 2019

Raining Cats and Hot Dogs


Raining Cats and Hot Dogs
Plotting escape: You ca(n’)t cat-ch meeeee! Podslushano, Novomoskovsk | Vkontakte

Quote of the Week

“Get your missiles out of Cuba. Everyone will say ‘Yay! Krushchev! You’re the best!’ But if you don’t everybody will be like ‘what an asshole’ and call your garbage country ‘the Soviet Bunion.’”
– Hillary Clinton, trolling President Trump by tweeting a letter allegedly “found in the archives” that JFK wrote to Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis (which began two days and 57 years ago), suspiciously similar to the letter Trump sent to Erdogan about the invasion of Kurdish-controlled regions of Syria… which even Vladimir Putin called “unusual.” 

Wrenching two main stories out of high-value cats 

1. A cat, detained for smuggling drugs into a Russian prison, escaped from behind bars. The cat was being held for evidence, after prosecutors claimed that he was trained by prisoners as a feline ferry, bringing them narcotics in a secret compartment in his collar. The defense attorneys thought that would be a task akin to herding cats; since when have the animals done what humans request? Now we will never know; keepers let the cat out of the cage due to cold weather, and he was being chased off by dogs. If cats have nine lives, then this one must have had some prison-breaking bad prior ones. 

2. It was the time of the worst of cats, but also the best of cats. The deaf Oracle Achilles, one of the Hermitage Cats, became famous for predicting outcomes in the 2018 World Cup by choosing food bowls marked with a particular country’s flag. The kitten of this prophetic palace cat (who is also a successful therapist, and Instagram model) was sold at an auction to raise funds for homeless animals at the World of Cats expo in St. Petersburg. The father was an honored guest at the event – but then, that is pretty predictable. 

Oracle cat in Russia
A cat of many talents, such as squatting while giving unsettling stares. / Achillcat | Instagram

3. A Russian inventor thinks he has found the key to success: a winter wrench (literally: “bolt key”). The Russian patent office named the heated hand tool the strangest patent application of the year, but unusual can be useful. The head of the department apparently warmed to the idea: “Anyone who has encountered the necessity of screwing or unscrewing some sort of bolt in -40º weather can value the unusual nature of such a wrench.” Best of all, it is bright red, so when you drop it in the snow you can see two-thirds of the Russian flag, and more importantly, find your wrench. Such a situation is at least as quintessentially Russian as whatever problems all the other innovations – mostly for farming, electronics, medicine, and oil and gas – are intended to solve.

 

In Odder News

  • Russia’s version of a hotdog – “sausage in dough” – is the best thing since sliced bread. Literally. It’s Russia’s favorite bread product, beating… sliced bread. 
  • Plastic pakety? Russians are bagging them. 
  • The Ukrainian president was caught dozing on the Moscow metro. At least, that’s what it looks like: the doppelganger is actually an immigrant from Uzbekistan. 

Spookily similar, even in mannerisms… this is no Halloween costume. Mash | Youtube

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Some of Our Books

Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar is a hilarious and insightful memoir by a diplomat who was “present at the creation” of US-Soviet relations. Charles Thayer headed off to Russia in 1933, calculating that if he could just learn Russian and be on the spot when the US and USSR established relations, he could make himself indispensable and start a career in the foreign service. Remarkably, he pulled it 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.
Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

The Life Stories collection is a nice introduction to contemporary Russian fiction: many of the 19 authors featured here have won major Russian literary prizes and/or become bestsellers. These are life-affirming stories of love, family, hope, rebirth, mystery and imagination, masterfully translated by some of the best Russian-English translators working today. The selections reassert the power of Russian literature to affect readers of all cultures in profound and lasting ways. Best of all, 100% of the profits from the sale of this book are going to benefit Russian hospice—not-for-profit care for fellow human beings who are nearing the end of their own life stories.
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. 
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.
Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod is a mid-sized provincial city that exists only in Russian metaphorical space. It has its roots in Gogol, and Ilf and Petrov, and is a place far from Moscow, but close to Russian hearts. It is a place of mystery and normality, of provincial innocence and Black Earth wisdom. Strange, inexplicable things happen in Stargorod. So do good things. And bad things. A lot like life everywhere, one might say. Only with a heavy dose of vodka, longing and mystery.
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.
Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

This astonishingly gripping autobiography by the founder of the Russian Women’s Death Battallion in World War I is an eye-opening documentary of life before, during and after the Bolshevik Revolution.
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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