April 28, 2026

Raszinkovka ~ Word of the Month


Raszinkovka ~ Word of the Month
Sealing a zinc coffin (actually in Ukraine). Oleksandr Hryvul

This is our new monthly language column that has taken the reins over from our long-running Survival Russian column in the magazine. Each month we focus on a word or phrase trending in Russian culture and society.


In early April, the writer Masha Rupasova told the publication Republic that she was studying online chat groups where female relatives of Russian servicemen communicate. Rupasova, who lives in Canada, is known in Russia primarily for her unconventional children’s poems. Her book “Grannies Fell From the Sky” was named 2015’s “Book of the Year” and has become a symbol of a new generation of children’s poetry – light-hearted and contemporary, free of stereotypes.

Headshot of Maria Rupasova
Maria Rupasova

Yet, as stated in the preface to her Republic interview, Rupasova has not been writing for children since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Instead, she said, she “reads the chats of widows whose husbands have died in Ukraine… the prayers and curses of mothers whose children fled to war and died.” She reads and weeps, she said, “watching as people refuse to believe their own eyes and continue to believe the propaganda.”

Rupasova has said she intends to write a book based on the content of her chats – a book about women’s experiences of the war, about the problems faced by wives, mothers and sisters, and how they talk about what is happening. It is clear that this is a very grim world, in which there is not only the collection of aid or mourning for the dead, but also dirty squabbling over payments. 

An important part of this reality is the search and identification of human remains. The bodies of soldiers killed by the fighting are sorted at a facility in Rostov-on-Don, from whence zinc coffins are sent by plane and train across Russia. To verify that the deceased is indeed one’s relative, family members need to take part in a “расцинковка” (de-zincing) – the opening of the zinc coffin. 

According to Rupasova, some families are unaware that this option exists. Others deliberately choose not to take part, either because they do not want to see the remains or, perhaps, out of fear that they will lose death compensation benefits if the deceased turns out not to be their relative. Others are deeply outraged by this latter response, because they are actively searching for their own relatives, who, as a result of bureaucratic and military chaos, may have ended up in unopened coffins. There have even reports of clods of earth found in place of a body inside the zinc coffins.

A zinc coffin is opened using an angle grinder (having been soldered shut at the point of departure); if the remains cannot be identified, DNA testing is required. For Rupasova, расцинковка became a metaphor for confronting a horrifying reality, the ultimate truth about war that cannot be unseen, cannot be forgotten. Some are ready to face this truth, while others are not.

“And I thought that my project is also a process of de-zincing,” Rupasova wrote on her Facebook page, “the opening up of isolated digital spaces, isolated women’s communities, which fellow citizens avoid in disgust and from which even their own neighbors turn away.”

 

 

You Might Also Like

  • December 23, 2025

"Careful What You Say At School"

How mothers raise children under censorship and propaganda -- and what it does to the minds of parents and kids.
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of our Books

Marooned in Moscow
May 01, 2011

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
September 01, 2009

Life Stories

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.

The Samovar Murders
November 01, 2019

The Samovar Murders

The murder of a poet is always more than a murder. When a famous writer is brutally stabbed on the campus of Moscow’s Lumumba University, the son of a recently deposed African president confesses, and the case assumes political implications that no one wants any part of.

The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas
October 01, 2013

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.

 
The Moscow Eccentric
December 01, 2016

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.

Woe From Wit (bilingual)
June 20, 2017

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.

Jews in Service to the Tsar
October 09, 2011

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.

Little Golden Calf
February 01, 2010

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
June 01, 2021

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.

About Us

Russian Life is the 31-year-old publication of an award-winning publishing house that also creates books, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955