February 03, 2022

Slip-ups, Icicles, and (Not So) Sneaky Thieves


Slip-ups, Icicles, and (Not So) Sneaky Thieves
In Odder News

In this week's Odder News: the war on icicles, unsuccessful heists, and awkward political appeal.

  • If you saw a pile of tiles near the entrance of your apartment building, what would you do? If the first answer that comes to mind is "steal it", then you're not alone. Two Russian women did just that, hoping to use the tile to renovate their balcony. Unfortunately for them, the crime was caught on camera and they returned the loot later that day. In their defense, they thought the tiles were trash left by a construction company.
  • Speaking of thieves, a man was caught after stealing hundreds of dollars worth of TVs from an apartment building in Khabarovsk. His plan was (hardly) flawless: rent an apartment in the building for a day, make copies of the keys, and come back later dressed as a woman to swipe the goods. The thief was caught on camera and is now facing a fine of over R100,000 ($1300). The TVs have been returned to their owners.
  • In a botched propaganda stunt, Russia's largest news source Russia 1 released a clip of a meeting between Putin and the president of Iran. The clip was edited to look like an intro to a rap video, and if that isn't cringy enough, the editor confused Iran with Iraq. Around the middle of the clip, Russia's double-headed eagle turns into the Eagle of Saladin, found on the emblem of Iraq. Russia 1 later removed the mistake from their YouTube account.
  • Icicles pose a serious threat to walking Russians, and there are all sorts of creative ways to break them before they fall on someone passing by. In Nizhny Novgorod, police are inspecting a video of a man shooting at icicles from a rifle - while people were still inside the building. Maybe a shotgun would work better?
  • As we rush into the future, it seems that robots are being made for every little thing imaginable. The Astrakhan State Technical University has presented the first robotic fishing vessel, "Bersh". The robot is able to make underwater maps, dispense bait and pinpoint groups of fish using echolocation. Able to work in high winds, waves, and among thick aquatic vegetation, the robots are expected to be useful for commercial and private fishers alike.

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Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.
Chekhov Bilingual

Chekhov Bilingual

Some of Chekhov's most beloved stories, with English and accented Russian on facing pages throughout. 
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.
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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. 
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December 01, 2008

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Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.

Bears in the Caviar
May 01, 2015

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.

Frogs Who Begged...
November 01, 2010

Frogs Who Begged...

The fables of Ivan Krylov are rich fonts of Russian cultural wisdom and experience – reading and understanding them is vital to grasping the Russian worldview. This new edition of 62 of Krylov’s tales presents them side-by-side in English and Russian. The wonderfully lyrical translations by Lydia Razran Stone are accompanied by original, whimsical color illustrations by Katya Korobkina.

The Latchkey Murders
July 01, 2015

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...

The Samovar Murders
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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.

White Magic
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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.

Moscow and Muscovites
November 26, 2013

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. 

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