March 18, 2021 Star Wars, Speedos, and Superstars In this week's Odder News: move over Star Wars, make way for Eurovision, and pack your Speedo.
February 04, 2021 Culture Is Back in 2021 (Whether the Pandemic Is Over or Not) In this week's Odder News, museums reopen with some strange offerings, the organizing game Tetris is coming to the big screen, and we are thrilled that Russians love the Home Alone franchise as much as we do.
March 04, 2021 Lesser-Known Art of the Siege of Leningrad On Display Some little-known art from a civilian eyewitness to the Siege of Leningrad is public both at one of the blockade museums in St. Petersburg and in a new book.
February 08, 2021 Christopher Plummer's Last Station In memory of actor Christopher Plummer, who died last week at age 91, we look back at his role as a dying Leo Tolstoy in the 2009 film, The Last Station.
January 09, 2017 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. History War Nonfiction
January 01, 2013 At the Circus This wonderful novella by Alexander Kuprin tells the story of the wrestler Arbuzov and his battle against a renowned American wrestler. Rich in detail and characterization, At the Circus brims with excitement and life. You can smell the sawdust in the big top, see the vivid and colorful characters, sense the tension build as Arbuzov readies to face off against the American. Bilingual Books Fiction
Chekhov Bilingual Some of Chekhov's most beloved stories, with English and accented Russian on facing pages throughout. Bilingual Books Fiction Language Learning
November 16, 2011 Russian Rules From the shores of the White Sea to Moscow and the Northern Caucasus, Russian Rules is a high-speed thriller based on actual events, terrifying possibilities, and some really stupid decisions. Fiction
July 01, 2013 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. Literature Fiction
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. Culture History Nonfiction
June 01, 2016 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. Nonfiction
Okudzhava Bilingual Poems, songs and autobiographical sketches by Bulat Okudzhava, the king of the Russian bards. Bilingual Books Fiction Language Learning
September 01, 2010 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... Culture History Reference Nonfiction
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. Fiction
December 01, 2011 Faith & Humor 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. Religion Fiction
September 20, 2025 How Russia Got That Way A fast-paced crash course in Russian history, from Norsemen to Navalny, that explores the ways the Kremlin uses history to achieve its ends. Nonfiction
