January 22, 2022

Tykes Take to the Web


Tykes Take to the Web
Think twice before typing what you're about to type. The RussianLife files.

Don't forget to set your Safe Search: kids are invading cyberspace.

A new study published by Moscow's Higher School of Economics (HSE) reveals that Russian kids ages 3-6 are entering the internet in droves. According to their research, three times as many children of these ages are now online compared to ten years ago: in 2011, only some 22.6% of this age range was online; today, that number is 68.3%.

Not surprisingly, the vast majority of Russian teenagers are online: some 95%, up only 3% from 2011. 7-11-year-olds nearly doubled, from 42.2% to 83.3%, and 11-14-year-olds, 72% to 94.4%. 90% of Russian adults are online, too.

Surely coronavirus has boosted these numbers, as well as general trends in global culture and technology. Per the study, 83.7% of kids use the internet for school, a statistic we're a little skeptical of.

Our hope, regardless of age, is that they join our RussianLife.com readership.

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93 Untranslatable Russian Words

93 Untranslatable Russian Words

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.
Murder at the Dacha

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.
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. 
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.
Turgenev Bilingual

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.
Marooned in Moscow

Marooned in Moscow

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Fish: A History of One Migration

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At the Circus (bilingual)

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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.

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