October 15, 2023

Unlike My Father, Putin is a Coward


Unlike My Father, Putin is a Coward

Daria Navalnaya, the daughter of Russian politician Alexei Navalny, who was recently sentenced to 19 years in prison, spoke at a TED conference on October 11, noting that October 15 would be the thousandth day that her father had spent in prison.

She recounted the lessons she has learned from her father's courage and optimism, and how she stayed with her younger brother when her father was poisoned with Novichok, and her mother, Yulia Navalnaya, flew to Omsk, to fight for his transport to Germany. She also recalled how, as a child, she and her father made a game of evading FSB agents in the Moscow metro.

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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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