July 01, 1995 Bolshoy Tickets: The Inside Track Tips for getting tickets to the hottest show in Moscow.
May 01, 2003 Beet Top & The Marsh Mushroom There will always be a rivalry between Russia's "two capitals"--Moscow and St. Petersburg. Since it is St. Petersburg's birthday, we give the floor to a noted journalist from the "Venice of the North," that he might share his thoughts on what sets the two cities apart.
November 01, 2017 17 Myths of the Revolution Every revolution needs its myths. The faithful must be inspired; successive generations must be enthused. We explore some myths about the “Great October Revolution” that persist even now, 100 years later.
September 01, 2017 17 Petersburg Places Revolutions, including that Great October one, are not a popular topic in Russia today. Nonetheless, we take a photo feature look at how 1917 shaped Russia’s northern capital.
May 01, 2003 21 Slices of St. Petersburg Life Thousands upon thousands of pages have been written about Piter during its three centuries of life on the Neva. But what does it take to understand this strange city like a native? These 20 "signs of life" offer a tiny part of the answer.
July 21, 2020 Exploring Russian Museums ~ Virtually When you can't go to the museum, the museum comes to you!
December 07, 2020 Soviet Disneyland: Exploring VDNKh One of our favorite spots in Moscow is a surreal blend of theme park, museum, and Stalinist kitsch.
January 30, 2021 Moskvarium: Making a Splash at VDNKh One of the newest VDNKh pavilions is Russia's most dramatic oceanarium, embracing captive orcas even as other countries begin to abandon the practice.
Okudzhava Bilingual Poems, songs and autobiographical sketches by Bulat Okudzhava, the king of the Russian bards.
Red Star Tales: A Century of Russian and Soviet Science Fiction For over 100 years, most of the science fiction produced by the world’s largest country has been beyond the reach of Western readers. This new collection changes that, bringing a large body of influential works into the English orbit.
Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices Stargorod is a mid-sized provincial city that exists only in Russian metaphorical space. It has its roots in Gogol, and Ilf and Petrov, and is a place far from Moscow, but close to Russian hearts. It is a place of mystery and normality, of provincial innocence and Black Earth wisdom. Strange, inexplicable things happen in Stargorod. So do good things. And bad things. A lot like life everywhere, one might say. Only with a heavy dose of vodka, longing and mystery.
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.
Survival Russian Survival Russian is an intensely practical guide to conversational, colloquial and culture-rich Russian. It uses humor, current events and thematically-driven essays to deepen readers’ understanding of Russian language and culture. This enlarged Second Edition of Survival Russian includes over 90 essays and illuminates over 2000 invaluable Russian phrases and words.
Fearful Majesty This acclaimed biography of one of Russia’s most important and tyrannical rulers is not only a rich, readable biography, it is also surprisingly timely, revealing how many of the issues Russia faces today have their roots in Ivan’s reign.
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.
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.
The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual) 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.
Dostoyevsky Bilingual Bilingual series of short, lesser known, but highly significant works that show the traditional view of Dostoyevsky as a dour, intense, philosophical writer to be unnecessarily one-sided.
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.
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.