May 30, 2019

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Fire/Lightning?


Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Fire/Lightning?
Blast off at the speed of light! @Rogozin

Throwback Thursday

Boris Pasternak painted in 1910 by father Leonid
Boris Pasternak, painted in 1910 by father Leonid Pasternak. / Wikimedia Commons

On this day in 1960, Boris Pasternak, one of Russia’s most famous dissident writers, poets, and translators, died in the Soviet Union. He was fondly remembered not just in the West, where he received a Nobel Prize, but also by his Russian literary peers, including Mandelstam and Akhmatova. Read some of their reminiscences here on Russian Life.

Avengerful Pomp and Fiery Circumstance

1. Avengers Endgame 2: Graduation Boogaloo. In Russia, as in the US, it’s high school graduation season. Some teachers at a Murmansk high school decided to send off their graduates in style. The graduating students were big fans of the Avengers, so the teachers filmed a 2-minute video of themselves as Marvel and DC superheroes (be sure to keep watching, the vid takes an unexpected turn at about 40 seconds). “We decided to be on the same wavelength as them,” said one teacher. Needless to say, the students loved it. It was a heroic way to end the heroic feat of school.

Teachers in Avengers costume
The Avengers return to say farewell. / 360tv

2. Onwards and upwards! The Plesetsk Cosmodrome launched a rocket on a cloudy Monday morning. About fourteen seconds in, a bolt of lightning hit the rocket. Nevertheless, the rocket continued its intrepid launch into the sky, prompting a major general at the cosmodrome to quip, “We’re all-weather forces.” As it turns out, the engineers usually anticipate such situations, even though they are rare. Let’s hope that next time around, lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice.

3. Keep calm and swing on. In Yamal, a boy was swinging cheerily in a playground. This would not be news if it weren’t for the fact that there was a huge fire burning right behind him. The short video has gone viral on social media and sparked comparisons to the popular “This is fine” meme. One commentator, however, admonishes us for taking this video too seriously: “What did you want from the kid?…He had already seen enough of the fire.” Honestly, that’s a fair point. Still, we can’t help marvelling at how he could keep his cool in such heated circumstances.

Boy swinging in front of fire
He didn’t start the fire. It was always burning since the world was turning / Vkontakte

Blog Spotlight

Tired of hearing about Americans going to Russia for the first time? Then read Victor Pogostin’s story about visiting an American subway (Subway) for the first time.

In Odder News

Swan father and baby
Father and baby. / 47channel
  • After the untimely death of his swan partner, one swan father in Gatchina took it on himself to raise their sole surviving swan baby. The elder swan is teaching the hatchling to nip at the grass and clean its feathers.
  • Make way for utkas! In St. Petersburg, drivers on a busy street stopped for two ducks crossing the road — in the crosswalk of course, these are clearly very law-abiding ducks.
Ducks crossing the road
Bon quackage! / Serg Mikerov

Quote of the Week

“Because of the abundance of expletives in the video, the audio had to be turned off.”

— A news website regarding a (terrifying) video of a tourist who got too close to a bear and just barely managed to escape

Want more where this comes from? Give your inbox the gift of TWERF, our Thursday newsletter on the quirkiest, obscurest, and Russianest of Russian happenings of the week.

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The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas

This exciting new trilogy by a Russian author – who has been compared to Orhan Pamuk and Umberto Eco – vividly recreates a lost world, yet its passions and characters are entirely relevant to the present day. Full of mystery, memorable characters, and non-stop adventure, The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas is a must read for lovers of historical fiction and international thrillers.  
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 Moscow Eccentric

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.
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.
Marooned in Moscow

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.
Fish: A History of One Migration

Fish: A History of One Migration

This mesmerizing novel from one of Russia’s most important modern authors traces the life journey of a selfless Russian everywoman. In the wake of the Soviet breakup, inexorable forces drag Vera across the breadth of the Russian empire. Facing a relentless onslaught of human and social trials, she swims against the current of life, countering adversity and pain with compassion and hope, in many ways personifying Mother Russia’s torment and resilience amid the Soviet disintegration.
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.
White Magic

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.
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Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

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