January 01, 2023

Why No 2023 Calendar?


Why No 2023 Calendar?
Resistance is not futile. Eugene Sergeev

We have fielded plenty of calls in the past month from customers asking if we were publishing a Russian Life calendar for 2023.

We are not.

We suspect many were calling to confirm their suspicions, since they had not seen any ads. But the interesting thing is that so few have asked why.

Our answer is simple: “because of the war.”

Because, as with our magazine, this is no time to be celebrating Russian culture, landscapes, historical buildings, or beauty.

It is a time to be celebrating those who battle oppression, who stand against the war, the Kremlin, the horrendous laws against free speech, assembly, and a free press. Those who, against the odds, resist.

Resistance comes in many guises. As a friend wrote from Moscow, "while there are many heroes who openly resist Evil, there are also plenty who just stubbornly do their jobs. Not as if nothing was happening, but in spite of what is happening."

To work “professionally, with quality, without lies and exaggerations, and stretching oneself to complete a task – that too is resisting,” they wrote. It is “much easier for those who have stayed behind to do their job because of those who left and are able to speak openly and without censorship. Both are for the same thing.

“Each person does what they can, but they resist… no, not tanks (this we cannot do), but devastation, despondency, entropy, and lies… And it is not in two or three places, but all around us. Look closely, it's everywhere. Kindness, mercy to loved ones, and even courage are often quiet, they do not yell.

“Not everyone is ready to go to prison, but very, very many are ready to defend their dignity, to live without putting their conscience up for sale. Everyone who loves and does not hate, everyone who does not lie, everyone who has not confused white and black, everyone who simply remains human, is practicing this simple thing: resistance to violence and evil.

“And they are growing, growing underground. They are an invisible green grass, a yellow-breasted flower. And one day they break through the asphalt.”

So that is why we did not publish a calendar for 2023. And that is also why we continue to publish Russian Life, to search for and tell the stories of the green grass, of the flowers that will one day break through the asphalt.

It is our hope and prayer that 2023 will be an awakening from the nightmare that was 2022, that Russians will begin to claw back their freedoms and their country (as Ukraine did nearly a decade ago), to once again give us a reason to celebrate Russian culture.


Here, by the way, is a nice calendar of Ukraine, in which all the profits are being sent to Ukrainian relief. And be sure to check out our page with links to support meaningful aid to Ukrainians.

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Some of Our Books

The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

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.
How Russia Got That Way

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.
A Taste of Chekhov

A Taste of Chekhov

This compact volume is an introduction to the works of Chekhov the master storyteller, via nine stories spanning the last twenty years of his life.
Tolstoy Bilingual

Tolstoy Bilingual

This compact, yet surprisingly broad look at the life and work of Tolstoy spans from one of his earliest stories to one of his last, looking at works that made him famous and others that made him notorious. 
Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

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

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.
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.
Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

This is the work that made Chekhov, launching his career as a writer and playwright of national and international renown. Retranslated and updated, this new bilingual edition is a super way to improve your Russian.
A Taste of Russia

A Taste of Russia

The definitive modern cookbook on Russian cuisine has been totally updated and redesigned in a 30th Anniversary Edition. Layering superbly researched recipes with informative essays on the dishes' rich historical and cultural context, A Taste of Russia includes over 200 recipes on everything from borshch to blini, from Salmon Coulibiac to Beef Stew with Rum, from Marinated Mushrooms to Walnut-honey Filled Pies. A Taste of Russia shows off the best that Russian cooking has to offer. Full of great quotes from Russian literature about Russian food and designed in a convenient wide format that stays open during use.
Moscow and Muscovites
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. 

Murder at the Dacha
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.

Woe From Wit (bilingual)
June 20, 2017

Woe From Wit (bilingual)

One of the most famous works of Russian literature, the four-act comedy in verse Woe from Wit skewers staid, nineteenth century Russian society, and it positively teems with “winged phrases” that are essential colloquialisms for students of Russian and Russian culture.

Steppe
July 15, 2022

Steppe

This is the work that made Chekhov, launching his career as a writer and playwright of national and international renown. Retranslated and updated, this new bilingual edition is a super way to improve your Russian.

Fearful Majesty
July 01, 2014

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.

Bears in the Caviar
May 01, 2015

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.

White Magic
June 01, 2021

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.

93 Untranslatable Russian Words
December 01, 2008

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.

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Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

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