December 16, 2021

Yappy, Gigolos, and Timofei Chalamov


Yappy, Gigolos, and Timofei Chalamov
In Odder News

In this week's Odder News, a surprising temperature range, TikTok has competition, and overnighting in a movie theater. 

  • Thank god for the Russian government: starting December 29, Russian women will be safe from "migrants and gigolos." A new law requires most foreigners staying in Russia longer than 90 days to be fingerprinted, photographed, and examined for infectious diseases by state doctors. (The article says the law applies to visa-free guest workers, complaining about Uzbek men in particular, but it actually applies to all foreigners.) Did you know that during Soviet times, foreign visitors to Moscow were highly educated, talented, and socially responsible? But these days, any old creep can "brazenly deceive the native people" of Russia!
  • Move over TikTok, Russia is getting into the short video social media business! The new app is called Yappy (Of course it is). Gazprom Media created Yappy, and you can download it from the Apple App Store and Google Play. TikTok has become one of the top five social media apps in Russia; here's hoping Yappy will join that list before long.
  • Russia is not the frozen wasteland many foreigners think: it has almost reached the biggest simultaneous temperature differential in one country in history. The differential last week was 85.6 degrees Celsius (186.08 degrees Fahrenheit). In Chechnya, it was 24.5 C (76.1 F), while in Sakha, it was -61.1 C (-77.98 F). The typical daytime temperature range in Russia is 10-15 C (50-59 F). Climate change is being blamed for such a range, though we think Russia's absolute hugeness is primarily to blame. Oddly enough, the United States still holds the record with a range of 88 C (190.4 F) in 1954.
  • An unexpected snowstorm left over 100 people trapped in a Norilsk movie theater overnight. Visibility was almost zero with winds at 27 meters per second. Of course, it is not the worst place to be stuck: all-night movies and all-night popcorn. Well, it is Russia: all-night tea and wafers, not popcorn.
  • Meet Timofei Chalamov, Russia's Timothée Chalamet lookalike. The lookalike – actually Artyom Privalov – recorded a peach pastry commercial for Tsekh 85 bakery chain that is taking the internet by storm. The new pastry is even called the Chalamet. Check out the lookalike, or the pastry, here.

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Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

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A Taste of Russia

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Fish: A History of One Migration

Fish: A History of One Migration

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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.
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.
The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

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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.
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93 Untranslatable Russian Words

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