January 12, 2017

Exercise! Frozen bikes, illegal yoga, and sturdy stolen statues


Exercise! Frozen bikes, illegal yoga, and sturdy stolen statues

Sport can be hazardous to your health

1. Dreaming of a bike Christmas: what better way to celebrate -27 degrees (-17 F) temperatures than a brisk bike ride through the capital? That’s what about 500 bicyclists did in Moscow on Sunday. They had two goals: first, prove that bicycles are workable transportation all year long. Second: not get hypothermia. At least false beards, fur coats, and heated handlebars could help out with the latter.

bicycling.com

2. How much do you love your honey pie? Enough to swipe a statue from a public park for a New Year’s present? That was one Moscow man’s idea of a gift for his girlfriend, but he was caught red-handed while trying to make away with a gilded statue from Sokolniki Park. The statue – which depicts a “Chief Accountant Fairy” (you know, one of those) – cost about 3 million rubles. Any chief accountant would bewail its disappearance, so it’s lucky a good fairy ensured its return.

3. Do a downward dog...all the way to the jailhouse. A yoga teacher is on trial for suspected illegal missionary work after a lecture on yogic philosophy. The man who filed a complaint against the yogi is a Russian Orthodox activist whose wife left him to join a cult – presumably linked to yoga. The trial is controversial, with the yogi claiming his lecture was purely academic and one of the police officers involved doubting his own signature on the police report. Sounds like everyone involved needs a good meditate.

In Odder News

  • What did 2017 look like in 1967? National Geographic shows you exactly how the Soviet past imagined the future.
  • Russia’s got plenty of nature, but there’s plenty left unexplored. Take a peek at some new natural wonders.
  • Learning the names of Russia’s oblasts? Now you can do it through song, at last! Really, that’s a line in it. With 85 federal subjects of Russia, it only gets better.

Quote of the Week

“In a sense, we can say that yoga merges with religion. And in fact it’s been that way since the beginning, because the root of ‘yoga,’ which means ‘connection,’ carries the same meaning as the Latin words ‘religare’ or ‘religion,’ that is, a person who goes the way of yoga communicates with God.”
—The words that allegedly triggered the police to arrest Dmitry Ugai while he was giving a lecture on the history and philosophy of yoga.

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Driving Down Russia's Spine

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. 
Woe From Wit (bilingual)

Woe From Wit (bilingual)

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The Little Golden Calf

The Little Golden Calf

Our edition of The Little Golden Calf, one of the greatest Russian satires ever, is the first new translation of this classic novel in nearly fifty years. It is also the first unabridged, uncensored English translation ever, and is 100% true to the original 1931 serial publication in the Russian journal 30 Dnei. Anne O. Fisher’s translation is copiously annotated, and includes an introduction by Alexandra Ilf, the daughter of one of the book’s two co-authors.
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.
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.
Murder at the Dacha

Murder at the Dacha

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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.
Survival Russian

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.
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.

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