April 06, 2017

The bad, the sad, and the ice laser


The bad, the sad, and the ice laser

It's a rough week for news. And ice.

1. Russia is still reeling after Monday’s tragic explosion on the St. Petersburg metro. To honor the victims of the attack, St. Petersburg officials have declared three days of mourning, during which entertainment events have been canceled and many have placed flowers at the Technological Institute metro station. Officials are also organizing mass anti-terror demonstrations. 

2. A report claims that over 100 men suspected of being gay have been detained in Chechnya in recent weeks, and at least three are now dead. Chechen officials have not condemned these likely “honor killings” of gay people, who are not tolerated in the conservative region; Kheda Saratova, a member of Chechnya’s Human Rights Council, expressed sympathy for families who would commit such an act, though she later said that her statements had been taken out of context. What will happen to the detained men is not yet known.

3. A laser that can cut through ice will help ships navigate Arctic waters all year long. It may sound like sci-fi, but the laser is able to focus on stress cracks in large ice floes and break them down with a focused ray of heat. When mounted on a ship, the device will enable travel through waters that are normally inaccessible, creating opportunities for trade and navigation. Testing is slated to take place in the Arkhangelsk region late in 2017.

In Odder News

  • Like Russian literature? Like kitties, horsies, and puppy dogs? Now’s your chance to learn about Russian authors and their favorite pets.
rbth.com
  • A quarter of Russians believe the sun circles the Earth, a sociological study reveals. On the bright side – or is it the dark side? – astronomy classes are to return to Russian classrooms.
  • How about a near-death experience with that chewing gum? Packs of gum with “truth or dare” stunts written on the wrappers are surrounded by a bubble of controversy.

RosKultObit 
Russian Cultural Obituary

Yevgeny Yevtushenko, versatile poet of Soviet dissident fame, died last weekend at age 83. Yevtushenko – also a novelist, dramatist, actor, and screenwriter – was particularly known for his poems about humanity and justice in the 1960s and ‘70s. One of his most famous is “Babi Yar,” which laments both the Nazis’ brutal massacre of Jews and history’s failure to remember the tragedy. With over 150 poetry collections and a Nobel Prize nomination under his belt, he will be remembered as one of the Soviet Union’s finest poets.

Quote of the Week

    “You can't detain and harass someone who doesn't exist in [this] republic. If there were such people in the Chechen republic, law enforcement wouldn't have a problem with them because their relatives would send them to a place of no return.”
    —Alvi Karimov, spokesman for the Chechen government, denying the allegations of honor killings of gay men in Chechnya based on the assertion that there are no gay men in Chechnya.

    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.

    Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

    Some of Our Books

    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.
    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.
    Chekhov Bilingual

    Chekhov Bilingual

    Some of Chekhov's most beloved stories, with English and accented Russian on facing pages throughout. 
    Jews in Service to the Tsar

    Jews in Service to the Tsar

    Benjamin Disraeli advised, “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” With Jews in Service to the Tsar, Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe’s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history.
    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.
    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.
    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. 
    Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

    Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

    In this comprehensive, quixotic and addictive book, Edwin Trommelen explores all facets of the Russian obsession with vodka. Peering chiefly through the lenses of history and literature, Trommelen offers up an appropriately complex, rich and bittersweet portrait, based on great respect for Russian culture.
    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.
    Okudzhava Bilingual

    Okudzhava Bilingual

    Poems, songs and autobiographical sketches by Bulat Okudzhava, the king of the Russian bards. 

    About Us

    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.

    Latest Posts

    Our Contacts

    Russian Life
    73 Main Street, Suite 402
    Montpelier VT 05602

    802-223-4955