July 01, 2013 Lenin's London Party In 1903, unnoticed by few, a little group of radicals had a meeting in London that was to alter the face of the 20th century. History
July 01, 2013 The Show Must Go On In July 2003, the Krylya (Wings) Rock Festival was held for the fourth time at the Tushino Airfield outside Moscow. History
May 01, 2013 The Kauai Gambit In the early 1800s, while Napoleon raged in Europe, a German doctor and a local chieftan hatched an audacious plan: claim the Hawaiian islands for Russia. History
May 01, 2013 Romanov Twilight A look back 100 years ago, at the celebrations of the 300th anniversary of Romanov rule. Few would have guessed from these celebrations, that the tsar had just four years to rule. History
March 04, 2013 1983: The Scariest Year Ambassador Jack Matlock had a front row seat for the final days of the US-Soviet Cold War and the collapse of the USSR. While working on his article, 1983: The Scariest Year (Mar/Apr 2013), Russian Life Publisher Paul Richardson conducted an email interview with Matlock, which is produced here in its entirety. History Int'l Relations Russia File
March 01, 2013 Sophia Paleologue History offered Zoe Paleologue little hope. Her homeland overrun, her royal pedigree in tatters... And then the Tsar of all the Russias needed a new wife... History
March 01, 2013 Death of a Tyrant Sixty years ago Stalin died and the Soviet Union was in collective shock. So much has been written about this event that we decided to take a different tack, offering a selection of first person accounts from that time. History
March 01, 2013 Translator Update #4: A Grubby Job Whenever I read about Constance Garnett, doyenne of Russian-to-English literary translation, sitting in the garden and banging out her work with scarcely a break for reflection (“She would finish a page,” D.H. Lawrence tells us, “and throw it off on a pile on the floor without looking up...”), I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. History Literature
January 01, 2013 The News that Peter Saw Fit to Print In 1703 Peter the Great founded the first Russian newspaper. This is what it looked like and what it covered. History
November 01, 2012 Lev Gumilev By any measure, the son of Anna Akhmatova and Nikolai Gumilev lived a life that was very full. Born 100 years ago this fall, this is his amazing story. History
October 24, 2012 The Nature of Dissent How should we understand current political dissent in Russia? Russian Life publisher Paul Richardson met with long-time Soviet/Russian political dissident Alexander Skobov to get his views on what is going on in Russia and where things are headed. History Politics Russia File
September 14, 2012 Moscow's Last Great Fire Moscow's last Great Fire was 200 years ago, on September 14, 1812, in the wake of the Russian army's abandonment of Moscow. Debate continues to rage if the fire was accidental or set intentionally by retreating troops. And a misunderstanding of the scope of the fire's destruction hampers preservation efforts to this day. History Russia File