Performance art, adventure, and psychedelia in a Russian village. What more could you want?

In this week's Odder News: under-the-radar pets, dangerous tomfoolery, and a pregnant lady's trek through the mountains.

One of the earliest residents of Anchorage, Alaska, was a Russian guy with a larger-than-life personality.

When a general retires, a village can be in real danger. Because a general cannot ever really retire, and he may or may not have the sort of useful skills that the local folk require.

A challenge to collect the most pinecones turns out to be about more than just the competition itself. 

In which, after not a small bureaucratic scuffle, a thirteen-year-old boy receives the gift from Putin that we all are really hoping for this Christmas: a brand new cow. 

A clever hunter made a move to pluck himself out of an unbearable fate nearly a month ago. This week, his friend explained how he managed to help.
 

In which a runaway pair of labradors prove that puppy love is real. 

Despite how weird it looks, birchpunk is a fun and talented hip hop group asking important moral questions.

As if COVID hadn't forced enough kids to learn from home, the prospect of wolf attacks are doing the same thing in the Ugra region.

When they turn the electricity off in the village, everybody promptly shows up at Granny Shura’s.

If, for some reason, you ever find yourself in the small town of Staraya Russa, be sure to check out Dostoyevsky's summer house.