Religious or not, January 19th marks the day in which thousands of Russians dunk themselves in freezing waters for the annual Epiphany swim.

A high-school biology teacher wasn't expecting officials of the Russian Orthodox Church to be so vocal about a recent lesson.

August 27, 1698, was a day of historic importance for the grooming of the Russian male. It was then that Tsar Peter I (known to history as “the Great”), armed himself with scissors and undertook to mercilessly clip beards from the faces of summoned noblemen and boyars.

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

Dostoyevsky’s chance visit to a museum led to a chilling, life-changing encounter with an artist long dead, but whose work was very much alive. It would make an appearance in the writer’s next novel. 

"We did not have a fox in the monastery, definitely not ours, but it’s probably someone’s pet. They write that someone [at the monastery] was scared, but the fox was the most scared of all – a hundred people chased after her with their phones;  she is the main victim.”

– A resident of the Srtensky Monastery in Moscow denied that a young fox accused of terrorizing parishioners had come from the premises.

In which a Russian priest becomes a hockey referee and begins to transform the sport. 

KHL-winning former NHL coach goes all in on Russia, Russia's top communist goes all in on religion, and fines for peeing on Russia.

Two books reviewed: one on the origin of two perfumeries, another that is a memoir of an archpriest.

A Russian woman is suing McDonald's for producing advertising so effective she gave up on Lent.

A court case in the city of Perm unveils a story combining three quintessentially Soviet things: bathhouses, religious oppression, and an (extremely) intrusive surveillance state.

Emptying out apartments, but keeping hearts full— this is how some Muscovites are giving back in anticipation of Easter.