Every authoritarian falls. It is only a question of when.

Resistance in Russia is real, if not immediately apparent.

A lot depends on the stories we tell during this dark age.

Expressing our thanks and optimism amid war, floods, and publishing challenges.

We must grapple with some difficult contradictions.

How, in the late nineteenth century Russia flipped from being a valued ally to a loathed regime.

We are all daily shaken and unsettled by the fire hose of bad news from Russia and Ukraine, and we all would love “something good, loving, and light from Russia to counterbalance the darkness, the senseless brutality, and the horrors perpetrated by Russian hands in Ukraine.”

We are resuming publication of Russian Life, aiming to once again tell stories about Russia that are not being told elsewhere, but now with a new sense of purpose.

Anyone who has experienced an unpleasant neighbor has likely faced the
problem of what to do about their children.

The history of Russia since 2008 has been to repeatedly lop off appendages – nose, ears, digits – to spite itself. Obsessed by erroneous threats, it has invaded its neighbors, quashed all democratic activity, rigged votes, interfered in foreign elections, harbored and/or enabled international cybercrime… and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

In which we say goodbye to a longtime editor and look toward the future by looking back.

It takes something special in a human being to create a thing from scratch, to see a slab of stone and carve it into a sculpture, to see an empty storefront and turn it into a store, to sketch out a multistory building on paper and then shepherd it into existence in the real world.