According to an Udege proverb, “If you see a tiger for one second, he has been watching you for an hour.” And what happens if one unwittingly unleashes a tiger’s bad side? You must, the Udege believe, hunt down and kill the tiger – not an easy thing.

We asked Ivan Kobilyakov, whose story on filming wild wolves in Putorana appeared in the Sep/Oct 2014 issue of Russian Life, to give us an update on the project and how filming has gone this summer. He also supplied new photos.

Three documentarians traveled to one of Russia‘s most pristine, remote locations to film wolves that have never before had contact with humans. We tag along.

After a deadly tsunami hit Japan in 2011, followed by the nuclear tragedy in Fukushima, the port of Vladivostok received a number of radioactive cars. Two years later, radioactive car parts are still arriving in Russia. Outrageously, Russian customs authorities have had to detain and send back to Japan over 930 radioactive cars since 2011.

On the world's worst nuclear disaster prior to Chernobyl, when, in 1957, nuclear waste exploded at the Mayak plant in Ozyorsk. The damage has yet to be fully recognized or accepted.

Too often the news we gather from the mainstream media about Russia is bad news, and the humor is rather acerbic and based on dark stereotypes. So it is refreshing when we receive a bit of unqualified good news, about average people doing the hard work it takes to keep a society, and our world, spinning on its axis. 

Sometimes it can be hard to get at the facts. And given that the western media went way down the wrong road on the recent Georgian crisis, one is inclined to be skeptical of coverage on the current Russia-Ukraine gas spat. 

A massive landslide destroys the Valley of the Geysers on June 4, 2007.

Just how important is Russia in the world?

Check current conditions and forecasts for several Russian cities.

RIS Publications, the publisher of Russian Life magazine, was founded in 1990 on the principle that paying attention to international issues matters. While U.S.-Russian relations and the history and society of the world’s largest country are important, there is no larger international issue than the health of this planet.