Continuing scandal, new demonstrations, a sesquicentenial and a linguistic smackdown. Just another week here at TWERF.

The northwestern tip of Russia is one of the finest places from which to view the elusive Northern Lights. If you can handle the cold, the dark, and the visiting Muscovites.

Editor Maria Antonova headed off to the mountains of the Altai to learn about a project that monitors rare snow leopards. We get to tag along.

In which we follow scientists to the middle of Russian nowhere (so remote, rivers and valleys are unnamed), as they track the elusive and very rare Putorana snow sheep.

Alexander Gaivoron and his wife Anastasia took their pre-wedding honeymoon on Kamchatka, land of bears and volcanoes. And they invite us along!

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.