The first months of 1920 was a dark time in Russia. The Civil War was grinding to its grim conclusion and intellectuals were in the crosshairs.

After being made redundant as a lighthouse keeper on a remote White Sea island, Lyudmila has taken it upon herself to defend her dying village from government indifference.

Russia is a little out of touch with reality this week: gates lead to nowhere, cows get VR, and bankers think the economy is like Harry Potter.

Can samogon predict recessions? Can a balloon seduce Elon Musk? And can Putin grow babies in labs? Find out this and more in this week’s TWERF.

Some off-the-cuff dacha recipes for you (summer seems like too relaxed a time for exacting recipes).

The features in this issue have something in common. And it's not necessarily what you might expect.

Other assorted items from around the Russian world.

"A classical authoritarian power... does not pay that much attention to what the population thinks, and when it does, this attention is usually limited to a bunch of platitudes loudly proclaimed as the official ideology..."

Russian officials participating in the subbotnik spring cleaning take a page from Lenin's book (the one about propaganda).

Russia's Central Bank believes people's financial illiteracy and economic troubles stem from bad messaging in Russian folk tales. Could it be true?

How salt riots and a young tsar led to a Zemsky Sobor and a new body of laws, The Council Code.

Stats on HIV, salaries, doing business, death from bad eating habits, and more.