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“Lids are very relevant seasonal paraphernalia for many. Everyone accepted the gifts, even adherents of other political views.”

– Local news from gorbatka.ru, on United Russia’s election campaign strategy.

You’ve not been fishing until you have explored the Volga River delta. And what better guide to take us there than the intrepid Andrei Borodulin?

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.

Pressure on independent journalism, champagne importers, and some Olympics and architectural news.

In which our language insert looks at Russian words with German roots.

There’s no doing without hay in the village. The cows eat it, and the sheep, and the hens need loads of it for their nests. And it comes in handy for people too, when they stuff their mattresses with it and lie on them forevermore, because the scent is just marvelous.

In which we visit a rather unique store in the Karelian village of Vedlozero. Which of course is far more than a store.

Sometimes the most incredible things can be hidden in plain sight. In this case, a main thoroughfare in the capital.

A crumble cake in Russia is something like banana bread in the US – the varieties are endless, and every avid baker has her “grandmother’s recipe” in their repertoire.

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

The progenitor of Russian Life got its start 65 years ago this fall. We talk to one of its famous early editors about what it was like to write about Russia for the world in that era.

Listening to the intensely chromatic compositions of Sofia Gubaidulina can be challenging. You wouldn’t put her music on to relax or to be energized. As with any avant-garde work, taking it in can feel like work.