Dubbed the “Mother Teresa of Dagestan,” Aishat Magomedova wanted something very simple: to give the women of Dagestan access to quality health care. Apparently, she did too good a job.

In a remote corner of Siberia, the last of a family of Old Believers lives her life in a state of time out of time. With a little help from some friends.

“If you had a fight with your wife, then you should ask for forgiveness like this: 'Darling, please forgive me for asking you to marry me….' There is a real chance that suddenly your wife will smile and forgive you. True, wives are unpredictable in their grievances—you can die from violence.”

– A Russian priest's "life hack" for marital struggles.

Religious or not, January 19th marks the day in which thousands of Russians dunk themselves in freezing waters for the annual Epiphany swim.

A high-school biology teacher wasn't expecting officials of the Russian Orthodox Church to be so vocal about a recent lesson.

August 27, 1698, was a day of historic importance for the grooming of the Russian male. It was then that Tsar Peter I (known to history as “the Great”), armed himself with scissors and undertook to mercilessly clip beards from the faces of summoned noblemen and boyars.

When they turn the electricity off in the village, everybody promptly shows up at Granny Shura’s.

Dostoyevsky’s chance visit to a museum led to a chilling, life-changing encounter with an artist long dead, but whose work was very much alive. It would make an appearance in the writer’s next novel. 

"We did not have a fox in the monastery, definitely not ours, but it’s probably someone’s pet. They write that someone [at the monastery] was scared, but the fox was the most scared of all – a hundred people chased after her with their phones;  she is the main victim.”

– A resident of the Srtensky Monastery in Moscow denied that a young fox accused of terrorizing parishioners had come from the premises.

In which a Russian priest becomes a hockey referee and begins to transform the sport. 

KHL-winning former NHL coach goes all in on Russia, Russia's top communist goes all in on religion, and fines for peeing on Russia.

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