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In The Weekly Russia File for March 31: some terrible chess puns, and how to stop traffic.

What does it look like when a whole town empties out and there’s nothing but a few decaying buildings to prove anyone lived there at all?

Ekaterina Klyueva takes us to the capital, the center of empire, a city everyone knows but no one every sees in full: Moscow!

St. Petersburg (or Leningrad) has always occupied a special place in the world of Russian music. Famous for its rich classical traditions, especially at the Mariinsky Theater, in the second part of the twentieth century St. Petersburg became the epicenter of underground and experimental music.

A church’s domes caving into the altar. A transgender couple finagles a wedding. A hospital patient shares a room with a corpse. Just another TWERF.

Ivan Mikhailov takes us deep into the heart of Chuvashia and its capital city of Cheboksary.

Two writers, two different centuries, one number in common. Actually, Yuri Olesha and Nikolai Gogol have more in common than you think!

Writer and commissar Dmitry Furmanov died 90 years ago. If you don’t recognize his name, it may be because he’s better known for his character Vasily Ivanovich Chapayev, a Red Army commander who achieved victory via potatoes. 

Alexander Solo is documenting "monotowns" in Russia. He shows us a couple in Leningrad Region, where he lives.

The Great Lent is forty days when the Church is involved in repentance, fasting, prayer and almsgiving.

Russia's Maslenitsa week has begun! So what's it all about?

We know comparatively little about the relationship between Akhmatova and Modigliani, but sometimes a few pictures can speak volumes. In honor of Anna Akhmatova's birthday (June 11, old style; June 23 new style), we reprint this essay, originally published in Russian Life, Jan/Feb 2011.