August 10, 2020 From Poetry to Song: A Russian Poet's Work Makes a Debut By Griffin Edwards How the work of one of Soviet Russia's greatest poets found new life through modern music. Culture Literature Media Music Women
August 05, 2020 The West's Holodomor Unmasker By Margaret Godwin-Jones A street in Kyiv is being renamed in honor of a journalist who helped expose Soviet Ukraine’s deathly famine. Culture Film & TV News Russia File
July 21, 2020 Exploring Russian Museums ~ Virtually By Margaret Godwin-Jones When you can't go to the museum, the museum comes to you! Art Culture
July 09, 2020 Priest Gone Wild By Griffin Edwards Ultra-conservative Russian Orthodox priest Father Sergei has had quite the summer. Cities & Towns Culture Politics Religion Russia File
July 07, 2020 Chinese Artist's Gift to the Hermitage By Margaret Godwin-Jones A famous Chinese artist was so inspired by his visit to the Hermitage, that he created a whole exhibit. Art Culture Russia File
July 01, 2020 The Thimble By Darya Grebenshchikova A woman returns to the village of her birth and an unlikely and fateful connection ensues. Culture Humor Rural Life
July 01, 2020 Dacha Life By Tamara Eidelman A look at the history and cultural influence of dachas. Culture History Rural Life
June 26, 2020 Ny Pogodi's Modern Reboot By Margaret Godwin-Jones The reboot of a classic Russian cartoon features some modern updates. Animals Culture Film & TV Russia File
June 24, 2020 Eurovision Revisited By The Editors “It's nice to receive such news from Europe!” - Ukrainian singer Ani Lorak on winning the revote for Eurovision 2008 Culture Music Quote
June 22, 2020 VKontakte's Virtual Exhibit By Margaret Godwin-Jones VKontakte has partnered with a modern art museum to allow amateur artists to submit items for a virtual exhibit. Art Culture Russia File
June 12, 2020 Watch Teaser for "We" By Margaret Godwin-Jones Yevgeny Zamyatin’s famous book is being made into a movie. Here's the trailer. Culture Film & TV Russia File
June 03, 2020 Celebrating Russia's Graduates By Margaret Godwin-Jones If you think American high school graduations have fanfare, wait till you see what Russians in St. Petersburg do. Culture Education Holidays St. Petersburg
April 29, 2021 to April 29, 2021 Communism Through the Lens: Everyday Life Captured by Women Photographers Zimmerli Museum | New Brunswick, NJ The exhibition Communism Through the Lens: Everyday Life Captured by Women Photographers in the Dodge Collection highlights the unique – and often overlooked – photographic innovations by women who shaped the history of photography during the 20th century. Art Exhibit
May 02, 2021 to May 02, 2021 Three Sisters Live Stream Performance Online - Pushkin House | London, Anton Chekhov's The Three Sisters probes the lives and dreams of Olga, Masha, and Irina, former Muscovites now living in a provincial town from which they're desperate to escape. In this powerful play, a landmark of modern drama, Chekhov masterfully interweaves character and theme in subtle ways that make the work's climax seem as inevitable as it is deeply moving. Theater
May 01, 2021 to May 31, 2021 20th Annual Russian Arts and Culture Festival Virtual | N/A, N/A The City of West Hollywood administration invites everyone to join a virtual celebration of Russian Arts and Culture this May. An array of musical events, activities for kids, workshops, virtual tours, concerts, contests, interviews with interesting people, and much more will comprise a month-long celebration. The program of our events will be published on the website of the festival and in the Facebook group. Festival
The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas This exciting new trilogy by a Russian author – who has been compared to Orhan Pamuk and Umberto Eco – vividly recreates a lost world, yet its passions and characters are entirely relevant to the present day. Full of mystery, memorable characters, and non-stop adventure, The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas is a must read for lovers of historical fiction and international thrillers.
Murder and the Muse KGB Chief Andropov has tapped Matyushkin to solve a brazen jewel heist from Picasso’s wife at the posh Metropole Hotel. But when the case bleeds over into murder, machinations, and international intrigue, not everyone is eager to see where the clues might lead.
22 Russian Crosswords Test your knowledge of the Russian language, Russian history and society with these 22 challenging puzzles taken from the pages of Russian Life magazine. Most all the clues are in English, but you must fill in the answers in Russian. If you get stumped, of course all the puzzles have answers printed at the back of the book.
The Best of Russian Life We culled through 15 years of Russian Life to select readers’ and editors’ favorite stories and biographies for inclusion in a special two-volume collection. Totalling over 1100 pages, these two volumes encompass some of the best writing we have published over the last two decades, and include the most timeless stories and biographies – those that can be read again and again.
The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar The fables of Ivan Krylov are rich fonts of Russian cultural wisdom and experience – reading and understanding them is vital to grasping the Russian worldview. This new edition of 62 of Krylov’s tales presents them side-by-side in English and Russian. The wonderfully lyrical translations by Lydia Razran Stone are accompanied by original, whimsical color illustrations by Katya Korobkina.
Jews in Service to the Tsar Benjamin Disraeli advised, “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” With Jews in Service to the Tsar, Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe’s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history.
East of the Sun: The Epic Conquest and Tragic History of Siberia The very word Siberia evokes a history and reputation as awesome as it is enthralling. In this acclaimed book on Russia’s conquest of its eastern realms, Benson Bobrick offers a story that is both rich and subtle, broad and deep.
Resilience ~ The Russian Version (Переживем) Call it resilience, grit, or just perseverance – it takes a special sort of person to have survived the last 100 years of Russian and Soviet history.
The Little Humpbacked Horse A beloved Russian classic about a resourceful Russian peasant, Vanya, and his miracle-working horse, who together undergo various trials, exploits and adventures at the whim of a laughable tsar, told in rich, narrative poetry.
301 Things Everyone Should Know About Russia How do you begin to get a handle on the world's largest country? This colorful, illustrated guide will get you started...
Bears in the Caviar Bears in the Caviar is a hilarious and insightful memoir by a diplomat who was “present at the creation” of US-Soviet relations. Charles Thayer headed off to Russia in 1933, calculating that if he could just learn Russian and be on the spot when the US and USSR established relations, he could make himself indispensable and start a career in the foreign service. Remarkably, he pulled it of.
Marooned in Moscow This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.
August 22, 2020 Sad Smiles and Kremlin Corruption By Paul E. Richardson Recounting a 2008 meeting with activist Alexei Navalny, before he rose to prominence. Government Politics
January 10, 2014 Why Don't Russians Smile? By The Editors It is a common trope that Russians never smile. Which of course is interpreted to mean they are unfriendly, gloomy, sullen – positively Dostoyevskian. This, of course, is a complete misreading of body language and cultural norms. Culture Humor Language
April 23, 2014 Peace, Land, Bread By Eugenia Sokolskaya Peace! Land! Bread! This was the battle cry of the 1917 October Revolution (old calendar) that changed the history of Russia and indeed the entire world. Since the time of Ivan the Terrible, the tsars concentrated on centralization of their power and control. The most common way of doing this was to take power away from the nobility, appeasing them by giving them dominion over their land and workers. This soon developed into the oppressive, slave-style condition known as serfdom. History
November 01, 2020 Tsarina: In the Winter Palace By Ellen Alpsten Catherine I finds herself at a turning point upon the death of her husband, Peter the Great. History Literature
June 22, 2020 Why Invading Russia was Hitler's Downfall By Alice E.M. Underwood June 22, 2020, marks the 79th anniversary of Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of Russia that changed the course of WWII and, perhaps, history itself. History Social Issues War
September 14, 2019 Eight Russian Desserts To Make Your Mouth Water By Tiffany Zhu Forget vodka – dessert is the best part of Russian meals. Culture Food & Drink
