Safe Conduct Before committing himself to poetry, Pasternak considered pursuing a career in music. In these early chapters from his memoir he recounts his early fascination with music and his relationship with the composer Alexander Scriabin. Memoir
Notes Upon Russia First published in 1549, von Herberstein’s account of Moscow (and Russia more generally) was the main early European source of information on Russia in the sixteenth century. Memoir
Moscow Believes It's harder, and easier, than one might think to put together an issue of Chtenia devoted to Moscow. Literature
Photography Dmitry Zverev's black and white photos in this issue capture the sense of the capital as a small village, a humming metropolis, a place of solitude amid chaos... Photography
Rothschild's Fiddle In this, one of Chekhov's last stories, a man nears the end of his life and finds that music is one of the few things that has ever given him comfort. And he uses it to make amends. Music
Music In this short story, Nabokov’s protagonist, Victor, encounters his ex-wife at a concert. Despite his proclamation that he has “no ear for music,” the experience awakens profound memories and feelings in him, as the music acts a shield from the chaos of the everyday world. Music
The Sixth Night This selection is taken from Russian Nights (1844), a novel by Odoyevsky that probes a great number of topics, genres, and philosophical questions. Odoyevsky was a talented music critic in his own right and a huge proponent of the works of Mikhail Glinka. Music
Tolstoy Bilingual This compact, yet surprisingly broad look at the life and work of Tolstoy spans from one of his earliest stories to one of his last, looking at works that made him famous and others that made him notorious. Bilingual Books Fiction Language Learning
Chulpan Khamatova, actor There are some actors who symbolize Russia’s new generation, the new times. Rising star Chulpan Khamatova (her Tatar first name translates at “morning star”) has been one of those actors since the mid-1990s. 100 Young Russians
Sculpture, Painting and Music Written in 1834 and published the next year in Gogol’s collection of essays Arabesques, this brief statement compares and ranks the three titular arts. Curiously, Gogol pays little attention to verbal art, focusing instead on the transcendent qualities he sees in music. Art
Zhanna Semenova, neurosurgeon Pediatric neurosurgeon Zhanna Semenova was born in the tiny mountain republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, home to the towering Mount Elbrus (5,642 meters)—a mountain which could well be a symbol of the heights which Semenova has scaled in her career. 100 Young Russians
