Culture & Customs

In this week's Odder News, Etsy is a threat, a reindeer tries to race a Russian train, and "The Nutcracker" is much harder to see in Russia than in the U.S.

In an unusual turn of events, students in Chelyabinsk protest for more snow in the upcoming year.

A Krasnodar man, sentenced to serve time for theft, marked his release by doing what he does best.

Winter is here, and ice swimmers are diving in across Russia.

Good news for anyone with a solid right hook! The Russian Ministry of Sports has deemed fist fighting as an official sport. 

In this week's Odder News, a Russian dog gets its paws, a museum exhibit brings joy, and spy rocks are on the move.

"Let's revive the Soviet school of education. It was the best in the world, everyone has always recognized this, and this is what our legislative proposals should be aimed at. After all, the Unified State Exam is just some kind of torture for young people."

–  Chairman of Russia’s Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin, reminiscing about how the Soviet system of education really made the grade.

Russian national energy company Rosneft has begun a project to create a database of genomes of Russians, which is definitely something a state-held corporation should be doing.

In which we learn about the strong-willed and brilliant Anna Dostoyevskaya, the wife of Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

In this week's Odder News, good luck finding your bus, good luck getting your caviar order, and the cosmos is about to get boring.

"They are waiting for conversations from us, but not concrete actions.”

– Andrei Alekseenko, the new mayor of Krasnodar, seems to have confused the demands of his citizens.

A robotic turtle with spider-like abilities could be Russia’s next crowd control.