Letters

We have received many letters and phone calls about the magazine since we restarted it in a new way this summer. As expected, there has been both support and denigration. That’s just the business we are in. Keep your opinions coming about all we are doing. All feedback is important to us. All letters will be checked for authenticity, but published here without attribution, in keeping with our aim to keep all parties and contributors safe in these very harrowing times.

  I just received and perused your reconstituted Russian Life, and I am so thankful for and moved by what you are doing. You are providing such an immense service for the world and for world peace. I had no idea what to expect and found myself so moved, particularly by first-person statements of those who are staying in Russia. You give voice to the otherwise often voiceless.

You are providing a wonderful, valuable, moving - and safe - voice for all of us. Making every contribution anonymous is an effective method for continuing to publish great pieces while safeguarding authors.

Please also make my (and others’) letters anonymous as well – like many, I have a valid reason not to publish my name.

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What a total disappointment your magazine has become.

As a third-generation, Russian-American subscriber for probably more than 15 years, begun when my father gave me a gift subscription, I had truly enjoyed your detailed, interesting, varied stories about a country I care deeply about. I had over the years gifted your magazine as a subscription to many friends, hoping to increase awareness, understanding, and real friendship between our countries.

Your recent issues since February 2022 are so incredibly off base and you are now simply another piece of the overwhelming U.S. MIC, Defense Department, CIA propaganda machine. You are apparently right on board with the total Psy-Op story of what you call "Russian aggression" with absolutely no context, no prior history, no mention of the major issues that were apparent for many, many years prior to this event….

I deplore the loss of innocent lives, on both sides. I deplore the use of Ukrainians, our own near-kin and brothers and sisters, as cannon fodder to implement US and EU objectives, the wholesale slaughter of these people being used to fight a proxy war. I deplore the money laundering grift and the MIC enrichment by the constant sales of arms and weapons, making them rich while innocent people burn, die, and are sacrificed. This will all implode, but not after many, many lives are destroyed, ruined, wasted.

The Matrix is real. I find it very hard to believe that you don’t know the truth – but you obviously just need to keep your bread buttered. More and more people know the truth, except for it seems the media in the US which will not print it or acknowledge it.

Blood is on the hands of every media enterprise that continues to spin this conflict, letting Ukrainians die daily in an aggressive, illegal, proxy war that NEVER should have been provoked, with clear warnings going ignored for years. Propoganda is real, willful ignorance is real, xenophobia, hatred and racism are real – but to see it all coming from a magazine titled Russian Life that I once enjoyed, is devastating.

You should change the magazine’s title to: "Ukrainian Propaganda Life".

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I have subscribed since Soviet Life days. I know that wasn’t you, but still…. I have long been a reader.

I was wondering how things might need to change regarding your editorial stance. Number 608 just arrived and I learn that you’ve taken a stand. Suddenly you have a Mission.

I am surprised and proud of you. Likely you will experience an increase in interest and respect for your publication.

Be careful and remember your worth to the world in these times.

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I recently received in the mail the summer issue of Russian Life magazine.

After going through that particular issue I found myself to be very disappointed with the magazine. It definitely is not like the past issues which were so informative about life in Russia. I understand that there is unfortunately a war going on in Eastern Europe and obviously the editors of Russian Life can’t act as if nothing is going on and everything is just fine in that part of the world. But I fear that Russian Life is increasingly reducing itself into nothing more than a magazine that is geared towards political activism in Russia rather than explaining in a unbiased way what is going on in Russia.

I have always believed that there are two sides of a story and that there are shades of grey in a quite a number of situations. Journalism today in the West falls increasingly short of realizing and acknowledging that. Those of us who live in the west such as myself are definitely the losers for it. With that said i do not wish to subscribe to Russian Life magazine any longer and am canceling my subscription effective today.

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Thank you for picking up the mantle and having the courage, vision and direction to publish Russian Life again ("aspirational title"!).

I’ve been reading Russian Life occasionally from copies from my friend G–, now in her 90th year, over the years.   Finally, a year or so ago, I admitted I’m a life-long Russophile and began getting the paper-edition, which has always occupied a very specific and unexpectedly dear spot in the world of magazines.   And then the Feb 24 war.

I think your new edition is "Day one for post Ukraine war Russophiles."  At least I will call it so.   I’m glad you didn’t give up.   Many of us Russophiles, with interesting disparate stories of why we read you have been angry, depressed, despondent, empowered, perhaps slightly hopeful since Feb 24. I sense in the new magazine that you are too – and salute you for it.

What did you write in these pages?   Love will triumph over evil, or good will triumph.  We can’t individually all explain it, but much of the US, much of the world, even, I think, much of Russia knows that the terrible Pandora’s box opened by the Kremlin must lead to something other than what we have now.  It has moved all of us.  By reporting ‘behind the lines’, you show us even those Russians on the street in YouTube "1411" interview videos who so maddeningly say "I’m apolitical" have other voices.

Please keep up the great work.

What can we each do?  I think you’re on the track to answering this for your staff and we are all trying to help, to pray, to help, to effect goodness and retribution in equal measure.