Letters to the Editor

To the Editors:

Thank you for pointing out [John] Kerry’s Russia gaffe. [Editor’s Letter, Nov/Dec 2004 issue.]

I almost choked watching the debate when he said that! I think I’m the only one who noticed! I am a graduate student in the School of Public and International Affairs, so I am surrounded by people who are very closely following the election events, and NO ONE else caught it - I thought maybe I was going insane!

I immediately emailed johnkerry.com to inform him of his egregious error. (I’m sure he’ll never see the email; probably it was read by some intern.)

As for Bush, he obviously doesn’t understand Russian diminuitives. Do you remember the episode last year, around this time, when he referred to Vladimir Putin and Igor Ivanov as “Iggy and Pooty-Poot?” Ugh.

Keep up the good work! I’m a new subscriber this year, and I’m really enjoying what I’ve seen so far...

Sarah Y. Patrick

Pittsburgh, PA

To the Editors:

Good Morning, from one of your far-flung readers in Sydney, Australia... I’ve just read in the Nov/Dec issue of Russian Life’s “overheard” column about the richest archives of the Russian first wave of emigration being sent from the US to Russia.

As the son of one of these first wave emigrants to the US, I naturally am intrigued by what these archives might contain. Many of us know little about the background of our parents since many avoided questions about the past.

Would these archives – where they have been... what they contain... where they will be going... and whether interested people can get access to them... not be an excellent subject for a story to appear in a future edition of Russian Life? Since these documents/materials may soon be moving out of the US, there might be some urgency in assigning the story to one of your writers.

I enjoy reading your magazine – keep up the good work.

Sincerely,

Dan Young

Crows Nest, Australia

Dan,

Thank you for your note. And yes, we admit that we were a bit curious about this claim (by Vladimir Kozlov, head of the Russian Federal Archive Agency).

We researched this, and it is a very interesting situation. While Kozlov does not name the archive from which the “five tons” of material will come, well-placed sources tell us that it is The Museum of Russian Culture, in San Francisco. Given the rather unimpressive state of most Russian State Archive facilities, it is surprising that the Museum would make this move, instead of bequeathing the documents and materials to a more accessible archive, such as that at Stanford’s Hoover Institution or Harvard University.

In fact, Hoover has catalogued and microfilmed much of the Museum’s holdings, but that is never the same as the real thing. You can investigate some of Hoover’s holdings on their website: www.hoover.org

– The Editors