Peter Aleshkovsky, a long-time friend to this magazine (two of his novels have been published by Russian Life Books), in December won Rusia’s most prestigious literary prize, the Russian Booker, for his latest novel, Крепость (The Fortress). Aleshkovsky had previously been short-listed for the prize three times. The Fortress tells of an archaeologist working on a book about the Golden Horde, who dreams at night of being a Mongol warrior.
Holocaust-themed performance raises eyebrows
Russia’s primetime ice-dancing show sparked international controversy when skater Tatyana Navka, who happens to be married to Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, performed a Holocaust-themed number with actor Andrei Burkovsky.
The show Ice Age, which pairs athletes with film stars for training and performance, aired them dancing in striped concentration camp costumes with yellow stars on their breasts. The performance was said to be inspired by the film Life is Beautiful, where a father pretends for the sake of his son that their concentration camp experience is just a game.
The pair dances on ice, smiling and making faces at an imaginary child, and the number ends with the sound of gunfire.
The performance – already watched hundreds of thousands of times on YouTube (bit.ly/navka-on-ice) – was blasted by many as tone-deaf. Some said it was inappropriate to make the Holocaust the subject of an entertainment program. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz called it “Holocaust on Ice,” while US comedian Sarah Silverman reacted with “Oh my God Oh my God oh my God,” and comments on the YouTube page have ranged from “good idea” to “When are we going to get a Holodomor on Ice?”
“I don’t understand what disappointed people,” Navka later told the Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid. “Then let’s forbid the making films about wars or other topics that stir emotions… but then how would our children find out what really happened?”
When a name is more than a name
In its own version of America’s 2003 “freedom fries” phenomenon (stripping the word “French” from certain names after France refused to take part in the Iraq invasion), Russian cafes have started renaming Americano coffee “Russiano.”
The media-inspired trend began after Russian press outlets reported that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at a meeting with CIS partners that Americano coffee was not politically correct and must be renamed Russiano. It turned out later that the reports were incorrect: the proposal actually came from the prime minister of Armenia.
Nonetheless, details were forgotten as the news spread and the change was swiftly adopted. It is not clear how long the fad will last, but a fast-acting businessman in St. Petersburg has applied to trademark the name.
Russia blocks popular website
Russia’s internet watchdog has ordered the social network LinkedIn to be blocked in the country. It is the first major international social network to be penalized for not meeting Russia’s requirement that Russian users’ personal data be stored on Russian soil.
Internet service providers began to block the site after a Moscow court in November rejected the company’s appeal of an earlier decision that said LinkedIn had broken the 2014 law and had to be added to the blacklist.
About six million Russians are registered users of LinkedIn, a number that pales in comparison with Facebook or Twitter, leading some observers to conclude that the restriction is designed to make a point. The real goal is to get the larger social networks to cave to Russian demands.
Industry experts have said meeting the local storage requirements and building data storage centers in Russia would cost the companies billions of dollars.
Writer’s final resting place found
Activists and historians in St. Petersburg have found the likely location of the grave of Russian absurdist writer Daniil Kharms.
Kharms (real name Daniil Yuvachev) was arrested in 1941 for “spreading defeatist attitudes” during WWII and imprisoned in a psychiatric asylum. He died during the Leningrad Blockade.
The huge death toll from starvation meant that thousands of bodies were buried in mass graves, which is why it took decades to locate Kharms’ grave.
The investigation took two months and was led by Kharms enthusiasts who searched the archives with the aid of professional researchers. They even found a 100-year-old witness who had been serving as a policeman at the time and supervised the digging of graves. The paper trail led to Piskarevsky Cemetery (where bodies from the psychiatric asylum were taken at the time).
US-Russian bout will be refought
Russian boxer Sergey Kovalev awaits an early 2017 rematch against American Andre Ward after a highly-anticipated fight in Las Vegas in November ended with a controversial judges’ decision, handing Ward the win.
The light heavyweight bout between the two boxers was scored 114-113 in favor of Ward, an Oakland, CA native who won gold at the 2004 Olympic Games. Kovalev, an acclaimed fighter from Russia’s Chelyabinsk Province who is known for his KOs (in 2011 a Kovalev knockout resulted in his opponent’s death), said judges sided with Ward because he’s an American fighting on American soil.
Most unofficial scorecards, from ESPN to the Guardian, seemed to agree that Kovalev won the fight. The Russian boxer has since christened Ward the “son of judges” – a play on the US boxer’s nickname “Son of God,” and taunted him via his official social networking page, where he said he was waiting for the opportunity to fight Ward again, and win.
UFO crashes into Russian hood
In January, Russian filmmaker Fyodor Bondarchuk will release an action film in which an alien spaceship crashes in the middle of Moscow’s unassuming Chertanovo neighborhood.
The film, titled Притяжение (Gravity), was kept under wraps for months, and reportedly actors were required to cover their mobile phone cameras with tape and sign non-disclosure agreements.
Trailers suggest that the film is meant to tap into the sort of patriotic fervor evoked by memories of past invasions of Russia by fellow earthlings. Actor Oleg Menshikov plays the lead role of a top military commander charged with containing the catastrophe and figuring out what the aliens want.
The film has a contemporary soundtrack featuring Russian hip-hop artists and cost R380 million (about $6 million) to make.
Workhorse paintings get permanent address
Mark Chagall’s spectacular panneaux created in 1920 for Moscow’s Jewish Theater spent over two decades traveling the world after their successful restoration in 1991. The works helped the Tretyakov Gallery, their legal owner, make it through the 1990s. Proceeds from their loans to foreign museums were used to restore other signature works of art.
Now, as of last year, the seven large paintings have finally been given a permanent home, in Hall Number 9 of the Tretyakov Gallery’s Krymsky Val space for twentieth century art.
The giant paintings, known collectively as “Introduction to the Jewish Theater,” spent the Soviet decades rolled up and in storage (the works were originally taken down during the Soviet leadership’s campaign against “formalism” in art, and the theater was subsequently closed during a different campaign, against “cosmopolitanism”).
When Chagall visited Russia in the 1970s, he was touched to find them intact and signed them for posterity. For better or for worse, the Tretyakov plans to continue loaning the pieces out. Next, they will travel to Montreal, where the Museum of Fine Arts is presenting a Chagall retrospective that opens in January 2017 (see Events Calendar, page 18).
Where Moscow’s wealthiest reside
Moscow’s Stoleshnikov Pereulok, a short pedestrian sidestreet connecting Tverskaya and Petrovka streets that takes its name from the столешник (tablecloth) tradesmen and women who worked here starting in the seventeenth century, has earned the enviable title of Russia’s most expensive street address.
Cushman and Wakefield, a real estate consultant, ranked the most expensive streets for property rentals, with upper 5th Avenue in New York City ending up at the top of the list. Stoleshnikov is number 19 in the world; one square meter rents for about $2,990 per year.
Границы России нигде не заканчиваются
“The borders of Russia never end.”
Vladimir Putin redefines geography while talking to a nine-year-old contestant at a national geography contest. (Rossiiskaya Gazeta)
Когда люди в заботе о животных почти ругаются матом и призывают повесить, распять тех или других, то я, позвольте, сильно не верю
“When people are so concerned about animals that they use language bordering on the obscene and call for the lynching or crucifying of certain people, then I think I have the right to be skeptical.”
Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the Hermitage Museum, on criticism some have made of the museum’s show of contemporary artist Jan Fabre, whose works include stuffed animals. (Echo of Moscow)
Для России унизительно, чтобы нас судили какие-то чудаки в Гааге. Наши предки в гробу бы от этого перевернулись.
“For Russia it is degrading to be judged by some cranks in the Hague. Our ancestors would be turning in their graves.”
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, commenting on Russia’s withdrawal from the International Criminal Court. (Sobyanin’s official Twitter account)
Это бюджет медленного угасания, при таких темпах роста мы будем катастрофически стагнировать.
“This is a slow death budget; growth rates like that will lead to catastrophic stagnation.”
Russian business ombudsman and politician Boris Titov commenting on Russia’s draft budget for 2017. (Vedomosti)
Духовные скрепы, патриотизм, память о подвиге народа – не интернет-мемы, это не повод для сарказма и лицемерных усмешек.
“Spiritual ties, patriotism, the memory of a people’s heroism – these are not internet memes, these are not grounds for sarcasm and hypocritical sneering.”
Pyotr Tolstoy, Lev Tolstoy’s great great grandson, a TV host and lawmaker who favors legislation to punish those who ridicule patriotic values on the internet. (TASS)
Весь мир обсуждает победу Дональда Трампа <...> Мы начнем заседание с более важного для нашей страны вопроса: о состоянии наших библиотек.
“The whole world is discussing Donald Trump’s victory… We’ll begin the meeting with something more pertinent for our country: the state of our libraries.”
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, following news of the US elections. (Interfax)
Mark Taimanov, a Soviet chess grandmaster punished for losing to Bobby Fisher, has passed away at 90.
Taimanov was a multitalented player who managed to excel in the game while also building a professional career as a concert pianist, touring and recording with his wife Lyubov Bruk.
He started playing chess at the age of 10, after starring in a 1936 Soviet film Концерт Бетховена (Beethoven’s Concert). While visiting the Leningrad Pioneer’s House, on a whim he asked to join the chess club. There he was taught by none other than Mikhail Botvinnik, international grandmaster and, from 1948-1963, world champion.
In 1971, Taimanov, a Soviet champion, faced off against Fisher but lost 6-0. The Soviet authorities did not believe a Soviet grandmaster should lose so badly to a young American and suspected Taimanov of treason, stripping him of titles and permission to travel abroad.
Though his chess game never fully recovered, Taimanov went on to become a chess journalist and theorist, and continued playing in his retirement, becoming the World Senior Champion in 1994.
Taimanov is remembered in the chess world as easy-going and full of humor and a love of life. He fathered twins at 78, while married to his fourth wife, Nadezhda.
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