Letters to the Editor

To the Editors:

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the article entitled “Kapustnik: More Than Cabbage Pie” in the March/April edition.  I felt it was written quite well with a wonderful light touch of humor.  

Of  course I think your magazine is doing a great job of providing those of us how are Russophiles who enjoy all things Russian!

Thank you for your wonderful magazine!

Art Davies

by email

To the Editors:

My husband and I have been enjoying reading Russian Life for at least five years now.  We both find the magazine quite suitable for a bi-cultural family like ours (my husband is native born and I am a Russian-born American citizen).  

The May/June 2006 issue is especially enjoyable for three reasons: it has news about one of my favorite TV series Seventeen Moments of Spring, information about Russian track and field athletes, one of my favorite sports, and an article introducing bilingual idioms related to sports, with a hard-to-find translation of “Song of a High Jumper” by my favorite bard, Vysotsky.  

However, I would suggest some corrections.  First, “Stirlitz Has Come to Stay” (p. 8) contains two errors.  It should read: “The fictional Soviet agent Otto von Stirlitz played by Vyacheslav Tikhonov” (not Mikhail Isayev, as it printed in RL). In the movie, Otto von Stirlitz was known to high authorities in Moscow as Colonel Maxim (not Mikhail) Isayev, I believe. Second, in “Setting the Bar High” by Mikhail Ivanov (p. 24), instead of Королёва спорта it should read Королева спорта (the Queen of Sports).  Finally, I wish “Tracking Success” (p. 13) had provided the finishing times for the track champions. The strong victory of the Russian women runners is impressive, but it would also have been interesting to know which of the athletes has set world records.

Very truly yours,

Svetlana Ledenieva Phillips

Ringoes, NJ

To the Editors:

While reading  the current issue of Russian Life I noticed a mistake, see p. 49 (Irina Titova on Brodsky).  In fact, Josef Brodsky became the 5th (and not the 4th) Russian writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize. The 4th was Sholokhov,  for his Quiet Flows the Don, in 1965. Hope that you will correct the mistake at the earliest possibility.

Sincerely, your reader, 

Svetlana Elnitsky

by email

From the Editors:

Many readers wrote us about the [now obvious] errors in our caption to the Stirlitz photo, and in our unintentional short-shrifting of Sholokhov. 

Not that there is any connection, but perhaps it is some small consolation to the memory of Sholokhov that much of this issue is given over to stories on his beloved Cossacks.

We juggle and check hundreds of facts in a single issue, so inevitably one or two will slip through our nets. Of course, we are always happy to correct them. So keep your letters coming!

Thank you.