Farewell to a Friend

It is with great sadness that I announce here the passing of a friend and colleague. Helen Boldyreff Semler, a valued member of this magazine’s Advisory Board, died on January 12 after a long battle with stomach cancer. She was just 67.

Helen was the daughter of Russian emigrants. Her father, Constantine Boldyreff, was a leader of the exiled anti-Bolshevik movement and later headed the Russian department at Georgetown University. Helen spoke six languages and had served as an interpreter for Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev in the 1970s and between the Clintons and the Yeltsins in the 1990s. She did a variety of consulting work for US multinationals interested in Russia, and was a great supporter of Russian culture and the arts.

Helen was married to Peter Semler, a career US Diplomat, which took her to postings around the world. It was during their posting in Moscow that she began work on her incomparable guidebook – Discovering Moscow, first published in 1987 and recently revised and reissued by Liberty Publishing.

Last fall, Helen completed work on a fascinating and highly personal biography of her father. She sent me a copy that ended with the note, “I wish you the best of luck with your marvelous ‘Russian Life’ and I will strive to do something constructive.”

That she did, on many occasions: helping us connect with important persons, giving us interesting story ideas or offering valued criticisms and praise of our efforts. We will miss her.

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Our Food Editor Darra Goldstein, in addition to being a Professor of Russian at Williams College and a renowned cookbook author (including A Taste of Russia, published by Russian Life Books), is also now Editor of an exciting new publication which we can’t help recommending. Called Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture, this quarterly journal “draws together a rich variety of academic investigations, accessible features, and gorgeous imagery—all focused on food as an important source of knowledge. The journal’s wonderfully eclectic explorations of food as a serious art and as a vibrant, sensual experience provide a vital resource for anyone interested in the intersections of food, culture, and society.”

The first issue (February) included a fascinating mix of articles on everything from the origins of turtle soup to genetic engineering to 17th century edible letterforms to an essay by Constantin Boym on McDonalds and his own first encounters with it when it opened in Moscow.

The journal’s annual subscription price is $34 (a discount for charter subscribers) and you can sign up by visiting the journal’s website (www.gastronomica.org), or by contacting: University of California Press Journals, 2000 Center Street, Suite 303, Berkeley, CA 94704, ph. 510-643-7154, email [email protected].

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Attentive readers will note that our promised article on What You Can Do With a Russian Degree is mysteriously missing from this issue. The article is still in the works and will appear at a later date. We have been so swamped by the work for our 100 Young Russians series (which readers are telling us they love!), that we had to set this on the back burner for now.

Enjoy the issue!