Rubbing Elbows With the Stars?

Some Russian Life readers have suggested that we need to avoid the “glitterati” in our series on “100 Young Russians To Watch” (page 33)—we should write less about ballerinas and cinema stars.  I partially agree. Yes, we have featured ballerinas and cosmonauts (let us not forget the poetic Soviet slogan: “... we produce rockets ... and we are ahead of the whole planet in the field of ballet”), and I would love to profile say, a young genius of a Russian car maker. But unfortunately our car manufacturers (see Note Book, page 9) take Ilf & Petrov’s quote a bit too literally: “An automobile is not a luxury but rather a means of transportation.”

What we are good at is building izbas, even today (see page 22). But then master izba builders are well beyond this series’ 45-year-old age limit. But how about a top class Russian chocolatier (page 37), certainly a “species” not seen in Russia for many decades.

Now to reveal a secret. As this Young Russians series was my brainchild, I have seen it as my right to, as our jurists say, “use one’s official position for personal gain.” It’s a tough job, but someone had to rub elbows in the cafeteria of the Bolshoi with ballerina Nastya Volochkova, or walk down Tverskaya with actress Olga Budina after a couple of cappuccinos, or meet with Marat Safin. Not that this 40-year-old has ever been gaga over any star. But I do confess to having learned plenty from the success stories of other, often much younger, compatriots.

Without tooting our own horn, we should also note that our Young Russians series has also helped some of our stars shine even brighter. When this series winds down in our next issue, we will offer some updates on some of the 100 people we have featured over this last year. And we will do our best to continue to provide new updates in the years ahead.

Meanwhile, we start up a new series in this issue of Russian Life. We’ll be traveling around North America to look at pockets of Russian culture in US cities—everything from where to dine out Russian-style, to where to find Russian videos, plus a little bit of history thrown in ... We start in San Francisco (page 56).

On page 44, we take you on a trip to Abramtsevo mansion, outside Moscow. There, in the late 19th century, the elite of Russia’s art world joined efforts to revive our national culture and art, many of them working in izbas, by the way. One cannot help hoping that today’s elite, be they ballerinas, cosmonauts, actresses or chocolatiers, will take a similar interest in our country’s future.

Finally, longtime readers will notice that we have undertaken a redesign of Russian Life with this issue. We felt it was about time for a fresh new look. Let us know what you think about this and anything you read in the magazine. And, of course, enjoy the issue!

Mikhail Ivanov