March/April 2018

On International Women's Day, our Children of 1917 project, and a colleague who will be missed.

This is the first time that Russia's Culture Ministry has censored a film by cancelling its license to be shown in theaters. Satire takes a hit.

All the news that fits, from all over Russia, including locusts, The Death of Stalin, finances, and a Grammy.

Things worth knowing on the travel front.

Who, what, where, and why: the kerfuffle over a few aviation cadets and their posting of a slightly racy video online. And how average Russians rose to defend them.

In which we look back and turning points in March: in 1918, 1953, and (perhaps) 2018. The season of thaw and the onset of spring is fraught with omens.

A rather adequate look at the rise of "adekvatny" and "neadekvatny" in colloquial speech.

In her final Uchites column for Russian Life, Natalia Gogolitsyna takes a look at one of Russia's most beloved filmmakers and the winged phrases that are one of his legacies.

Over the 70-year lifespan of the “most equal and democratic nation” known as the Soviet Union, just a handful of women rose to the rank of ambassador. A few more have attained this level since 1991, yet diplomacy in Russia remains largely a male preserve.

Of late, more and more Russians are getting involved in historic reenactments, attempting to recreate battles on the land in Russia where they originally occurred.

In the winter of 1968, ousted Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was brooding in his government dacha outside Moscow, readying to send his memoirs abroad. Then the British military attache and his son stopped by for a visit.

A few enterprising Russians are seeking to put their country at the forefront of the world’s dirigible industry. Their rising hopes are built on the country’s long history of aerostat development.

On the Soviet tradition of making do, and spending long evenings around the table drinking tea and eating cake. Like Bird's Milk cake, this issue's recipe.

In which we review a novel about Bulgakov and his love, Margarita (Mikhail and Margarita, by Julie Himes); Soviet Salvage, by Catherine Walworth; and The House of Government, by Yuri Slezkine.

Some creative prisoners decided to sculpt a full-scale model of a Topol-M mobile, intercontinental missile launcher. Out of snow.