At the top of the world, in the bitter reaches of the Arctic, no man can survive without his chumwife. So why is the state cutting off their salaries?
One hundred and sixty years ago, the inventor Alexander Popov was born. In 1895, he created the first radio receiver. Or did he?
An uptick in fox domestications leads us to consider a landmark experiment in Novosibirsk that upended assumptions about evolution.
A fortress town built half a millennium ago by Ivan the Terrible (to conquer Kazan) is enjoying a new life as a cultural tourism destination.
The core of what we do at Russian Life is stuff a suitcase (issue) full of words and pictures, then hand it to readers so that they can travel to a distant world, to get a taste of places they may never visit.
JournalismA mysterious tragedy that killed nine students in the Urals in 1959 is suddenly making headlines in Russia.
Government HistoryW.W. Norton has released a new translation, by Michael Katz, of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s classic novel. We excerpt here the novel’s opening.
Literature St. PetersburgNikita Khrushchev’s great granddaughter, Nina Khrushcheva, and an expat living and reporting on Russia and the Soviet Union since 1993, Jeffrey Tayler, offer a poignant exploration of the largest country on earth.
Regions Rural Life TravelViews of Sochi, five years after the close of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in that southern city.
Photography SportsA poem by Maxim Amelin, translated by Derek Mong and Anne O. Fisher.
Literature PoliticsWhat was the spring of 1969 like in the Soviet Union? A cloud of gloom had descended on the country, enveloping both those who could not see it (or at least thought it had nothing to do with them) and those only too aware of it.
History WarNo matter how many times I watch Diamond Arm («Бриллиантовая рука»), I never cease to wonder at the fact that this film managed to make it to screens all across the Soviet Union in April 1969.
Film & TV HumorOne hundred and twenty years ago, the first electric tram went into operation in Moscow.
History Moscow TransportationIf a Russian fox met an American fox, would they get along? If Russian folklore is to be trusted, the answer is a definite нет (no).
LanguageIn honor of the anniversary of the film «Бриллиантовая рука» (“Diamond Arm”), this edition of Учитесь looks at some of the famous крылатые фразы (“winged phrases”), or idiomatic expressions that the film gave to the Russian language.
Film & TV LanguageI can’t imagine a cleverer or more perverse way of presenting “the first political biography” of Mikhail Sholokhov (1905-1975) than as if from the conscience-addled Sholokhov’s perspective.
Biographies History Literature ReviewsThis year marks the 235th anniversary of the birth of Antonin Carême, a French chef who left his mark on Russian cuisine in the form of the dessert known in Russia as sharlotka and everywhere else as charlotte Russe.
Food & DrinkBelarusian Alexei Usikov has invented a new vehicle – a horsemobile, with the mighty horsepower of one horse.
Humor Rural Life TransportationRussian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.
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