Reading is Hard

Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.

— Mark Twain

I believe Kurt Vonnegut once wrote that writing is time travel. That by writing, one travels though time (and space), connecting with an unknown reader somewhere in the future, melding the mind of writer and reader via an assemblage of black squiggles on a page, sharing one’s worldview. In the process, both writer and reader are improved.

I like to remember that analogy when we are assembling an issue, because 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, to help them see the world through the eyes of others.

That said, reading is hard. In a world governed by algorithms aimed at distraction, it is increasingly unusual for people to stop, mute their many devices, and give oneself over to the analog pleasure offered by books or long magazine articles. It can be hard to find the time to unpack our densely-stuffed suitcase, to explore all that each issue has to offer, to travel through distant Russian provinces when there are urgent daily tasks that need attention, Netflix shows that demand binging, Facebook posts that cry out for scrolling.

Yet those who take the time to explore this particular suitcase will be well rewarded. This issue will take you to one of the most remote, northern outposts of human habitation, to a Tatar town founded by Ivan the Terrible, and to a forgotten border archipelago along the Russo-Chinese border. We tangle with evolution and radio waves, moles and foxes, trams and Olympics, diamonds and apple cakes.

It may be a lot for 64 pages, but that’s just how we roll. Each issue of Russian Life has a word count equivalent to one-third of a short novel, and stuffing all those words into each suitcase is “easy,” as Twain indicates – we just cross out the stuff that doesn’t matter and print the rest.

This is also the second issue of the magazine since our redesign early this year. We have heard from many readers and the feedback has been overwhelming favorable, which has been very encouraging. Please explore our newly revamped website as well (and share it with others). We have begun pushing more content online, and there are plenty of time-travel-worthy items to read over there (join our email list to get a weekly summary of all we have published). Though they are far shorter stories, they are the perfect length to fill in any gaps between tweeting and instagramming.

Enjoy the issue.