Russistan

Readers of a publication called Russian Life may wonder why there is a picture of Kyrgyzstan on the magazine’s cover (and two stories about the Central Asian country inside).

The explanation is rather simple. Russian Life does not limit its coverage to stories, issues and ideas that occur solely within the geographic confines of Russia. Russia and Russian culture have a global impact, thanks to the spread of Russian literature, music, language, art, trade, you name it. And, of course, because of the spread of Russians themselves.

According to some sources, the worldwide Russian diaspora is some 20 million souls (about 16 million of that in states of the Former Soviet Union) – or about one-sixth the population of Russia proper.

This is why we have had stories like those on Russian San Francisco, Berlin and Riga, as well as on Sevastopol and Vitebsk. We want to explore what it means to be Russian in places beyond Russia’s borders.

In fact, the situation with Kyrgyzstan is rather interesting. In 1989, the population of that Central Asian state was nearly 22 percent Russian. Today it is 9 percent Russian and falling. So last year we decided to have an issue in 2010 that would include two stories on Kyrgyzstan: one on the capital of Bishkek (formerly named for a Russian/Soviet hero, Mikhail Frunze), another on a Russian explorer who left a rather large imprint on Kyrgyzstan and all of Central Asia.

Then came the revolution this past spring.

The violence and upheaval in Kyrgyzstan meant we had to orient on more current issues, on what caused the revolution, at where things were headed. Yet this did not change the focus of our stories significantly, because the recent revolution is very much a continuation of the violence and disfunction that has roiled Kyrgyzstan since 1989.*

Meanwhile, we have been trying for years (since long before there was a polonium spy scandal) to find just the right writer to do a story on Russian London for us. Peter Morley came through with some wonderful reporting. And it turns out we caught him just in time: he is on his way back to St. Petersburg this fall. Hopefully he will be sending us stories from there in future.

Of course there are also plenty of things in this issue to pull you back within Russia’s geographic borders: from the anniversary of Pushkin (aka Tsarskoye Selo), to the salmon of Sakhalinsk, to the heat of Moscow, borshch, and Sergei Yesenin. Actually, Yesenin is the focus of the eighth installment of Uchites, our language learning insert which returns with this issue and will run through May/June, thanks to the sponsorship of the Russkiy Mir Foundation and private donors.

Enjoy the issue.

*Interestingly, some of the same issues that we cover in our stories on Kyrgyzstan set the stage for Peter Aleshkovsky’s fine novel Fish, which we have just published (see ad, page 1). Fish is a truly beautiful novel about one woman’s personal journey through post-Soviet time and space, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.