You’ve not been fishing until you have explored the Volga River delta. And what better guide to take us there than the intrepid Andrei Borodulin?
There’s no doing without hay in the village. The cows eat it, and the sheep, and the hens need loads of it for their nests. And it comes in handy for people too, when they stuff their mattresses with it and lie on them forevermore, because the scent is just marvelous.
In which we visit a rather unique store in the Karelian village of Vedlozero. Which of course is far more than a store.
The progenitor of Russian Life got its start 65 years ago this fall. We talk to one of its famous early editors about what it was like to write about Russia for the world in that era.
Sometimes the most incredible things can be hidden in plain sight. In this case, a main thoroughfare in the capital.
It takes something special in a human being to create a thing from scratch, to see a slab of stone and carve it into a sculpture, to see an empty storefront and turn it into a store, to sketch out a multistory building on paper and then shepherd it into existence in the real world.
Russia is pushing ahead with a new drive to populate the country’s remote and unpopular fringes. Starting this year, Russians can claim a hectare (about 2.5 acres) of land in the Arctic zone – absolutely free.
Pressure on independent journalism, champagne importers, and some Olympics and architectural news.
By mid-October of 1941, Moscow seemed on the verge of falling to the Nazis. German troops had reached the city’s edge, and there were rumors of fascist tanks closing in.
Listening to the intensely chromatic compositions of Sofia Gubaidulina can be challenging. You wouldn’t put her music on to relax or to be energized. As with any avant-garde work, taking it in can feel like work.
It is astonishing to think that as recently as the eighteenth century – not the Middle Ages, not the days of Marco Polo, but in the supposedly enlightened eighteenth century – people still had only the vaguest idea of where Asia ended and America began.
These days, unfortunately, we all need to become familiar with the terminology for extreme weather and climate change, if only to know when we should dash into the basement or pack up and run.
In which our language insert looks at Russian words with German roots.
Two books reviewed: one on the origin of two perfumeries, another that is a memoir of an archpriest.
A crumble cake in Russia is something like banana bread in the US – the varieties are endless, and every avid baker has her “grandmother’s recipe” in their repertoire.
Due to the sports doping ban about which much has been written, Russia was not allowed to compete in the Tokyo Olympics this summer. But Russian athletes did compete under the “flag” of the “Russian Olympic Committee” (ROC).
Russian 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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