Search Results

This week, Spotify comes to Russia, Crimea is a hot tourist destination (like always), and three cases of corruption: one big, one small, and one straight out of a spy movie.

The Belarusian President followed his own coronavirus advice, Pomeranian in tow.

“You know, it got to the point that they give such nasty information on [channel] Rossiya 1. Ah, the old man treats his people there with a tractor, vodka, a bath...  But why are you making fools of us in Russia? Why should a Russian person get it into their head that there, in the West, our Belarusans, they’re some kind of crazy?"

- President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko on bias in Russian media against Belarusans

This week we have a little bit of everything: new cars, freshly-paved streets, and, of course, plenty of coronavirus.

A look at how the Jesuits, Pope Francis, and Georgetown University all share an interesting connection to Russia.

In this week's Odder News: post-Soviet leaders propose innovative treatments for coronavirus, phone chargers go bad, and Russian buyers have an opening in the European real estate market.

“This is war. The enemy is invisible, but some lines of the front are clear. Today's difficulties, of course, are far from the horrors known to our history, and that includes the Blockade. That was much worse than today, and scarier.... The noble experience and mysticism of the besieged Hermitage remains with us always and serves as an example.”

- General Director of the State Hermitage Museum Mikhail Piotrovsky, in a Facebook post on how the Hermitage is dealing with the coronavirus pandemic

This week's Odder News: Belarus, the "Switzerland of the East," quiet hours, and tank-fueled wedding proposals.