May 23, 2019

A Place for Everything


A Place for Everything
An amphitheater built around the spontaneous discovery of part of a 16th century wall in Moscow. KB Strelka Media Center.

Urban transformations, underwear conversations, devil invocations

1. Word on the street is that Moscow has done some good urban planning. The project “Moya Ulitsa,” meaning “my street,” was the only European project shortlisted for the Urban Land Institute Global Awards for Excellence. The massive project – the largest in modern Moscow history – began in 2015 with survey input from Moscow residents, and has transformed 92 kilometers of streets and planted 7,000 trees, among other things. The changes seem to be up everyone’s alley, because the project has concrete (greenspace?) results: 23% more pedestrians and 30% faster traffic.

2. A Russian journalist accidentally wore underwear as headwear half the day, and the internet decided it was a fashion statement. She tweeted about how she used the panties to to tie up her hair in the shower, and then, half a work day and two formal meetings later, realized she had forgotten to take them off. In a second tweet she complained that “not one b**** told me,” dismantling the myth that Russian babushki will always correct your clothing choices. (Then again, maybe the babushki approved, since any form of headwear does keep the head warmer.) In comments, however, Russians encouraged her to embrace it, saying that everyone was respecting underwear on the head as a “message to the world,” and “a great person creates fashion trends.”

3. A literature teacher at a village school in the Ural region spoke of the devil (of sorts) in class, and several parents thought his goal was that Satan actually “doth appear.The teacher was in fact trying to get his students off their phones, to pay attention. He was reading aloud a nonsense language section from “The Call of Cthulhu,” a classic horror short story by H. P. Lovecraft, about the secret cult of a sea monster-god. The getting-off-phones part didn’t work out so well, because one of the students filmed the scene, causing parental complaints and the school administrator’s decision to give him hell. The teacher was fired, but said he plans to dispute the decision while finishing his thesis. 

Russian teacher calling on devil
The devil is in the details, like the allegedly satanic drawing on the blackboard.

In Odder News

  • You (or your prison sentence) have been chopped! Moscow inmates competed in a Chopped-style cooking competition; winners may be able to use their certificates to get earlier parole. 
  • Mark your calendars: August 18 in the Russian Federation will from now on be the Day of Geographers. A new law designed to put the profession on the map includes improved geography classes in schools and universities and creating the title Honored Geographer of the Russian Federation. (This year, the mappers will have some competition, however, as Day of the Russian Air Fleet lands on the third Sunday in August, which this year happens to be the 18th.) 
  • Putin doesn’t have time for Game of Thrones. Now that more than 10% of the Russian population’s watch has ended, it’s good to clear up that Putin’s watch of the show never started.  

Quote of the Week

“[In Africa] there are a lot of young, unmarried men. And in China there are even more. It’s not a problem [...] Take one and leave! The world is round.”

– The head of the Russian Orthodox Church commission for family issues, recommending that Russian women who have not found suitable husbands at home can look for their soulmate on other continents. 

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Some of Our Books

Tolstoy Bilingual

Tolstoy Bilingual

This compact, yet surprisingly broad look at the life and work of Tolstoy spans from one of his earliest stories to one of his last, looking at works that made him famous and others that made him notorious. 
Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar is a hilarious and insightful memoir by a diplomat who was “present at the creation” of US-Soviet relations. Charles Thayer headed off to Russia in 1933, calculating that if he could just learn Russian and be on the spot when the US and USSR established relations, he could make himself indispensable and start a career in the foreign service. Remarkably, he pulled it of.
Woe From Wit (bilingual)

Woe From Wit (bilingual)

One of the most famous works of Russian literature, the four-act comedy in verse Woe from Wit skewers staid, nineteenth century Russian society, and it positively teems with “winged phrases” that are essential colloquialisms for students of Russian and Russian culture.
Russian Rules

Russian Rules

From the shores of the White Sea to Moscow and the Northern Caucasus, Russian Rules is a high-speed thriller based on actual events, terrifying possibilities, and some really stupid decisions.
The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The fables of Ivan Krylov are rich fonts of Russian cultural wisdom and experience – reading and understanding them is vital to grasping the Russian worldview. This new edition of 62 of Krylov’s tales presents them side-by-side in English and Russian. The wonderfully lyrical translations by Lydia Razran Stone are accompanied by original, whimsical color illustrations by Katya Korobkina.
Murder and the Muse

Murder and the Muse

KGB Chief Andropov has tapped Matyushkin to solve a brazen jewel heist from Picasso’s wife at the posh Metropole Hotel. But when the case bleeds over into murder, machinations, and international intrigue, not everyone is eager to see where the clues might lead.
93 Untranslatable Russian Words

93 Untranslatable Russian Words

Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.
The Samovar Murders

The Samovar Murders

The murder of a poet is always more than a murder. When a famous writer is brutally stabbed on the campus of Moscow’s Lumumba University, the son of a recently deposed African president confesses, and the case assumes political implications that no one wants any part of.

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