August 02, 2018

A Round of Russian Rescues


A Round of Russian Rescues
Lavrov, the World’s Cure-All

1. With all this tension in the air, the Russian Foreign Ministry is trying a new tack. This week, it posted on its social media pages a photo of Sergey Lavrov (the Foreign Minister of Russia) holding a Russian flag. While the photo may be fairly innocuous, the caption is decidedly not Russian diplomacy as usual. The caption claimed that the photo has healing powers, advised that it be applied to the world’s sore spots, and warned that it may cause exorcisms. Although the photo quickly received sneering comments, perhaps this new strategy may break through current roadblocks of foreign diplomacy. After all, laughter is the best medicine.

Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry

2. One man’s trash is another man’s designer treasure. Police found two teenage boys sailing in a homemade boat crafted out of 300 plastic bottles and spray foam. Even better, the boat was lavishly decorated and spray painted with the moniker “Gucci.” Although the boys were doing just swimmingly, it seems that the police were uncomfortable with the whole situation, so they forced the intrepid sailors to disembark (despite it being Navy Day!).

Photo: Говорит Озёрск

3. As it turns out, it’s actually the eighth time that is the charm, not the third. Or so found Russian hiker Alexander Gukov, who was rescued from a mountain peak in Pakistan on the rescue team’s eighth attempt. Gukov’s hiking partner had fallen to his death days earlier, and Gukov was without food for three days. He is now recovering in a hospital. The pair were part of a first-ever attempt to climb the north side of Latok-1, a mountain in Pakistan’s Karakoram range.

In Odder News:
Quote of the Week:

“This photo is healing. Apply to the planet’s sore spots. The composition of geographical points can have the side effect of an exorcism.”

— The Russian Foreign Ministry, which is pretty hopeful about Sergey Lavrov’s effects on the world

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Some of Our Books

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The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

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A Taste of Chekhov

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This compact volume is an introduction to the works of Chekhov the master storyteller, via nine stories spanning the last twenty years of his life.
Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

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Murder and the Muse

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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.
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.
A Taste of Russia

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Chekhov Bilingual

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Some of Chekhov's most beloved stories, with English and accented Russian on facing pages throughout. 
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Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

The Life Stories collection is a nice introduction to contemporary Russian fiction: many of the 19 authors featured here have won major Russian literary prizes and/or become bestsellers. These are life-affirming stories of love, family, hope, rebirth, mystery and imagination, masterfully translated by some of the best Russian-English translators working today. The selections reassert the power of Russian literature to affect readers of all cultures in profound and lasting ways. Best of all, 100% of the profits from the sale of this book are going to benefit Russian hospice—not-for-profit care for fellow human beings who are nearing the end of their own life stories.
Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

This is the work that made Chekhov, launching his career as a writer and playwright of national and international renown. Retranslated and updated, this new bilingual edition is a super way to improve your Russian.
Survival Russian
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Survival Russian is an intensely practical guide to conversational, colloquial and culture-rich Russian. It uses humor, current events and thematically-driven essays to deepen readers’ understanding of Russian language and culture. This enlarged Second Edition of Survival Russian includes over 90 essays and illuminates over 2000 invaluable Russian phrases and words.

Murder and the Muse
December 12, 2016

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.

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Moscow and Muscovites

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White Magic
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Marooned in Moscow
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This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.

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A Taste of Russia
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Fish
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Fish

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