May 12, 2016

Baby bears, cats in debt, and other fuzzy victories


Baby bears, cats in debt, and other fuzzy victories

A Victorious Week

1. And one day in particular: Monday was Victory Day, the 71st anniversary of Germany’s surrender and the end of WWII in Europe. The Immortal Regiment – participants carrying photos of relatives who fought in the war – headed up parades across Russia, with Putin leading the charge in Moscow before giving a speech on defending the fatherland against terrorism.

2. Even the biggest victories don’t come without controversy. This year, Moscow’s Victory Day parade cost the city a record-breaking 296 million rubles – in part thanks to the showcase of new weaponry. Meanwhile, in Novosibirsk, Stalin billboards popped up to commemorate the end of WWII – and debate popped up around the billboards. One thing everyone could agree on: fireworks to end the day with a bang.

gazetu.ru

3. Bear in a bathtub: dangerous, or adorable? For locals of the mountain town of Tashtagol, it was pure practicality after they saved the cub from drowning in the nearby river. Unfortunately for the bear, the tub was not full of honey. The cub is too small to survive alone, so they’ll find Misha a new home in the zoo.

Quote of the Week
"Today civilization is once again faced with cruelty and violence. We must defeat this evil, and Russia is open to joining forces with other states. We are ready to work on the creation of a contemporary non-aligned system for international security."

—President Vladimir Putin on the need for collaboration in his Victory Day speech.

In Odder News

  • State bailiffs arrest a cat to encourage her owner to cough up his debt. That’s one way to ensure a hissy fit.
  • Good news: the Duma won’t have to cut back on caviar, as lawmakers have voted against reducing the government’s supply. Goody?
  • Muhammad Ali meets Al Capone? That’s what Flatiron, Sledgehammer, and other gangster athletes looked like when they started bloodletting in the post-USSR 1990s.

Victory Day Spotlight

Live for your family, die for your homeland. Veterans of WWII and young Russians the age of those veterans when they went to war consider what one should live for, and what one should be willing to die for, in honor of this year's Victory Day. See their images and read their stories here

Want more where this comes from? Give your inbox the gift of TWERF, our Thursday newsletter on the quirkiest, obscurest, and Russianest of Russian happenings of the week. 

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Steppe / Степь

Steppe / Степь

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.
A Taste of Russia

A Taste of Russia

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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.
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.
Moscow and Muscovites

Moscow and Muscovites

Vladimir Gilyarovsky's classic portrait of the Russian capital is one of Russians’ most beloved books. Yet it has never before been translated into English. Until now! It is a spectactular verbal pastiche: conversation, from gutter gibberish to the drawing room; oratory, from illiterates to aristocrats; prose, from boilerplate to Tolstoy; poetry, from earthy humor to Pushkin. 
Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

In this comprehensive, quixotic and addictive book, Edwin Trommelen explores all facets of the Russian obsession with vodka. Peering chiefly through the lenses of history and literature, Trommelen offers up an appropriately complex, rich and bittersweet portrait, based on great respect for Russian culture.
Murder at the Dacha

Murder at the Dacha

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The Moscow Eccentric

The Moscow Eccentric

Advance reviewers are calling this new translation "a coup" and "a remarkable achievement." This rediscovered gem of a novel by one of Russia's finest writers explores some of the thorniest issues of the early twentieth century.
Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

This astonishingly gripping autobiography by the founder of the Russian Women’s Death Battallion in World War I is an eye-opening documentary of life before, during and after the Bolshevik Revolution.
The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar

The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar

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.
Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

A book that dares to explore the humanity of priests and pilgrims, saints and sinners, Faith & Humor has been both a runaway bestseller in Russia and the focus of heated controversy – as often happens when a thoughtful writer takes on sacred cows. The stories, aphorisms, anecdotes, dialogues and adventures in this volume comprise an encyclopedia of modern Russian Orthodoxy, and thereby of Russian life.

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