September 01, 2016

Corruption, Kalashnikovs, and cultured meats


Corruption, Kalashnikovs, and cultured meats

Life, death, and burgers

1. Would you like that burger medium rare or with a side of scrotum? Burger King will be cooking up specialty burgers in tribute to Pyotr Pavlensky’s performance art, which includes stunts like nailing his scrotum to Red Square and sewing his mouth shut. Burger King’s ploy to keep up with pop culture will include burgers wrapped in edible barbed wire, sewn shut, or with a plastic spear nailing an egg to the meat patty. Burger King publicity calls it a drive to “bring culture to the masses.”

2. Uzbek President Islam Kamirov is dead, miraculously recovered, in grave condition, or maybe just on vacation? Speculative as the rumors around the leader’s health may be, speculations around what new leadership in Central Asia would mean for Russia are wilder still. Since Kamirov has been in power since 1989, the economic and political stability of the region – not to mention the Uzbek military, migrant worker flows, and the repressive state system – could be as tenuous as the rumors around Kamirov’s health.

3. Deputy Chairman of the Parnas Party Ilya Yashin has presented a report on crime within United Russia, Russia’s leading political party. Re-dubbing Putin’s party the “Criminal Russia” Party, his report describes a “social elevator for crime,” linking governors and top officials in United Russia to organized crime, corruption, bribery, money laundering, and murder. With State Duma elections in two weeks, opposition leaders hope that corruption concerns will help sway disillusioned voters.

In Odder News

newsru.com

Quote of the Week

“The death of any tyrant is not disclosed to the society because the power is afraid of unrest, afraid that the society will act in the absence of a ruler...You can announce the death of a leader only when you have the next one."
—Valery Solovey, a history professor at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, on the rumored death of Uzbek President Islam Kamirov. 

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.

Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

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.
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.
Okudzhava Bilingual

Okudzhava Bilingual

Poems, songs and autobiographical sketches by Bulat Okudzhava, the king of the Russian bards. 
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. 
A Taste of Chekhov

A Taste of Chekhov

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.
Jews in Service to the Tsar

Jews in Service to the Tsar

Benjamin Disraeli advised, “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” With Jews in Service to the Tsar, Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe’s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history.
Chekhov Bilingual

Chekhov Bilingual

Some of Chekhov's most beloved stories, with English and accented Russian on facing pages throughout. 
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.
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.
Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Bilingual series of short, lesser known, but highly significant works that show the traditional view of Dostoyevsky as a dour, intense, philosophical writer to be unnecessarily one-sided. 

About Us

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.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955