November 28, 2019

Dumbledovich and the Chamber of Bovine Distractions


Dumbledovich and the Chamber of Bovine Distractions
No, you didn’t forget your morning coffee. @NeSobyanin

Quote of the Week

“Be careful, and don’t run into sanctions turbulence!”

— Dumbledore, if he were a Russian banker

Of Ghostly Gates and Synthetic Summers

1. Last week, at a Moscow investment forum, VTB Bank chairman Andrei Kostin staged a lavish skit that combined two of everyone’s favorite things: Harry Potter and money. In the skit, “Andrei Dumbledovich,” played by Kostin, summons three bright young people to save the planet from the evil dollar — sorry, “Dollar-de-Mort.” Harry marvels at the dollar’s resilience: “I remember when he was little and only cost six rubles” (one dollar now costs 64 rubles, it has not been at 6 to the dollar since 1998). Nevertheless, Dumbledovich urges on his disciples: “We’ll give it a good fight!” If only fixing the economy were as easy as saying “Sanctionum Leviosa!”

Dumbledovich and his gang
Or even “Expecto Putinum!” / RBC

2. Ever felt like the weather was so depressing, you had to hide in virtual reality to feel better? Turns out cows feel that way too. A farm near Moscow has developed a VR headset that farmers can put on their cows during notoriously gray Russian winters. The VR headset, which is designed specifically for cow vision, projects bucolic images of green fields and sunny skies in the hopes that cows feel more relaxed and produce more milk. No cows could be reached for comment, but we’re guessing they’re over the moon about their cool new moovies (pun creds to @hannahmakes on Twitter).

Cow VR
Holy cow, it’s summer again! / Moscow Region Ministry of Agriculture and Food

3. In Cherepovets, a set of gates materialized in the middle of a path. It sounds like a spooky sighting one month too late for Halloween, but actually, there’s nothing paranormal about it. A local clinic (to which the gate leads) wanted to build a fence with gates, but there were delays in building the fence, so only the gates were finished. Locals with a sense of humor planted signs around the gates reading “Warning: Mines!!!” Hilariously, the guard came every day to lock and unlock the gates. The clinic took down the gates a few days later, but it promises that the gates and fence will soon be installed in a less joke-worthy manner.

Spooky gates
Portals to another world? / @ura_ru

In Odder News

  • A new metro network called “Oriole” (a kind of bird) opened in Moscow. The card readers didn’t work, and the trains were so bad even Putin looked depressed, but hey, at least the metro workers dressed up as orioles.
Sad Putin
Even the orioles couldn't cheer him up. / @rprose
  • British travel blogger Jonny Tickle called Chelyabinsk “the worst city in Russia.” An offended news site ran a poll to prove him wrong… only for everyone to agree with him.
  • Blast from the past: In 2014, a journalist visited Moscow’s obscure Brain Institute, which reportedly houses the brains of Lenin, Stalin, Mayakovsky, and more. Read about what she found inside.

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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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. 
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The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

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This exciting new trilogy by a Russian author – who has been compared to Orhan Pamuk and Umberto Eco – vividly recreates a lost world, yet its passions and characters are entirely relevant to the present day. Full of mystery, memorable characters, and non-stop adventure, The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas is a must read for lovers of historical fiction and international thrillers.

 
Murder at the Dacha
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Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin has a problem. Several, actually. Not the least of them is the fact that a powerful Soviet boss has been murdered, and Matyushkin's surly commander has given him an unreasonably short time frame to close the case.

At the Circus
January 01, 2013

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This wonderful novella by Alexander Kuprin tells the story of the wrestler Arbuzov and his battle against a renowned American wrestler. Rich in detail and characterization, At the Circus brims with excitement and life. You can smell the sawdust in the big top, see the vivid and colorful characters, sense the tension build as Arbuzov readies to face off against the American.

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Our edition of The Little Golden Calf, one of the greatest Russian satires ever, is the first new translation of this classic novel in nearly fifty years. It is also the first unabridged, uncensored English translation ever, and is 100% true to the original 1931 serial publication in the Russian journal 30 Dnei. Anne O. Fisher’s translation is copiously annotated, and includes an introduction by Alexandra Ilf, the daughter of one of the book’s two co-authors.

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