September 07, 2017

Fake Countries, Sausages, and Mystery Highways


Fake Countries, Sausages, and Mystery Highways
Of Veishnoria and Vogons

1. All hail Veishnoria! In preparation for the Zapad 2017 joint military exercises later in September, the militaries of Russia and Belarus will be facing off against three fictional Western countries called Veishnoria, Vesbaria, and Lubenia. Inhabitants of Western Belarus have gotten creative in response to Veishnoria’s imagined incursion on their territory, some inventing a flag, currency, national anthem, and state seal for the nation, and at least 6,000 applying for a Veishnorian passport.



2. Forget building a highway through the cosmos and paving over Earth, Hitchhiker’s-Guide-to-the-Galaxy style. In the Nizhny Novgorod region, a homeowner returned to her property after spending time in the city and found a spanking new road paved straight across the premises, with half of her house in disrepair or just plain missing. Local administrators are skeptical and say they’ll have to check it out. These days, you’ve got to let Vogons be Vogons.

3. The start to another school year: get ready for math, science, history, and...propaganda? In the Krasnodar region, Russian education officials are requiring schools to hold five-minute information sessions for all students to discuss what they’ve seen on state-run Channel One. Discussion topics include “Glory to Russia,” “News of the Week,” and “We Live in the Kuban.” It may be a good way to learn about current events, but some think it breaches Russia’s law against propaganda in school.

In Odder News

  • What do you get when you mix space travel, technology, and post-Stalinist Russia? Unique and beautiful architecture. Take a look.

  • The latest tool for quieting the opposition: sausages. Plus, they make a great gift. Here’s why the Russian media is abuzz over bratwurst this week.

  • An eternal underground glacier. Medieval relics. A floating bridge. All this and more modern wonders in Moscow’s new Zaryadye Park.

Quote of the Week

“It was difficult not to see it.”
—An official at the local office of Russia’s State Registration Federal Agency, commenting on the visibility of a house that was partially destroyed to build a highway.

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Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod is a mid-sized provincial city that exists only in Russian metaphorical space. It has its roots in Gogol, and Ilf and Petrov, and is a place far from Moscow, but close to Russian hearts. It is a place of mystery and normality, of provincial innocence and Black Earth wisdom. Strange, inexplicable things happen in Stargorod. So do good things. And bad things. A lot like life everywhere, one might say. Only with a heavy dose of vodka, longing and mystery.
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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. 
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.
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.
White Magic

White Magic

The thirteen tales in this volume – all written by Russian émigrés, writers who fled their native country in the early twentieth century – contain a fair dose of magic and mysticism, of terror and the supernatural. There are Petersburg revenants, grief-stricken avengers, Lithuanian vampires, flying skeletons, murders and duels, and even a ghostly Edgar Allen Poe.
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.
22 Russian Crosswords

22 Russian Crosswords

Test your knowledge of the Russian language, Russian history and society with these 22 challenging puzzles taken from the pages of Russian Life magazine. Most all the clues are in English, but you must fill in the answers in Russian. If you get stumped, of course all the puzzles have answers printed at the back of the book.
Fearful Majesty

Fearful Majesty

This acclaimed biography of one of Russia’s most important and tyrannical rulers is not only a rich, readable biography, it is also surprisingly timely, revealing how many of the issues Russia faces today have their roots in Ivan’s reign.
The Latchkey Murders

The Latchkey Murders

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin is back on the case in this prequel to the popular mystery Murder at the Dacha, in which a serial killer is on the loose in Khrushchev’s Moscow...
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 Little Humpbacked Horse

The Little Humpbacked Horse

A beloved Russian classic about a resourceful Russian peasant, Vanya, and his miracle-working horse, who together undergo various trials, exploits and adventures at the whim of a laughable tsar, told in rich, narrative poetry.
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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