September 20, 2018

Ice Age Part 10, Coming Soon to a Russia Near You


Ice Age Part 10, Coming Soon to a Russia Near You

Let your voice be heard! Russian Life’s documentary Resilience (Переживем) is a contestant in a competition being held by ArtDocFest, and we’d love it if you supported us and the film with your vote. Haven’t had a chance to watch the movie? No problem, watch it here. To vote, join the ArtDocFest Facebook group, go to their poll, and click on the option that reads “Переживем, реж. Михаил Мордасов.” Thank you to all of the documentary’s fans and supporters, and happy voting!

Ice, Ice, Wooly Mammoth Baby

You know the phrase “when wooly mammoths roamed the earth?” Well, it may actually be closer to the present than you think. That’s because Russian scientists are predicting that the cloning of wooly mammoths will be successful in the next 10 years. The wooly mammoths would be recreated from original wooly mammoth cells found in the Siberian permafrost, and they would be birthed by a surrogate elephant mother. Although we’re pretty excited about this, is anyone else getting Jurassic Park vibes?

2. Speaking of cold things, the icy Navalny-Zolotov conflict has been picked up by meme artists across the country. If you didn’t read last week’s newsletter(shame on you!), Russia’s Director of the National Guard, Viktor Zolotov (who also happens to be Putin’s former bodyguard), recently challenged opposition leader Alexei Navalny to a duel after Navalny’s negative video about the National Guard. And, as you may have guessed, the internet is loving it. Memes, such as the one below, are picking up on the humor in this tense situation and running with it. Who knows, maybe they’ll lead to a thaw.

choose your fighter

Photo: Lentach / VKontakte

3. If you’re looking for some warmth in this newsletter, here’s a relationship that appears to be getting less icy by the day. At an economic forum in Vladivostok, President Putin taught Chinese president Xi Jinping how to make blini, Russian pancakes, which they then ate with caviar and followed with vodka. The meeting came just as Russia launched massive war games that included Chinese troops. Really, the only thing that goes better with blini than caviar is a big old pretend fight.

Putin and Xi

Photo: kremlin.ru

In Odder News:
  • It’s finally official: Russia and Ukraine are no longer friends, at least according to a nullified treaty
  • Is it a genius sausage-making life hack, or is it drug paraphernalia? You decide.

  • And you thought there couldn’t be more marches to celebrate the Romanovs. Check out this procession held for Yelizaveta Fyodorovna

Quote of the Week:

“Thanks to cooperation with Korean and Japanese scientists, in my opinion, [cloning a mammoth] will happen in the next decade.”

— Russian scientist Aisen Nikolaev

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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Some of Our Books

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.
Turgenev Bilingual

Turgenev Bilingual

A sampling of Ivan Turgenev's masterful short stories, plays, novellas and novels. Bilingual, with English and accented Russian texts running side by side on adjoining pages.
How Russia Got That Way

How Russia Got That Way

A fast-paced crash course in Russian history, from Norsemen to Navalny, that explores the ways the Kremlin uses history to achieve its ends.
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.
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.
A Taste of Russia

A Taste of Russia

The definitive modern cookbook on Russian cuisine has been totally updated and redesigned in a 30th Anniversary Edition. Layering superbly researched recipes with informative essays on the dishes' rich historical and cultural context, A Taste of Russia includes over 200 recipes on everything from borshch to blini, from Salmon Coulibiac to Beef Stew with Rum, from Marinated Mushrooms to Walnut-honey Filled Pies. A Taste of Russia shows off the best that Russian cooking has to offer. Full of great quotes from Russian literature about Russian food and designed in a convenient wide format that stays open during use.
Murder and the Muse

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.
The Little Golden Calf

The Little Golden Calf

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.
Chekhov Bilingual

Chekhov Bilingual

Some of Chekhov's most beloved stories, with English and accented Russian on facing pages throughout. 
Marooned in Moscow

Marooned in Moscow

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.
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.

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