September 08, 2016

Nomads, salad stampedes, and serious swamp business


Nomads, salad stampedes, and serious swamp business

Life is a like an enormous Greek salad

1. What’s left to root for now that the Olympics are over? The new Olympics: ancient nomadic sports, including a version of polo that involves scoring goals with a decapitated goat corpse. The Nomadic Games serve as a reminder of history and traditional culture, and this year’s events in Kyrgyzstan featured Steven Seagal in the opening ceremony, about 1000 athletes from 53 countries, and an extra-large Russian team in honor of the extra-large country – including the winners of the dead goat competition.

2. The latest Russian feat to make the Guinness Book of World Records: a 20.1-ton Greek salad on Red Square. Tomatoes, cucumbers, and pre-cubed cheese were mixed in a giant dump truck in a mid-tipping state. Some newspapers reported that spectators stampeded for salad and devoured the massive creation within minutes. The jury’s still out on whether the mix was a way to get healthy foods to folks facing sanctions or just a Guinness-worthy stunt.

tjournal.ru

3. With the first day back to school last week, citizens of Beslan in North Ossetia commemorated the 2004 hostage crisis, when armed Islamic militants took 1200 people hostage in a school. In a ceremony remembering the siege’s victims, five women in t-shirts with the words “Putin is the executioner of Beslan” were detained. Charged for violating a law against unauthorized protests, the women face fines and up to 15 days in custody.

In Wetter News

  • If you went to the Olympics from Chechnya, a gold medal isn’t enough. The president will also give you a Mercedes SUV.
  • A schoolkid known as the “swamp manager” for his unusual office space has won a trip to Kyrgyzstan, proving again how finding your social media niche can pay off.
kloop.kg
  • When a river turns red in northern Russia, do you blame biblical wrath, filming for Game of Thrones, or the nearby nickel factory?
theguardian.com

Quote of the Week

“It was the U.S.’s first time actually playing using the goat carcass, so the Russian team showed them how to pick it up and put it in the goal [...] It wasn’t just about winning the game, but about sharing the beauty of kok-boru and of nomadic culture.”
—Colleen Wood, an American Peace Corps volunteer, on the emphasis on sportsmanship and building cultural connections to be found in the Nomadic Games.

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

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Russia Rules

Russia 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.
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.
Driving Down Russia's Spine

Driving Down Russia's Spine

The story of the epic Spine of Russia trip, intertwining fascinating subject profiles with digressions into historical and cultural themes relevant to understanding modern Russia. 
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.
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

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.
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.

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