March 27, 2020

Officially Over the Hill


Officially Over the Hill
"They really should put these newspapers online. Oh, right, there is no online yet." The author reading wall papers back in 1990 Moscow.

In the smog-choked twilight of the Soviet Union, David Kelley and I sat on a tiny concrete apartment balcony overlooking Moscow’s roaring Ring Road. We sipped Armenian cognac and chewed on Cuban cigars. And we created a company. That company was officially registered 30 years ago today (fun fact: our first name was actually Russian River Trading Company).

It's a bit strange to think about how back then we had to wait in line to buy most things of value (toilet paper not among them, it was largely non-existent in stores), and that some items were rationed (like sugar, because the anti-alcoholism campaign had led to home stills, which needed sugar). Or how, despite perestroika, the fear of nuclear annihilation hung over us like a Damoclean sword. Seems like we have sort of come full circle...

Then again, back then we did not have instant access to the news, phones were only mobile as far as the cords which connected them to the wall, and social media would likely have been interpreted as a mispronunciation of Pravda's imperative (socialist media). Newspapers and print media still ruled the roost, well, except for television, which was mostly all network TV.

In three decades our company has weathered much: a few coups, five American and three Russian presidents, a couple of recessions, multiple downturns in US-Russian relations, and now one pandemic. Every time we think things can't get worse...

But we have enjoyed far, far more. We have had many great employees and partners, have raised a family and watched those of our employees and partners grow up, and I like to think we have created publications and products that have made a difference in how people outside of Russia have perceived Russians and their country, their history, their culture.

In the end, however, since we are a business, it is the tribe of customers and colleagues we have accumulated over 30 years that continue to make what we do possible. That you all find value and worth in what we do, year after year, project after project, is something for which I am constantly grateful, particularly in the sort of difficult times we are all enduring now.

So thank you to all our customers, contacts, colleagues and co-conspirators.

And now back to work. Or whatever it is we are calling this fragmented, virtual-meeting-infested, disconnected labor these days.

Спасибо!

You Might Also Like

Looking Back
  • January 01, 2002

Looking Back

The US-Russian (nee Soviet) Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty has been cast onto the dustheap of history with scarcely a whimper from the Russian side. As with many things, what seemed unlikely six months ago has all of a sudden become unavoidable.
Our History
  • April 01, 2019

Our History

In March of 1990, a bizarre confluence of events – involving two gung-ho Norwegians, one Vermonter tangling with Young Communists, and a Californian with ink in his blood – led to the founding of a small publishing company in Vermont.
Our First Half Century
  • September 01, 2006

Our First Half Century

Where we look back on the first five decades of this magazine’s publishing history, from USSR, through Soviet Life, to the present day. [Download article as PDF.]
Yes, We're a Sexagenarian
  • September 01, 2016

Yes, We're a Sexagenarian

Sixty years ago, bureaucrats and journalists on opposite sides of the Iron Curtain came to a remarkable agreement that led to the founding of Russian Life...
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The fables of Ivan Krylov are rich fonts of Russian cultural wisdom and experience – reading and understanding them is vital to grasping the Russian worldview. This new edition of 62 of Krylov’s tales presents them side-by-side in English and Russian. The wonderfully lyrical translations by Lydia Razran Stone are accompanied by original, whimsical color illustrations by Katya Korobkina.
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.
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.
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.
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. 
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.
Moscow and Muscovites

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. 
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.

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