May 02, 2019

The Robots are Having a Whale of a Time


The Robots are Having a Whale of a Time
The biggest vobla in Russia. КаспНИРХ

Throwback Thursday

Catherine the Great
Catherine the Great / Wikimedia Commons

Happy birthday, Catherine the Great! Russian Life reviewed a translation of her letters in January 2019. Read some of those letters with a Russian Life digital subscription.

Holy Mackerel, Roach, and Whales!

1. Meet the fish that’s too big to fry. Last week, Astrakhan fishers caught the biggest vobla in Russia. Vobla, or Caspian roach, is a type of fish that Russians like to salt-dry and eat with beer. Usually they range from 17 to 26 centimeters long (that’s 6 to 8 inches for us Americans), but this one was 35 centimeters long (over 1 foot) and weighed 1.055 kg (over 2 pounds). That’s one big fish dinner, you may think, but vobly this big are not to be eaten, but admired and appreciated. According to tradition, the fishers kissed the fish before letting it go, sending along a request for it to bring back even more big fish.

2. Return of the robots. President Putin and his entourage toured a military academy, where the cadets brought out robots and had them do push-ups and headstands. Three cheers for technology!… Right? Well, it turns out that the robots were not actually built by the cadets, but rather assembled from a kit sold by a South Korean company. This obviously doesn’t look good for the cadets. But at least athletes can take heart: they’re not about to be out-trained by robots anytime soon.

Putin watching robots
Robot gymnastics. / Сегодня

3. White whale? More like Navy whale. Norwegian fishermen noticed a beluga whale with an unusual harness snooping around their boats. They called in the authorities, who discovered that on the harness was written “Equipment of St. Petersburg.” Could the whale be a Russian spy? A Russian war museum director claims the whole story is a Western provocation, but Norwegian marine experts are pretty sure something fishy was going on. As for us, we’d like to make a pitch to the 007 franchise managers: Make the next Bond villain a whale.

All things considered, though, it’s a cute whale. / Dagbladet

Blog Spotlight

A sleeping kitty, a walking nose, and loudspeakers: Check out Russia’s 13 most unusual monuments.

In Odder News

  • The RuNet is living proof that, if you try hard enough, literally anything — including a picture of a tick — can be a meme.
And the RuNet said, Let there be memes: and there were memes. / @valera_whatever

Quote of the Week

“Pay your, pay your debts. Don’t wait! When the legal authorities, GIBDD [General Administration for Traffic Safety], ZhKKh [Housing and Communal Services] officials, creditors, and tax collectors come: pay!”

— A parody of Ukrainian pop song “Плакала”, created by Irkutsk officials to educate citizens with a sense of humor about debts

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

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.
Chekhov Bilingual

Chekhov Bilingual

Some of Chekhov's most beloved stories, with English and accented Russian on facing pages throughout. 
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.
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.
Tolstoy Bilingual

Tolstoy Bilingual

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. 
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.
Okudzhava Bilingual

Okudzhava Bilingual

Poems, songs and autobiographical sketches by Bulat Okudzhava, the king of the Russian bards. 
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.
Survival Russian

Survival Russian

Survival Russian is an intensely practical guide to conversational, colloquial and culture-rich Russian. It uses humor, current events and thematically-driven essays to deepen readers’ understanding of Russian language and culture. This enlarged Second Edition of Survival Russian includes over 90 essays and illuminates over 2000 invaluable Russian phrases and words.
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 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.

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