November 20, 2021

Birchpunk, an Internet Gift


Birchpunk, an Internet Gift
The weird world of birchpunk. Birchpunk website

Cyberpunk + Russia = Birchpunk. It is a brave new world on the internet.

Cyberpunk is a "combination of lowlife and high tech." Indeed. Just watch some of Russian musical group Little Big's videos to see lowlife and high tech – though Little Big is not considered cyberpunk.

The Birchpunk YouTube channel, in contrast, combines lowlife, high tech, and big ethical questions about exactly what all that high tech will bring us. In the video Russian Cyberfarm, the farmer shows us around the dystopian kiberderevnya in heavily-accented English. Life is lived online on the farm – even if all you have is dial-up internet.

"Heart" asks whether technological progress is good for us humans while using that very technology to get attention. The song has choruses in Russian and verses in English, which is fun. It considers the breakdown of infrastructure-poor village Retrozavodsk – where Grandma has to walk herself to the hospital on foot – while QR codes cover the landscape. The QR code is, by the end of the video, almost the only art left. How timely since every Russian city either has had, has, or will soon have a QR code regime to make this pandemic go away.

In "Heart," Birchpunk sings, in English, these provocative lines: "I know the progress will never end / I know bodies will turn to sand," "For robot, there is no good and bad," and "I know soldiers would need no head / But until we're dead, the best thing we have is what I call it: serdtse (heart)."

Birchpunk also has a news report parody of Russia Today called Russia Tomorrow.

The project combines hip hop and traditional village folk singing – but with groups of village women singing about themes like androids and robots.

As dystopian as Birchpunk is, it is not as downright bizarre as Little Big or as frightening as some other cyberpunk projections of what the future holds. Plus, it is somehow extremely pleasant to listen to a skilled blend of rap in purposely bad English and Russian. But it does show how disturbing it is to have high-speed internet in your village but no clean drinking water.

You Might Also Like

Pay with your Face
  • December 13, 2020

Pay with your Face

The Moscow Metro plans to allow passengers to pay with Face ID.
Ready the Space Force!
  • April 11, 2020

Ready the Space Force!

The US President's decree on lunar resource extraction has the Russian space community crying foul.
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

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.
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.
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. 
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.
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.
Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

The Life Stories collection is a nice introduction to contemporary Russian fiction: many of the 19 authors featured here have won major Russian literary prizes and/or become bestsellers. These are life-affirming stories of love, family, hope, rebirth, mystery and imagination, masterfully translated by some of the best Russian-English translators working today. The selections reassert the power of Russian literature to affect readers of all cultures in profound and lasting ways. Best of all, 100% of the profits from the sale of this book are going to benefit Russian hospice—not-for-profit care for fellow human beings who are nearing the end of their own life stories.
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. 
Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

This astonishingly gripping autobiography by the founder of the Russian Women’s Death Battallion in World War I is an eye-opening documentary of life before, during and after the Bolshevik Revolution.
Okudzhava Bilingual

Okudzhava Bilingual

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

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