January 11, 2020

The One About the Pigeon and the Hole


The One About the Pigeon and the Hole
The pigeon is not suspected of fowl play. Evgenny Zenkov, E1.ru

Pigeonhole this story for later: Yekaterinburg animal control staff were called to an apartment building after a resident complained of a rustling inside a wall. After punching a hole through said wall, rescuers extricated a live pigeon, who was shocked but no worse for wear. The bird was taken to a veterinarian to ensure its wellbeing.

According to local experts, it is likely the bird was looking to escape from the cold and entered the building via a ventilation duct. It had probably fallen from the attic into the wall, perhaps egged on by a fowl colleague.

Animals in Russia seem to be especially active lately. Pigs have been raiding grocery stores, cats have been arrested for drug-running, and a mischievous snowboarder ruffled the feathers of an alpine wood grouse.

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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.

Marooned in Moscow
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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.

Jews in Service to the Tsar
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Jews in Service to the Tsar

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Bears in the Caviar

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Steppe
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The Latchkey Murders
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The Latchkey Murders

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