March 08, 2020

Vote for Oleg, Not Olga


Vote for Oleg, Not Olga
The Moscow Kremlin: Surprisingly not as woman-friendly as one might assume. A. Savin, Wikimedia Commons

A recent study by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) reveals that the majority of the Russians would be against a woman president.

According to Lenta.ru, the survey found that 68 percent of Russians oppose the idea of a female president, while 21 percent would be in favor. Strangely, more were amenable to a female Prime Minister, with just 56 percent against and 31 in favor. However, 69 percent would approve of a woman as Minister of Health, Social Security, or Education.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, younger citizens tended to be more accepting of (hypothetical) women in positions of power: among Russian respondents aged 18-24, 53 percent said they would approve of a woman president, and 50 percent approve of the idea of a female prime minister. Among those over 60, 78% percent consider the presidency to be a male-only profession.

By the way, Women's Day, a massive holiday in the former USSR, is today. Happy Day.

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Turgenev Bilingual

A sampling of Ivan Turgenev's masterful short stories, plays, novellas and novels. Bilingual, with English and accented Russian texts running side by side on adjoining pages.
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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. 
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Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

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Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

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The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

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.
At the Circus (bilingual)

At the Circus (bilingual)

This wonderful novella by Alexander Kuprin tells the story of the wrestler Arbuzov and his battle against a renowned American wrestler. Rich in detail and characterization, At the Circus brims with excitement and life. You can smell the sawdust in the big top, see the vivid and colorful characters, sense the tension build as Arbuzov readies to face off against the American.
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.
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.
The Moscow Eccentric

The Moscow Eccentric

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