December 18, 2021

What a Gap Year


What a Gap Year
They should have consulted a professional English-language editor before writing all over the Shark plane. Wikimedia Commons user MB-one

A nineteen-year-old pilot who is solo-circumnavigating the world recently landed in Khabarovsk.

Young Belgian pilot Zara Rutherford launched the FlyZolo project with help from Rotary International. Her plane is the Shark, one of the fastest ultralight planes in the world. Polina Gruba of the Rotary Club hosted the pilot at her home in Khabarovsk.

Rutherford has never been so far away from home and is doing it in grand fashion as a solo pilot. In the Far East, she touched down in Magadan and Ayan before reaching Khabarovsk. But in the latter, larger city, Rutherford was finally able to connect to wi-fi and contact her family in Belgium, who was quite worried about her.

Residents of Khabarovsk dressed the pilot up like a Russian princess and stuffed her with pelmeni, blini, borscht, "herring under a fur coat," and other Russian delicacies. She met the players of the Khabarovsk Amur hockey team, part of the KHL (the second-best hockey league in the world, by many estimates).

Rutherford has not even started, let alone finished, college. She is starting next year, so this has been a very accomplished "gap year" – a break between high school and college that is more common in Europe than in either the United States or Russia.

Rutherford hopes to be the youngest woman to ever circumnavigate the globe. Follow her journey on FlyZolo.com.

You Might Also Like

Flying High
  • July 01, 2021

Flying High

Russian air travel has changed radically over the past two decades. While there are still grave security concerns, there has been a boom in aircraft and airport construction, with positive impacts for travelers into and within the country.
New Life Breathed into the Museum of Hockey
  • February 28, 2021

New Life Breathed into the Museum of Hockey

Moscow's stunning Museum of Hockey and Hockey Hall of Fame is a hidden gem with new investors ready to keep it going – hopefully for a long time to come.
KHL Victor Crowned
  • May 23, 2021

KHL Victor Crowned

Omsk Avangard clinches Russian hockey's Gagarin Cup with some famous NHL faces.
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of our Books

A Taste of Russia
November 01, 2012

A Taste of Russia

The definitive modern cookbook on Russian cuisine has been totally updated and redesigned in a 30th Anniversary Edition. Layering superbly researched recipes with informative essays on the dishes' rich historical and cultural context, A Taste of Russia includes over 200 recipes on everything from borshch to blini, from Salmon Coulibiac to Beef Stew with Rum, from Marinated Mushrooms to Walnut-honey Filled Pies. A Taste of Russia shows off the best that Russian cooking has to offer. Full of great quotes from Russian literature about Russian food and designed in a convenient wide format that stays open during use.

The Moscow Eccentric
December 01, 2016

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
October 09, 2011

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.

A Taste of Chekhov
December 24, 2022

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.

Bears in the Caviar
May 01, 2015

Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar is a hilarious and insightful memoir by a diplomat who was “present at the creation” of US-Soviet relations. Charles Thayer headed off to Russia in 1933, calculating that if he could just learn Russian and be on the spot when the US and USSR established relations, he could make himself indispensable and start a career in the foreign service. Remarkably, he pulled it of.

Survival Russian
February 01, 2009

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.

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