August 01, 2010

A Russian Under Every Bed


Ok, I might be biased, given that at Russian Life we're focused 24/7 on things Russian. But lately it seems like Russians are popping up everywhere, even in the most unlikely of places. It's like when I vacation in Maine and the girl scooping my ice cream in some tiny little town off the beaten path turns out to be here from Krasnoyarsk on a student work visa... So what am I talking about? Well, this for instance, among more recent and semi-recent news items:

  • Daniel Radcliffe, the guy who plays Harry Potter, just celebrated his 21st birthday... at a bar in St. Petersburg
  • I just finished Stieg Larsson's NY Times Bestseller The Girl Who Played With Fire (second in the series, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was the first one) and have started The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest. Spoiler alert: The books (which are great) may have been written by a Swede, but the main baddy is of course a Russian.
  • Speaking of baddies: no surprise that it was Russians behind the worst of everything in the final season of 24.
  • Ok, I guess I have to mention the Spy Scandal here. Which is kind of hard to call a scandal, since the spies were caught before they did any damage (so we are told) and ended up being swapped for more non-spies.
  • Chelsea Clinton just got married. She is now Chelsea Mezvinsky. Her new hubby, Marc, is son of convicted felon and former congressmen Edward Mezvinsky (aka "Fast Talking Eddy"). It is not clear that the family is of Russian extraction, but they are Jewish and that means they likely trace their lineage back to the Pale of Settlement, which was in the Russian empire. And there is this from one online source: "He [Marc] threw Chelsea a 30th birthday party for 70 friends and family at Russian eatery Mari Vanna, one of their favorite restaurants."  Guests dined on caviar, pierogies and vodka-infused cocktails."
  • Tony Hayward, the Golden Parachute clad, embattled ex-CEO of BP Oil has been exiled to Russia.
  • Daniel Pirog (his last name means "pie") of Russia just won the world middleweight boxing title.

And that is just a quick perusal. Seems like a rather heavy concentration of late, if you ask me. Maybe it is some kind of cosmic confluence with the Perseid Meteor Showers?

Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of our Books

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.

White Magic
June 01, 2021

White Magic

The thirteen tales in this volume – all written by Russian émigrés, writers who fled their native country in the early twentieth century – contain a fair dose of magic and mysticism, of terror and the supernatural. There are Petersburg revenants, grief-stricken avengers, Lithuanian vampires, flying skeletons, murders and duels, and even a ghostly Edgar Allen Poe.

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.

Marooned in Moscow
May 01, 2011

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.

Woe From Wit (bilingual)
June 20, 2017

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.

The Latchkey Murders
July 01, 2015

The Latchkey Murders

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin is back on the case in this prequel to the popular mystery Murder at the Dacha, in which a serial killer is on the loose in Khrushchev’s Moscow...

Murder at the Dacha
July 01, 2013

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.

Moscow and Muscovites
November 26, 2013

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. 

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