March 07, 2019

Absence (of Sugar and Corgis) Makes the Heart Grow Fonder


Absence (of Sugar and Corgis) Makes the Heart Grow Fonder
It’ll be tricky sweetening this rocky deal. Elena Silich

Throwback Thursday

Nutcracker dance
The Nutcracker. / La Russ Restaurant and Show

Are you a Nutcracker fan? Then this day’s for you. Today in 1892, the suite from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker premiered in St. Petersburg.


Excesses of TV References, Dearth of Movies

1. Did someone say rock candy? A Tyumen resident was making herself tea and decided to add sugar. She opened the box of sugar she had recently purchased (photo at top of post), only to find…rocks. And she wasn’t alone: when she went to the store to complain, they told her that many others had found rocks in their sugar boxes. No one knows how the rocks got in the box; the only clue is that all boxes with rocks have a cross on the back. Stay tuned… We expect the investigators to leave no stone unturned.

2. They killed Kenny, in Kazan! If someone names their new apartment complex “South Park,” there’s only one thing you can do: make an in-joke. When a Kazan builder put up a “South Park” sign, someone took the opportunity to install a gravestone to Kenny McCormick, alluding to a running gag on South Park where a character named Kenny dies every episode and is inexplicably resurrected. Some people were happier than others; eventually the builder took down the grave. Even so, in its announcement, it made one last wisecrack about South Park, demonstrating how hard it is to resist making in-jokes.

Kenny's grave Kazan South Park
Kenny's grave. / overhearkazan

3. A dog’s life for corgi fans. Russian movie theaters were looking forward to showing the Belgian animated flick The Queen’s Corgi on March 7. However, at the last minute, the Ministry of Culture postponed the premiere until late March. As it happens, March 7 is the day a cartoon co-funded by a Russian company is slated to air, and God forbid it should share theater space with a Western cartoon. Movie theater owners are threatening to boycott the Ministry’s movie if they can’t run The Queen’s Corgi, but the Ministry is digging in its heels. It seems the dog days of cinema are nigh.

Blog spotlight

Mark the fourth day of Maslenitsa with Alisa Goz’s analysis of Maslenitsa paintings, from the realist to the postmodern.

In Odder News

  • Well, I’ll be @#$%ed! A new VTsIOM (Russian Public Opinion Research Center) survey reveals that 60% of Russians use mat, or profanity, in their daily lives.
  • Rise and shine! Just in time for spring, groundhogs are coming out of hibernation at the Moscow Zoo.

    Groundhog in spring
    Wakey wakey. / @moscowzoo
  • Ever wondered what Pushkin would do if he lived in the twenty-first century? Thanks to an upcoming exhibition of speculative Pushkin drawings, you need wonder no more.

Pushkin with computer
"It's cold, but I still need to work." Me too, dude. / Evgenia Dvoskina

Quote of the Week

“At this moment, [they] have taken producers, distributors of a domestic film, and children — who will have to survive without fresh cartoons this coming weekend — hostage.”

Russian media company MVK commenting on boycott of the movie they co-funded, whose premiere conflicts with The Queen’s Corgi

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The Little Golden Calf

The 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.
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.
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.
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.
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The Samovar Murders

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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.
Tolstoy Bilingual

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. 
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.
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. 
Jews in Service to the Tsar

Jews in Service to the Tsar

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