March 11, 2018

Another Birthday


Another Birthday

On this day, 28 years ago, two naive young Americans sat down and agreed to found a publishing company together. This publishing company.

I was living and working in Moscow, helping to run one of the first Soviet-Western joint-venture businesses. David Kelley was doing the same. Our company was publishing books and running a printshop and a chain of bookstores. Kelley was running a screen-printing business, idealistically hoping to turn Young Communists into responsible capitalists (spoiler alert: it didn't work). Together we hatched the idea of writing and publishing books for people doing business in Russia, then seen by many to be on the verge of a capitalist boom. We'd be selling picks and shovels to prospectors, we told ourselves and others. And we convinced a couple of Norwegians to join us in our grand scheme. 

The rest is history.

Now, nearly three decades and hundreds of thousands of books and magazines and calendars later, the world is a far different place from the one that, back in 1990, we imagined. The Russian Boom came and went, then it came again (this time fueled by oil and gas) and really took off, and the Cold War was won and lost, and then resumed again with a fury worse than any time since at least the 1980s.

We have lived through coups and rumors of coups, weathered countless business cycles, lost and gained partners, and made countless trips to and from Mother Russia.

Whenever I pause to look back, I am amazed at what we have traversed, at the very fact that we have survived.

And in a week like this one I feel particularly lucky to have been on this journey for 28 years. 

Because this week, after nearly two years of planning, fundraising, research, journalism, photography, writing, translating, editing, layout, design and printing, we released what I feel is the most important book in our company's 28-year history, Resilience: Life Stories of Centenarians Born in the Year of Revolution.

The book collects some of the life stories of 22 remarkable individuals, most all of them Russian, most all of them women, and most all of them blue-eyed. Their stories are by turns profound and heartbreaking, awe-inspiring and endearing. We were lucky to be allowed to hear them first hand, to record them in print and on video, and even more lucky to be allowed to share them with the world.

At a time when all we hear out of Russia is news that is either bad or worse, it could not be more important to share stories of humanity and community, of hope and persistence. Of resilience.

So thank you to all our customers and partners, and to our contributors and collaborators all over the world. Without you, we could never have come this far. 

Just two more years and we'll be "over the hill"...

Paul E. Richardson
Publisher

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Some of Our Books

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.
Russian Rules

Russian Rules

From the shores of the White Sea to Moscow and the Northern Caucasus, Russian Rules is a high-speed thriller based on actual events, terrifying possibilities, and some really stupid decisions.
Jews in Service to the Tsar

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.
Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

The Life Stories collection is a nice introduction to contemporary Russian fiction: many of the 19 authors featured here have won major Russian literary prizes and/or become bestsellers. These are life-affirming stories of love, family, hope, rebirth, mystery and imagination, masterfully translated by some of the best Russian-English translators working today. The selections reassert the power of Russian literature to affect readers of all cultures in profound and lasting ways. Best of all, 100% of the profits from the sale of this book are going to benefit Russian hospice—not-for-profit care for fellow human beings who are nearing the end of their own life stories.
A Taste of Russia

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.
White Magic

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.
Turgenev Bilingual

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.
Survival Russian

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.
Fish: A History of One Migration

Fish: A History of One Migration

This mesmerizing novel from one of Russia’s most important modern authors traces the life journey of a selfless Russian everywoman. In the wake of the Soviet breakup, inexorable forces drag Vera across the breadth of the Russian empire. Facing a relentless onslaught of human and social trials, she swims against the current of life, countering adversity and pain with compassion and hope, in many ways personifying Mother Russia’s torment and resilience amid the Soviet disintegration.
Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod is a mid-sized provincial city that exists only in Russian metaphorical space. It has its roots in Gogol, and Ilf and Petrov, and is a place far from Moscow, but close to Russian hearts. It is a place of mystery and normality, of provincial innocence and Black Earth wisdom. Strange, inexplicable things happen in Stargorod. So do good things. And bad things. A lot like life everywhere, one might say. Only with a heavy dose of vodka, longing and mystery.
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.
How Russia Got That Way

How Russia Got That Way

A fast-paced crash course in Russian history, from Norsemen to Navalny, that explores the ways the Kremlin uses history to achieve its ends.

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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.

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