December 23, 2021

Bunkers, Beglov, and Bad Weather


Bunkers, Beglov, and Bad Weather
In Odder News

In this week's Odder News, Russians are an optimistic people, bunkers are coming back, and St. Petersburg's governor has been invited to Africa.

  • Polls indicate that 61% of Russians believe 2022 will be better than 2021. A journalist at Komsomolskaya Pravda concludes that Russians are a positive people after all! The survey data comes from 1,000 Russians living in both cities and villages. No doubt, Russians are tired of the almost-two-year-long pandemic and are hoping that 2022 will be the year that we move past it.
  • Among unpleasant winter weather in St. Petersburg, word of the snow not being cleared from St. Petersburg streets and sidewalks has reached the president's ears. A group of men in Africa has recorded a video telling St. Petersburg governor Alexander Beglov, "Come here, we don't have any snow you need to clear away." The men danced around with photographs of Beglov to a RockerJoker song that includes "Sanya, stay with us." Check out the hilarious video here.
  • Terje Stepaschko, a native Norwegian with Norwegian roots, cannot catch a break because of his Slavic-sounding last name. One of his sons constantly has to prove that he has the right to work in Norway and is asked what it is like being an immigrant in Norway. He thinks people should stop using the sound of a last name to determine how to treat people – which we agree with.
  • "What's good for an American is good for a Russian": Rich Russians are following mid-twentieth-century Americans in building nuclear bunkers beneath their homes. According to Komsomolskaya Pravda, these bunkers began to be constructed in the 1960s during the Cuban Missile Crisis. So-called "preppers" in America continue to build bunkers, and Russian oligarchs are copying their idea. Half a dozen Russian companies advertise these bunkers, with the basic unit starting at R7.6 million ($102,676). Check out some cool infographics outlining Russian bunker design, here.

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Some of Our Books

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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.
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.
Chekhov Bilingual

Chekhov Bilingual

Some of Chekhov's most beloved stories, with English and accented Russian on facing pages throughout. 
The Samovar Murders

The Samovar Murders

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The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas

This exciting new trilogy by a Russian author – who has been compared to Orhan Pamuk and Umberto Eco – vividly recreates a lost world, yet its passions and characters are entirely relevant to the present day. Full of mystery, memorable characters, and non-stop adventure, The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas is a must read for lovers of historical fiction and international thrillers.  
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93 Untranslatable Russian Words

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Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

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Woe From Wit (bilingual)

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