January 01, 1990

Butina, Babies, and Baby-making


Butina, Babies, and Baby-making
Baby Blues

1. The times they are a-changin’ for Russians in the United States and other Western nations, and not always for the better. This video highlights the experience of young Russians and other Eastern Europeans living in the United States. They are facing both greater suspicion from Americans and greater divisions within the community itself. American suspicion can be traced to election-hacking and, more recently, the Maria Butina affair, while internal division is often generated by differing opinions on the current Russian government and its practices. But, on the upside, there is as yet no shortage of Russian restaurants and clubs in the US.

2. For the first time in a decade, Russia’s population has decreased. The announcement by the government statistics agency Rosstat follows a May United Nations report that predicted the Russian population will fall by 11 million by 2050. But the Russian government is not taking the news lying down. President Vladimir Putin has promised to spend $8.6 billion over the next three years on programs that will encourage Russians to have more babies.

3. To continue the theme... A Russian Orthodox archbishop in charge of family affairs recently agreed with Pope Francis that sex is a gift from God and to be enjoyed. Of course, the usual terms and conditions apply: the archbishop clarified that sex is only to be enjoyed between a married couple. That caveat aside, there is so far no word on a joint Putin-Church pro-sex, pro-babies tour that no one is talking about. It’s all very hush-hush.

In Odder News:

Moscow dog show

Photo: Парк культуры и отдыха “Красная Пресня”

  • Russian pups hit the runway in Moscow’s first doggie costume show

  • In a very Putin way, Putin tested Kalashnikov’s newest sniper rifles

  • Excessive and, unfortunately, effective: men wielding an axe robbed a taxi in Moscow

Quote of the Week:

“Sex is a component of love… but only love within marriage.”

— Archpriest Dmitry Smirnov, on the ins and outs of sex in Orthodox life

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Okudzhava Bilingual

Okudzhava Bilingual

Poems, songs and autobiographical sketches by Bulat Okudzhava, the king of the Russian bards. 
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.
Bears in the Caviar

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

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.
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Dostoyevsky Bilingual

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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.
93 Untranslatable Russian Words

93 Untranslatable Russian Words

Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.
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.
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.
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.

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