June 08, 2020

Dog Days


Dog Days
Sun's out, guns out, unless you have weather pains. Aleksei Nikolsky, Kremlin Pool Photo

If your old, dry bones are achy "cause of a gullywasher a-rollin" in over that thar field, this doctor has tips for you. Russian sources reported this week on a Russian medical professional's interview on how to combat weather pains. In Russian, the term is метеозависимость: "meteodependency," which is certainly one of the more delightful Russian compound words.

According to the article, older folks are more sensitive to weather pains. According to Dr. Larisa Alekseeva, children tend to be hardier when it comes to weather changes.

However, fighting aches and pains from changing temperature, pressure, and humidity is difficult: a variety of factors enter into the equation, including diet, age, and underlying conditions. Treatment purely impacts symptoms and usually involves traditional painkillers. Otherwise, those who are especially vulnerable should stay indoors and avoid stressful situations and news, which can negatively and unnecessarily impact the body.

Hopefully weather pains won't get in the way of any of your summer plans any more than coronavirus already has.

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Some of Our Books

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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.
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Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

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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.

Murder at the Dacha
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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.

Fearful Majesty
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Moscow and Muscovites
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The Latchkey Murders
July 01, 2015

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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...

Frogs Who Begged...
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Frogs Who Begged...

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.

At the Circus
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