June 07, 2018

From Their Smile to Their Heartbeat, Everybody's Hiding Something


From Their Smile to Their Heartbeat, Everybody's Hiding Something

This week we find a kindred spirit in a Kickstarter campaign! David Urban and his team are looking for funds to turn their Kickstarter campaign, Beyond Your World: Into Russia, into a reality. The team is planning a series of videos from across Russia that “take you beyond the headlines, into the culture and natural beauty of Russia.” Their campaign ends next Friday, June 15th, so donate now if the project speaks to you.


That Mona Lisa Smile, Zombie Journalists, and Putin Goes to Austria

1. Is there a smile more mysterious than that of the Mona Lisa? Well, she may have a surprising new competitor in Kim Jong-un. The Russian television show “Vesti Nedeli” apparently photoshopped a slight, mysterious smile onto the face of Kim Jong-un, captured in a photo during his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Pyongyang. It’s not clear why this particular photo was chosen, as there were other moments when the North Korean leader actually was smiling. Maybe the hope is that a smiling visage will encourage smiling (read: peaceful) relations. If that’s the case, everybody should put a bit more effort into keeping a grin on their face!

Photo: Лентач

2. Back from the grave and better than ever! Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko shocked the world not once but twice this week as he died violently and appeared alive later, safe and sound. Apparently, the Ukrainian security service faked his death in an effort to apprehend persons who were actually trying to kill him, and Babchenko maintains that the plot was necessary for his survival. The police claim to have made one arrest in connection with the operation, though it is unclear how the operation led to the arrest. Although internet users have already begun to make resurrection memes about Babchenko, one has to admit that this was a very dead-icated undertaking.

3. All the world’s a stage, and Russian president Vladimir Putin is milking it. Putin was interviewed by Austrian television host Armin Wolf this week, and although the conversation became serious and even tense, Putin got in his fair share of quips and jabs. Highlights include a defense of his shirtless photo ops and a request in German for the host to allow him to finish his sentences. On the more serious side of things, Putin denied the existence of Russian troll farms, maintained that Crimea will not be returned to Ukraine, and scoffed at opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

In Odder News:

Photo: Vkontakte

  • There must be something in the water: the aptly nicknamed “Chameleon River” of St. Petersburg turned a flashy violet this week.

  • Neigh to cars: one Russian official is switching from a car to a horse… and he’s asking for a new parking spot!

  • Another back-from-the-dead story: a Soviet pilot who has been missing for 30 years has been found alive in Afghanistan.

Quote of the Week:

“You said ‘half-naked’ not ‘naked,’ thank God. When I am on vacation I see no need to hide behind the bushes, and there is nothing wrong with that.”

—Vladimir Putin’s response to questions about his shirtless photos

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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. 
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.
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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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Murder at the Dacha

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Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

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The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas

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Jews in Service to the Tsar

Jews in Service to the Tsar

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