October 27, 2016

How to name your baby (and not get arrested)


How to name your baby (and not get arrested)

Babies and bankrolls

1. If you wanted to name your baby Dolphin, Lucifer,  Princess Daniella, or Ray of Happiness Summerset Ocean, you’re out of luck. A new bill proposes banning names containing numbers, ranks, abbreviations, and profanity. The reasoning: overly outlandish names could lead to bullying in school. Authorities have refused to issue birth certificates for strange names before – BOCh rVF 260602 (short for Biological Human Object born of Voronin-Frolova on June 26, 2002) has lived all 14 years of his life without identifying papers, for instance – but this would make it official.

2. How serious is “protest potential” in Russian universities? Perhaps more than before, as it’s been revealed that students and teachers across Russia were –unbeknownst to them – investigated for loyalty to the state. A think tank claimsto have found evidence of "destructive propaganda and anti-state ideas" in universities. Even with the Kremlin claiming no involvement, people are riled up enough that protest potential might get a boost.

3. Russia’s middle class has shrunk by 14 million people just since 2014 – and none of them left the middle class because they won the lottery. The decrease from about 61% to 51% of the middle-class population indicates the extent of the economic slump, with middle-income households bearing the brunt of financial stresses. And the spiral may continue, as the increase in wealth inequality could impact the central bank’s ability to steer inflation and manage the country’s finances.

In Odder News

Caption
  • If you don’t think Ivan IV (also known as “the Terrible) deserves a stone statue, Kansk has an alternate monument: a wooden stake dripping with blood-red paint.
  • Russia announces a fancy new spaceship, which may or may not be flown entirely by androids when it launches in 2021.

Quote of the Week 

“You’ve all become too civilized….You need to buy a yurt and move back to nature.”
—Dugar-Syuryun Oorzhak, a shaman and a healer, on the value of tradition in contemporary life.

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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.

Steppe
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Steppe

This is the work that made Chekhov, launching his career as a writer and playwright of national and international renown. Retranslated and updated, this new bilingual edition is a super way to improve your Russian.

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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...

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The Little Humpbacked Horse

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.

Fish
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Fish

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.

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Russian Rules

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Jews in Service to the Tsar

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White Magic
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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.

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