January 09, 2020

Of pigs and cussing and parachutes


Of pigs and cussing and parachutes
In Odder News

This week's Odder News, we cover everything from mummies to hogs, from cussing to bows and arrows. Oh, and skyscraper jumping...

  • Shoppers in the Siberian city of Tyumen were surprised to find three domesticated hogs roaming the alcohol aisle of the local supermarket. After sampling a few bottles of cognac following ham-fisted attempts to open them, the pigs were returned to their owner.
  • The ancient Egyptians were overthinking things: all you need to mummify someone is put them on an apartment building balcony in St. Petersburg for a couple years.
  • Opposite corners of Russia apparently have opposite levels of cussing: uncensored utterances are spoken most in Vladivostok and least in Petrozavodsk. Unsurprisingly, throughout Russia, higher living standards are correlated with less frequent exclamations like “f*** this.”
  • Russian authorities bowed to popular pressure and legalized hunting with bows and crossbows.
  • Two men in Krasnoyarsk jumped from the 24th floor of an apartment building with parachutes. All we can say is what Lenta.ru used as their url for the article: “Oh, Russians.”

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Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

A book that dares to explore the humanity of priests and pilgrims, saints and sinners, Faith & Humor has been both a runaway bestseller in Russia and the focus of heated controversy – as often happens when a thoughtful writer takes on sacred cows. The stories, aphorisms, anecdotes, dialogues and adventures in this volume comprise an encyclopedia of modern Russian Orthodoxy, and thereby of Russian life.
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.
White Magic

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.
Tolstoy Bilingual

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93 Untranslatable Russian Words

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