November 25, 2017

Photography, Kachka & Spies


Photography, Kachka & Spies
Vitas Luckas, in Vilnius

Here are this week's best English language long-reads we've come across in the Russoverse. They take us from Lithuania to Brooklyn and then Washington. Check the link at the bottom of the post for how you can submit long reads for our consideration.

A Distant, Overlooked Life

Author Lars Mensel takes a look back at Vitas Luckus, someone who should have been a leading light of Lithuanian photography, but for the fact that he lived in Soviet Lithuania, where orthodoxy and conformity trumped artistic exploration. 

The photographer's tragic end could well be the opening to a LeCarre novel:

Vitas Luckus died after jumping out of the window of his 5th floor apartment in the winter of 1987... his wife found him in the snow.

 

Seconds earlier, Luckus had committed murder: There was a visitor at his place, and they had argument about his photography. Luckus stabbed the guy with a kitchen knife, only to realize that the visitor was a KGB agent. He chose death over punishment.

Mensel offers some superb examples of Luckus' art, and explores how hard it is to know a time, place or worldview when one is removed from it in space and time. But also at how we, in our desire to simplify the world, often focus too much on the "accepted masters" of an art form, failing to look at or remember those who fly below the radar...

Photography is so dominated by iconic figures that some never reach fame, no matter how great they are or once were.

Kachka

Kachka: The Word That Saved A Family

Over on the foodie blog Salt, NPR correspondent Neda Ulaby, who has one of the most sonically pleasing names in journalism (and an on-air voice to match), takes us to Brooklyn to hang out with chef and cookbook author Bonnie Morales, who has just had published Kachka, A Return to Russian Cooking. The new cookbook

challenges assumptions that Russian food is bland and lacks variety. "That it's all for cold weather, very meat-heavy, that everything is pickled," she says.

 

You'll find recipes in Morales' cookbook for buckwheat blinis with lingonberry mustard, beet-and-caviar stuffed eggs, and, if truth be told, a lot of pickles.

The child of Russian-Jewish parents (her husband is part Mexican, thus her last name), Morales originally felt Russian food was "broken" or stodgy and needed a reboot, and nurtured a bit of a love-hate relationship with it.

"I thought the smell of mushrooms boiling was just disgusting," she confesses.

So what is the story about the book's title (which is also the name of Morales' restaurant in Portland)?

Kachka refers to a dramatic moment that took place during World War II. Morales' grandmother fled a ghetto in Minsk after barely escaping a mass killing. She was passing as a Ukrainian peasant when she was stopped by a Russian official working with the Germans.

 

"He was like, 'You're a Jew,' " Morales recounts. The official challenged her grandmother to say the word "duck" in Ukrainian to prove her identity. Morales' grandmother didn't speak Ukrainian, and she had to stake her life on linguistic overlap.

 

"She just hoped that maybe it was the same word in Yiddish and Belarusian," Morales explains. "So she said, 'kachka.' And it turned out it was the same word in Belarusian, Ukrainian and Yiddish. And he let her go."

Then follows the funniest passage in the post, when Ulaby demurs when Morales suggests maybe they try some tongue.

And then her editor steps in:

"Neda specifically told me she didn't want to taste any tongue. So let's get the tongue," she announces.

What Trump Really Told Kislyak

It wouldn't be a week in Washington these days without myriad new speculations, revelations, and perturbations in the Trump-Putin-Russiagate-Election-Tampering scandal.

It does all get a bit tiresome, so when a really well-researched, detailed article comes along, it pricks our ears. Howard Blum dives deep into what actually went on at that notorious meeting in the White House where only Russian reporters were allowed, and where the president appears to have tipped Russia's two top diplomats off as to Israeli intelligence's sources and methods in an antiterrorism operation. It was a case, Blum says, where

pretty much the entire Free World was left shaking its collective head in bewilderment as it wondered, not for the first time, what was going on with Trump and Russia.

Beginning with a cinematic opening about the Israeli intelligence op that revealed an incipient danger of laptops to commercial aircraft, Blum goes through the details of the case and the presidential leak to the country's adversary in jaw dropping detail. 

Why did a president who has time after volatile time railed against leakers, who has attacked Hillary Clinton for playing fast and loose with classified information, cozy up to a couple of Russian bigwigs in the Oval Office and breezily offer government secrets?

He also offers a fascinating look back at the history and importance of inter-state cooperation in the intel world (to wit: it was the Israelis that first obtained a copy of Khrushchev's Secret Speech), and how this one interaction may have endangered many of those relationships.


Thanks to Dave Edwards for the tip on the Kachka article.

You Might Also Like

7 Myths About Russian Cuisine
  • January 28, 2014

7 Myths About Russian Cuisine

There are many myths surrounding Russian food. Darra Goldstein, author of the cookbook, A Taste of Russia, addresses seven common ones.
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

Fish: A History of One Migration

Fish: A History of One Migration

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.
The Little Golden Calf

The Little Golden Calf

Our edition of The Little Golden Calf, one of the greatest Russian satires ever, is the first new translation of this classic novel in nearly fifty years. It is also the first unabridged, uncensored English translation ever, and is 100% true to the original 1931 serial publication in the Russian journal 30 Dnei. Anne O. Fisher’s translation is copiously annotated, and includes an introduction by Alexandra Ilf, the daughter of one of the book’s two co-authors.
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.
The Latchkey Murders

The Latchkey Murders

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...
Russia Rules

Russia Rules

From the shores of the White Sea to Moscow and the Northern Caucasus, Russian Rules is a high-speed thriller based on actual events, terrifying possibilities, and some really stupid decisions.
At the Circus

At the Circus

This wonderful novella by Alexander Kuprin tells the story of the wrestler Arbuzov and his battle against a renowned American wrestler. Rich in detail and characterization, At the Circus brims with excitement and life. You can smell the sawdust in the big top, see the vivid and colorful characters, sense the tension build as Arbuzov readies to face off against the American.
Jews in Service to the Tsar

Jews in Service to the Tsar

Benjamin Disraeli advised, “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” With Jews in Service to the Tsar, Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe’s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history.
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.
Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

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.
Steppe / Степь

Steppe / Степь

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.
The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar

The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar

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.
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.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
PO Box 567
Montpelier VT 05601-0567

802-223-4955