February 14, 2023

Show Me Your Face


Show Me Your Face
Cars crossing the Russian border. Poligon.media, Telegram.

Russian authorities plan to tighten the screws at the country's borders by installing face-recognition systems to identify drivers entering or leaving the country. The move directly violates a law President Vladimir Putin signed on December 29, 2022, prohibiting the forced collection of biometric data by the government or businesses.

Concerns over border security rose after the killing of pro-war activist and journalist Darya Dugina, as the killer allegedly crossed Russia's border with Ukraine. Opposition leaders escaping Russia while under house arrest may have also contributed to the new measure, since the current video surveillance systems can't detect such crossings.

The systems will be installed at nine different points. There will be three checkpoints along the Russo-Chinese border (Zabaykalsk, Pogranichny, and Kraskino), another three along the borders with Poland and Lithuania (Bagrationovsk, Mamonovo, and Chernyshevskoye), and three  more at crossings between Russia and Kazakhstan (Mashtakovo, Orsk, and Sagarchin).

The project is expected to cost R830 million ($11.5 million) and is planned to be completed before November 25, 2023.

You Might Also Like

From Hero to Zero
  • January 11, 2023

From Hero to Zero

A Russian “hero” of the war in Ukraine was convicted for not showing up for military service.
The Threat from Abroad
  • December 28, 2022

The Threat from Abroad

Putin has issued a call to hunt down spies and saboteurs. The State Duma has prepared new “anti-sabotage” laws.
Russia in 2022
  • December 23, 2022

Russia in 2022

In which we look back at Russia's performance in 2022.
War, Not Fish
  • December 21, 2022

War, Not Fish

A Tyumen resident at first convinced a court she was objecting to dried fish, not war. But the police were not having it...
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

Okudzhava Bilingual

Okudzhava Bilingual

Poems, songs and autobiographical sketches by Bulat Okudzhava, the king of the Russian bards. 
Russian Rules

Russian 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.
Marooned in Moscow

Marooned in Moscow

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.
Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

This astonishingly gripping autobiography by the founder of the Russian Women’s Death Battallion in World War I is an eye-opening documentary of life before, during and after the Bolshevik Revolution.
Survival Russian

Survival Russian

Survival Russian is an intensely practical guide to conversational, colloquial and culture-rich Russian. It uses humor, current events and thematically-driven essays to deepen readers’ understanding of Russian language and culture. This enlarged Second Edition of Survival Russian includes over 90 essays and illuminates over 2000 invaluable Russian phrases and words.
Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

In this comprehensive, quixotic and addictive book, Edwin Trommelen explores all facets of the Russian obsession with vodka. Peering chiefly through the lenses of history and literature, Trommelen offers up an appropriately complex, rich and bittersweet portrait, based on great respect for Russian culture.
Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

The Life Stories collection is a nice introduction to contemporary Russian fiction: many of the 19 authors featured here have won major Russian literary prizes and/or become bestsellers. These are life-affirming stories of love, family, hope, rebirth, mystery and imagination, masterfully translated by some of the best Russian-English translators working today. The selections reassert the power of Russian literature to affect readers of all cultures in profound and lasting ways. Best of all, 100% of the profits from the sale of this book are going to benefit Russian hospice—not-for-profit care for fellow human beings who are nearing the end of their own life stories.
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.

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
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955