April 12, 2018

Singed Sweets and Stolen Sea-Dwellers


Singed Sweets and Stolen Sea-Dwellers
Charred Chocolate, Freezing Fishermen, and Phantom Fish

1. Burn, baby, burn! Russian social media users are turning up the heat by demonstrating the flammability of various brands of Russian chocolates. Bloggers have enjoyed comparing how different chocolates – by brand and country of origin – fare when put to the fiery test. Following a public outcry, Russia’s consumer protection watchdog said it would subject domestic chocolates to lab testing. It all puts a slightly different spin on the idea of “a hot mess.”

2. Over thirty fishermen found themselves on thin ice this week (or at least, breakable ice). On the coast of Russia’s Far East, the ice floe that the fishermen were on broke off from land and floated into the ocean. The fishermen went out on the floe (about 500 meters from shore) despite warnings from emergency services. They were rescued, but two fishermen decided to stay behind, saying that the fish were biting. Hey man, whatever floe-ts your boat.

3. An unknown man made out with a reel haul this week: he stole 13 metric tons of fish. The man was disguised as a transport company representative and put the fish into his car and trailer. The fish, which cost over R6.4 million ($101,500), were stolen from Moscow but were originally destined for Nizhny Novgorod. Hopefully the police can reel him in.

In Odder News:

Photo: Иван Марков

  • The people of Kaliningrad found that the lamp posts on their new bridge were sneakily decorated with flower pots… oops-a-daisy!

  • Open the floodgates! Warm weather and piles of snow led to a deluge of floods across Russia

  • One friendly seal refuses to go back to the wild: it seems as though he’s seal-ed the deal on staying with his St. Petersburg human friends

Quote of the Week:

“From the very beginning, there was a sense that the files responsible for wildness were deleted in his brain. There was not even a hint that this program would ever be launched.”

— A fisherman describes Kroshik the seal

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The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

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The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

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.
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Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

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The Latchkey Murders

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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.
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Advance reviewers are calling this new translation "a coup" and "a remarkable achievement." This rediscovered gem of a novel by one of Russia's finest writers explores some of the thorniest issues of the early twentieth century.
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Poems, songs and autobiographical sketches by Bulat Okudzhava, the king of the Russian bards. 
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Some of Chekhov's most beloved stories, with English and accented Russian on facing pages throughout. 
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Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin has a problem. Several, actually. Not the least of them is the fact that a powerful Soviet boss has been murdered, and Matyushkin's surly commander has given him an unreasonably short time frame to close the case.
Turgenev Bilingual

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