July 28, 2022

Somewhere Between Classic Rock and Jazz


Somewhere Between Classic Rock and Jazz
Hear all about it! Flickr, Alan Levine

On July 21, pro-Russian hackers took over a major Ukrainian radio station to broadcast fake news that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had been admitted to a hospital and put into intensive care.

Along with lying about Zelensky's health, the hackers also claimed that the duties of the president had been temporarily taken over by the Chairman of the Ukrainian parliament, Ruslan Stefanchuk.

At around 1 pm, the radio station's usual music program was interrupted by the reports about the president's health. While it is not known how many people heard the broadcast, 12-2 p.m. is a prime listening time for radio. 

While it is significant that such hacking was used to spread lies, the company that owns the radio station is significant: Tavrmedia owns Ukraine's nine most popular radio stations, covering a wide variety of musical genres, thus appealing to a large number of people.

Tavrmedia has not yet released which of its stations was hacked and the identity of the hackers is also unknown. Since the start of the war back in February, Ukraine has been subjected to over 700 cyber attacks, most of which were successfully staunched by Ukraine's cybersecurity officials before they could cause any harm.

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Turgenev Bilingual

Turgenev Bilingual

A sampling of Ivan Turgenev's masterful short stories, plays, novellas and novels. Bilingual, with English and accented Russian texts running side by side on adjoining pages.
The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

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.
Moscow and Muscovites

Moscow and Muscovites

Vladimir Gilyarovsky's classic portrait of the Russian capital is one of Russians’ most beloved books. Yet it has never before been translated into English. Until now! It is a spectactular verbal pastiche: conversation, from gutter gibberish to the drawing room; oratory, from illiterates to aristocrats; prose, from boilerplate to Tolstoy; poetry, from earthy humor to Pushkin. 
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.
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.
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Bears in the Caviar

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Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

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Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

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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Okudzhava Bilingual

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

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