November 11, 2021

Spider-Man, Siberian Tigers, and Sputnik V


Spider-Man, Siberian Tigers, and Sputnik V
In Odder News

In this week's Odder News, Russia eats too many burgers and fries, leaders get COVID-vaccinated six times, and a Chechen boxer has a magic touch.

  • Spider-Man is on the loose in Moscow – specifically, in the metro system. Though typical in cities like New York, buskers hanging from subway poles and flinging their legs inches from unsuspecting riders' faces is not normal in Moscow, although, apparently, increasingly common.
  • Fast food narod? This week, Komsomolskaya pravda bemoaned the fact that the pandemic has made Russia a country that consumes massive amounts of fast food. The "big three" are McDonald's, KFC, and Burger King. (Sadly, Russian KFCs do not sell bowls of mashed potatoes and gravy. What a waste!) There is no denying that fast food – especially when it is delivered right to your house – has helped some people get through the pandemic. Meanwhile, the pandemic hit traditional "sit down" restaurants hard, with a 52% collapse in the industry's profits in the first half of 2020. The number of purely takeaway joints has risen two and a half fold. The KP journalist writes with regret: "We're turning into a fast food country."
  • "Give him an Oscar!": At a boxing tournament in Grozny, Chechen boxer Abdul-Kerim Edilov defeated his opponent practically just by touching him. Boxer from Ghana Richard Larty lost "artistically and improbably." Edilov barely hit Larty, who fell to the mat and surrendered, leading to calls online to "Give [Larty] an Oscar!" for his acting performance.
  • An Amur (Siberian) tiger is on the loose near a village in the Khabarovsk region. Family dogs are especially under threat as Amur tigers have an "inexplicable craving for dogs." A tiger will watch a dog and its owner for hours and then strike as soon as the owner is no longer near the dog. Keep your dogs hidden and with you at all times, and call 112 (the Russian 911) if you see an orange blur.
  • The head of Russia's Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug got six Sputnik V vaccinations against COVID-19 as part of an "experiment." She got vaccinated back in March 2021 and yet, somehow, was pretty sick with COVID in October 2021. Apparently quantity does not change the likelihood of getting infected. LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky also reported getting six jabs since vaccines became available in Russia.

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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.
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The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas

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At the Circus (bilingual)

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The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

A beloved Russian classic about a resourceful Russian peasant, Vanya, and his miracle-working horse, who together undergo various trials, exploits and adventures at the whim of a laughable tsar, told in rich, narrative poetry.
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