January 17, 2019

The Beauty, the Beast, and the Bumbling Public Official


The Beauty, the Beast, and the Bumbling Public Official
The ice mushrooms of Siberia. Anatoly Isayev

The Wheels on the Bus Go Nowhere

1. It isn’t so easy, after all: the mayor of Saratov attempted to persuade his city’s residents to use public transport by using it to get to work himself. The result? A two-hour commute and a tardy arrival at his briefing! Luckily, Mayor Mikhail Isayev understood this as a call to action, not an embarrassment. He reprimanded snow-clearers for not being efficient enough, and has decided to continue the experiment by riding the bus in from every corner of the city to test the most heavily clogged roads. Although we applaud Isayev, we wouldn’t blame the people of Saratov for waiting to bandwagon on the buses until after the situation improves.

2. In a heartwarming turn of events, the hunter became not the huntee, but the rescuer. A man was fishing on frozen Maloye Lake in the Krasnoyarsk region, when he saw a deer that had fallen and become stranded in the middle of the lake. So what was he to do, except push the deer 400 meters to shore? The video speaks for itself, as you get a cute deer, a very classic Russian man discussing how anyone would save the deer and then talking about his homeland (and having a one-sided conversation with the deer), and, finally, beautiful views of a vast Siberian lake.

 

3. What’s better than a mushroom? An ice mushroom (although our stomachs might beg to differ…)! Giant, natural ice sculptures have appeared on trees that grow in a reservoir in Siberia. When the water is high, ice freezes around the trees and is covered by a mound of snow. When the water is let out of the reservoir suddenly, the water level drops but the ice creation remains. The natural sculptures have become a local tourist attraction, alongside the nature reserve that the reservoir is a part of.

Ice Mushrooms
The ice mushrooms of Siberia./ Anatoly Isayev
In Odder News
  • Seems fake but okay: an official, forgetting a few historical events, stated that Russia never targeted dissidents
  • But Mom, why can’t we have Christmas when all the other kids have Christmas? The Orthodox Church is refusing to budge on the date of Russian Christmas
  • Russian film is changing: a new, controversial Russian movie was funded by crowdsourcing and published on Youtube
Quote of the Week

“Yes, Mikhail Alexandrovich took more than two hours to get to work… and was a bit late for the briefing”

— A Saratov city hall spokesperson commented on the results of Mayor Isayev’s bus experiment

 

Want more where this comes from? Give your inbox the gift of TWERF, our Thursday newsletter on the quirkiest, obscurest, and Russianest of Russian happenings of the week.

Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

The Moscow Eccentric

The Moscow Eccentric

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.
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.
93 Untranslatable Russian Words

93 Untranslatable Russian Words

Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.
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.
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.
Woe From Wit (bilingual)

Woe From Wit (bilingual)

One of the most famous works of Russian literature, the four-act comedy in verse Woe from Wit skewers staid, nineteenth century Russian society, and it positively teems with “winged phrases” that are essential colloquialisms for students of Russian and Russian culture.
A Taste of Russia

A Taste of Russia

The definitive modern cookbook on Russian cuisine has been totally updated and redesigned in a 30th Anniversary Edition. Layering superbly researched recipes with informative essays on the dishes' rich historical and cultural context, A Taste of Russia includes over 200 recipes on everything from borshch to blini, from Salmon Coulibiac to Beef Stew with Rum, from Marinated Mushrooms to Walnut-honey Filled Pies. A Taste of Russia shows off the best that Russian cooking has to offer. Full of great quotes from Russian literature about Russian food and designed in a convenient wide format that stays open during use.
Tolstoy Bilingual

Tolstoy Bilingual

This compact, yet surprisingly broad look at the life and work of Tolstoy spans from one of his earliest stories to one of his last, looking at works that made him famous and others that made him notorious. 
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.

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