July 12, 2026

Whoa, Mama


Whoa, Mama
Cute, but just wait until they hit age 2. The Russian Life files

Russian state news outlet Izvestia reported that, on July 8, a Moscow woman gave birth to her sixteenth child.

The woman, unnamed in the article, birthed her ninth son, adding to her seven daughters. The birth was announced via social media by the Moscow Department of Health, which reported that the mother and newborn are healthy and received hearty congratulations from hospital staff.

While a big family is remarkable anywhere, in Russia, parents of large families are domestic heroes. In a country faced with shrinking demographics, authorities often encourage citizens to have as many children as possible (sometimes in goofy and somewhat crude ways).

In the Soviet Union, there was a civil medal awarded to mothers who had produced an exceptionally large litter of children, terming them "Mother-Heroines"; in 2022, Putin revived the honor as the "Order of Parental Glory." In addition to the social clout, awardees are also eligible for benefits to help pay for all those hungry mouths.

Especially when Russia's economy isn't doing too hot.

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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.

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June 01, 2021

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.

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July 15, 2022

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