“Painting Jesus Isn't Dangerous”

Orthodox Street Art in Contemporary Russia

Journeys through the Russian Empire

WILLIAM CRAFT BRUMFIELD Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky traveled throughout Russia prior to the Revolution, photographing churches and mosques, railways and monasteries, towns and remote natural landscapes. His images are now archived at the Library of Congress. William Brumfield has recreated Prokudin-Gorsky’s journeys and photographed those same sites today and the photos are laid out side by side int his new book – a testament to two brilliant photographers whose work prompts and illuminates, monument by monument, questions of conservation, restoration, and cultural identity and memory.

Owls of the Eastern Ice

A Quest to Find and Save the World’s Largest Owl

Arctic Wake-up Call

Oil spill highlights Russia's deteriorating infrastructure

An expat Goes Home

At dawn one day in late November, I was awakened by a call. It was my niece, sobbing: “Uncle Vic… Papa died.”

A Cold Soup to Beet Summer

I was a picky eater in my childhood, and cooked vegetables were especially taboo for me, precluding any enjoyment of my mother’s scrumptious borshch, vegetable ragout, and the like. It must have been a small miracle for her, then, that I did eat her cold svekolnik (свекольник) soup. Perhaps I was seduced by its brilliant red color, or by the floating halves of a hard-boiled egg, or the fact that it was refreshingly cold on a hot summer day.

Food & Drink

Babushka’s Victory Cake

Under Review

Under Review

The Beauties

I. I remember when I was still in high school in the fifth or sixth level, I traveled with my grandfather from the village of Bolshaya Krepkaya in the Don region to Rostov-on Don.

Northern Wood Saving Forgotten Churches

Just before sunset, a large, modern bus stopped in the quiet village of Saminsky Pogost. About three dozen women (along with a nun and several men) stepped out onto the dusty, sandy road.

Petrov Goes Back to School

The Sheshurino school was shut down on the very cusp of the New Year.

Russian Chronicles

The Case Against Foreign Lit

A Village School

Paganism is alive and well here in the Mari El Republic.

The End Of The World*

In the summer of 2010, on the island of Bolshoy Zhuzhmuy in the White Sea, the shortwave radio crackled.

The Patty Shop

Jolting along mud-choked roads, sending up spurts of brownish ooze, the district bus is clambering up and down the humpbacked hillocks.

Space Dogs

The canine cosmonauts of the soviet space program

The Story Behind An Inscription

Vladimir Lvovich Burtsev (1862-1942) was an ardent opponent of monarchism, Bolshevism, and Nazism.

The War To End All Wars Ends

Only to become a war of a different sort in Russia

The Things They Carry

WOMEN’S HANDBAGS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A MYSTERY TO ME.

The Last Soviet-Americans

In order to get from the center of the Black Sea port of Odessa to that city’s best stretch of beach, you ride for 40 minutes on a tram.

Grandpa Cuckoo

Vaska Solovyov, nicknamed “Cuckoo” because he stuttered whenever he said “coo-coo-could…,” was puzzled. And the puzzle was how to come up with the money he needed to throw a shindig.

Hunting The Northern Lights

IN OUR REGION, WE REALLY DON’T HAVE TO EXERT OURSELVES much if we want to see the Northern Lights.

Beloved Friend

An acclaimed Russian conductor reconnects with Tchaikovsky. This fall, Russian-born conductor Semyon Bychkov inaugurated a multiseason, international project devoted to Tchaikovsky, Beloved Friend. It began with a concert series with the BBC Symphony in October, and will continue with the NY Philharmonic’s three-week festival, “Beloved Friend: Tchaikovsky and His World,” in January and February of next year. In September, Russian Life Editor Paul Richardson caught up with Bychkov via Skype, at his home in France.

Border

BORDER: A journey along the edges of Russia is the outcome of a nearly 70,000 kilometer, fiveyear trek exploring the most distant and often undiscovered areas of Russia. Border areas were chosen for a reason, because they are so innately complex. The question of emotional and physical belonging is connected with the notion of territory, which is so earthy and solid, yet at the same time abstract, like the borders themselves. The borders exist, yet they are not material or tangible. 

Defenders Of The Pen

Last year, according to the respected Reporters Without Borders index on press freedom in 180 countries, Russia ranked in 148th place. That put it well behind not just the nations of Europe, but also countries such as Pakistan, Malaysia, and Afghanistan. Recently, Russian Life sat down with the founder and director of Russia’s only media rights center, Galina Arapova, to discuss the state of the press in Russia today.

Cooking With Sofia

ANYONE UNFAMILIAR WITH  the life and oeuvre of Sofia Tolstaya, the wife of Lev Tolstoy, would be forgiven for basing their opinion of her on something like the movie The Last Station.

Romanov Toys

THINK HANDCRAFTED RUSSIAN TOYS, AND THE MATROSHKA IS usually what comes to mind.

17 Petersburg Places

Petersburg Places

Moscow's Miracle-Working Icons

Icons have been revered in Russia for centuries, and when it comes to miracle-working icons, pilgrims will travel thousands of kilometers to seek their divine assistance.

The Translator

An elderly woman with a cane slowly stoops to place her bag on the wall by a metro station exit.