Sidewalk Art

The lamentable state of Russia’s roads and sidewalks has long been fertile ground for memes and jokes. Irkutsk artist Ivan Kravchenko decided to turn the problem into an art project. For over two years he has been patching ruts in city sidewalks with colorful ceramic tiles.

Sputnik V: First Place or Long Shot?

The Russian vaccine seems top-notch, but low public trust and a botched rollout remain formidable barriers to returning to normalcy.

the Valley of the Dead

On the Trail of a Russian Movie Star

Food & Drink

Food & Drink

POLAR YOUTH

Misha Smirnov has the day off. There are the traditional eggs for breakfast and the usual darkness out the window.

Russian Chronicles

Russian Chronicles

A People on the Brink

Over the past century, the ancient people known as the Votes has been exiled twice, has seen its language banned, and has faced the threat of having its villages razed. Today, although teetering on the verge of extinction, it holds fast to one of the last rights it enjoys – the right to bear and to say its own name.

Tenders of the Vine

Visiting Russia’s Nascent Wine Region

Restoring the Future

A Small Town Gets a Makeover

Ascending Anik

Here I stand, on the summit of Anik Mountain, drenched to the bone amid zero visibility, driving rain, and a fierce wind.

A Time for Pirogi

Food & Drink

Finding St. Nicholas

To the undiscerning eye, the Turkish city of Demre is not much to look at, let alone stop for. Rows upon rows of greenhouses covered in clear plastic sheeting cover nearly every plot of land. The drab outpost in southwestern Anatolia lacks the luxuriant resorts and Turquoise Coast panache of such places as Bodrum, Marmaris, and Antalya, the latter a renowned haven for Russian vacationers.

A Stove Called Yerofeyich

Auntie Nina even pinched herself in the side, but no – it wasn’t a dream.

Russian Chronicles

Leap year problems

Goa and Greenhouses

A well-to-do Russian tries to bring his green new ideal to life in a Russian village. Not all goes to plan.

Postscript

Another Victim of Sandarmokh

Food & Drink

Taste of the Holidays

Russia's Munchausens

The Legendary Baron Celebrates 300 Years

In the Winter Palace

In this prologue to Alpsten’s new historical fiction novel, Tsarina, we meet Catherine I at the critical turning point in her life: the death of her husband Peter I (the Great).

All That Remains

Tracing own family lineage back to 1667

Readings

Chicks Rule the Screen Russian women shine in a fresh TV series

Life is just a bowl of…Raspberries?

MID-JULY CAME ON CHILLY AND WITH RAIN TO SPARE, BUT month’s end was suddenly dry and warm. That gave the wild raspberries, which usually ripened in early August, an unexpected influx of the mysteriously delicate juice that make them so very different from the fragrant but bland garden raspberries. So the gals, without so much as a word to each other, started making forays into the closest of the raspberry patches that in the past couple of years had run rampant over the felled areas of the forest. After the nearest mile or two had been picked clean, they put their heads together and started going in threes, in fives, because the forest doesn’t care for any tomfoolery.

Russian Chronicles

An illustrated page from the Russian Chronicle, showing the Battle of the Ugra River.The “Battle” of the Ugra River

Under Review

GOOD CITIZENS NEED NOT FEAR

In Search of Terra Incognita

The risk one runs in exploring these unknown and Icy Seas is so very great, that I can be bold to say, that no man will ever venture farther than I have done and that the lands which may lie to the South will never be explored. ~ British Captain James Cook

LIFE IN ISOLATION

The universal quarantining and self-isolating due to COVID-19 has put millions of people in something of a predicament. Every day is the same as the one before, and sometimes we can’t even get together with our closest family members. But for a few, being solitary is a way of life. And so we decided to touch base with people in remote corners of Russia who, because of their jobs or the unique features of their culture, socialize with only a narrow circle of people, yet somehow never feel lonely.

Food & Drink

How to Start a Fall Day

The Romance of the Earth

Half a century ago, the profession of geologist was both popular and revered in Russia, shrouded in a halo of romance and adventure. Indeed, it was not unusual for the lives of these explorers of subterranean mysteries to be immortalized in motion pictures, or for songs to be written about them.

Under Review

BOOKS FOR THE GREAT PAUSE

The Thimble

Pashka Bystrov, known around the village as Speedy, was leaning back against the warm stove and despondently watching his wife, Galka. Her hair still in curlers, she was tossing her dresses, skirts, and fleece tights into a suitcase, wadding up her feather-light stockings, and yelling at him that she was sick up to here, and then some, with village life, and she wanted to hear her heels tapping on asphalt and get a proper salon perm.