(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Georgy Manaev, RBTH – January 8, 2014) Do Russian walk on their walls? If not, why do they have carpets all over them?. RBTH takes an in-depth look at one of the most intriguing Soviet traditions Do you know what really hits home with Russians when they watch the brilliant “The Big Lebowski” […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Yan Shenkman, RBTH – January 4, 2014) The legendary opera singer admired by Stalin, yet always resented being told what he could sing and what he could not. Ivan Kozlovsky (1900-1993) was a legendary opera tenor and a soloist at the Bolshoi Theater. He sang more than 50 operatic roles, and was particularly […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – January 7, 2014) This year’s warm temperatures meant believers in Moscow celebrated a red and gold, rather than white, Orthodox Christmas. Moscow confectioners baked a giant apple and cherry pie in celebration of Russian Orthodox Christmas, which is marked on Jan. 7, based on the old Julian calendar. The 100 kilogram, 1.5-meter by 2.5-meter pie […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Zoya Miloslavskaya, special to RBTH – January 2, 2014) The Moscow metro is relatively safe, but pickpockets, thieves and drunken travellers can darken an unwary passenger’s mood. However, you can avoid incidents like these by following some simple rules. According to statistics from the Directorate of Internal Affairs, 290 robberies took place on […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Dmitriy Romendik, RBTH – January 1, 2014) During the holidays, a morning hangover can ruin your day. There are many remedies in the world for a hangover, but Russians swear by theirs. A folk wisdom says “What is good for a Russian in the evening, is bad for him in the morning.” This […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Marina Obrazkova, RBTH – January 1, 2014) Russians are traditionally viewed as being harsh and unconcerned about their bodies, but it turns out that this is far from reality. Russians reacted vehemently when the artist Pyotr Pavlensky nailed his genitals to a cobblestone in Moscow’s Red Square in an act of protest last […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Mikhail Loginov – December 31, 2013) Mikhail Loginov is a journalist and novelist based in St Petersburg. He is the author of the recently published bestselling political thriller “Battle for Kremlin”. New Year is by far Russia’s most important and lavishly celebrated public holiday. But as Russians prepare to celebrate it, Putin is trying to impose austerity on […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – January 1, 2014) Many Russians love to honor the animal that symbolizes the coming year, based on the Chinese astrological calendar, believing half-jokingly but many would insist that it brings them luck for the next 12 months. “Whose year is the next one?” Russians ask each other around December. The […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 28 (Interfax) – Requests to conduct an inquiry into the production of the play An Ideal Husband at the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater (MAT) have been forwarded to the Russian Investigative Committee’s Moscow branch, the city police department said on its Twitter page. “Twenty-three requests demanding an inquiry into the Chekhov MAT’s production of An Ideal Husband, which […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Dmitriy Romendik, RBTH – December 27, 2013) New Year celebrations are popular all over the world, but in Russia they are the main national holiday. The festivities last for at least eight days, and sometimes as many as 20. Russians’ pagan ancestors celebrated Kolyada, a winter solstice holiday. Early Slavs celebrated it from […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, December 30, 2013) Despite the traditionalism being promoted by President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church, the Russian family continues to change, with more people living alone or with those to whom they are not married and having fewer children than their parents, according to a scholar at Moscow’s Higher School […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 26 (Interfax) – President Vladimir Putin is predominantly seen in Russia as the politician of the year, an opinion poll suggests. The Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) said in a report made available to Interfax on Thursday that 44% of respondents in a recent poll named Putin as the top politician of 2013. Everyone else was far […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Dmitriy Romendik, RBTH – December 27, 2013) New Year celebrations are popular all over the world, but in Russia they are the main national holiday. The festivities last for at least eight days, and sometimes as many as 20. Russians’ pagan ancestors celebrated Kolyada, a winter solstice holiday. Early Slavs celebrated it from […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, December 24, 2013) As the peoples of Eurasia enter into the holiday season, it is worth remembering that Father Frost, a figure that many Russians see as uniting their country however divided it may be, in fact varies widely not only among the region’s many nations but also and perhaps more surprisingly […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Alexey Mikheev, special to RBTH – December 26, 2013) It is customary in Russia to propose a toast before each new round of drinks. At official events, the toasts are serious and earnest. At a party with close friends in attendance, they are usually ironic and jocular. People in other countries usually think […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Nikolay Surkov, Marina Obrazkova, RBTH – December 24, 2013) The outgoing year had a disturbing start a large-scale disaster. In February, a large meteorite fell in Chelyabinsk, a major industrial center of the Urals. The explosive power of this meteorite was approximately 500 kilotons (30 times stronger than the Hiroshima atomic bomb). […]
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MOSCOW, December 20 (RIA Novosti) More than two-thirds of Russians do not trust other people, the Russian Public Chamber said in its annual civil society report Friday. “The level of trust between people in Russia remains low at present. More than two-thirds of Russians believe that you should be cautious in relations with others and only every fifth respondent […]
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(opendemocracy.net – December 14, 2013 – Ekaterina Loushnikova) Ekaterina Loushnikova is radio and print journalist based in the city of Kirov Over a century after Maksim Gorky’s famous play about homeless people ‘The Lower Depths’ Ekaterina Loushnikova has been looking around her home city of Kirov to see if anything has changed. The church porch I stood in […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Vladimir Kozlov, special to RBTH – December 16, 2013) In the past year, the Bolshoi Theater has gone through a series of controversies and management changes. What is behind all of the chaos? Just a few years ago, Bolshoi was under public scrutiny because of its major renovation scheme, which went behind schedule […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Olga Fedina, special to RBTH – December 12, 2013) The author of the acclaimed novel “The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years,” would have been 85 years old on Dec. 12. When I was finishing school in the late 1980s, in the anarchic and utopian times of perestroika, I remember discussing in […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Lena Smirnova – December 9, 2013) Moscow will get a new master plan by 2015 to reflect its forthcoming transformation into a polycentric city, in which peripheral areas become alternative hubs for work and cultural activities, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said at the third annual Moscow Urban Forum. Wrapping up on Saturday, the forum brought together […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – By Anna Arutunyan – December 4, 2013) The Louis Vuitton pavilion controversy highlighted lack of transparency in managing areas surrounding the Kremlin As workers dismantled a giant Louis Vuitton suitcase that went up suddenly on Red Square last week, just who authorized the project and who issued orders for it to be taken down remained […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – John Freedman – December 2, 2013) If Russian theater is a mirror of Russian society – and most any Russian theater artist will tell you that is true – then Russia is in turmoil. Two of Moscow’s most famous theaters have been rocking and rolling to scandalous events all week long. The Taganka […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Iosif Sternin, special to RBTH – November 29, 2013) Iosif Sternin is the head of the Department of General Linguistics and Stylistics, Voronezh State University. Russians have a reputation for being stern, serious, unsmiling people. But actually, Russians do smile, and their smiles mean different things in different situations. For many centuries, everyday […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Daniil Kotsyubinsky – November 25, 2013) Daniil Kotsyubinsky is a Russian historian and journalist based in St. Petersburg Today’s Russia is like a huge ice floe broken off from contemporary life and drifting further and further from Europe into a dank and gloomy past. St Petersburg, or ‘Peter’, epitomises this duality most of all. The Kremlin’s recent […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 22 (Interfax) – Russians are more proud of living in Russia than of Russia itself, sociologists said. The share of Russian citizens who are not proud of their country has recently grown notably – from 34% in 2010 to 40%, while 53% respondents (against 88% in 2010) are proud of contemporary Russia, the Levada Center told Interfax following […]
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(Voice of America – James Brooke – November 19, 2013) A foreign correspondent who has reported from five continents, Brooke, known universally as Jim, is the Voice of America bureau chief for Russia and former Soviet Union countries. From his base in Moscow, Jim roams Russia and Russia’s southern neighbors. Seventy years have passed since the Battle of Stalingrad, the […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 21 (Interfax) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said that no one is imprisoning anyone for their political views in Russia, but no one allowed to take actions that break the law. “No one is grabbing anyone and no one is imprisoning anyone for ideas, for political views, and we will never allow that. We will never go back […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Nathan Gray – November 19, 2013) This year, as part of the Moskovskiye Novosti’s New Intelligentsia Awards, The Moscow News is giving out a special prize honoring expats who perform community service/work for public benefit in Russia. Our prize is called Import of Goodwill, and Clementine Cecil is one of the 2013 nominees. A former […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 15 (Interfax) – Russians most often consider their life as favorable but still prefer to make short-term plans, sociologists said. In the past several months Russian citizens started assessing their lives more positively than before – the share of respondents thinking it is favorable grew from 37% in Q1 to 42% in Q3, the All-Russian Public Opinion Research […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Dmitriy Romendik, RBTH – November 16, 2013) As the chair of Russia’s Upper Parliament and a former governor of St. Petersburg, Valentina Matvienko, is more than just the country’s most well-known female politician. To some, she is considered the best female artist among all of Russia’s politicians. Matvienko’s oil paintings have become regulars […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 12 (Interfax) – Most Russians are happy; nearly two-thirds of them are making plans several months in advance and the number of potential protesters is now minimal, the leading domestic sociological centers said. The Russian Public Opinion Study Center (VTsIOM), the Public Opinion Foundation and the GfK-Rus Institute for Market Research presented the “Russia Surprises” survey on Tuesday. […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – November 12, 2013) Over three-fourths of Russians say they are happy, a figure that has grown by a third in the last two decades, a recent poll said. According to a study by the All-Russian Center for Public Opinion Research (VTsIOM), 76 percent of Russians said they were happy, RIA Novosti reported on Tuesday, citing […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Lena Smirnova – November 11, 2013) Miss Venezuela, Maria Gabriela Isler, swept aside 85 contestants to give her country its seventh Miss Universe crown during the competition final in Moscow’s Crocus City Hall on Saturday night. Although Russia’s beauty queen failed to make it into the top 16, the event left Russian organizers and celebrities […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Lena Smirnova – November 7, 2013) Miss Universe pageant’s arrival in Moscow, the first time the contest has been hosted here in its 62-year history, brought out all the glitter and sequins that the 87 contestants could pack in their suitcases. Matching the contest’s galactic theme, the local organizers said that they plan to “impress […]
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WASHINGTON, November 5 (RIA Novosti) Boris Yeltsin, the grandson and namesake of Russia’s first president, is producing a movie titled “Night Witches” about female Soviet pilots during World War II and has recruited an award-winning Hollywood screenwriter to pen the screenplay, the US entertainment website Variety.com reported. The project is based on the true story of Soviet female air […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Oleg Kashin – November 3, 2013) Oleg Kashin is a Russian journalist living in Geneva. In Russia, a poet is more than a poet. The strong feelings revealed in a recent national argument over two bards — Yevgeny Yevtushenko, long emigrated to the U.S., and Joseph Brodsky, who died in 1996 — might even help explain […]
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(RIA Novosti – Natalia Antonova – October 29, 2013) Natalia Antonova, is the acting editor-in-chief of The Moscow News. She also works as a playwright her work has been featured at the Lyubimovka Festival in Moscow and Gogolfest in Kiev, Ukraine. She was born in Ukraine, but spent most of her life in the United States. She graduated from […]
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DEAUVILLE/MOSCOW, October 29 (RIA Novosti) The first shoots of gender equality came to Russia with the Soviet Union, when women were given an active role in building up the Communist system. In modern Russia, women have increasingly adopted a new role militating for human rights, outside the protection of the state. This evolving role of women in Russian public life […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Vsevolod Pulya, RBTH – October 29, 2013) So you are tired of dressing up like the Joker, Batman or the Flying Spaghetti Monster and want something new for your Halloween costume. My advice is as simple and straightforward as a shot of vodka: dress like a Russian. This isn’t going to be a […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – October 29, 2013) An increasing number of Russians are tired of year-round daylight savings time, a recent survey shows. According to a poll released on Tuesday by the All-Russian Center for Public Opinion Research, just 32 percent of Russians approve of not having to set clocks back an hour each fall, down from 73 percent […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Lev Gudkov – October 22, 2013) Lev Gudkov is a Russian sociologist, director of the analytical Levada Center and editor-in-chief of the journal The Russian Public Opinion Herald. He is the author of numerous books and articles on sociology and inter-ethnic relations in Russia. Cynicism, originally a philosophy in ancient Greece, is now the prevailing mood in Putinist […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, October 23, 2013) The failures of Russia today are connected with the fact that everyone in it including the authorities, the population, the church and those separate from the church remain in a cultural sense “Soviet people” with all “the complexes” that entails, according to Academician Yury Pivovarov Pivovarov, director […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Dmitry Babich, special to RBTH – October 21, 2013) Dmitry Babich is a columnist for Voice of Russia radio. Is the former NSA analyst a modern-day dissident? There are many interesting similarities between Edward Snowden and the famous Russian dissident writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008). The most recent example of these is the interview […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Lyudmila Nazdracheva, Special to RBTH – October 16, 2013) Russia has the highest divorce rate in the world, but the causes and consequence of broken marriages aren’t surprising. When Valery Lepekhin’s boss got on his nerves one too many times, he punched him in the eye. Lepekhin was fired, but he felt like […]
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(RIA Novosti – Natalia Antonova, Acting Editor-in-Chief of The Moscow News – October 15, 2013) There is a kind of sad poetry to Moscow’s working class neighborhoods. The box-like Khrushchev-era buildings that seem like gigantic children’s toys rather than real housing, the hilariously poor grammar on thousands of tacked up advertisements, the cracked pavement, the whispering trees, and the stars […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, October 14, 2013) Some 57 percent of Russians feel that life is hard but bearable, according to a new survey, five percentage points higher than in 2011. According to new poll results released by the independent Levada Center on Monday, 25 percent of respondents said that the phrase “things aren’t that bad, it’s livable” best […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Lena Smirnova – October 11, 2013) It takes Ilya Bachurin mere seconds to choose his favorite movie. But when asked to choose his favorite Russian movie, to say that it takes him a long time would be an understatement. The general director of Russia’s youngest and most technologically savvy film studio, Glavkino, approaches the matter […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Anna Arutunyan – October 10, 2013) It’s cold, it’s gray, and – given that it’s only October – it’s going to get worse. The weather this time of year is not just unpleasant – it can affect everything from the economy to how Russians feel about their lives, experts say. After record-breaking rainfall in September […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Andy Frecka – October 10, 2013) You’re all ready for your trip to Russia. You know how to say “hello” and “thank you” and you’ve even brushed up your knowledge of Russian history. But that won’t be e nough. Statistics show that 107% of all communication is non-verbal. So clearly, you need to give your […]
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