(Moscow Times – Anastasia Tenisheva – Oct. 21, 2023) MOSCOW — Loud music, people dancing and faces covered with glitter — today, parties in Russia’s capital look like parties anywhere. “As long as there is an opportunity to enjoy life, then you need to do it,” Daria, a Russian in her 20s, told The Moscow Times at a techno music […]
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(Kennan Institute – wilsoncenter.org/program/kennan-institute – William E. Pomeranz – June 6, 2023) William Pomeranz is the Director of the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute, Some years after the Soviet Union’s collapse, President Boris Yeltsin initiated a national search for a new Russian idea. The past was too raw and controversial, however, to reach any consensus on or reconciliation as to what […]
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(Moscow Times – Kirill Ponomarev – May 28, 2023) When animation artist Varvara returned to Russia earlier this year for the first time since fleeing abroad after the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the main emotion she felt was surprise. Not by how much had changed in her homeland after over a year of war — but by how little. […]
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A year of bold new plays and bold new performances of old favorites. (Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Jan. 7, 2022) Moscow’s theaters have taken a hit over the past two years in the wake of changing Covid-19 restrictions, but the main theaters have survived, and a ‘new normal’ is being established. It seems only fitting in the Chinese year […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yulia Savikovskaya – Jan. 4, 2022) Yulia Savikovskaya reports on the arts and is writing a book on the anthropology of music. The major museums of Moscow and St. Petersburg have what looks to be an amazing year planned – so much so that it might take some skill in time management to see everything. […]
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Street fairs, ice skating, curling, and lots and lots of Christmas trees. (Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Dec. 13, 2021) Despite concerns about coronavirus, the Moscow city government decided to celebrate Christmas and the New Year with its annual festival. Called “The Journey to Christmas,” the festival began this past weekend and will go until Jan. 9. Russia celebrates Christmas […]
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Virtually every city and province is honoring the writer. On [Nov. 11,] 1821, Fyodor Dostoevsky was born … into the family of an army doctor who worked at a hospital for the poor […]
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Situated outside the small village of Sennoy, Phanagoria, now one of Russia’s best-resourced and highest-profile digs, shines a light … on the region’s long-lost Ancient Greek heritage […]
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At least four cases have been launched in recent weeks against young people … posting sexually suggestive content on social media near places of worship […]
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Subject: Link to recording: Russia’s National Idea (S. Weil Center) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2021 From: Paul Grenier <psgrenier@gmail.com> In case you missed it, here are links to the recording of today’s seminar on the Russian National Idea: SimoneWeilCenter.org: simoneweilcenter.org/conferences On YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=b_yMM7606XI Thursday, Oct. 28 What is Russia’s National Idea? A discussion with Marlene Laruelle, author of Is Russia […]
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More Russians oppose same-sex relationships than they did nearly a decade ago, according to a new survey […]
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… as Tolstoy wrote and “edited” — which was actually waves of rewriting — the characters took on lives of their own […]
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(Paul Goble – Window On Eurasia – Staunton, Aug. 31, 2021) Because so many Russians have left villages to move to the cities, it is often overlooked that many Russians choose to remain in villages and many who have moved into urban areas nonetheless view village life as preferrable in a variety of ways to the one they find themselves […]
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(Paul Goble – Window On Eurasia – Staunton, Aug. 28, 2021) Many think that Russians long for the Soviet system as a whole, Vladimir Khotinenko says; but in fact, they are longing for a normal life, one in which human beings rather than money and machines are in control, as all too many of them are convinced is the case […]
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… The new Russian literary reality, as seen through the National Bestseller lens, is a world of drug addicts, volunteers, online messengers, and Russia’s trademark never-ending search of justice […]
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(Paul Goble – Window On Eurasia – Staunton, May 29, 2021) The roughly ten percent of Russians who are middle class not only by virtue of incomes but by level of savings, education, and rank in the economy play a very different role than do the much larger middle classes in more developed Western countries, Yevgeny Gontmakher says. Middle classes, […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – May 19, 2021) Russia is one step closer to bringing home its second ever Eurovision song contest trophy after Tajik-born singer-songwriter Manizha Sangin qualified for the finals late Tuesday. Manizha’s feminist anthem “Russian Woman” was among the 10 semi-final qualifiers, which also included Ukrainian folk-dance act Go_A, who have secured their place in this weekend’s […]
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… Americans are still more inclined to accept divorce than Russians are. Only 36 percent of Russians consider it morally acceptable […]
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“In its 874-year history, Moscow has grown from an obscure twelfth-century military outpost into a world-class capital city of over 20 million inhabitants. Along the way, the city has been reinvented over and over to suit the needs of its rulers. Ivan the Great made Moscow “The Third Rome” after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, raising stone cathedrals inside […]
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Judging by their language, Russians are connoisseurs of procrastination. In Russian not only are there many verbs and expressions for procrastination, there are three main ways to procrastinate […]
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(Paul Goble – Window On Eurasia – Staunton – Feb. 17, 2021) In most other former Soviet republics, people favor taking down statues of Lenin or renaming any place or street bearing his name – Ukraine, for example, has completed these tasks (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/01/last-lenin-statue-in-ukraine-falls.html). But a new Public Opinion Poll suggests Russians have a very different view. It found that while […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, Oct. 13, 2020) As was the case at the beginning of the pandemic, so now too again Russian officials are complaining that the unwillingness of Russians to assume personal responsibility may force the government to take repressive actions that will harm everyone, Karina Pipiya says. But the Levada Center sociologist says that […]
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MOSCOW. Aug 6 (Interfax) – Over half of Russians (58%) use their home PCs at least several times a week, as against 43% in 2010, the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) said in a statement seen by Interfax on Thursday. The survey indicates that number of Russians who have several PCs, including laptops, at home, has grown over eight […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Daniil Galaydov – July 28, 2020) Beat Film Festival, founded in 2010, is likely to become the headliner of this summer’s cultural events in Moscow. It launches on Aug. 1, when the city’s movie theaters are allowed to open after their long downtime during the coronavirus quarantine. This year the films will be shown online […]
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“In the 80 years since Alexander Alekhine became World Chess Champion in 1927 until Vishy Anand took the title from Vladimir Kramnik in 2007, Russian or Soviet players held the title for all but five years – Max Euwe (1935-37) and Bobby Fischer (1972-75) were the only players to disturb the dominance. … FM Andrey Terekhov looks at those years, […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Michele A. Berdy – April 29, 2020) Michele A. Berdy is the Arts Editor and author of “The Russian Word’s Worth,” a collection of her columns. On Tuesday Pushkin House in London announced its short list of nominations for the 2020 Pushkin House Russian Book Prize. The prize has been awarded annually since 2013 to […]
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(Voice of America – voanews.com – Jamie Dettmer – Nov. 29, 2019) Everyone overlooks them as they scurry about in their luminescent orange uniforms at all hours of the day and night, armed only with small brushes and the the type of long-handled lobby dustpans a concierge might use in New York or London to tidy up an entrance. Moscow’s […]
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(Kremlin.ru – July 22, 2019) [More in Russian: kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/61092] The message reads, in part: “You have devoted your life, energy, and creative gift to promoting charity and enlightenment; you stood at the origins of important educational and humanitarian projects, such as the Museum of Russia Abroad, which has become the centre for preserving a huge stratum of Russian history and […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – July 2, 2019) Russians are less likely to believe in the power of magic or the supernatural today than they were at any point in the past three decades, according to a state-funded survey published Tuesday. Largely suppressed during Soviet times, pseudoscientific beliefs saw a resurgence in Russian society with the popularity of reality TV […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, May 29, 2019) In the first quarter, Mediascope found, 75 percent of residents of major Russian cities turned to the Internet at least once a day, while only 70.4 percent of this category watched television, the first time Internet has outpaced television in Russia this way and something that will have major […]
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(Article text ©2019 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – May 31, 2019 – article text also appeared at rferl.org/a/landing-at-pushkin-putin-decree-assigns-russian-airports-the-names-of-cultural-figures/29974519.html) It’s already pretty hard to travel to Russia without hearing the name of the beloved 19th-century poet Aleksandr Pushkin. Now it may be impossible, if you fly into Moscow. President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree attaching the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – May 18, 2019) Writer and comedian Viv Groskop has faced many rooms full of strangers expecting to be amused in her career as a stand-up. But what really scared her in the run-up to the publication of her latest book were the Russians. “I was terrified they would be offended,” Groskop said. She needn’t have […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, April 3, 2019) Russians have fallen ten places in the international happiness, from 49th in 2017 to 59th last year, and sociologists have been studying why that has occurred and what makes Russians happy. Their conclusion, Elena Rotkevich says, is that money doesn’t make Russians happy but that nationalism does. Like other […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Evan Gershkovich – March 25, 2019 – themoscowtimes.com/2019/03/25/an-inescapable-phase-of-life-fighting-loneliness-among-russias-elderly-a64935) When Lydia Kondrashova’s husband died in 1994, her pension wasn’t enough to keep her afloat. So she left her longtime home in southern Russia to move in with her youngest daughter in Mytishchi, a Moscow suburb. Two decades later, however, the arrangement had run its course. The […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – March 20, 2019) It’s not all smiles for Russia as it slips down the global happiness rankings for a third consecutive year, according to an annual UN report published on Wednesday. The World Happiness Report ranks 156 countries by variables that support well-being, including GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, social freedom, generosity […]
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MOSCOW. March 20 (Interfax) – A bill by a State Duma member from the United Russian party suggesting reinstating daylight saving time is unlikely to be adopted, said Andrei Isayev, deputy head of the United Russia faction, which is the largest one in the State Duma. “Neither the faction, nor its coordination council considered the bill. As a rule, the […]
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(Kennan Institute – wilsoncenter.org/program/kennan-institute – Nikolay Epplee – Feb. 1, 2019) Nikolay Epplee is an independent researcher working on international memorial culture and on memory of Soviet state terror. He published extensively on memory issues in Vedomosti, InLiberty, Colta, and other Russian media. [wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/inventorying-the-past-russia-refreshes-its-historical-memory] The New Year’s holidays are one of the few times in the year that different generations […]
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[originally posted 12.6.18] Subject: Russia’s Happy Ending Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2018 From: Sarah Lindemann-Komarova <echosiberia@gmail.com> Russia’s Happy Ending By Sarah Lindemann-Komarova [Founder, Siberian Civic Initiatives Support Center 1995 – 2014. Helped to establish this as the hub for the first civil society development support network in the former Soviet Union.] Link for article with pictures and video medium.com/@ECHOSiberia/russias-happy-ending-c77b332a6eec How […]
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(Article ©2019 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – Tony Wesolowsky – Jan. 17, 2019 – also appeared at rferl.org/a/once-upon-a-handout-russian-fairy-tales-accused-of-teaching-kids-to-freeload/29716156.html) Children in Russia may be spooked by the witches and other dark characters in some of the country’s fairy tales, but a senior Central Bank official sees something even more sinister. Russian fairy tales are teaching kids to expect […]
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“… Before Ms. Sokolova intervened, why had Torzhok been forgotten? The simplest answer is that it had grown mentally stale. … Sokolova’s ideas for new festivals and civic renewal projects were not rocket science. Yet they have begun to push Torzhok into an entirely new orbit, symbolized by restored train service from Moscow and St. Petersburg. …” Click here for: […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Jan. 3, 2019) The New Year has ushered in a slew of new laws in Russia, including one that disappears the very concept of country cottages, known as dachas, where many Russians spend their summers. More than 60 million Russians are estimated to own dachas nationwide. What kind of dacha they own, though, was previously […]
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The rise of diversity and individualism in Russian society is undisputed. However, these new trends are observed, first and foremost, in the private sphere, in consumption, and in everyday practices, while the political realm remains “frozen.” (PONARS Eurasia – Maria Lipman, Maria Volkenstein – December 17, 2018) Maria Volkenstein is the President, CEO, and Founder of the VALIDATA Market Research […]
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“Told that rap and hip-hop have grown wildly popular among Russian youth, and that … lyrics are rebellious, mention drugs and include many swear words … Putin mused about banning the music outright … then suggested … he might try to control it. ‘If it is impossible to stop, then we need to lead, and in an appropriate way, direct’ […]
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“Осень: autumn There are, I’ve heard, places on earth where weather is not a topic of conversation. I’ve heard that in some places a few degrees up or a few degrees down is pretty much the entire range of weather events. That is not Moscow. Погода (weather) can run your life, determine when and if you go outside, raise or […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alina Shubina – August 6, 2018) If you’ve ever watched “Doctor Who” or “Back to the Future” and dreamed of hopping in your own time machine and seeing the world of centuries past, then, starting August 10, Moscow is the place to be. For almost two weeks, the city will be home to the “Times […]
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Subject: New book: Rich Russians (OUP 2018) Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 From: Schimpfossl, Elisabeth <e.schimpfossl@aston.ac.uk> Would there be a chance to announce the UK launch of my book (26 July) on your mailing list? Rich Russians: From Oligarchs to Bourgeoisie (published by Oxford University Press) The first book to examine the legitimacy, social lives, lifestyles, ideologies, and families of […]
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:… Shamlikashvili … [is] the owner of Indigo Hotel which opened in 2014 as the first of InterContinental Hotels Group’s Indigo brand of boutique hotels in Russia. Like many entrepreneurs in the U.S., Shamlikashvili is an outsider and has arrived at her venture in a circuitous way. She grew up Jewish in Tbilisi, Georgia, and received both an MD from […]
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“Дача: country cottage … Visitors to Moscow and other large Russian cities will notice two curious things in the summer: enormous traffic jams leading out of the cities on Thursday and Friday evenings, and empty cities on the weekends – with the exception of die-hard football fans, that is. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the Grand Dacha Exodus. …”
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“… In our psychology research, we’ve noticed a striking difference in how often people smile in the United States when compared to Russia. To Americans, it might be easy to assume that this says something about Russians – that they’re an unfriendly, callous people. … that’s not the case …. there are two likely explanations …. Different cultures have different […]
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