Which St. Petersburg designer is called the Russian Hermès, which jeweler created a collection of silver medals inspired by flowers, and where do fashion-forward residents go for the most elegant handmade shoes? Fashion concierge Tatyana Tangirova has all the answers in her little black book. And she’s happy to share: Clients hire her to take…
Though I long to see the back of it, the Omicron variant has opened up vast swaths of time in my schedule. Easing back into self-imposed semi lockdown at this point feels like slipping on a comfy pair of fuzzy slippers: meetings on Zoom, business trips cancelled, and lots of unmolested time to fiddle in…
Have a laugh The Moscow Standup Café is making the end of January hilarious with a real star, straight from the U.S.: Avi Liberman. He was in Moscow and St. Petersburg last year doing sold-out shows, so if standup is your thing, buy a ticket right away for the gig on Saturday night (Jan. 22)…
ST. PETERSBURG — If you didn’t know Club Malevich existed you would never find it. There are no signs, windows, grand entrances or bouncers at the back of the defunct industrial complex housing its long, black, neon-lit bar and dance floor. The location is the perfect hideaway for St. Petersburg’s secretive BEARsBURG society — a…
Meet Molchat Doma, the most popular Russian-speaking band in the world. And it might get even more popular very soon: it has been picked for the line-up at the Coachella Music Fest in California this spring. Molchat Doma (“Houses are Silent”) is a trio from working-class Minsk in Belarus: vocalist Egor Shkutko, guitar and synth-player…
Every year on Jan. 19, the Russian Orthodox Church commemorates the Feast of the Epiphany. It’s believed that on this day, Jesus Christ was baptized in the Jordan River and revealed himself as the son of God. It is also the day when thousands of Russians, religious or not, take a dip in the sub-zero…
Sculptors from all over Russia and the world came to carve their winter masterpieces. Jan. 18, 2022 – 12:44 Enormous creatures and people sculpted from snow and ice have appeared along the Moscow River in Gorky Park as part of the “Snow and Ice” festival.Carved, sanded, packed, shaped, scraped and cut, these figures were made…
Among the relics in the cathedral are shackles similar to those worn by St. John, a holy man who was a younger contemporary of St. Basil. The eleventh chapel, added to the cathedral in 1672, is dedicated to him. Some holy men and women wore shackles under their clothing, hidden so that others would not…
If you are a completist, you get two shots at New Year’s resolutions in Russia. Classic New Year — December 31 — is a blockbuster holiday, celebrated in fine fashion with presidential toasts, fireworks, mayonnaise-y salads, champagne, and tangerines. Then there is January 13, known as “Old New Year,” celebrated in quieter fashion by Orthodox…
Viktor Tsoi, the charismatic founder of Kino rock band and the man behind the legendary song “I Want Changes!” would have turned 60 in June this year. One of Russia’s most extraordinary rock musicians, he made history with his music and lyrics that continue to touch the hearts of generations of Russians. He died in…
A Soviet avant-garde painting has been damaged by an unknown vandal who drew eyes on its faceless figures while it was on display in central Russia, The Art Newspaper Russia reported Thursday. Visitors discovered two pairs of eyes drawn onto Anna Leporskaya’s “Three Figures” (1932-34) with a ballpoint pen during an abstract art exhibition at the Yeltsin…
The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts has been having something of a women’s moment recently. The groundbreaking exhibition “Muses of Montparnasse” — a show of women artists living in Paris in the early 20th century — had not yet ended when another show of work by a woman artist opened. The show of works…
Spend an afternoon with great art Three great art shows are closing at the end of the weekend, so buy your tickets online and catch them while you can. The marvelous Museum of Russian Impressionism’s show called “Other Shores” about an art show that went to New York in 1924 is incredibly interesting and a…
Russia’s New Year holidays came to a close on Jan. 10, meaning Moscow’s residents headed back to work after a week of rest and relaxation. This year, Moscow residents returned from holiday to bitter winter temperatures and warnings of an impending coronavirus surge. However, some are using the extreme cold to honor the age-old tradition…
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM — “Fabergé in London: Romance to Revolution” is the Victoria and Albert Museum’s third exhibition dedicated to the Russian goldsmith. A show in 1977 was the first major exhibition on Fabergé to be held by a national museum in the United Kingdom. The second exhibition was co-organized by the V&A, the Fabergé…
In December, Moscow’s JART Gallery opened a large exhibition of the whimsical work of Evgeniya Dudnikova, a 25-year-old artist from the town of Ramenskoye, not far from Moscow. The exhibition “Nomads,” curated by Alexei Korsi, is Dudnikova’s first. The show includes works in several media: prints, paintings, ceramics, sculpture, and wall-hangings made of organic plastics…
Winter weather dominated the headlines this week as a freak snowstorm brought Washington D.C. to its knees, a fact that didn’t go unnoticed by Moscow’s veteran expatriates, who greeted the 19-hour delays on I-95 with wry amusement, as they trudged through yet another daily deluge of snow that has become the norm in the Russian…
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 of the tiger— the symbol of fearlessness — that the 2022 programs for Moscow’s central theaters…
Travel restrictions due to covid might have kept Russians staying in the country, but they also helped them discover some great places to vacation and enjoy cultural activities. The practice of inviting innovative directors and performers to such places as Perm, Ekaterinburg, Voronezh, Ivanovo, and Tula has become popular in opera and ballet, while local…
With less fear of lockdowns and disruptions due to covid, the main concert halls in Moscow and St. Petersburg have already set their schedules for the coming year. Here are a few highlights for lovers of opera and classical music. Moscow Philharmonic celebrates its 100th anniversary The famous Moscow Philharmonic, which puts on concerts at…
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. Here are our picks for museum-hopping in 2022 to see classical and modern, Western and Russian art, photography and new technologies installations…
Dance in Russia in the coming year will be many things: orderly and chaotic, experimental and classical, beautiful and surprising. We asked ballet companies what premieres and events to expect in 2022. Here are our advance picks. Woland’s Ball at the Bolshoi Theater Definitely not to be missed is the new ballet of “Master and…
Happy New Year! 2021 is now firmly behind us and I do hope that this column finds you filled with all kinds of optimistic thoughts, hopes, and resolutions for 2022! New Year’s Eve is my least favorite holiday of the calendar year, but New Year’s Day ranks in my top three favorite red-letter days! I…
For many Russians, December is a month spent preparing for the New Year — the country’s most festive holiday that is marked with fireworks, champagne, traditional dishes and warm feelings. Yet there was also no shortage of major news events, both domestically and in Russia’s relations with other countries. Here’s a look back at the…
Ded Moroz (Grandfather Frost) is the Russian brother of Santa Claus. But unlike his Western gift-bearing brother, Grandfather Frost doesn’t have one residence. He has five. And you and your family can visit them all. Veliky Ustyug (Vologda region) This is the official residence of Ded Moroz in Russia, which welcomes visitors all year round.…
As the New Year is upon us, you need to seee out the old year and see in the new one with grace. This is important because as Russians say, “how you welcome in the New Year is how you’ll spend it.” Unfortunately, due to the coronavirus, like last year, this year Red Square will…
Teresa Iarocci Mavica left her position as general director of the V-A-C Foundation, which is supported by Novatek owner Leonid Mikhelson. Artyom Bondarevsky, who worked as Mavica’s deputy for administrative issues, will serve as temporary director. Mavica also left her post as head of the GES-2 House of Culture, the V-A-C Foundation’s flagship project in…
A group of Russian composers and sound designers were so inspired by the recent achievements of Russian science that they created the musical and visual “music” of scientific processes. Called “The Sounds of Science,” the music was made by the Moscow-based audio production studio Monoleak, a group of composers and sound designers who have been…
Cultural figures Andrei Myagkov Feb. 18 Andrei Myagkov, an actor most famous for his role of Zhenya Lukashin in the 1975 New Year’s hit, “Irony of Fate,” directed by Eldar Rozanov, died of an apparent heart attack at the age of 82 at his home in Moscow. He worked in the Sovremennik and Moscow Art…
A Happy Christmas to everyone celebrating what the Russians call “Catholic Christmas” today! Once upon a time, this venerable holiday represented the pinnacle of the holiday season for me, but now it is just another steppingstone in the marathon that is our Russian-American November – January Bacchanalia. We’ve pared down our “Catholic Christmas” considerably, exchanging…
If you are staying in Moscow for the holidays and feeling a bit nostalgic — or if you love movies and your ideal vacation is sitting in a cinema — plan on spending many days and nights in the Art Theater. The theater has two fabulous festivals as gifts for film-lovers: the New Year’s and…
Saint Petersburg is ready to celebrate the Christmas and New Year Holidays: the 30-meter fir tree is already on its place and decorated on Palace Square. Lights and festive street decorations have appeared on the Moika river, around central squares and along Nevsky Prospekt. What better time to visit the Venice of the North? Kazan…
Anastasia Ryabova was preparing to meet New Year 2013 with her husband in Voronezh. “We had just moved from Grodno (Belarus) and weren’t ready to celebrate the New Year. At the last moment, we bought a small fir in a pot, and since we didn’t have any ornaments, we decorated it with bows. That was…
Inventor, scientist, educator, entrepreneur and philanthropist Dmitry Zimin died in Switzerland at the age of 88 on Wednesday. He had been undergoing treatment for cancer for many years. His death was announced by his son, Boris, who wrote: “One of the best people in our country has died. My father loved life wholeheartedly and lived…
“It is as if you are stepping straight into one of Alexander Rodchenko’s postcards,” Kirill Cheburashkin, head of the Stroganov Academy Furniture Design Department, says as he leads the way to a reconstruction of the Workers’ Club designed by Rodchenko in 1925. Alexander Rodchenko, a founder of constructivism, was integral to aligning the values of…
The Soviet film “The Irony of Fate” has been a New Year’s Eve tradition in Russian households for decades. This year, Russia’s Mosfilm studio is providing an immersive New Year’s experience for diehard fans of the holiday classic. With support from Russia’s food delivery service Delivery Club, Mosfilm has recreated the famous apartment where the film…
1,148,908. This is the number of Russian works of art that the Russian State Commission for the Restitution of Cultural Treasures has estimated were lost when the Nazi army attacked the Soviet Union. During the Second World War, German soldiers destroyed or looted Russian museums and palaces — as detailed in much research. Most of…
While Moscow winters often get a bad rap for being dour and gloomy, the weeks before and after the New Year holiday are anything but. Each year, the city is bedazzled with light fixtures, gigantic New Year trees and more to ring in the next year. Here’s a look at some of this year’s decorations:
Award-winning comics on Sunday showcased the art of clowning and tomfoolery as they honored Russia’s brightest circus star Yuri Nikulin who would have turned 100 at the weekend. During a gala in the second city St. Petersburg entertainers from a variety of countries including Russia, Italy, Brazil and Mexico delighted the audience with skits and animal acts involving…
In mid-18th century Warsaw, two brothers, Adolphe and Marcus Neyman, were born in a Jewish family. When they were young, their father went to America to find a better life, promising to come back for his wife and sons. He never returned, and so the two boys were raised by their mother, going to school,…
I’m getting a cold. It hasn’t actually arrived yet, but I can feel it hovering in the wings from the way every single one of my eyelashes hurts. I can also tell that it won’t be a killer cold — not bronchitis or strep throat, just one of those annoying 24–36-hour bugs featuring sniffling, sneezing,…
Although December and January can present all sorts of challenges for city-dwellers — snow, slush, ice, and freezing temperatures — it’s also that wonderful time of year, when everything is festive, and beautifully decorated holiday trees stand proudly on city squares. December has some great concerts, and the long vacation (Dec. 31 to Jan. 10)…
The Russian restaurant group of companies Maison Dellos has won a contract to provide catering at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar. The company founded by Andrei Dellos — whose restaurants include Cafe Pushkin, Turandot, and Matryoshka — partnered with the Qatari company ALi Bin ALi Hospitality to win the contract for catering at the…
Cryptography is the science – and art – of encrypting communications so that no one can read, hear or understand what is being written or said. It is believed that the use of cryptography goes back to the Egyptians, who hid messages in their hieroglyphs. It began with simple replacements – such as numbers for…
The Moscow Times’ Arts Editor and columnist Michele Berdy has won a Pushkin Institute professional achievement award for her “creative contribution to the advancement of Russian language, literature and culture.” Berdy has been writing her The Russian Word’s Worth column — which explains complicated Russian grammar and vocabulary with clarity and wit and is popular…
Our neighbors and friends at the Hyatt Regency in Petrovsky Park have the holidays covered: whether you want comfortable family meals – with a special menu and special activities for children – or a hot night on the town with bottomless bottles of bubbly. Christmas dinner Dec. 24 and 25 The Heritage restaurant on the…
A real Russian winter arrived overnight in Moscow, with the city blanketed in several inches of fluffy snow on Tuesday. The snow transformed Moscow’s already eye-pleasing sights into a fairy-tale landscape. Here’s a look at photos from across the city:
Sergei Soloviev, a Russian director, producer, screenwriter and actor, died on Dec. 13, apparently of a heart attack, at the age of 77. Soloviev was born in Karelia and expressed a strong interest in theater and film from an early age, performing as a child in productions of the Leningrad Big Theater and children’s programming…
“Fat Lyuba” is a humiliating nickname, especially for a boy. But that’s what bullies called Oleg Lipovetsky throughout his high school years. Decades later, the teenager who once dreaded going back to school, has become a handsome and popular actor. Yet those memories are as vivid as ever, and bullying in Russia seems only to…
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 according to the old calendar on Jan. 7. This year most of the activities are…
Winter vegetables can be tough nuts to crack, if that’s not mixing a metaphor. Their admirably sturdy longevity, which makes them highly prized in colder climates, is often thanks to an almost impenetrable exterior. And if you are feeling rushed or slightly fragile, the thought of tackling that exterior to get to the good stuff…
Three holiday markets This year many of the usual holiday markets are not being held due to the surge in coronavirus. But there are a few, including the historic fair on Red Square that first began about three hundred years ago. This year the booths are selling traditional souvenirs, Christmas tree decorations, felt boots and…
Last week the AZ Museum in Moscow held a ceremony to award the winners of the first Anatoly Zverev Art Prize, putting a very celebratory end to a story that began in the spring, involved hundreds of people and thousands of hours of work, and — perhaps — changed, at least slightly, the landscape of…
Ten years ago, tens of thousands Russians took to the streets in what became some of the largest political protests in modern Russian history. The Bolotnaya protests, which rallied against what protesters called a flawed electoral process, marked a pivotal moment for both Russia’s opposition movement and the government’s attitude toward street protests. In many…
On Tuesday Moscow opened ten new metro stations on the Big Circle Line (BCL) — the ring of stations that surrounds the original Circle Line in the city center. Nine more stations are expected to be opened in 2023, bringing the total stations on the new line to 31. The first section of the BCL…
Who made the clothes you’re wearing as you read this? Have you ever wondered? After seeing “Labor. May” by St. Petersburg director and choreographer Sergei Larionov, a play about the women in a garment shop, you may never thoughtlessly toss your clothes on the floor again. Based on the real-life stories of tailors, dressmakers, cutters,…
Who made the clothes you’re wearing as you read this? Have you ever wondered? After seeing “Labor. May” by St. Petersburg director and choreographer Sergei Larionov, a play about the women in a garment shop, you may never thoughtlessly toss your clothes on the floor again. Based on the real-life stories of tailors, dressmakers, cutters,…
The UN’s World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has published its list of the best tourist villages around the world — and one tiny Russian village has made the cut. Bekhovo, a village in the Tula region 60 kilometers south of Moscow, was among the 44 villages from 32 countries that the UNWTO highlighted for embracing tourism…
On Saturday Moscow celebrated the grand opening of the GES-2 House of Culture. Headed by curator Teresa Iarocci Mavica and funded by Novatek gas company head Leonid Mikhelson, GES-2 is designed to create a revolution in the Russian art scene. GES-2 is the new home of the V-A-C Foundation, founded by Mavica and Mikhelson in…
It’s always a good idea to be wary of street food in the Former Soviet Union, but sometimes the intoxicating smells of yeasty pancakes, frying onions, or the pungent odor of grilled meat present almost irresistible temptation. I find this particularly challenging when it is cold and damp outside and those brightly colored trucks and…