Category: Moscow
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Three-Layer Pancakes From the Mari People
When people think of the Orthodox Christian Maslenitsa (Shrovetide), they almost all think of one food: pancakes (blinis). But pancakes are not a purely Russian culinary achievement, and it’s silly to associate them solely with Orthodox traditions. Pancakes have been around for much longer. The Mari people (in Russia once called Cheremis) live mainly between…
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When It’s Time to Call the Junk Man
Хлам: junk In my part of the world, my neighbors seem to be doing some intensive early spring cleaning. Every day by the garbage bins there are new piles of tattered armchairs, ancient toilets, fake wood storage units, bags of baby clothes and (revoltingly stained) mattresses. In Russian, all this is хлам: junk, rubbish, old…
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’20 Days in Mariupol’ Brings First Oscar Home to Ukraine
Ukraine won its first Oscar for best documentary with “20 Days in Mariupol,” directed by Mstyslav Chernov, on Sunday night in Los Angeles. The film chronicles the harrowing Russian siege of Mariupol, a once beautiful port city, by the only journalists still on the ground, Chernov and the photographer/journalist Evgeniy Maloletka. At the Academy Awards…
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Yaroslav Trofimov Writes History as it Happens in ‘Our Enemies Will Vanish’
As the war in Ukraine enters its third year, the chaos and horror of its early months have already started to fade for many of those watching these events from abroad. Yaroslav Trofimov’s new book “Our Enemies Will Vanish” — its title coming from the third line of Ukraine’s national anthem — retells the first…
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Free Women From Kitchen Slavery With Mimosas!
When it’s time to fry up some cutlets, women get called. But when it’s time to hand out awards — call a man! There is probably more inequality of the sexes in the kitchen than anywhere else on earth. Just take a look at the list of Michelin-starred chefs and see how many women’s names…
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Hello, Goodbye and Other Expressions De Jour
Дежурство: on call, on stand-by, duty In my post-Russian life, I’m trying to learn a new language. I can sometimes conjugate a few essential verbs and occasionally even get case endings right, but I can’t really talk to people. I realized that I don’t have that basic set of 50 or 100 standard phrases that…
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Director Michael Lockshin on ‘Master and Margarita’ and Meaningful Work
“The Master and Margarita” was released in late January 2024 and quickly became one of the highest-grossing films in Russian history. The Moscow Times talked to the film’s director about his creative process and the backlash he faced from Russian state propagandists. Andrei Muchnik: How did you first become involved in this project? Michael Lockshin:…
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Kidnap, Lies, and Propaganda: Documentary Film ‘Ukraine’s Stolen Children’ Comes to London
A special screening of Shahida Tulaganova’s film “Ukraine’s Stolen Children” drew large audiences in London. The film is an exploration of one of the most insidious practices of Russia’s war: the mass abduction of children from occupied territory for adoption by Russian families. Veteran war correspondent Tulaganova has won multiple awards for her films, including…
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Goulash, Ragu, Stew and the Problem of Soviet Meat
Classic goulash is a soup so thick a spoon can stand up among the meat and vegetables. Eat a bowl of goulash and you won’t be hungry for the rest of the day. In Russia people will tell you that goulash is “just stewed meat with gravy” and that it’s the same thing as a…
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‘Judge Righteously; Show Mercy to One Another’
Похороны: funeral If you have been following the the funeral of Alexei Navalny in Russian, you might be struggling to understand some of it. And no wonder. The Russian language makes a distinction between a religious (in this case Orthodox Christian) funeral and a non-religious funeral. But for both, the general term for a funeral…
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Quietly Take Queer Tours Through Moscow and St. Petersburg
However impossible it might seem today, even during the Soviet period there were places where queer people could get together on dates. In fact, not long ago — in 2014 — two women got married in St. Petersburg. Some of Russia’s most famous writers, poets, artists, dancers, and other cultural figures were part of what is now…
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The Food of War and Isolation
The past two years of full-scale war are not only the most shameful time in Russian history. They also show how the entire Putin government is permeated with lies and hypocrisy. Attempts to create some kind of racially pure Russian culture or even cuisine to spite Western civilization turned out to be just the usual…
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Russian Booksellers Remove Potentially Banned Books
Earlier this week broadcast and print journalist Alexander Plyushev published a list of 252 books that could be considered to be in violation of the Russian law prohibiting “LGBT propaganda.” The list contained some books that might expected, such as Oscar Wilde’s “Portrait of Dorian Gray” and James Baldwin’s “Giovanni’s Rooms.” But it also included…
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Vatrushka: The Ancient Russian Pastry That Wasn’t
Vatrushki are one of the most popular and delicious little treats made of dough. They are made with different fillings — jam, fruit puree, or jelly — but the most popular are filled with sweet pot cheese. Everyone knows vatrushki. But the history of Russian cuisine is tricky, and it constantly breaks all our stereotypes about the…
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Disgraced Russian Pop Star Kirkorov Returns to TV After Performing for Troops
Pop star Filipp Kirkorov has made his first TV appearance since he and other prominent Russian celebrities faced a powerful conservative backlash for attending a “nearly naked” party. In mid-December, the singer and other famous stars and bloggers sparked a major sc andal when they attended a “nearly naked” party at a Moscow nightclub, wearing only lingerie, mesh…
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Thank the Persians for the Bazaar
Сарай: shed All languages borrow words from other languages. Most of the time we borrow words for things or actions that we didn’t have in our own country/culture/language. This includes a lot of food, drink, handy phrases, or objects like expresso, borshch, tsar, ciao, or sushi. Sometimes it’s just a word the borrowers like, even if…
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Art Critic Nina Moleva Dies at 98, Leaving Estimated $2Bln Collection to Putin
Russian art critic Nina Moleva has died at age 98, bequeathing a mysterious collection of works she claimed to be worth $2 billion to President Vladimir Putin. “Nina Mikhailovna Moleva — writer, outstanding scholar of history and art, journalist and war veteran — passed away on Feb. 11,” Russia’s Culture Ministry told Interfax on Wednesday. Moleva…
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‘The Master and Margarita’: From Favorite Novel to Blockbuster Film
“The Master and Margarita” was only released less than a month ago but it has already become one of the highest grossing and most talked about films in Russia in recent years. In the first weekend alone the film amassed almost half a billion rubles. The film is based on the eponymous novel by Mikhail…
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The Endless Catalog of Lev Rubinstein
Lev Rubinstein, the legend of the Moscow conceptualist movement, the inventor of a unique way of writing, died on January 14, 2024. His life seemed as endless as his long poems and ended just as abruptly as they did — mid-word, on an ellipsis. This death devastated the Russian cultural community. Let us try to…
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Celebrate St. Valentine’s Day the Traditional Russian Way, With Gingerbread
Many people think that Valentine’s Day — the holiday of love — came to Russia only in the early 1990s along with Halloween and St. Patrick’s Day. Nothing of the sort! More than one hundred years ago, back in the 19th century, on February 14 girls from the Russian nobility sent Valentine cards to their…
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The Kopek, the Poker and the Candle
Свеча: candle Here at the Word’s Worth we haven’t done a quiz for a long time. Put down your гаджеты (devices), put your books under your seat, and get out your pencils. What or who caused the great fire of 1493 in Moscow? A) a faulty chimney; B) a careless priest; C) a drunken cook;…
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Fire Destroys Part of Famous Writers’ House in Moscow
On late Thursday night a fire broke out in the “writers’ house” behind metro Aeroport in Moscow. According to initial reports, the fire started in one apartment on the top floor of 4 Ulitsa Chernyakhovskovo and almost immediately set the roof on fire. The fire spread across the roofs of two more houses before being…
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Russia Expands Musician ‘Blacklist’ – Meduza
Russian concert promoters in early February received an expanded list of musicians banned from performing in the country, the independent news website Meduza reported Thursday, citing two anonymous music industry sources. The names of 50 recording artists and bands reportedly include both vocal critics of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as well as those who have…
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The Quiet Battle to Save Moscow’s Historical Architecture
In a densely populated Moscow neighborhood intersected by two major highways and surrounded by high-rises is, improbably, a village. Right next to supermarkets, 8-lane roadways, noise and lights stand just over a hundred cottages on quiet tree-lined streets. It’s called the “artists’ village” possibly because the streets are named after famous Russian artists, or possibly…
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Moscow Court Arrests Writer Boris Akunin in Absentia
A Moscow court has ordered the arrest in absentia of popular exiled novelist Boris Akunin over his criticism of Russia’s war against Ukraine, officials announced Tuesday. Authorities charged Akunin, who has not lived in Russia since 2014, with justifying terrorism and spreading “fake news” about the Russian army. Russian law enforcement officials issued a warrant for…
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When Russians Dream, They Dream of Spinach
You can’t say that people in the USSR didn’t know what spinach was. But they had a very superficial knowledge of it — often just from pictures in their grandmothers’ cookbooks. We can’t remember a single spinach recipe from the Soviet period. But before socialism, spinach was the Russian dream. You might say your dream…
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Burst a Pipe and Bust a Gut
Теплоснабжение: central heating A couple of weeks ago there was a major accident in Siberia that left hundreds of homes in Russia without heat for weeks. It happened in particularly cold weather — of course it did, because закон подлости (Murphy’s law) is the only law that still works perfectly in Russia today. As a…
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Ludmila Ulitskaya Is the Latest Russian Writer Under Fire
The writer Ludmila Ulitskaya is the latest Russian author to be banned in Russia. A few days ago Ulitskaya was the victim of a prank by Vovan and Lexus, pseudonyms of Vladimir Krasnov and Alexei Stolyarov, who have been pranking celebrities and politicians by telephone since 2011. According to reports, they called Ulitskaya and pretended to…
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Writer Dmitry Bykov on Being Banned and the Curse of Russian History
Dmitry Bykov is not upset that his books have been banned in Russia. To the contrary, he is quite pleased. “I’m grateful to [the Russian government] because I don’t want to have anything to do with them,” he told The Moscow Times via video call. For years, Bykov has been one of Russia’s most celebrated…
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Top Thai Security Body to Rule on Detained Russian Band
Thailand’s prime minister and security chiefs are to rule on a dissident Russian-Belarusian rock band held on immigration charges, a minister said Wednesday, as calls mounted for them not to be deported to Russia. Thai officials detained members of the band Bi-2, who have criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine, last…
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Russian Anti-War Rockers Held in Thailand Fly to Israel
Members of the anti-war Russian-Belarusian rock band Bi-2 have flown to Israel from Thailand, where they faced deportation after performing at a concert on the resort island of Phuket last week, according to a post on the group’s official Facebook page. Seven members of Bi-2, some of whom are dual citizens of Israel and Australia,…
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Mosfilm Celebrates its 100th Birthday
The history of Mosfilm begins on January 30, 1924 with the release of the silent film “Up on Wings” that tells the story of Russian aviation, directed by Boris Mikhin. At the time, Mosfilm was on Zhitnaya Ulitsa in the former studio of Alexander Khanzhonkov, a director and entrepreneur who founded the first cinema factory…
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Russian Anti-War Rock Band Bi-2 Faces Deportation in Thailand
The anti-war Russian-Belarusian rock band Bi-2 said Tuesday that its members face deportation from Thailand after they performed a concert on the resort island of Phuket last week. Seven members of Bi-2, some of whom are dual citizens of Israel and Australia, were detained by Thai immigration authorities on Wednesday following the Phuket concert. Bi-2…
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Chicken and the Theory of Evolution
“Humans are the middle link of evolution, necessary for the creation of the crown of nature’s glory — a shot of cognac and a slice of lemon,” the brilliant writers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky once jokingly wrote. The statement about human beings is debatable, but that the chicken evolved for purely culinary purposes is the…
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How Can You Tell if a Russian Judge is a Man?
Феминитив: feminine job title The decision of Верховный Суд Российской Федерации (The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation) about the so-called Международное движение ЛГБТ (International LGBT Movement) that was made public without authorization last week is an extraordinary document. It is 19 pages of paragraph-long sentences, lists of violations, accusations, sins, instructions, directives and so on without any facts,…
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Russian Expats in Belgrade Hope to Break Serbian Stereotypes Through Film
It’s been almost two years since Russians began migrating to Serbia, which is now home to one of the largest Russian war diasporas, totalling 370,000 by the end of 2023. Yet the community still largely lives in a parallel world of their establishments — bars, restaurants, music nights and art exhibitions. In an attempt to…
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Yevgenia Berkovich’s Statement in Verse to the Court is Now an Illustrated Music Video
Theater director Yevgeniya (Zhenya) Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk were back in court right after the New Year’s holidays to determine if they would be released from pre-trial detention. The two women have been held since May 2023 on charges that the play “Finist, the Brave Falcon,” written by Petriychuk and directed by Berkovich, contained…
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Mstyslav Chernov’s ’20 Days in Mariupol’ Nominated for Oscar
The documentary film “20 Days in Mariupol” has been nominated for an Oscar in the category of best documentary film. The film, directed by Mstyslav Chernov with photographer Evgeniy Maloletka and field producer Vasilisa Stepanenko, documented 20 days in the besieged city of Mariupol within the first few weeks of Russia’s invasion. The co-production of…
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Yury Salnikov, Filmmaker and Co-Author of ‘The Chelyuskin Adventure,’ Dead at age 88
Soviet and Russian film director Yuri Salnikov, who made dozens of films about aviation history, has died at the age of 88, friends reported in Moscow today. The cause of death was a heart attack. Salnikov directed more than one hundred film and television documentaries over his career. A graduate of the Moscow Gerasimov Institute…
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Artist-Designer Taras Zheltyshev Moves His Yoomoota Universe From Tomsk to Thailand
The work of Taras Zheltyshev, aka Yoom, a multidisciplinary artist from Russia, might not be well known in his homeland, but it has captivated art lovers in Europe and now Asia. Before moving to Thailand, Zheltyshev exhibited his works at international art shows in Europe, showcasing sculptures, paintings, collectible design objects and NFTs. Zheltyshev was…
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Dmitry Shostakovich’s ‘Lady Macbeth’ Comes to Boston and New York
At the end of January Andris Nelsons, music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO), is conducting a concert version of Dmitry Shostakovich’s 1932 opera “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District.” The opera is one of the composer’s most innovative and celebrated works — and one that so offended Josef Stalin that he banned further…
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Celebrate Tatyana’s Day With a Russian Student Recipe
“People who get drunk on ordinary days do it out of love for the art of drinking. But on Tatyana’s Day they get drunk out out of a sense of duty — to prove their solidarity with the drinking intelligentsia. Even if life has taken us in different directions, the ties that bind us in…
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What’s On in London: Ukrainian and Russian Arts and Culture
Vanya is Alive The play ‘Vanya is Alive,’ written by Natalia Lizorkina and translated and directed by Ivanka Polchenko, is back in London this and next weekend after a very successful run in Edinburgh at the Fringe Festival last summer and again in October. Written immediately after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the play follows…
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Russian Culture Ministry Sends State-Funded Theaters Their Marching Orders
This week all theaters in Russia that are funded by the federal government received a letter from the Culture Ministry informing them of planned changes in the state mission tasks. The main task is no longer filling theaters. It’s the “creation of works reflecting the traditional Russian spiritual-moral values.” Theaters have been asked to review…
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Russia Celebrates Orthodox Epiphany With Tradition of Icy Plunges
Russians are celebrating the Orthodox Epiphany, the holiday that honors the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan, by immersion into frigid rivers, ponds and lakes across the country. The Russian Orthodox Church celebrates the Epiphany on Jan. 19, but the festivities traditionally begin on the day before. According to tradition, people immerse themselves completely…
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Poet Lev Rubenstein, 76, Died of Injuries After Being Struck by Car
Poet, writer and social activist Lev Rubenstein, age 76, succumbed to injuries sustained when he was hit by a car in a Moscow intersection on January 8. It was reported by his daughter, Maria, who wrote on LiveJournal, “My Papa, Lev Rubenstein, died today.” Social media and Russian independent media were flooded with memorials to…
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Poet Lev Rubenstein, 76, Dies of Injuries After Being Struck by Car
Poet, writer and social activist Lev Rubenstein, age 76, succumbed to injuries sustained when he was hit by a car in a Moscow intersection on Jan. 8. The poet’s death was reported Sunday by his daughter, Maria, who wrote on LiveJournal, “My Papa, Lev Rubenstein, died today.” Social media and Russian independent media were flooded…
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Quinoa: A New Grain That Russians Have Been Eating for Centuries
Cabbage soup, blini and pirogi are the symbols of Russian cuisine. But there is another contender for this title that might come as a surprise to foreigners: quinoa. For many centuries bread made with quinoa offered salvation from hunger. It was also simply a very common food product. Today in Russia there is a nationwide…
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Renowned Russian Writer Boris Akunin Labeled ‘Foreign Agent’
Russia on Friday labeled the exiled writer Boris Akunin, who has spoken out against Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine, as a foreign agent. The Kremlin has intensified its crackdown on dissent since launching its offensive in Ukraine in February 2022 and targeted the arts, with books by authors critical of Moscow disappearing from bookshops. Akunin…
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Actor Yury Solomin, Famous for His Role in ‘Dersu Uzala,’ Dies at Age 88
Actor Yury Solomin died at home in Moscow on Thursday at the age of 88. Solomin was a stage and screen actor, the artistic director of the Maly Theater from 1988 until his death, as well as a director and teacher. In his career he played more than 50 roles at the Maly Theater and…
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Poet Lev Rubenstein, 76, in Critical Condition After Being Hit by Car
Poet, writer and social activist Lev Rubenstein, age 76, was struck by a car in a Moscow intersection on Monday and is now in Sklifosovsky Emergency Hospital. It was reported by his friend, poet and journalist Igor Irtenyev, who said Rubenstein had suffered broken bones and is in critical condition. TV Rain reported that he…
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A Fairy Tale Soup Fit for a King and Queen
One of the most important Slavic folk holidays is Святки (holy days) which in the West are called the “twelve days of Christmas.” In Russian these days are said to stretch “from the star to the water,” that is, from the appearance of the first star on Christmas Eve to baptism on Epiphany. This is…
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The Russian Music Scene in 2023: From a New Wave of Emigration to Fame for Tuvan Throat Singers
Until Feb. 24, 2022, the Russian music industry was developing at a brisk pace, using all the opportunities of international promotion and local services to build a strong foundation. It has certainly suffered in this period, but it still might be able to recover and adapt. Spotify left Russia in 2022. YouTube Music disabled paid…
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This Year Invite Caesar to Your New Year’s Feast
Many centuries ago in Moscow the main dish of a New Year’s feast was roasted swans. If today there are no swans available where you live, you can celebrate without them, chosing instead from today’s enormous variety of wild and farmed fowl. After all, tradition does demand serving poultry on holidays. This has a very…
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Russian Dance in 2023: Back to the Soviet Model of Isolated Development?
In 2023 the Russian world of dance went largely inward, focusing on Russian traditions of dance, supporting regional initiatives, and organizing festivals. There were few exchanges of dancers and joint projects, and only with non-Western countries. Losses or gains? On the regional level there were several somewhat positive developments. In 2022, Ivanovo University has opened…
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Russian Cinema in 2023: New Names, Powerful Performances and Banned Films
The general view this year in Russia is that there are no good films. But Russian film critic Larisa Malykova does not agree. “That’s what people say when they don’t go to movie theaters and don’t know about new films. And then good films often have problems with distribution, so people can’t see them. The…
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Night in Russian Museums: The Year 2023 in Review
The Russian invasion of Ukraine changed cultural life in Russia almost immediately. After two years of war, Russians can see the results of these changes. The director of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Mikhail Piotrovsky, told RBK that all the contacts between Russian and European museums had been lost. He blamed it on his…
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Russia on Stage 2023: Darkness With Flashes of Light
“Creative unions are back where they were under Soviet power — so-called ‘creatives’ feeding at the state trough and afraid of their own shadows.” That is how Nina Agisheva-Nikolaevich, a well-known Russian theater critic, commented on Facebook about one of the most significant recent cases in the Russian theater world. She was referring to Vladimir…
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Alexander Levenbuk, Founder of Moscow’s Shalom Theater and a ‘Radio-Nanny,’ Dies at Age 90
Alexander Levenbuk, the founding father of Moscow’s only Jewish theater, died at the age of 90 from natural causes on Dec. 22, TASS news agency reported, citing Alexander Brod, a member of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights. Levenbuk was one of the founders of Shalom, a popular Jewish…
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Cures for the Morning After the Night Before
Knowing how to Return to life after a holiday is an important part of Russian culinary culture. The caviar has been eaten and you’d rather die than look at the Salad Olivier leave alone eat it. All that a Russian has left is his hangover. That must be taken care of somehow. And so, just…