The Tretyakov Gallery, one of Russia’s biggest and oldest arts museums, has closed the exhibition of Russian-American artist Grisha Bruskin’s works allegedly at the request of the Ministry of Culture. According to the museum’s website, the exhibition was closed for “technical reasons.” However, independent Russian arts magazine Artgid reported that the Ministry of Culture demanded…
The Moscow Times had a chance to speak with Maria Danilova, one of our former reporters who is the author of a novel for children that has, sadly, relevance today. “Anya, Here and There” is the story of a little girl who moves to New York City from Russia. Danilova was born in Moscow but…
Russians seeking to leave their country amid the war in Ukraine have limited options. Many have flocked to Armenia, where they don’t need a visa to enter, creating a small, makeshift community in the capital Yerevan in a matter of weeks. Some members of this new diaspora have left in protest against the war, some…
Artist Zoya Cherkassky-Nnadi grew up in Kyiv before moving to Israel with her family at age 14 in 1991. Except for a brief visit in 1996, she didn’t start to visit her homeland until 2014. A few years later when she was pregnant with her daughter, she began to paint what she remembered of her…
Dozens of paintings by renowned Russian artists including Wassily Kandinsky are stuck in Seoul after an exhibition due to flight sanctions imposed over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, organizers said Monday. The paintings by around 50 Russian artists — including Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, and Alexander Rodchenko, among others — have been on display in central Seoul…
Russia’s most prominent political cartoonist Sergei Elkin announced Wednesday that he had left Russia amid a wartime crackdown on journalism. He is now in Bulgaria. Over the years, Elkin has lampooned politicians, businessmen, and international elites in media outlets across the world — including The Moscow Times, who published his series, “Putin’s Russia” in print…
Moscow police halted a piano recital featuring a well-known Ukrainian composer’s music Wednesday after receiving an anonymous bomb threat warning. Video from the Rassvet cultural center shows two uniformed officers disrupting Russian pianist Alexei Lyubimov’s performance of Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov’s song cycle “Stufen” accompanied by verses of classic Russian poets. Lyubimov continues to play…
The author of “Putin’s Playbook: Russia’s Secret Plan to Defeat America” told the audience at a roundtable event at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association that the world was seeing his playbook unfold “right in front of our eyes.” A former U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency officer, Koffler, 56, said, “Putin’s ultimate goal with Ukraine is to…
“First Face of War,” a portrait of a woman badly wounded during a Russian military attack in Ukraine, has become an image that encapsulates the calamity of war. Zhenya Gershman, a Russian-born American artist, was inspired by a photograph by Wolfgang Schwan that was taken after the 52-year-old Ukrainian teacher survived a bombing by Russian…
Russian art works valued at $46 million impounded by Finland last week were released and arrived in St. Petersburg today. On Monday the Russian state news agency RIA reported that three vehicles containing the art works had left Finland on April 9 and arrived in St. Petersburg. The works, which included paintings, statues and antiques, had…
Northern (Arctic) Federal University (NArFU) is Russia’s largest in the north and from the campus near the city center of Arkhangelsk, rector Elena Kudryashova has signed numerous partnership agreements with universities in the Scandinavian north. In 2011, the founding father of the Barents Euro-Arctic cooperation, Thorvald Stoltenberg, was appointed Honorary Doctor at the university. Now,…
After years spent translating Hollywood films, Russian Mila Grekova was suddenly thrown out of work after Moscow’s military intervention in Ukraine. Five Hollywood giants — Disney, Warner Bros, Universal, Sony Pictures and Paramount — have all stopped releasing new films there, leaving Russian cinemas bereft of the latest blockbusters. But it has not made Grekova…
Despite the ban on virtually any form of protest – even standing alone on the street with a blank piece of paper will get you detained – Russians are protesting anyway. In Moscow a man in a black wool hat with his hands tied behind his back with a strip of sheeting lay in street…
Apr 04, 2022 – 05:37 pm Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which has moved into its second month, has forced millions to flee their homes. The attacks have been targeting Ukraine’s civilian sites and pose a great threat to the country’s historical and cultural heritage. As Ukrainians show stiff military resistance, Kyiv’s residents do all they…
The highlight of the Grammy music awards presentation in Las Vegas on Sunday turned was the appearance of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who in a pre-taped address told audience to spread the “truth about this war” and asked for support. “War. What could be more the antithesis of music but the silence of ruined cities…
Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater held a performance Saturday to support the families of Russian soldiers who died during Russia’s “military operation” in Ukraine. The performance was Aram Khachaturian’s ballet Spartacus, the story of a gladiator who led a rebellion of slaves against the Roman Empire. The Bolshoi site noted that this was the first performance of…
As Ukrainian citizens are forced to leave their apartments and houses to hide or flee the country, most people are bringing their cats and dogs along with them. Some of the pets settle in with their humans in cellars, bomb shelters, underground bunkers or metro stations. Others make the long trek on foot, car, or…
The day before Russia launched its war against Ukraine, I was in the seaside city of Sochi in southern Russia, not far from the Ukrainian border, attending an arts festival and enjoying a break from the dark and snowy Moscow winter among palm trees and verdant hillsides. Sochi is on the Black Sea, as is…
The 15th ArtDocFest, Russia’s largest festival of documentary films, ended before it began last night in Moscow. As Vitaly Mansky, a documentary filmmaker and president of the festival, was about the enter the theater for the opening, he was splashed with paint by protesters from Russian nationalist group SERB (South-East Radical Bloc). Over the years…
The Kremlin on Friday offered to “explain” Moscow’s actions in Ukraine to French actor Gerard Depardieu after he denounced Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “crazy, unacceptable excesses.” Depardieu, a long-time star in France before Peter Weir’s 1990 film “Green Card” made him a Hollywood celebrity, left France and took up Russian nationality in 2013 to protest…
The Novosibirsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater announced on Friday that it was cancelling a performance of opera singer Anna Netrebko scheduled for June 2. The announcement cited the statement Netrebko made this week condemning Russia’s war in Ukraine. Noting her European residence, the theater concluded that the “opportunity to perform on European stages…
The Russian art world continues to be in political and physical flux. The Russian opera singer Anna Netrebko, whose previous support for Vladimir Putin and ambiguous statements about the war in Ukraine resulted in dozens of cancelled performances, tried to set the record straight again on Wednesday. “I expressly condemn the war on Ukraine and…
On March 3, a week after Russia invaded Ukraine, the U.S. and other governments around the world introduced harsh sanctions against Russian officials and the oligarchs who benefited from the regime in Moscow. The White House announced that governments “all over the world will work to identify and freeze the assets Russian elites and their…
On Feb. 23, Daria Serenko, a Moscow political activist, was finally released from a fifteen-day jail sentence. Daria had been arrested for an Instagram post she had made in 2021 that featured “extremist” symbols associated with anti-corruption firebrand Alexei Navalny. She was exhausted. Her only wish was to get some sleep. The next day when…
In St. Petersburg there is a new kind of protest that so far has not been stopped by the authorities. Participants make tiny protesters out of clay, paper, wire or other craft material. Most of them hold placards against the war in Ukraine. After they are made, their creators – all anonymous – place them…
Hollywood —Ukrainian Olympic gold medalist Oksana Baiul says she still cannot believe what is happening in her home country. In an emotionally charged roundtable session before the Hollywood Foreign Press Association the skating star said when “Putin announced the invasion I couldn’t believe it.” “I speak to people [in Ukraine] frequently and what Russian soldiers…
International sanctions against Russia, the devaluation of the ruble and politics at the governmental and individual level have left works of art stranded and are causing museums to frantically revise exhibition schedules that had been set years ago. The Morozov collection of late 19th and early 20th century European and Russian art, so valuable that…
Since Putin unleashed Russia’s war on Ukraine on Feb. 24, a number of Hollywood celebrities have publicly condemned Russia’s actions. Through Instagram posts, heartfelt speeches or raising funds for Ukrainian victims, Hollywood celebs seem to have come together to help the war-torn country. Here are just some of the celebrities who raised their voices to…
Andrei Molodkin, a Russian conceptual artist famous for using human blood and crude oil in his bold mixed-media installations, spoke out against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine through the medium he knows best. Molodkin created a portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin using real blood as a graphic condemnation of Putin’s regime and Russia’s “special military…
Despite the city’s rapidly changing landscape and rising prices, many Muscovites go about their day as usual, enjoying warmer weather, local restaurants and events. While many Hollywood studios suspended releases of their films in Russia, Moscow residents can see Russian and other foreign films in local cinemas. Muscovites can still also enjoy the city’s vibrant…
A Russian actress has criticized her well-known actor father’s support for the war against Ukraine, in a high-profile example of how the war has split many Russian families. Vladimir Mashkov spoke at Friday’s massive rally marking the eighth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and supporting Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. “We are Russian…
The Russian stage and screen actress Chulpan Khamatova told Ekaterina Gordeyeva in an interview released on Monday that she would not be going back to Russia. Khamatova, who heads the Gift of Life charity foundation, was abroad when Russia began its attack on Ukraine. “For the first few days I didn’t know what to do,”…
Russian movie theaters are about to be hit with another financial challenge after the coronavirus closed theaters for months. This time they are likely to lose their most profitable films: Hollywood blockbusters. Instead, as Cinema Park, Formula Kino, Premier Hall, Karo, Kinomax, and Cinema Star told the newspaper Vedomosti, they will show domestic fare, films…
Zemfira, one of Russia’s leading rock artists, has released an anti-war music video amid her country’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine. The iconic musician on Friday deleted all her existing videos from YouTube, replacing them with a new clip for her 2017 song “Don’t Shoot.” The video contains footage from Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine as…
The writer, poet, and playwright Yuz Aleshkovsky died March 21 at the age of 92 in Tampa, Florida. Aleshkovsky, who full name was Iosif, grew up in Moscow until he and his family were evacuated to Siberia during WWII. When he came of age he served in the Soviet Navy, but was charged with a…
The documentary filmmaker Marina Goldovskaya died in Latvia on March 20 at the age of 80. Goldovskaya made nearly one hundred documentaries, many of which were intimate portraits of her subjects. She is perhaps best known for her work during the late Soviet and early post-Soviet period that opened doors into the inner lives of…
Collective guilt and responsibility are major issues for young Russian people since the start of Russia’s so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine and harsh backlash from the international community. Many began to question if they should share responsibility for the state’s wrongdoings. The Moscow Times spoke to almost three dozen young people from Russia about…
From her shelter in Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv, Vera Lytovchenko has become a social media sensation with her violin performances that help her forget the war, if only for a few minutes. Her renditions of Vivaldi and Ukrainian melodies have triggered an avalanche of messages of support from around the world and she has used…
Russia’s Education Ministry will allocate nearly $3 million to create “digital educational content,” according to a tender filed on the public procurement portal Tuesday. The 300-million-ruble tender includes the creation of at least 3,000 scripted teaching plans and a thousand videos. One of the specified goals is the “formation of Russian civil identity among students…
Prima ballerina Olga Smirnova has quit the Bolshoi in Moscow to join the Dutch National Ballet, it was announced Wednesday, becoming the biggest star to leave Russia over the war in Ukraine. The 30-year-old’s departure from Russia’s most prestigious cultural institution carries echoes of defections during the Cold War. Smirnova, considered one of the greatest…
ISTANBUL – One of Russia’s biggest rappers performed a sold-out charity concert Tuesday in a show of Russians’ opposition to their country’s war in Ukraine. Some 400 Russians, many of whom fled to Turkey following the invasion, crowded into the basement club to watch Oxxxymiron perform a high-energy mix of old and new songs on…
The Soviet, Russian and Azerbaijan writer and screenwriter died in Moscow on March 11 after a long illness, his family reported. Born in Azerbaijan Republic, Ibragimbekov graduated from the Azerbaijan Oil and Chemistry Institute and then the main cinematography institute in Moscow. He wrote and cowrote the scripts for dozens of films, as well as…
Orthodox churches, clergy and congregants inside Russia and abroad are breaking with the Russian Orthodox Church and its patriarch over the war in Ukraine and the ideology of the “Russian world” that underpins it. This weekend the Russian Orthodox parish of Saint Nicholas of Myra in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, requested “a canonical dismissal” from the…
Today’s Google doodle is an image of the Russian State Historical Museum, one of Russia’s oldest and most revered collections of Russian culture and history. It commemorates the museum’s 150th anniversary celebrated on Wednesday. The doodle was created by Russian-guest artist and Muscovite Toma Vagner. “I would like my doodle to serve as a reminder…
The Russian short film “Boxballet,” directed by Anton Dyakov, was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Animated Short category, the Russian news agency TASS reported Tuesday. “I’m very happy,” Dyakov told TASS, commenting on the nomination. “I think that Russian non-profit animation deserves to be talked about and highlighted.” “Boxballet,” an eccentric, 2D-animated short,…
If you’ve been feeling a little overwhelmed and burnt out after the January holiday and return to work, here are our top five wellness getaways in and around Moscow. From Soviet sanatoriums to communal dacha experiences, you can relax yourself back to health and good spirits in no time. The Walrus Club of Serebryany Bor…
A new art installation has opened in Malevich Park outside Moscow. Titled “White Forest,” it features artwork by Gregory Orekhov, Alexei Luka and the Artistic Solitude art group. Visitors are invited to reflect on how nature interacts with themes such as urbanization, power and fame. The exhibition is free and runs until March 1.
A St. Petersburg high-school teacher said she was forced to quit for reciting the work of poets who had been declared Soviet “enemies of the people” to her students. Serafima Saprykina said her secondary school’s director reprimanded her at an emergency meeting in December for reciting Daniil Kharms and Alexander Vvedensky’s works to her 10th-grade…
In Russia today more than 1.5 million women are living with a cancer diagnosis, and the vast majority of them need psychological support in addition to medical treatment. Headed by cancer survivor Olga Pavlova, the Fund for the Development of Intersectoral Partnership launched a media campaign in Moscow to destigmatize cancer, eradicate false stereotypes, assuage…
“What’s your absolute favorite soup?” asked a non-foodie friend recently. Only a non-foodie would ask something so inflammatory: it’s like asking someone to identify a favorite child. But I wondered afterwards if it were feasible to determine my Top 5 Favorite Soups. I scratched a preliminary list on the back of an envelope and was…
The heads of some of Russia’s most prominent theaters have voiced their opposition to a proposed Culture Ministry initiative that aims to “strengthen traditional values” in Russian arts and culture. The Culture Ministry unveiled its full proposal — entitled “Fundamentals of State Policy for the Preservation and Strengthening of Traditional Russian Spiritual and Moral Values”…
See underground art underground If you haven’t been to the Zaryadye Park Museum, the current show would be a great introduction. Called “360 Degrees, or the Faceted Vision of the Dragon Fly,” it is dedicated to the art historian and curator Vitaly Patsyukov, who passed away at the age of 83 last October. The show…
At the beginning of the 20th century, about 1,000 people lived in the village of Fomikha in the Vladimir region. Now there are about 40 houses — 20-30 are used as dachas, and only about five are lived in year-round. To be fair, it’s no wonder: you can only get to the village in an…
Prince Phillip, the late husband of Queen Elizabeth II, died last Friday at 99. The Duke of Edinburgh became the first member of the Royal Family to visit the U.S.S.R. when he flew to Kiev, Ukraine as president of the International Equestrian Federation in September 1973. The visit took place just years after he infamously…
On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin blasted off onboard the Vostok 1 spacecraft, becoming the first human to journey into outer space. A major milestone for humanity and a triumph for Moscow in the U.S.-Soviet space race, the event’s anniversary is celebrated annually as Cosmonautics Day in Russia. Special events are being held…
At the beginning of Maria Kuznetsova’s second novel, Natasha, a young mother in New York, chats with her grandmother Larissa in Ukraine via Skype. Larissa has the following advice for her granddaughter who is struggling to adapt to her new parental responsibilities: If you train that girl to sleep in your arms, she will become…
“What am I, chopped liver?” Such a marvelous phrase with so many applications. Tyrion, our black lab bounds towards my husband nine times out of ten, even though I’m the one with a full pocket of treats. “What I am I, Tyrion? Chopped liver?” I ask him. It turns out that Tyrion actually loves chopped…
Following weeks of bitter winter weather that held its grip on Russia’s capital despite the start of calendar spring, Muscovites finally have a chance to enjoy some warmer temperatures and sunshine. This winter season was marked by record-setting snowfalls and some of the coldest temperatures Moscow has seen in recent years, making the springtime’s arrival…
With clients like Kendall Jenner and Hailey Bieber, Olesya Kondratyeva is one of the most in-demand nail technicians among LA’s countless bloggers and influencers. With its glitzy celebrity culture, laid-back pace, palm trees and sunshine, Los Angeles is a far cry from her birthplace Tver, a Russian city of 400,000 northwest of Moscow. Kondratyeva, 28,…
The exhibition of painter Robert Falk (1886-1958) in the New Tretyakov Gallery begins with a comment about the leader of the U.S.S.R. “Nikita Khrushchev was not prepared for this kind of painting,” it reads. The painting in question was “Nude in an Armchair.” In 1962 the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist…