For prominent writer and artist Linor Goralik, Putin’s full-scale invasion of her native Ukraine has changed life “forever” — but it has not broken her. Since the start of the war, Goralik, who writes in Russian and Hebrew, has launched a digital art magazine and a news channel for teenagers, written two novels, produced a…
Today in Russia you are most likely to find green peas in Salad Olivier or as a garnish on a plate with hot dogs. We’ve known these classic Soviet dishes since childhood — in fact, many people think that canned peas appeared in the Soviet era. But the history of peas in Russia is older…
PARIS — An exhibition dedicated to the veteran Russian human rights activist Oleg Orlov went on display in the French capital this June. Orlov, 71, is serving a two-and-a-half-year prison term for criticizing the full-scale invasion of Ukraine after he was sentenced this year for “discrediting” the Russian Armed Forces. “Oleg Orlov: Human Rights Defender,…
Music streaming service Spotify has removed the songs and profiles of pro-war Russian artists sanctioned by the West, the Sweden-based company told The Moscow Times on Thursday. The removals affected the band Lyube and singers Grigory Leps, Oleg Gazmanov, Shaman and Polina Gagarina, among others, according to the Rodnoy Zvuk Telegram channel, which first reported the…
This year the Palme D’Or — the highest award of the 77th International Cannes Film Festival — went to director Sean Baker’s “Anora,” an American-made, largely Russian-speaking film. This was a surprise on many counts, including the fact the main “Russian presence” at the festival was not “Limonov: The Ballad” by Russian filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov.…
In his latest exhibition, award-winning artist Pavel Otdelnov casts an exile’s jaded eye on his birthplace and uncovers the lives of those who have worked and of those who remain working in Dzerzhinsk — a Soviet city built on sand, once a chemical capital and now one of Russia’s largest munitions hubs. Born in Dzerzhinsk,…
Champagne. There is no other foreign product — with the exception of potatoes, perhaps — that has become so popular in Russia, first among the affluent, aristocratic public and then among everyone else. In Russia champagne became the people’s drink. The first semblance of sparkling wine appeared in Russia at the end of the 17th…
LINZ, Austria — For Nadya Tolokonnikova, rage has always been an antidote to her despair at the Kremlin’s repressions. “When something terrible happens, I’m free to choose — either I lay low in tears, or I rage. And through my rage, the better world starts to manifest,” the founder of the Pussy Riot feminist protest…
Congratulations! Did you think you might win the Pushkin House Book Prize? I had a little hope, but the shortlist was so strong this year. It was a great honor just to be included in the shortlist, but I didn’t think I’d win… I had heard that the Pushkin House prize is rarely given to…
One hundred and thirty-eight days before his country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Dmitry Muratov of Novaya Gazeta was accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. In his speech, he quoted the proverb “The dogs bark but the caravan goes on,” usually understood to mean that the sound and fury of journalism have no real impact…
What is the best way to instill love for the tsar and obedience to the authorities? This isn’t just a question that puzzles Russian parliament deputies today. In the past, the solutions were simple and effective. The beginning of the reforms of Peter I (Peter the Great) was not an easy period, and far from…
On Friday evening the Pushkin House announced the winner of the 2024 Book Prize: “I Love Russia: Reporting From a Lost Country,” written by Elena Kostyuchenko and translated from Russian by Ilona Yazhbin Chavasse and Bela Shayevich. The announcement was made at the awards ceremony held at Swedenborg House in Bloomsbury, hosted by Andrew Jack,…
A judge in Moscow ruled Thursday that the trial of a director and writer charged with “justifying terrorism” in an award-winning play will continue behind closed doors after the prosecution said witnesses were being threatened on social media. Director Yevgeniya Berkovich and writer Svetlana Petriychuk are standing trial at a military court over their 2021…
At the end of the Soviet era and dawn of Russia’s emergence as a state, the Russian media, and later social media, got very interesting very quickly. It wasn’t only raw politics, revelations about the present and past — it was also sexuality, both “traditional and untraditional,” gay parades and performers, and even a prime…
“Words and Silences – Nenets Reindeer Herders and Evangelical Missionaries in the Post-Soviet Arctic” is the first book by Estonian ethnologist Laur Vallikivi, and draws on twenty years of fieldwork amongst indigenous communities in the Russian Far East. Vallikivi acknowledges that the Soviets and their predecessors committed many atrocities against such communities – conscripting them,…
The cuisine of the Middle Ages is not a cuisine of pleasure or enjoyment. It is primarily a cuisine of satiation — simply getting enough to eat. That’s why the efforts of modern nutritionists to find a role model in our ancient cuisine seem a bit strange. Of course, a long time ago people realized…
Over a year into Russia’s grotesque full-scale invasion of Ukraine, disinformation and misconceptions of the conflict — fuelled both by the Kremlin and by political actors abroad — continued to permeate public debate. “The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History” by Serhii Plokhy takes aim at many of these myths, demonstrating how Russia’s centuries-long imperial obsession…
“Born of the devil and filled with the devil’s blood”: this was how Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, with his typical vitriol, described the Gulag medical system. As far as he was concerned, doctors in the Gulag prison camps were pawns in a system designed to extract every ounce of labor from its prisoners. The brutal…
In the Soviet period food didn’t get much public attention. Like the rest of daily life, it paled in the glow of lofty communist philosophy. But that’s strange. It would seem that the topic would be perfect to blot out memories of the “glorious” past. After all, food riots in Russia were precursors to the…
Sting singing “I hope the Russians love their children too” from a Moscow TV studio. Appearances by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and interviews with Ukrainian politicians. Political satire on the country’s top comedy show. None of these things would appear on television in today’s Russia, which has been isolated from the West and under strict…
A new song by Russian pop star Monetochka is inspiring Russians to share videos on social media that show what life was like before the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of Russians, including politicians, activists, journalists and artists, have moved abroad since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which has killed thousands…
Russia has added the exiled actor Alexei Panin to its list of “terrorists and extremists,” the state-run TASS news agency reported Tuesday, citing the state financial watchdog Rosfinmonitoring. A Moscow court in February ruled to place Panin, known for his roles in films like “The Star” (2002) and “Dead Man’s Bluff” (2005), in pre-trial detention…
Russia’s Karavon Folklore Festival took place in the republic of Tatarstan’s village of Russkoye Nikolskoye on Sunday. The festival aims to promote “traditional Russian culture,” popularize folklore and award the best folk performances. Over 170 musical groups, dance troupes and other performers from across Russia were scheduled to appear at the festival. The event also…
After living for two weeks in a psycho-neurological internat, a facility where Russia confines those with psychiatric illnesses who have no relatives willing to care for them, journalist Elena Kostyuchenko believed she had seen the “real face of my state.” She spoke to women who were forcibly sterilized, showed a doctor poetry written by a…
Garlic is the best way to keep vampires away, as everyone knows. Russia has never had much trouble with vampires, although it has plenty evil of its own kind. But garlic is a welcome ingredient in our historical cuisine. Many foreigners who visit Russia are perplexed by certain aspects of our traditional cuisine, such as…
Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov, competing for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, brandished a picture of two theater artists who went on trial in Moscow on Monday. “They did absolutely nothing wrong, they just put on a show and they have already been in prison for a year,” Serebrennikov told reporters at the film festival. The…
The basis of the Russian diet historically has always been porridge. Even today porridges made with a variety of grains remain a simple and uncomplicated meal for Russians. But here’s the paradox. This simple porridge became a dish that was synonymous with one of the most elegant and intricate Russian dishes ever invented. You’ve probably…
MOSCOW — “We live in an intolerant environment,” Eugene, a former member of the Russian capital’s drag collectives, told The Moscow Times while walking near a nightclub in the city center where he and his fellow artists used to work. That sentiment, Eugene said, is shared by drag artists who play with gender stereotypes, norms…
At least 12 million people have visited the Russia Expo at Moscow’s VDNKh exhibition center. The exhibition, which opened in November 2023 and runs through July 2024, describes itself as “a large-scale projection of the entire country” and comes as the Kremlin pushes to increase public patriotism amid the invasion of Ukraine. In addition to…
On a recent Friday night in Warsaw, Poland, over 300 people filled a small university-run club to see exiled electronic duo AIGEL — but few, if any, spoke the language of the song they were eagerly awaiting. “I must not miss the song,” a woman in the crowd tells her friend in Russian as they…
Veteran journalist Tom Parfitt came up with the idea of a solo walk through Russia’s North Caucasus after reporting on the bloody Beslan school siege by Islamic militants in 2004. The undertaking was, as he puts it, his way of trying to “dilute” the memories of that horror. The result is a poignant, beautiful and…
Karelian cuisine is a kind of culinary time machine. It includes dishes and traditions not only of Karelians, but also of ancient Novgorodians from the 14th century, Veps, Izhors and other nationalities that only have a few thousand people. To eat Karelian food is to take a journey into the past. This marvelous forest and…
Authorities in Russia have issued an arrest warrant for the exiled anti-war rapper Oxxxymiron, the independent news website Mediazona reported Thursday. Russia’s Justice Ministry designated Oxxxymiron — whose real name is Miron Fyodorov — as a “foreign agent” in October 2022, several months after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The rapper has organized concerts in support of Ukrainian…
“I think cooking is very close to politics,” Witold Szabłowski told The Moscow Times. “And politics is very close to cooking. What do people eat before they send their soldiers to war? What do they eat before they set the world on fire?” “What’s Cooking in the Kremlin?” is the sixth book from the prolific…
Russians have always like meat roasted on a spit. But it was never called shashlyk or kebabs. Oddly, today shashlyk is considered by zealots of Russian cuisine as something borrowed. But when you look more closely, the technique was used by our ancestors many centuries — if not millennia — ago. Roasting meat over a…
What’s a tea party without a samovar! The samovar — chubby, steamy, shiny and imposing — has been the center of every holiday table and an indispensable part of Russian feasts. And the samovar has been a good friend to all regardless of class, honored equally by the poor man and the tsar. Russia has…
A union of leading Russian publishers and libraries has created an advisory body that would evaluate books for their compliance with the country’s increasingly repressive legislation, the Vedomosti business daily reported Tuesday. The Russian Book Union’s so-called expert center will issue recommendations on individual books, but leave the final decision to pull the books from sale…
In the traditional cuisine of Russia, where most people were Orthodox Christians, there are more than 200 days of fasting a year. During that time no meat is allowed, of course, but what about other products, like spices? They played an important role in Russian cuisine, although the roles were different from those used in…
The artist Tamara de Lempicka is having a moment. The glamourous aristocratic Russian refugee artist (1894–1980) best known for her Art Deco portraits, is the heroine of the musical “Lempicka,” which opened on Broadway on April 14. Starring Eden Espinosa, the show is directed by two-time Tony Award-winner Rachel Chavkin. It is an extravagant production because,…
A Russian military court will hear the “terrorism” case against theater director Yevgenia Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk over their award-winning play about Russian women who fall in love with Islamist militants, prosecutors said Friday. Berkovich and Petriychuk were arrested in May 2023 on the accusation of “justifying terrorism” with their play “Finist the Brave Falcon.” Berkovich…
A ballet performance in South Korea featuring dancers from Russia’s Bolshoi Ballet was canceled abruptly, the organizers confirmed to AFP Tuesday, amid growing tensions between Seoul and Moscow over Ukraine and North Korea. The Russian Embassy in Seoul expressed its “deep regret” over the cancelation of the show — scheduled to open April 16 —…
Russia’s state financial watchdog Rosfinmonitoring on Monday added theater director Yevgenia (Zhenya) Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk to its list of “terrorists and extremists.” Berkovich and Petriychuk were arrested in May 2023 over their award-winning play “Finist the Brave Falcon,” which tells the story of Russian women who correspond with Islamist militants, fall in love with them and…
The three poetry texts below explore the behavior of ordinary Russians in the context of war. All of them are based on real events. But the authors look at the situation in Russia from very different geographical locations and through different metaphysical lenses. Jamil Nilov is right in the thick of things: He lives in…
Space flights are definitely important and certainly exciting. But even cosmonauts (and astronauts) flying in space need to have lunch. Of course, when Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov blasted off the launchpads as the first and second Soviet citizens in space, they weren’t thinking about food. But later space nutrition became very important in longer…
The Pushkin House has announced six books shortlisted for its 2024 Book Prize. The books cover a broad range of topics, time periods and places, from the mountain ranges of the Caucasus in the south to the Arctic snowfields in the north, from Stalin’s labor camps to the war Russia is waging in Ukraine today,…
A Moscow court on Tuesday sentenced the driver involved in a road accident that resulted in the death of poet and writer Lev Rubinstein to a suspended prison term of one year and eight months. The motorist, whose name was not given, was found guilty of violating traffic rules that led to the death of a…
Cheese in Russia is more than cheese. For some reason, throughout our history, it has always been some kind of symbol — either fealty to national values, or self-reliance, or even an example of free thinking. The thesis popular today in pro-Putin circles is that Russian cheese is the oldest and most delicious cheese in…
Not sturgeon or swans. Not solyanka soup or salad Olivier. The most enduring treasure of Russian cuisine is kasha — porridge made from grains. Many people consider it a simple or even primitive food. But over hundreds of years, grain porridges have evolved tremendously. Porridge is the main contender for the role of the Russian…
Последнее слово: last word I began to write The Word’s Worth in April 2002, the third writer (I think) to take up what was envisioned as a language column for expats. Since then I’ve written more than a thousand columns, touching on just about every aspect of language use and language change, and most of…
“Where to Hide” is a major new show of Latvian non-conformist art from 1945 to 1990 that opened in Riga. The name of the show is from a small drawing done by Roberts Stārosts in 1954. The drawing in India ink on yellowed paper is a scene at night: a sliver of moon hangs in…
Although Russian culture has not been cancelled around the world, there have been disruptions in schedules and repertories as venues and event organizers were concerned that hosting Russians artists would be perceived as condoning or endorsing actions contrary to their values. Non-Russian symphony orchestras dedicated to preserving classical masterpieces are also facing a dilemma. While…
If you happen upon a small ceramic statue tucked inside a drainpipe or half-buried in a pile of leaves, chances are it’s a work by Elena Skvortsova. Skovtsova is a ceramicist living in Moscow. She creates decorative plates, small statues, vases, and other works that she exhibits in galleries and on the street. She often tucks…
FROM THE COMPILER* There are many political prisoners in Russia, and their number is only increasing. It’s axiomatic: the less freedom there is in a country, the more people are imprisoned for their beliefs. Before February 24, 2022, the authorities usually sentenced political prisoners on far-fetched criminal charges. Now political repression has become blatant. People…
In Russia today there is a belief that the food served in Russian Orthodox monasteries is the apotheosis of Russian cooking. Some people insist that the monasteries preserved the very best that had survived from ancient Russian cuisine — beautifully prepared, delicious, healthy food. But isn’t there a contradiction here? On the one hand, Christianity…
Фейк: fake I have been remiss. Although I have mentioned the “Russian” word фейк in many columns, I’ve never really focused on it. I suppose it’s because, well, what’s there to say? Фейк is the standard Russian insult for anything purported to be false, particularly factual information from non-Russian sources. There are plenty of official…
“Kissing Day” is a short animated film based on an interview with the famous Russian journalist, writer and LGBTQ+ activist Elena Kostyuchenko. It tells the story of the “Kissing Day” event that Elena organized in front of the Russian State Duma in 2012 during the first hearings of the law against “gay propaganda” among minors.…
Documentary filmmaking has a long and illustrious history in Russia, with waves of popularity that have tended to correlate with changes in the political climate. Soon after Vladimir Putin became president in 2000 and his government began chipping away at media freedom, interest in documentary film began to rise. As television network news became more…
This past week Russians across the country celebrated Maslenitsa. The weeklong holiday marks Shrovetide, the last week before Lent begins, but has roots in Slavic pagan traditions. The holiday culminates in large bonfires and the burning of straw effigies — a symbolic funeral for the winter that has just passed. This is the last week…
Russia’s big cities may appear to be flourishing, filled with shops, restaurants, recently built apartment buildings, malls and entertainment venues. But many if not most of Russia’s villages are not enjoying the same economic boom. Infrastructure is in poor shape, job opportunities are scant, schools are closed as families move to larger towns and cities,…
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…