Updates with Berkovich being remanded in custody. A Moscow court ordered the director of an award-winning play about Russian Islamic State brides to be remanded in custody for two months on Friday, a day after she was arrested for allegedly “justifying terrorism,” Interfax reported. Lawyers representing Yevgeniya (Zhenya) Berkovich had requested the court place their client…
Russia’s fashion industry lost two of its most renowned fashion designers, Valentin Yudashkin and Vyacheslav Zaitsev, this week. Yudashkin died at the age of 59 in Moscow on Tuesday after a long battle with cancer. He came to fame in the late 1980s when he dressed the first lady of the Soviet Union, Raisa Gorbacheva,…
Fashion designer Valentin Yudashkin, whose elegant dresses gave Russian fashion a star in the constellation of international haute couture, died Tuesday in Moscow at the age of 59. The cause of death was oncology, which he had been battling since 2016. Yudashkin was born in a small town outside Moscow. He graduated from the Moscow Industrial…
Vladimir Kuznetsov is an artist who protests in his work in Russia today. A former journalist and activist in Penza, a city about 600 km (325 miles) to the southwest of Moscow, he is now working on a storytelling project called “1,000 Faces — 1,000 Words.” “I had different motivations for starting the project, and one…
Russian fashion designer Viacheslav “Slava” Zaitsev, dubbed the “Soviet Christian Dior,” has died at the age of 85, his fashion house told AFP Sunday. Confirming Russian media reports, a spokeswoman added that when Zaitsev had celebrated his birthday in March with friends, “we could already see he was very, very, weak.” “The couturier Viacheslav Zaitsev…
Rhubarb is a plant with many virtues. Although it is sometimes overlooked today, a hundred or more years ago it was used in many ways in many different dishes. From ancient times it has been used in pies, salads, fruit drinks and as an accompaniment to meat. For example, in the “Chef’s Calendar” published in…
Мурзик: Murzik (popular cat name) We interrupt our usually scheduled serious topics for a public service column about the care of and conversation with a Russian-speaking cat. What should you name your кот (tom) or кошка (dam, molly or queen)? How should you address him or her? And how can you entertain your питомец (pet)…
The Pushkin House Book Prize is celebrating its 11th awards year with six shortlisted books that represent a wide range of scholarship — and memories —about Russia, past and present. Every year a panel of distinguished judges considers dozens of books about or from Russia in every field imaginable, from art to war, from politics…
Would you sell your soul for a cookie? Russians like cookies so much that the authorities believed a person would sell out his homeland for a cookie. In 1933, the Soviet writer Arkady Gaidar wrote about a heroic Pioneer and a bad boy who committed treason in return for payment of a jar of jam…
Уклонист: draft dodger When it comes to anything military, I am an absolute профан — an imbecile, an ignoramus, a dunderhead, a know-nothing (and not, as English speakers might think, a person who uses profanities — though, let’s be honest, I do that, too). What I mean to say is that I know very little…
The first feature film ever shot in space premiered in Russian cinemas on Thursday, which was celebrated in Moscow as a victory over a rival Hollywood project. In “The Challenge” a surgeon played by the actress Yulia Peresild is sent to the International Space Station (ISS) to save a cosmonaut injured during a spacewalk. Along…
Russia’s Bolshoi Theater has permanently dropped a ballet about Russian dance legend Rudolf Nureyev following the toughening of “gay propaganda” legislation, its director said on Wednesday. The ballet was staged by Kirill Serebrennikov, one of Russia’s most innovative and successful directors, who left the country after President Vladimir Putin sent troops to Ukraine in February…
Russia’s Bolshoi Theater has permanently dropped a ballet about Russian dance legend Rudolf Nureyev following the toughening of “gay propaganda” legislation, its director said on Wednesday. The ballet was staged by Kirill Serebrennikov, one of Russia’s most innovative and successful directors, who left the country after President Vladimir Putin sent troops to Ukraine in February…
Since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, a tsunami of protest poems has swept over many countries. Absurd, nightmarish, horrifyingly humorous, they bear testament and evoke empathy in readers and listeners. In Russia they are written, but almost never recited publicly. The danger is too great. People get fined and arrested for antiwar statements in cafés or…
At Easter in Russia eggs are dyed different colors and blessed in church on Saturday. Then on Easter morning the hard-boiled eggs are eaten for breakfast. But first everyone at the table picks up and egg and challenges their neighbor to a duel: they smash the eggs together. No one understands the meaning of this…
А то!: Sure! Absolutely! Like I’d say no! It’s a rainy Friday in my part of the world, and there is nothing like a good pop quiz to get the blood flowing. So put your books down, turn off your phones, take out a pen or pencil, really turn off your phones this time, and…
Sometime in the early thirteenth century, a great king divided his vast kingdom among his four sons. That king’s name was Temüjin, but he went down in history is Chinggis (“Mighty”) Khan. Anyone who has seen or read “King Lear” might think this an inauspicious start to the story of a ruling house. But in…
On Tuesday the State Prosecutor’s Office in Russia received a petition to declare actress Liya Akhezhakova a foreign agent and charge her with several crimes, including treason, Current Time and other media announced. Vitaly Borodin, the head of a non-governmental organization called The Federal Security and Anti-Corruption Foundation sent a missive to Igor Krasnov, denouncing…
There was a quiet sensation at the recent Berlin Film Festival. “The Cage Is Looking for a Bird” directed by Malika Musaeva was shown — the first film in the Chechen language that has ever been presented at the international film festivals. It was also the only film from Russia at this year’s Berlinale. Musaeva…
LONDON — Arguments in the United Kingdom over the role of Russian studies and the promotion of Russian culture sparked by the invasion of Ukraine continue to rage even as the fighting enters its 14th month. The U.K.’s leading independent Russian cultural center, Pushkin House, last month even faced calls to change its name and…
Orthodox Easter, which is celebrated next Sunday, is impossible to imagine without kulich — tall and airy cakes iced with sweet fondant. The cakes the people bring to church on Holy Saturday to be blessed look like this. But have they always been this way? Today’s delicate cake is not an ancient recipe. Russian baked…
Околесица: blather, nonsense Now here’s a word I’d never heard before: куролесица. It isn’t used much — less than 15,000 hits on Google — and apparently means nonsense, confusion, something unintelligible. It comes with a verb, куролесить, which means to behave oddly, to act silly, to play pranks. Он дурачился на счет “таганской куролесицы” ―…
An ongoing dispute over the historic Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery came to a head last week as demonstrators rallied against a group of Orthodox monks who Ukrainian authorities accuse of having links to Russia. Last month, the state body that oversees the Lavra terminated its contract with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, telling its members to…
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year, hundreds of thousands — perhaps more than a million — people left Russia. Although there is no data on how many of those people were foreigners, certainly many foreign citizens left Russia either at the insistence of their employers or on their own initiative. Many Western embassies…
Tobin Auber is an English writer who lived in St. Petersburg for 29 years. During that time he worked in many jobs, including as editor of The St. Petersburg Times and as a film producer. He has published ten chapters of his memoir, “30 Days in the Hole,” an extract of which is published here.…
How serious is cooking? Certainly many people think that the kitchen is no place for jokes and pranks. But today, on April Fool’s Day, we simply must take a closer look at the humor and fun that we find even in such an important matter as culinary history. Foreigners’ acquaintance with Russian cuisine has always…
Проходимец: rogue Двор (courtyard) is a deceptive word in Russian. You think it’s easy to understand and translate. It means a court — as in royal — or a courtyard — as in the space belonging to a house. But in cities some of the дворы are tricky to translate. The big issue is whether…
Celebrated Soviet and Russian actress Liya Akhedzhakova has resigned from the Moscow theater where she has worked for 46 years following her outspoken criticism of the war in Ukraine, Novaya Gazeta reported on Thursday. Moscow’s Sovremennik Theater effectively ended the actress’s decades-long career at the theater in February when it canceled a production of “The Gin Game”…
A major Russian film distributor said it had developed an alternative to the high-resolution, large-format cinematic experience IMAX, the Vedomosti business daily reported Thursday. The IMAX Corporation, a Canadian company that produces entertainment technology, left Russia in June as part of the backlash against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by Western firms. The company has since banned screenings…
Russia’s Interior Ministry has placed Nadya Tolokonnikova, co-founder of Russian feminist protest and performance art group Pussy Riot, on its wanted list, independent news outlet Mediazona reported Wednesday. Though the ministry didn’t specify which criminal offense prompted the move, the Russian authorities opened an investigation into Tolokonnikova for “insulting the religious feelings of believers” earlier…
Foreign films have always been the backbone of the film distribution industry in modern Russia. According to the Russian Cinema Fund, foreign films made up almost 75 percent of all ticket sales in 2021. In March 2022, the situation changed dramatically, especially after Hollywood studios left the Russian market. But the latest edition of the…
A court in Russia’s Far East has overturned feminist and LGBT activist Yulia Tsvetkova’s acquittal for charges of “pornography,” her lawyer and mother said on Tuesday. A judge in the remote city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur in July 2022 cleared Tsvetkova of all charges brought against her after she was detained in late 2019 and placed under house…
It’s not just vodka that must be ice-cold. Let’s be honest. One of the main achievements of Russian culture that Russians’ ancestors generously shared with the peoples of Siberia and the Far East was vodka. Yes, yes, of course: literacy, rifles, collective farms and radio — all that was fine, but they came later. …
Патрики: Patriki, slang for the Patriarch Ponds neighborhood in Moscow I’ve gotten way behind in my youth slang. In my recent reading, I was stumped by the word падик. The phrase was about some people в падике (in the [mysterious] padik) so I knew it was a place or a structure. For a while, I…
The longtime head of Moscow’s Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts has been replaced by a former policewoman and one-time member of a pro-Kremlin youth movement. “Marina Loshak voluntarily resigned from her post as director of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, which she had held since 2013, on March 20,” Russia’s Culture Ministry was…
Almost from the moment Vladimir Putin announced the start of Russia’s “special military operation” against Ukraine, it was perceived to be Putin’s war — a war conceived and guided by one man’s obsessions, personal grudges, and idiosyncratic reading — or invention — of history. While that is true, it could not be fought without the…
A nylon fabric heart is embroidered with the word “pain” in languages of the nationalities of Russia. This is the third work of the project “I hear the voices of Russia” by Alisa Gorshenina, who is also known as Alice Hualice. She lives in the Urals town of Nizhny Tagil, which has a population of…
In the U.S.S.R., salted herring with onions was every woman’s way to arrange a feast in a hurry. But, of course, this fish was also used for more elegant and complex dishes. Herring went into vinaigrettes, forshmak, and a layered vegetable salad called “under a fur coat.” Herring was a favorite treat everywhere — in…
Силовик: silovik I translate a lot of texts about contemporary political life in Russia, which means that I spend a lot of time sighing melodramatically as I come across a newly coined — or relatively newly coined — expression. For example, бешенный принтер (literally “insane printer”) or системная и несистемная оппозиция (literally systemic and non-systemic…
Amid reports of books being banned in Russia as a result of the country’s December anti-LGBT law, Alina Kuznetsova, a marketing specialist from Yekaterinburg, couldn’t help but recall family stories about her grandmother, who worked in a library in the Soviet Union. Alina’s grandmother routinely saved books banned by the Soviet authorities from being thrown…
MOSCOW – Despite rapturous scenes at Hollywood’s Dolby Theater on Sunday night as the documentary “Navalny” was announced the winner of this year’s best documentary feature Oscar, anyone relying on Russian state media to find out the news might be forgiven for being none the wiser. The Monday daytime broadcasting schedule on state-run channels Rossiya-24,…
LOS ANGELES — “Navalny” won the best documentary Oscar at Sunday night’s Academy Awards ceremony in Hollywood, besting “All That Breathes,” “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” “Fire of Love” and “A House Made of Splinters.” The film, directed by Daniel Roher, follows an investigation by the journalist group Bellingcat and CNN Chief International Correspondent Clarissa…
The kitchen would seem to be a peaceful place. After all, pies and eclairs do not conceal hidden conflict and tragedy. But our history often presents us with surprises that even the most inventive writer could not dream up. Here is one such story. “M. Conradi’s Candy and Chocolate Factory” was founded in 1853 by…
Рыпаться: fidget, pester, make a ruckus A few weeks ago a video appeared on social media of a Russian woman being asked about Poland. She was very angry and indignant. She said that Poland should be destroyed because the country “всё рыпалась на нас.” Whatever рыпаться is, it must be absolutely diabolical if it requires…
Thirty-two years ago today, hundreds of thousands of Muscovites packed Manezhnaya Ploshchad next to the Kremlin to demand the resignation of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The protests, which started in February 1991 and would continue into the spring, were the biggest in Russia’s modern history. By the end of the year, Gorbachev would resign, the…
People in Russia and Ukraine celebrated International Women’s Day on Wednesday amid the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. International Women’s Day, which has been celebrated in both countries since the Soviet era, primarily involves women receiving flowers and congratulations on their contributions to society. Beyond the flowers and gifts, March 8 is also a day…
“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,” said Piglet at last, “what’s the first thing you say to yourself?” “What’s for breakfast?” said Pooh. Breakfast is indeed the most important meal of the day. And although breakfast was different in different centuries, it has always — or almost always — played a great role…
Вещь: thing, something, really something The Russian language has lots of somethings, that is, lots of words that mean “something,” more or less. Что–то is an undefined something, что–нибудь is an unknown something, and кое–что is a something that the speaker knows but doesn’t want to say. Got that? But of course it’s not that clear-cut,…
First opened in 1935 with a single line and 13 stations, the Moscow metro has since expanded to encompass a sprawling underground network of over 250 stations. Its newest addition is the completion of the Big Circle Line, a 70-kilometer loop that links 31 stations and which opened Wednesday. Costing an estimated $6.6 billion to…
Sean Penn and Aaron Kaufmann’s long-awaited documentary about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which recently premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, is proof that even with the best luck and access imaginable, an extraordinary journalistic opportunity can easily be missed. Double Oscar-winning actor-turned-activist Penn and his crew were in Kyiv filming the documentary as the Russian…
People in Russia heralded the end of another cold winter as Maslenitsa festivities took place across the country this weekend. Maslenitsa, which is rooted in ancient Slavic tradition, involves the burning of effigies, wearing traditional costumes, singing and dancing. But most important is the cooking and eating blini, a thin, crepe-like pancake that symbolizes the…
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sparked an exodus of cultural and sporting stars, many of whom publicly stated their opposition to the war. From pop legend Alla Pugacheva to five-time Olympic gold medalist and synchronized swimming champion Anastasia Davydova, there has been a steady emigration of the country’s luminaries in the year since Russian tanks rolled…
Since Feb. 24, 2022, a new curtain has descended on the Russian arts. Major Western auction houses and galleries are no longer working with Russian artists, Western companies have left Russia, and many Western suppliers are no longer exporting to Russia. But the impact of sanctions and other actions have impacted big cities and small…
Maslenitsa — the week before the start of Lent — is a time of gastronomic madness and blini-eating records. This weekend Maslenitsa comes to an end. For most Russians it has always been a short holiday of abundance in the middle of ordinary and gray everyday life. That’s why no one wants to see Shrovetide —…
Нормы: norms In the past year after Russia went from annexation and limited war in Ukraine to a full-scale invasion of the country, the Russian language has undergone a great change. If you dig into the archives and watch a day of Russian television in, say, June of 2021 and then a day in June…
If you ask anyone to describe Russian cuisine, one of the first dishes that will come to mind will certainly be blinis. They are a truly iconic dish that is now an integral part of folk life and tradition. The only problem is that there as many myths and fabrications about them as there are…
За ухо: (to put something) behind your ear A couple decades ago I wrote a short column about some of the odd and entertaining Russian expressions involving ухо (ear) and уши (ears). I was taken with the athletic prowess of Russian ears. For example, in Russian you flap your ears — хлопать ушами — when…
Russian publishers plan to “retell” foreign bestsellers that will not hit bookstores due to Western companies halting work with their Russian counterparts over the war in Ukraine, the Kommersant business daily reported Wednesday. Russia’s largest publisher, Eksmo-AST, will release 3,000 copies of Prince Harry’s memoir “Spare” on Thursday as a “summary, which involves the retelling of…
Russian anti-Kremlin activist group Pussy Riot has canceled its upcoming performance at a music festival in Germany due to the inclusion of a pro-Putin singer in the festival lineup. Pussy Riot had been scheduled to perform at the International May Festival in Wiesbaden, one of Germany’s oldest cultural festivals, but the group pulled out after…
“The rabbit is Stalin’s bull.” This ridiculous slogan of the early 1930s is almost forgotten today. But at the time it was emblazoned on the front pages of newspapers, on posters and enormous street banners. Like the poems of Vladimir Mayakovsky and “Red Square” by Kazimir Malevich, this slogan encapsulated the mood and ideology of…