Category: Architecture
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Watch ‘The Seagull’ and “Podstrochnik’
For the next week Stage Russia has two terrific online productions for what is truly “your viewing pleasure.” The first is a 15-part documentary series about Lilianna Lungina called “Podstrochnik.” The filmmakers decided to transliterate the title, which is not hard to translate but is a word that may not be known to many viewers.…
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Attend on Online Documentary Film Festival
This week, Moskino is switching gears from feature films to documentaries. Starting this evening, Moskino and the Moscow School of New Film are holding a festival of new documentary film along with a series of lectures, discussions and master classes. The films are mostly from Russia and the U.S., with one joint production from Portugal,…
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Watch TV Rain’s Marathon to Support Coronavirus Medics
On Thursday TV Rain (Dozhd) is celebrating its 10th anniversary with an 8-hour music and celebrity marathon to raise money to buy PPE (personal protective equipment) for medics treating coronavirus patients and to pay for trips to the regions for medical personnel and social workers. The musical line-up is the who’s who of Russia’s best…
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Pushkin House Announces 2020 Book Prize Short List
On Tuesday Pushkin House in London announced its short list of nominations for the 2020 Pushkin House Russian Book Prize. The prize has been awarded annually since 2013 to the best book for the general reader about Russia or the Russian-speaking world published in English in the previous calendar year. The books may be translated…
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Enjoy Mozart and Shostakovich
As the only remaining independent, English-language news source reporting from Russia, The Moscow Times plays a critical role in connecting Russia to the world. Editorial decisions are made entirely by journalists in our newsroom, who adhere to the highest ethical standards. We fearlessly cover issues that are often considered off-limits or taboo in Russia, from…
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Learn About Russian Impressionism and Avant-Garde
The Museum of Russian Impression opened in 2015 in the beautifully reconstructed sugar silo at a pre-Revolutionary confectionary company. Since then it has held over a dozen shows designed to explore, rediscover, and better understand impressionism in Russia and other countries, as well as its role as an artistic and conceptual stepping stone to the…
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Pasta Perestroika: Remembering Things Past
This recipe uses the ultimate Russian pantry staples for a dish that harkens back to a messier, headier, and certainly noisier Moscow. It goes without saying that Moscow is a lot quieter these days — eerily quiet in a way I doubt it’s been since its founding in 1147 by Yury Dolgoruky. I’ve been thinking…
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Learn All About the Great Patriotic War
Starting at 4 p.m. on Sat., April 25 until May 9 — Victory Day in Russia — the Russian Ministry of Culture and several other organizations are launching an online marathon to mark the 75 anniversary of the end of the war. On the special site, you can find a tremendous amount of material, much…
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Take a Course – or Five – at Arzamas Academy
One of the greatest pleasures of Moscow pre-lock-down was the enormous, extraordinarily good, and relatively inexpensive ways to learn something new. Lectures, course, educational tours – thousands of ways to understand a complex subject, master a skill, or satisfy a craving to find out how St. Basil’s was built or why people think a painting…
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Watch ‘Amerikanki’ Online Tonight
This Wednesday evening at 8:30 p.m. Moscow time (1:30 p.m. in New York, 5:30 p.m. in London) the Vozenesensky Cultural Center is hosting an online performance based on the book “Amerikanki” by Zoya Boguslavskaya. The book, which came out in 1991, was a compendium of Boguslavskaya’s essays and descriptions of meetings with a wide variety…
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Russia’s Hermitage Museum Calls for State Support as Coronavirus Craters Earnings
The head of Russia’s renowned Hermitage Museum said on Tuesday the government should ensure the survival of museums which are struggling during a coronavirus lockdown. Since the introduction of a ban on gatherings of more than 50 people in mid-March, museums across Russia have gradually closed their doors to the public. President Vladimir Putin then declared April a…
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Experience ‘The Last Summer’ Before the War
As we approach the 75th anniversary of the end of what is called in Russia the Great Patriotic War, how about experiencing the pre-war years through diaries, books, films, stories, archival material and other sources? Alyona Alyokhina and Anna Yevsyukova had the idea of creating a site that was a portal to that time period,…
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Spend the Week in Moscow via Mos-kino
Mos-kino has upped their game this week to present an entire week of films, lectures, talks, excursions and videos about Moscow, from an online excursion with Airat Bagautdinov, the founder of the excellent Moscow From the Eyes of an Engineer tours, to short films about the city and videos of and by some of our…
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Russia Marks Orthodox Easter Under Coronavirus Lockdown
As the only remaining independent, English-language news source reporting from Russia, The Moscow Times plays a critical role in connecting Russia to the world. Editorial decisions are made entirely by journalists in our newsroom, who adhere to the highest ethical standards. We fearlessly cover issues that are often considered off-limits or taboo in Russia, from…
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Quarantine Easter Egg Salad
Easter looms as I write this, and I’m wondering if the Russian Orthodox Church is going to embrace technology and hold massive Zoom sessions for the traditional blessing ritual. I will certainly miss the actual event, which draws photographers and foodies alike to it like moths to a searchlight. I love watching the faithful bring…
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Watch ‘Yevgeny Onegin’ on Stage in Novosibirsk
Timofei Kulyabin is one of Russia’s most celebrated young theater directors, and his version of Alexander Pushkin’s verse “Yevgeny Onegin” has been equally celebrated – with sell-out performaces and two Golden Mask Awards, Russia’s highest theater prize. Kulyabin’s “Onegin” is set in today’s world – albeit a very sparsely inhabited and decorated world – and…
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Take a Virtual Journey to Russia’s Undiscovered Gems
With flights grounded, buses delayed and strolling heavily discouraged, it’s a difficult time for adventurers. For now, however, you can enjoy this virtual tour of some of Russia’s most stunning vistas, perhaps inspiring you to hit the road when quarantine measures are lifted. Located in every corner of Russia, with location names that reflect countless…
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Russia Prepares to Mark Orthodox Easter Under Coronavirus Lockdown
Millions of Russians will celebrate Orthodox Easter this Sunday amid the coronavirus pandemic that has infected more than 32,000 people and shut down all large gatherings nationwide. Despite strict lockdowns in most regions, the Russian Orthodox Church has largely resisted government recommendations to close places of worship to the public throughout the Holy Week and…
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Small-Town Russian Libraries Fight Coronavirus Creatively
Go to the library, flip through the books, smell the paper, choose a book… That pleasure is denied to us now since libraries, like other cultural institutions in Russia, have been closed and can only work online. An online regime is tough for libraries everywhere, but especially hard for libraries located in towns and villages,…
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Watch ‘Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes’
This week Rossiya1 channel has been airing the series “Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes,” based on the novel of the same name written by Guzel Yakhina and published in 2015. The book, which tells the story of a Tatar peasant woman who is exiled to Siberia after her husband is killed during a “dekulakization” campaign in…
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Take an Armchair Tour of the Kremlin Museums
One of the great tricks of the Moscow Kremlin — architecture-wise — is that as you walk around it on the outside, you don’t really understand the bit about it being built on a high promontory surrounded by water. But when you are inside the Kremlin looking out, you see how high up you are…
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Waiting for the ‘Coronavirus Tsunami’ to Hit St. Petersburg
A huge tent stands in the courtyard of St. Petersburg Hospital No. 2 — an extra emergency ward if the hospital receiving ward can’t cope with a surge of coronavirus cases. The hospital, one of the city’s largest, has 1,200 beds. At the end of March, the director was told to get ready to receive…
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Watch Leonid Parfyonov’s New Film on ‘Russian Georgians’
Leonid Parfyonov is a one-of-a-kind television producer, host, writer, creator. His shows about recent history, “Namedni,” remain a landmark in Russian television, followed by films about the Pushkin Museum, The Russian Empire, and his three-part series, “Russian Jews. Parfyonov has planned a trilogy of trilogies, as it were, about three national groups that became part…
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Coronavirus Hits Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater
Dozens of employees at Moscow’s famous Bolshoi Theater have tested positive for coronavirus and have been quarantined at home, the theater’s director Vladimir Urin said Monday. The 34 infected Bolshoi staffers were asymptomatic but were banned from working on a star-studded live concert in an empty theater that aired on state television Saturday, Urin said.…
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Spend a Week at the Voznesensky Cultural Center
This week the Voznesensky Cultural Center has a full program of online activities that will keep you happy and busy almost every night. The Center was founded at the end of 2018 by Andrei Voznesensky’s widow, the writer Zoya Boguslavskaya, and her son Leonid. This small 19th century manor house in the Zamoskvorechye part of…
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Bean Fritters for the Zoom Generation
If you have a dining room table, chances are that in the last ten days, it’s been hijacked by your local branch of ZGU (Zoom State University). Mine certainly has, which is why I’ve diverted dinner to the coffee table until the semester ends. This is no bad thing. The season for hearty roasts and…
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Watch the Vakhtangov Theater’s Celebrated ‘Anna Karenina’
When the Vakhtangov Theater premiered its version of Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” as a contemporary dance production, viewers and critics were skeptical. But their skepticism lasted just a few minutes. The unorthodox production in Moscow was a hit. It is directed by Lithuanian choreographer, Anzelika Cholina, with music by Alfred Schnittke. Don’t miss this very…
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Change a Letter, Transform a Work of Russian Literature
lt all started with a tweet from the Department of Russian and Czech at the School of Modern Languages at the University of Bristol – or perhaps with a certain @fyodor76, who got a hat tip. The challenge: improve a book by changing one letter of the title in Russian or English. And a hundred bored…
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‘Scary to Predict’: Bolshoi Theater Warns of Closure if Coronavirus Lockdown Persists
Moscow’s legendary Bolshoi Theater has warned that it is at risk of closing down if the city’s coronavirus lockdown doesn’t end by September, its director Vladimir Urin said in an interview published Thursday. The Bolshoi canceled all performances, concerts and tours until April 30 due to the pandemic that has infected more than 10,000 people…
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Watch an Old Soviet Movie at Moskino
As the only remaining independent, English-language news source reporting from Russia, The Moscow Times plays a critical role in connecting Russia to the world. Editorial decisions are made entirely by journalists in our newsroom, who adhere to the highest ethical standards. We fearlessly cover issues that are often considered off-limits or taboo in Russia, from…
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‘Chernobyl’ Costume Makers to Donate Coronavirus Protective Gear
The costume makers behind the acclaimed television series “Chernobyl” have announced that they will donate face masks, protective robes and other stock to those on the front lines of the global fight against the coronavirus. Spain’s Peris Costumes company, announcing its donation Saturday as the number of confirmed global cases passed 1 million, said “we…
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Make Quarantine Art!
Is all this great #quarantineculture inspiring you? As you sit at home in isolation, have you begun painting, sculpting, drawing or performing? Are you an artist who has lost your audience? Terrific. We’ve got a project for you. The InGallery in Moscow has announced an international open call for artworks created during the coronavirus pandemic.…
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Russia’s ‘Isolation Art’ Takes the Internet By Storm
A Russian Facebook project called ART-ISOLATION has art enthusiasts across the country tapping into their quarantine creativity by recreating iconic paintings from art history. The rules are simple: no photoshop, post only your own creations done during self-isolation with materials you already have at home, and no commentary. The creative challenge has quickly become a…
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Spend a Day or Two in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts
The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts has an excellent virtual museum on their site – actually, it’s five virtual museum collections and seven separate exhibitions. You can wander through the main building of the Pushkin Museum, spend time in the Museum of Private Collections, expand your perception of late 19th and early 20th century European…
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Mikhailovsky Theater Dancers “Perform” From Home
As the only remaining independent, English-language news source reporting from Russia, The Moscow Times plays a critical role in connecting Russia to the world. Editorial decisions are made entirely by journalists in our newsroom, who adhere to the highest ethical standards. We fearlessly cover issues that are often considered off-limits or taboo in Russia, from…
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Join a Poetry Marathon in Moscow at Noon on Friday
This Friday at noon, the venerable Polytechnic Museum is hosting #ПолитехLive, a poetry marathon of more than 50 poets and readers that will last until midnight. Aired here on the museum’s YouTube channel, it will hosted by the poet and dramatist Andrei Rodionov. Among the poets whose work will be read: Dmitry Vodennikov, Linor Goralik,…
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Accept an Invitation Into a Pianist’s Home
Zaryadye Hall, Moscow’s newest and perhaps best hall accoustically, is shuttered like every other public building in the city. But that doesn’t mean their program has been halted. There are plenty of concerts and performances that were taped and are available online on the hall YouTube channel. But some of the musicians who had planned…
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How to Spend Quarantine Creatively in Russia: Look Like a Painting
As the only remaining independent, English-language news source reporting from Russia, The Moscow Times plays a critical role in connecting Russia to the world. Editorial decisions are made entirely by journalists in our newsroom, who adhere to the highest ethical standards. We fearlessly cover issues that are often considered off-limits or taboo in Russia, from…
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Grassroots Volunteer Programs Help Battle Coronavirus in Russia
“This is your chance to help people who need to stay at home now to be safe,” says Russian actor Nikita Kukushkin in a video watched by more than 300,000 people. Kukushkin shows what he’s doing to help his neighbors: leaving canned and packaged food in a bag for anyone to take, asking them to…
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Visit Moscow Museums
The Moscow city site has dedicated a new section to “Museum Moscow” where almost 40 museums in the city have uploaded images of part of their collections. The museums range in subject matter from several major art museums, such as the Moscow Museum of Conteporary Art and the Glazunov Gallery, to house museums of writers…
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Watch All 431 Minutes of An Iconic Soviet Film
Many of us have heard of Sergei Bondarchuk’s sweeping adaptation of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace,” but few of us have watched it in its (admittedly enormous) entirety. With the days of quarantine stretching out before us, what better way to spend 7 hours than indulging in one of the most groundbreaking feats of Soviet cinematography? …
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St. Petersburg Under Siege by Coronavirus
Last week St. Petersburg governor Alexander Beglov asked Russians to stay out of the city. “Movie theaters, theaters and other venues are closed. There is nothing to do here,” he said on March 21 during his visit to the coronavirus information center in St. Petersburg. Despite his warnings and quarantine measures, street life last week…
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A Night at the Theater
Yevgeny Vakhtangov was one of the great lights of the Russian theater world, a good friend of Mikhail Chekhov, and influenced by both Konstantin Stanislavsky and Vsevolod Meyerhold. From Vladikavkaz, the son of an Armenian father and Russian mother, he came to Moscow and attended Moscow State University before joining the Moscow Art Theater in…
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On This Day in 1867 the US Purchased Alaska From Russia
Today marks the 153rd anniversary of the Alaska Purchase, in which Russia sold Alaska to the United States for 7.2 million USD, or roughly 2 cents per acre. Russians are speculated to have first reached Alaska in the 1600s, when commercial fur trappers traversed Siberia and arrived on the North American continent. Regular trapping expeditions…
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Lentil Soup Four Ways
People will do astonishing things for a bowl of lentil soup. Take Esau, the son of Isaac and Rebekah in the Biblical Book of Genesis, who sells his birthright to his brother Jacob for a dish of red lentils. And without much hesitation either. “…Esau came from the field, and he was faint And Esau…
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Spend an Evening at the Bolshoi
The Bolshoi Theater, like every other theater in Moscow, has had to close its doors until mid-April (if not longer). But to keep up the spirits of all ballet and opera lovers, they are putting up six of their best performances on YouTube for free, starting with “Swan Lake” this Friday. All the performances from…
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Renowned Soviet Singer Lev Leshchenko Tests Positive for Coronavirus
Renowned Soviet singer Lev Leshchenko has tested positive for the coronavirus, the head doctor at the Moscow hospital treating coronavirus patients confirmed Friday. Leshchenko, 78, is one of the most high-profile Russian celebrities to test positive for the virus and is best-known for his rendition of “Den Pobedy (Victory Day)” and the closing ceremony song…
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Be an Audience of One
The Moscow Philharmonic has launched “armchair concerts” — concerts held in the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall to an audience on one: the host. The hosts introduce the performers, composers and music, and then you sit back in your armchair, or desk chair, or dining room chair and enjoy a beautifully filmed and recorded concert. On Thursday at…
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Immerse Yourself in Russian Art
The physical Tretyakov Gallery is, of course, closed, but it has a wealth of online excursions and films, and is starting a series of concerts, films, excursions and lectures with the hashtag #ТретьяковкаДома, which can be found here. Most are in Russian, but upcoming concerts held in the halls of the museum don’t require any…
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Watch a Prophetic Film
Flipping through the film catalog… looking for something relevant… Oh! Here’s something: the 1937 film “Bílá nemoc” (The White Plague), directed by and starring Czech director Hugo Haas and based on a play by Czech writer Karel Čapek. It’s about a bellicose, nationalist leader whose plans to invade a smaller country are complicated by a…
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Hear a Poem Every Day
As the only remaining independent, English-language news source reporting from Russia, The Moscow Times plays a critical role in connecting Russia to the world. Editorial decisions are made entirely by journalists in our newsroom, who adhere to the highest ethical standards. We fearlessly cover issues that are often considered off-limits or taboo in Russia, from…
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On This Day in 1877 Felix Yusupov Was Born
Today marks what would be the 143rd birthday of Prince Felix Yusupov. Although the aristocrat is most often remembered as the assassin of Grigory Rasputin, his hedonistic yet charitable nature made him a notable character among his royal contemporaries. Yusupov was born in Saint Petersburg to a princess and a count. The family was wealthier…
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Russian Theater’s Solution to Virus: An Audience of One
One of Russia’s most distinguished opera and ballet companies has an innovative solution to prohibitions on public gatherings over the coronavirus: playing to an audience of one. The Perm Opera and Ballet Theater, a Urals city company famed for its cutting-edge projects, said it would be launching the “One on One” performances from the end…
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Got Grechka? Make a Grain Bowl!
So, you’ve cornered the grechka market. Well done. Now what? You picked an excellent grain to stockpile. Buckwheat packs an incredible nutritional punch: it promotes heart health and is a superb source of many key vitamins and minerals (including thiamin, niacin, and folate) as well as protein and fiber. Buckwheat is one of those foods…
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Tour Marina Tsvetayeva’s Apartment Online On Saturday
Russian museums are not just museums; they are hubs of culture, lectures, tours, films, plays, concerts and other special events. One of the most active is the Marina Tsvetayeva house museum, founded in 1992. For decades one of the residents, Nadezhda Katayeva-Lytkina, fought to preserve the house and legacy of the poet. Marina Tsvetayeva had…
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On This Day in 1922 Irina Antonova Was Born
Today marks the 98th birthday of art historian Irina Antonova, former director of the Pushkin Museum and the longest-serving director of any major museum to date. In her directorial stint from 1961 to 2013, Antonova was responsible for bringing the works of major artists to Soviet and Russian audiences. A native Muscovite, Antonova graduated from…
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5 Russian Ballets
As the only remaining independent, English-language news source reporting from Russia, The Moscow Times plays a critical role in connecting Russia to the world. Editorial decisions are made entirely by journalists in our newsroom, who adhere to the highest ethical standards. We fearlessly cover issues that are often considered off-limits or taboo in Russia, from…
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Watch a Concert at Garage Museum
Garage Museum of Contemporary Art is launching a series of online events and activities today with an unusual concert. The St. Petersburg group Verevka Ensemble will give an online concert of microtonal improvisation. The 90-minute concert, which begins at 7 p.m. Moscow time, will be performed on acoustic guitars with bows. It’s part of the…
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Take a Hermitage Tour
As the only remaining independent, English-language news source reporting from Russia, The Moscow Times plays a critical role in connecting Russia to the world. Editorial decisions are made entirely by journalists in our newsroom, who adhere to the highest ethical standards. We fearlessly cover issues that are often considered off-limits or taboo in Russia, from…
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Remembering Writer Eduard Limonov
On March 17, writer and political activist Eduard Limonov died in Moscow of cancer at age 77. It was reported on the site of the political party, The Other Russia, that Limonov headed. Limonov was born Eduard Veniaminovich Savenko in 1943 in Dzerzhinsk. He began to write poetry in 1958 and took part in his…