Category: Architecture

“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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

“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…

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…

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…

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; Молчат все соседи, сидят в тишине Не знаешь кто слушает — дома, вовне. Все дети, конечно, затихли и спят А этажом ниже соседи храпят. Everyone dreaming of what they want most: A ticket to somewhere and…

Although there are no official statistics on the number of people who identify as LGBTQ+ in Russia, according to the Levada Center, 11% of Russians say they have gay friends. Many people prefer to keep silent because it is dangerous, especially in small towns and villages. “God created a woman and a man. Any deviations…

Russia’s leading streaming platforms START and Wink on Thursday released the final episode of “Slovo Patsana” (“The Boy’s Word: Blood on the Asphalt”), director Zhora Kryzhovnikov’s gritty crime drama that has taken Russia and much of the former Soviet space by storm.  Loosely based on the namesake book by Tatar journalist Robert Garaev, the series…

The retrospective show “Gabrielle Chanel—Fashion Manifesto” at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London takes visitors on a journey that begins with the iconic designer’s first millinery boutique in Paris in 1910 and ends with her final collection in 1971. Featuring over 200 looks brought together in one place for the first time, the show…

Russian investigators raided the Zakharov publishing house Tuesday after it refused to stop selling books by Russian-Georgian writer Boris Akunin, who this week was added to the country’s “extremists and terrorists” registry. “The Investigative Committee wants all the documents we possess — contracts, payments, everything — linked to Boris Akunin,” Irina Bogat, the publishing house’s…

Moscow is preparing to ring in 2024 with decorations popping up across the city ahead of the New Year, Russia’s most festive holiday. The decorations appear as the coming year is expected to be a challenging one for Russia, with the ongoing war in Ukraine and Western sanctions along with the presidential election. Here is…

Russian-Georgian writer Boris Akunin (Grigory Chkhartishvili) has been added to state financial watchdog Rosfinmonitoring’s list of “extremists and terrorists,” the independent Mediazona news website reported Monday. Akunin, 67, who lives in the U.K., has publicly condemned the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine and is a co-founder of the TrueRussia Foundation, which helps people affected by the…

Today Russian speakers probably don’t know the word “levashi,” but it has a very long history in Russian culinary traditions. This is a case when both the dish and even the word itself reveals the surprises and secrets of ancient cuisine — secrets long forgotten, but that might come in handy even today. “Levashi” are…

Поговорим: Let’s talk I have been listening to, reading, and writing about Vladimir Putin’s press conferences and “разговоры” (conversations) with the people (народ) for a couple of decades now, and although I haven’t checked year-by-year, my sense is that his rhetorical devices haven’t changed all that much. In some cases they seem to have tapered…

One of Russia’s leading publishing houses, AST, has suspended the printing and sale of books by Russian poet, journalist and prose writer Dmitry Bykov and Russian-Georgian writer Boris Akunin over their anti-war views, it announced Friday.  “Public statements made by these writers — which caused a widespread public outcry — require legal assessment. Publication and…

Читайте русскую версию здесь. The long-awaited induction of Valery Gergiev, head of the St Petersburg Mariinsky Theater, as director of the Bolshoi Theater is good reason to reassess his body of work. Perhaps more importantly, it’s a good time to look at his career achievements, in particular, his position in the Russian power structures. Today…

JERUSALEM — On the doorstep of the Alexander Nevsky Church, the smell of burning incense mingles with the scents of the spice vendors in the heart of the Old City. This church, which stands among some of Christianity’s most holy sites, at first appears far removed from the Ukraine-Russia war. But upon a closer look,…

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost two years ago, scholars and journalists have rushed to make their contribution to the growing number of titles seeking to shed light on this devastating conflict. “Russia and Ukraine: Entangled Histories, Diverging States” by Maria Popova, Associate Professor of Political Science at McGill University, and Oxana…

“You can’t carry your homeland with you on the soles of your boots,” French revolutionary Georges Danton told friends when they suggested he flee France shortly before his arrest.  You may not be able to take your homeland with you, but you can take your cuisine. We saw this time and again in the 20th…

Слово года 2023: Word of the Year 2023 In the Before Times I wrote my favorite column of the year in early December, when a group of Russian language fanatics headed by Mikhail Epstein, a linguist and professor of Russian language and literature, would cast their votes for the words that best captured the spirit…

For the past year and a half, Russian journalist and photographer Victoria Ivleva has been documenting the impacts of the war in Ukraine on the country’s people after she decided to move from Moscow to Kyiv. “I had no other thoughts about where to go. I understood that I didn’t want to be with Russia…

Paint your cheeks with beet juice? Every Soviet child laughed at ugly Marfushka with huge beet-red circles on her cheeks in the 1964 movie “Morozko.” Although the fairy tale was a lie, there was an ounce of truth in the image. Five hundred years ago the faces of Russian women were plastered with make-up so…

Сутки: 24 hours, day and night The topic of “untranslatable words” makes me exceedingly cranky. First of all, there is no such thing as an untranslatable word. Really. There may not be one word in your language that corresponds to the meaning of the so-called untranslatable word. Or there might be a word equivalent in…

November 30 was Vladimir Urin’s last day as general director of the Bolshoi Theater. His departure was rumored to be imminent since November 17, when it was reported in several Russian media that he had resigned. Urin spent the evening watching the premieres of two short operas, “The Mandarin’s Son” by César Cui, and “The Nightingale”…

A song by AIGEL, an electronic hip-hop duo from Russia’s republic of Tatarstan, has secured the No. 2 spot on Shazam’s global top 200 chart this week.  The success of “Pyala” (“Glass” in the Tatar language) marks the first time in history that a song in Tatar — a Turkic language spoken by Russia’s largest…

Finland closed its borders to Russia this week in response to a surge of migrants across the country’s border with Russia. The men seeking asylum were not Russians but came through Russia from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other Middle Eastern and African countries. There was evidence that the Russian authorities organized these groups of migrants. Earlier…

There is an old Russian joke that goes like this: Two friends are talking. One says, “Everyone is always sighing: ‘Caruso! Caruso!’ But I listened, and it was nothing special.” “You listened to Caruso?!” his friend asked. “Nah. Rabinovich sang it to me.” It’s actually more sad than funny. You might be able to describe…

Лезть: climb, crawl, push, pester, butt in, hit on, get involved, etc. A couple of years ago I briefly mentioned the verb лезть in an article about another word, thinking at the time that I was doing a grave injustice to лезть. It’s a great little word. Its first literal meaning is to climb or…

Last month some members of the State Duma proposed renaming towns and villages with what they called “offensive” names and prohibit the use of these names in the future. The parliamentarians making the proposal said that residents in these places complained that people laugh at them. They didn’t want an “offensive” word in their passports…

Russia has placed Ukrainian singer Jamala on its federal wanted list on unspecified criminal charges, Russian state agencies reported Monday.  The singer’s name and photo appeared on the Interior Ministry’s database, without further information about what she was accused of doing.  A singer of Crimean Tatar origin, Jamala won the 2016 Eurovision contest with “1944,” a song about…

Today this old manor house is almost abandoned and forgotten. Perhaps an old Roma curse still hangs over its walls. But only a little over a hundred years ago it was a home filled with life. As drivers head towards Podolsk from the west, some may notice a village with a strange name:  Sportbaza (Sports…

Независимость: independence, self-sufficiency In the part of the world I’m in, November seems to be particularly rich in state holidays of independence. In the Russian language these holidays are sometimes of освобождение (liberty, freedom) and sometimes of независимость (independence, freedom). So what’s the difference? Освобождение (freedom) is related to the verb pair освобождать/освободить, which means…

Vladimir Urin, general director of the Bolshoi Theater, has submitted his resignation, according to reports in several Russian media. Valery Gergiev, the artistic and general director of St. Petersburg Mariinsky Theater, is reported to be in Moscow and ready to take over the position at the Bolshoi. Urin, who joined the theater in 2013, was…

After living for two weeks in a psycho-neurological internat, a facility where Russia confines those with psychiatric illnesses and no relatives willing to care for them, journalist Elena Kostyuchenko believed she had seen the “real face of my state.” Inside the institution, she speaks to women who have been forcibly sterilized, shows a doctor poetry…

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 sparked the largest displacement of people since World War II. While most fled from Ukraine, many people fled Russia or from neighboring Belarus. Among them were hundreds of academics and researchers in science and the arts, the brightest scholars of their respective nations. Western governments helped many Ukrainian…

Pozharsky cutlets… crispy outside, succulent inside, always served straight from the stove and never reheated… These minced meat patties take themselves seriously — and diners should take them seriously, too. It’s hard to believe, but these cutlets were first invented and served by Yevdokim Pozharsky, an ordinary innkeeper in the small Russian town of Torzhok.…

Street artist Philippenzo, or Philipp Kozlov, has used his political graffiti to oppose the war in Ukraine. He was arrested at a Moscow airport this summer, and in October, he was added to the wanted list on criminal charges. His example shows how Russian authorities are closely monitoring contemporary artists, leaving them with two main…

ТАСС уполномочен заявить: TASS has been authorized to announce… At some time in the future when I have about three years with nothing to do, I will research when and how politicians in various countries around the world began to use weasel words as a matter of course. You know what I mean: “We are…

A popular Russian television channel removed the rainbow featured in a K-pop music video over concerns that it could violate the country’s laws against “LGBT propaganda,” Russian media reported. TNT Music, which runs a chart show dedicated to South Korean pop music, has already been fined for violating Russia’s “LGBT propaganda” laws with previous broadcasts of foreign-made music videos.  But…

For nearly two months now dedicated cinephiles in Russia have been engrossed in a public row over the fate of “Ayta,” an award-winning thriller by Yakutian director Stepan Burnashev.  The movie was effectively banned by the Kremlin in September in a move that caused widespread public outrage and made many fear for the future of…

On Monday the Odesa Fine Arts Museum suffered extensive damage from aerial strikes that cracked walls, blew out windows, did harm to art works and left an enormous crater in front of the building. The museum has one of the most extensive collections of art from Ukraine, Russia and other countries and regions. The collection…

Hundreds of works of fiction have been written about Russia in the 1920s: satirical short stories, long novels, documentary dramas by Andrei Platonov, Mikhail Bulgakov, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov. Have you ever wondered why? It’s a good question. Why has this period — certainly not the best from the point of view…

Втайне: secretly, in secret A translator friend of mine recently announced with some fanfare that he had found the most misspelled word in the Russian language. He had documented 11 misspellings, which is impressive — although I’m sure my personal record for misspelling здравствуйте over the years has topped that. In any case, the word…

When Father Alexei Volchkov signed an open letter to the Russian government in March 2022 calling for peace and an end to the war in Ukraine, he knew there would be backlash. “What happened was inevitable, really,” he told The Moscow Times. “I was severely reproached by people who were close to me. Some thought…

Although the main cinema festivals around the world are not including any films made in Russia by Russian directors this year, that doesn’t mean that Russia is absent from movie theaters in the West. Foreign directors have been exploring the Russian context in their films, with characters both vile and brilliant in films that have…

From the outside, it may seem that Moscow life hasn’t changed at all, but this is a false impression. To understand how people who remain in Russia feel, here are three poems, all written after February 2022. Their authors describe what they see around them, and also what it’s like to write poetry in Russian…