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Noviye Cheremushki: A History Forgotten
Today, we often look with disdain at Khrushchyovkas, the low cost, concrete-panel or brick, 5- or 8-story apartment buildings of the Khruschev era. Yet they represented the hope of a...
Twenty-Seven Questions for Stephen F. Cohen from Russia’s Leading Opposition Newspaper
People who know me personally or my writings know that I never judge or lecture Russia, but these three inter-related features are objective, not my subjective opinion: the excessive concentration...
Rereading Akunin: An Introduction
Why reread Boris Akunin? For that matter, why read him in the first place? And, for God’s sake, why blog about it?
How the Self-Made Man is Made (Akunin WQ 1)
Erast Fandorin gets bitten by a radioactive raznochinets and is granted super-raznochinets abilities.
The Case of the Multiple Fandorins (WQ 12)
Fandorin has now had enough brushes with death to start his own beauty salon.
The Long Hangover - Putin’s Russia and the Ghosts of the Past
Shaun Walker discussed his new book, which examines the Kremlin’s use of Russian and Soviet history to reinforce Putin’s regime.
Open Letter on the Termination of Russian Studies Faculty at Ohio University
Like you, we are wholeheartedly invested in the survival and recovery of higher education in the United States amid the COVID-19 pandemic. That recovery depends on the will of universities...
What You Need to Know about the Protests in Poland
We do not expect the protests to dislodge PiS from power, any more than previous demonstrations have.
Excerpt from Joanna Stingray's "Red Wave: An American in the Soviet Music Underground," Part II
One of my favorite Pop Mechanics concerts at the Rock Club wasn’t one in which I sang, but one where I saw Sergey produce performance art at its fullest.
Film Review: Sarik Andreasian's "Guardians" (2016)
With "Guardians," cinemas saw a Russian superhero team at last. Most of them wished they could unsee it.
The Vatnik Ate My Baby! (Russia's Alien Nations)
An American Vatnik would be a cartoon character made out of a MAGA hat.
Red Goes Green: A Contemporary Ecological Reading of a Soviet Classic
“Pkhents,” written by Abram Tertz, the pen name of Andrei Sinyavsky, is the story of an incognito extraterrestrial stranded in the Soviet Union. He’s not one of the stereotypical little...
What Russian Rap Can Teach Us About Russian (Anti-)War Discourse
At the other end of the spectrum from Oxxxymiron and FACE is one of the few high-profile artists speaking in defense of Russia’s invasion: the rapper and MMA enthusiast Timati,...
Private or Public? Changes in the Use of Russian and Ukrainian Following the Russian Invasion
In my recent experience leading English classes for Ukrainian refugees, I have noticed students fluidly moving between Russian and Ukrainian. This phenomenon is well-documented across Ukraine, and there’s no need...
Day 2 - Two-day workshop starts new conversations on Russia`s Races
On February 27, 2015 the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia hosted the second part of its two-day workshop Russia’s Races: Meanings and Practices of Race in...
New Languages of Hostility and Resistance: Politicizing Russophone Poetry, Part I
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the amount of Russian-language poetry online has skyrocketed. Some poems express support for the war. Others resist not only Russian aggression itself, but also the Kremlin propaganda worldview, which defines the “good” as whatever benefits the regime.