Russia
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The Family Who Fled Civilization to Live in Siberia
This Smithsonian article has been pinballing around the Internet, and for good reason. It tells the story of a team of Russian geologists who went to remote Siberia in 1978 and stumbled upon a family who had been living there for…
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Pussy Riot Jailhouse Interview
“We couldn’t even imagine that the authorities would be so dumb that they would actually legitimize our influence by arresting us. Sure, Tsentr E tried to intimidate us by tailing us constantly. But unlike Putin, we’re not chickenshit—so we didn’t…
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Russian Punk Band Pussy Riot Sentenced to Two Years for ‘Hooliganism’
Today in a Russian court, three members (Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, Maria Alekhina, 24, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30) of the all-female Russian punk band Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in prison for “hooliganism.” (For those unfamiliar with the story, here…
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Before and After
Sitting on the edge of the English language, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s new collection Apricot Jam and Other Stories pushes us into twentieth century Russia.
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Against an Ethical Machine
Rejected by the early Soviet state, Sigizmund Krhizhanovsky published only nine stories in his lifetime; luckily his novel The Letter Killers Club is now available in English.
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The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #44: Beverly Parayno in Conversation with Gregory
Gregory is an eighty-two-year-old Russian Jewish man who works across the aisle from me at a nonprofit community center in Palo Alto. I’d always been curious about why he was still working. When I asked him for an interview, he…
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Ivan and Misha
Michael Alenyikov’s award-winning new book, Ivan and Misha, explores many-faceted love—from the intense and fleeting to bonds of familial obligation.
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Politics Sunday
Nick Spicer asks if BP might have something in common with Captain Ahab. Apparently, there was a time when presidents weren’t all rich guys. How an online community saved two Russian women from falling prey to sex traffickers. Did you…
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Pitt on Parker
The Rumpus assigned “dueling reviews” to the authors of two new short story collections. It didn’t really work out so well.
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Politics Sunday
Is there a connection between immigration (both legal and otherwise) and lower crime rates? Oh, National Review. Sigh. “Sergei Magnitsky was our attorney, and friend, who died under excruciating circumstances in a Moscow pre-trial detention center on Nov. 16, 2009.…