Watching movies is a popular way to spend past time in many cultures. Who can resist a good story?! Growing up, I remember spending time in front of the telly watching comedies, dramas, thrillers, detective stories, etc. Out of all movie genres, I liked comedies the most. They made people laugh! In this post, I’ve made a list of 5 […]

On September 9th, 2014, Google celebrated 186th anniversary of the great Leo Tolstoy’s birth with the help of Roman Muradov‘s enchanting art! Roman created today’s doodle that millions of you had a pleasure of seeing. The artist wrote: “I hardly need to say that making a tribute to Leo Tolstoy was a daunting task. No set of images can sum up […]

Why does World War II hold a special place in many hearts of people who live or used to live in the former Soviet Union? I arrived at this answer a while ago, when I came to America. It is hard, if not impossible, to forget the atrocities of WWII when you live in a place surrounded by WWII reminders: […]

День Росси́и [Russia Day] is национа́льный [a national] пра́здник [holiday] of the Russian Federation celebrated on June 12. On this day in 1990, the First Congress of People’s Deputies of the Russian Federation adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Пра́здник [the holiday] has been celebrated ка́ждый год [every year] since 1992. Пе́рвый [the first] президе́нт [President] of Russia Бори́с [Boris] Е́льцин [Yeltsin] proposed to rename […]

Первома́й [May Day] also known as День междунаро́дной солида́рности трудя́щихся [International Workers’ Day] was celebrated illegally in Russia until 1917. It became an important official holiday for the Soviet people. It was celebrated across the Soviet Union. There were парады [parades] held in the center of many towns. People carried транспара́нты [banners] and возду́шные шары́ [balloons] in celebration of the holiday. Here you can watch […]

Черно́быльская катастро́фа [the Chernobyl disaster] occurred on April 26, 1986 на Черно́быльской А́томной Электроста́нции [at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant] in a small town of Черно́быль [Chernobyl] located in northern Ukraine, near the border with Belarus. The worst hit regions were Белару́сь [Belarus], Украи́на [Ukraine] and Росси́я [Russia]. According to official post-Soviet data, about 60% of the the residual radiation hazard from the nuclear explosion landed in Belarus. On April […]

Па́сха [Easter] is древне́йший [the oldest] and са́мый большо́й [the biggest] пра́здник [holiday] in Russian Orthodox Church. Because Правосла́вная Це́рковь [the Orthodox Church] uses юлиа́нский календа́рь [the Julian calendar], ру́сские христиа́не [Russian Christians] often пра́зднуют [celebrate] Па́сху [Easter] later than the Western Christians. A week or two пе́ред Па́схой [before Easter], мно́гие лю́ди [many people] in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus do some major spring cleaning. Everything must be clean: ме́бель [furniture] is dusted, полы́ [floors] are […]

Кра́шение пасха́льных яи́ц [Coloring Easter eggs] is one of my funnest memories of celebrating Па́сха [Easter]. In our family, we used a traditional way кра́сить [to color] я́йца [eggs] by boiling them в лу́ковой шелухе́ [in onion shells]. A few weeks пе́ред пра́здником [before the holiday], my mother would start collecting лу́ковую шелуху́ [the onion shells], so we would have enough for coloring я́йца [the eggs]. Also, the […]

А́лла Бори́совна Пугачёва [Alla Borisovna Pugacheva] celebrates her День Рожде́ния [Birthday] on April 15th. I have intentionally left out her age because the Prima Donna is ageless, or мо́жет быть [maybe] I simply don’t want her to age. I don’t want to part completely with that era that graced our lives with such amazing artists like Valentina Tolkunova, Bella Akhmadulina, Liudmila Gurchenko, […]

April 12, 1961 marked the history as день [the day] when весь мир [the whole world] learned that human exploration of outer space was possible. On that date, a 27 year old Soviet пило́т [pilot] and космона́вт [astronaut] Ю́рий Гага́рин [Yuri Gagarin] circled the Earth for 1 hour and 48 minutes aboard his Восто́к 1 [Vostok 1] spacecraft. Here is the outer space experience in the words […]