Lishnevsky house, also known as the house with ‪‎Mephistopheles‬, built in 1910 in St. ‪‎Petersburg‬ has lost its face, literally: This Wednesday, August 26th, several “faceless” workers have removed the Mephistopheles relief from the facade of the historical building. Some report that the removal of the bas-relief depicting the mythical demon might be connected to the construction of an Orthodox […]

Human memory is remarkable to me in a sense that small details such as smell, sound, texture, color, taste can elicit powerful images in our brain. Words too, like physical senses, evoke memories and trigger physical and emotional responses. Every time I read or hear the word “Kursk,” a face of an old woman instantly appears before my eyes. Each […]

Apparently, someone hacked Russian Prime Minster Dmitry Medvedev’s Twitter account this Thursday morning and announced his resignation to 2.5 million of his followers! The first update on his account read: “I resign. Ashamed of the actions of the government. Forgive me.”

A Russian Orthodox поп [priest] has denounced Ку́бок ми́ра [the World Cup] as “гомосексуа́льное позо́рище” [а “homosexual ignominy”]. According to priest Алекса́ндр Шу́мский [Alexander Shumsky], brightly colored footwear promotes “педерасти́ческую ра́дугу” [the “gay rainbow”]. “Wearing ро́зовые [pink] or голубы́е [baby blue] бу́тсы [soccer shoes], (the players) might as well wear же́нские трусы́ [women’s panties] or бюстга́льтер [a bra],” Шу́мский [Shumsky] wrote in his online column. Поп [the priest] was also not […]

Russia follows Belarusian steps! Right before Belarusian presidential elections in 2010, a song titled “Саня останется с нами” (“Sanya will remain with us”) became an overnight hit. While there wasn’t a direct reference to Alexander Lukashenko in the song, everyone understood that the song’s protagonist named Sanya was none other than the President of Belarus himself. Needless to say, government […]

All past week, Western media has been buzzing with the news: massive protests in Russia! After reading articles in The New York Times, The Washington Posts, and other reputable newspapers, one may think that revolution is about to take place in Russia.

Last night I watched 8 o’clock (8 PM CT) news on Russian First channel for one reason only, to see if the channel would report about the protests. And they did. According to the First channel news program, there were, indeed, protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg on December 10, 2011. They even interviewed several protesters, one of whom mentioned […]

Ahem, ahem … and the 2014 Sochi Olympic mascots are the hare, the white bear, and the leopard that received 16%, 18% and 28% of the votes respectively. Before the symbol contest started, Dmitry Chernyshenko, the president of the Organizing Committee “Sochi 2014,” announced the following: “Our Games will become most innovative; hence, for the first time in the history […]

On December 16th, 2010, Putin held a televised discussion with the Russian citizens. People from various regions in Russia had an opportunity to ask him questions directly. Here are some of the highlights of this dialogue. After the events on Manezhnaya Square on December 11, 2010, Putin stated firmly, “It is necessary to suppress displays of extremism from every corner.” […]