Military Service? Impossible!
When I taught English in Russia in the late 1990’s, my main place of employment was the Tolyatti Pedagogical Institute,…
Where We Come From
A family history is a collection of stories, stories told and retold and made old not so much by the…
Persistence
In our elementary school, we start teaching children about character traits in the third grade. We teach them to recognize…
Where You Can Put Your Putin
No one could love Russia more than I do. You have to love a country where the cabbie taking you home…
The Tattered Hem of Winter
For me, there are three kinds of winters. The first kind is the rainy, gray, damp, but relatively mild winter…
Everything Old Is New Again
The summer I traveled to Sweden nearly thirty-five years ago the national news there was full of reports of phantom…
November Anniversaries
Americans, who tend to shun both the specific and the historical, are today celebrating Veteran’s Day in one great, glorious…
What Makes Them Do IT?
When I was in high school, a friend of mine presented me with a copy of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spake…
The Bitter Pill
When I was a university student of Russian History in the mid 1980’s, the Iron Curtain was still drawn tightly…
Sevastapol
I’ve always found that when I want to understand something that’s happening in Russia, it helps to hit the books….
The Sochi Saga
You have to feel sorry for the Russian people. Or you don’t have to, not if you don’t want to,…
Road trips
Crumbling provincial towns, the Gypsy wedding of a fourteen year old, the dismal condition of the M10 which connects Petersburg…
Remember Gorbachev?
I was reading an article about Gorbachev the other day. Gorbachev, remember him? I’m embarrassed to say that until I…
First Aid
On September 18th, the US government announced that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), after two decades of…
The Russian Orthodox Church – It’s a Riot!
Let me be very clear, I agree with Madonna, Paul McCartney and Stephen Fry that the three members of the…
Independence Days
Countries really don’t leave each other alone, do they? They are always bothering each other, invading, claiming sovereignty, imposing annoying…
Russian Reformers Old and New
The demands of the Russian reformers seemed reasonable enough to me. They wanted the Russian government to stop being so…
Putin Party Politics
Why did Putin win the Russian elections? He won due to election fraud. Well, yes, there was election fraud, buses…
