Publications

Sergey Vinogradov Valentin Levkovsky. Photo courtesy of Vasiliy Rusin It is easy to recognize Valentin Levkovsky, a Kamchatka dog-team musher, at the start of the most large-scale and prestigious Beringia dog sled race. He wears his grandfather's sheepskin coat. it is the traditional outfit of the Itelmens, the indigenous people of Kamchatka. Levkovsky's dogs pull traditional wooden sleds rather than metal ones, as professionals do. Furthermore, they understand "halch" ("go") and other commands in the Itelmen language. Every year, the participants of Beringia overcome...

Ekaterina Tyunina Photo credit: The All-Ukrainian Union Svoboda's Picasa Gallery / commons.wikimedia.org (CC-BY-3.0) The ideological manipulation of the population of Ukraine with the aim to deprive them of their historical memory and the Russian language, and to create an unquestionable image of Russians as the enemy of everything that is Ukrainian, has been going on for years. Ukrainianization The Russian language has always been an essential marker of self-identification for the residents of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. One of the reasons behind electing Viktor...

Daniel Kramer Alla Shelyapina Our conversation with the renowned jazzman and educator was aimed at finding answers to some of the most challenging questions of our lives these days. Many of them are revealed to us through historical retrospectives and books by Russian philosophers. – Currently, methods of social construction are actively used. This is the case when loud words and slogans conceal the true objective. I cannot help but recall a quote by Talleyrand, Napoleon's foreign minister: "Words are intended to conceal one's thoughts as best as...

Anna Genova    Mstislav Rostropovich, 1965. Photo credit: Semyon Henkin/Russian National Museum of Music, Moscow Rostropovich was perhaps the most recognizable Russian musician of the late 20th century. He was acquainted with presidents and masterminds. Salvador Dali painted his portrait. Elton John traveled to Paris to perform for Rostropovich, and fastidious Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain threw a reception on the occasion of his jubilee at Buckingham Palace. The great musician and educator and cultural ambassador for peace would have recently celebrated his 95th birthday. Destined to be a...

Sergey Vinogradov Photo courtesy of Tumen-Erilik Kyryarba The winter tourist season in Yakutia, the coldest region of Russia, peaks in February. However, temperature above -30°C may frustrate it. Tourists from all over the world travel to the Pole of Cold. Yakutia has been consistently ranked among the top exciting destinations on the planet in the last 10 to 15 years, thanks to the development of travel video blogs. While frost seems to be over the extreme limit, thrill-seekers and video bloggers travel by car, bicycles, and even jogging. Regular tourists who are bored with resorts...

Helge Buttkereit Gifts for the children in Donbass. Photo credit: AK ZukunftDonbass e. V. Iwana Steinigk is a co-founder of the Alliance for the Future of Donbass, a non-profit organization from Thuringia that raises and ships humanitarian aid to Eastern Ukraine. She shared about their efforts and her perception of the situation in the region. – What activities is the Alliance for the Future of Donbass engaged in? – We are a free association of Thuringian residents who want to be involved in humanitarian activities and help the victims of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. It...