Reading Poetry in Russian Posted by Maria on Jun 11, 2015
A couple of weeks ago we read famous passages from Russian literature (see Part I and Part II here). These works were mostly realist novels written by male authors well known abroad. I would like to wrap up this series with something a little different — poetry by authors lesser known internationally, one of whom…
KGB Posted by Jenya on Jun 9, 2015
When one thinks of the former Soviet Union, many things come to mind. Perhaps one of the first associations would be the KGB. To those living in the USSR, they were an organization to be feared. To those living outside of the Iron Curtain, they were looked at with intrigue. In both cases, they were…
Dance Like A Russian Posted by Maria on Jun 4, 2015
Let’s turn to something you may do occasionally or regularly, but each of us has come in contact with at some point — dancing. Russians may not all be good dancers, but there are many social situations where dancing does come up. “To dance” is, of course, танцева́ть. Note the suffix change for present tense…
Outer Space: Russia Was Here First Posted by Jenya on Jun 3, 2015
Though I was not alive during the most of the Cold War, I have read about it. One of the greatest aspects of it was the “Space Race.” The intense rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States prompted both countries to allocate huge amounts of resources into putting mankind into outer space. In…
Read Famous Opening Lines in Russian – Part II Posted by Maria on May 28, 2015
We are continuing from last week’s post on reading famous Russian book beginnings. This time, let’s look at books likely to be known by Russian literature aficionados. Eugene Onegin (Евге́ний Оне́гин) Eugene Onegin is a famous rhymed novel by Alexander Pushkin (Алекса́ндр Пу́шкин). Several English translations have been done. While Pushkin tends to trail Tolstoy and Dostoevsky…
Religion in Russia Posted by Jenya on May 27, 2015
Many of us might align ourselves with a particular religion. Reasons for belonging to a particular religion would include geography, family history, governmental policy, simple interest and more. According to Findthebest.com, the world’s largest religion is Christianity with nearly 2.04 billion followers. Islam comes in second with about 1.2 billion followers. History students might remember…
Read Famous Opening Lines in Russian – Part I Posted by Maria on May 21, 2015
I’m sure a few of our readers became interested in Russian thanks to their love of Russian literature. Whenever Russian literature comes up, people immediately respond with the name of their favo(u)rite Tolsotyesky 😉 book. At the same time, very few of these Russian lit buffs have read these books in Russian. This is understandable — fiction…