Of course, as a student of Russian literature, I would have like to take this moment to convince as many people as possible that the thing to read when in Russia is Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Bulgakov, Gogol, Akhmatova and Lyudmila Ulitskaya – in that very same order. But today I will put aside my higher aspiration to bless the world with the works of Great Russian Writers in order to talk about another kind of reading. Reading newspapers. Keeping up with current events. Finding out what’s going on out there in the world’s biggest country. When you arrive as a newbie in Russia, without sufficient knowledge of the language to understand what the fuss is all about with all those newsstands on every street corner, there is little or no choice at all when it comes to what to read. If you live in Saint Petersburg you can pick up a free copy of the English language newspaper The Saint Petersburg Times all over the city, same thing in Moscow, except that it is, logically and everything, called The Moscow Times there. Both of these newspapers [which could be considered to be one and the same since they are owned by the same company, deal with almost the same issues and publish articles written from almost identical points of views] are short, simple and sweet. They succeed in covering the basic needs in general news for any given foreigner struggling through every day life in both of these cities. In addition to this they manage to also criticize rather than only summarize political, economical and cultural events.

Not all of us are lucky enough to live in Moscow or Saint Petersburg, however, and not all of us are content with reading only one side of the story. Sooner or later, basically when your knowledge of Russian allows you do to so, you will feel the need to check out the newspapers and magazines available for Russians in Russian in any given Russian town. Prepare yourself. This will take time. And effort. And most likely it will leave you disappointed in the end. Why? Russian newspapers are either tedious and dry and solely political/economic or simply nonsense tabloids. And since they all look the same on the outside it is almost impossible to know in advance just what kind of newspaper you just paid a couple of roubles for. Here is a little guide to help:

– anything that has “Pravda” in it (“Moskovskaya Pravda”, “Komsomolskaya Pravda”, just “Pravda”, and so on and so forth) has the least to do with Truth and everything to do with movie stars and other random famous people and horoscopes and real life tragedies sent in by the readers.

– “Rossijskaya Gazeta” [The Russian Newspaper] is your daily guide to doing business here. If you’re not doing business here – stay away.

– Weekly papers, like, for example, “Vlast’” [Power] or “Russky Newsweek” [Russian Newsweek], can be the best and most effective way of keeping up on current events, since they tend not to dwell on smaller issues but deal with the big picture.

After three and a half years in Russia I can’t say that any of these papers have pleased neither me nor my thirst for knowledge of what’s really going on here. I enjoy an occasional copy of Russian VOGUE, which in itself is a glossy and outrageously luxurious contraction to everything that Russia really is, but since I can’t live without real news, I also buy the weekly thicker newspaper “Russky Reporter” [Russian Reporter]. It may not be perfect, but it provides insightful, long and sometimes even well-written articles as it also tries to take on the whole country, from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok, posing questions [though perhaps not always answering them honestly] and summing up cultural events with a certain edge.

Sounds interesting? Check this out: http://www.expert.ru/printissues/russian_reporter/