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centralasian writes about a book on how to bribe russians“The Finnish government said it regretted sponsoring a book giving detailed examples of how to bribe Russian officials and businessmen, published by the Finnish-Russian Chamber of Commerce ( Read more... )

Dear readers, a friend from the States recently bragged to me that he too now knows some of the mysteries of the Russian language, and cited the word razbliuto as the most recent addition to his vocabulary ( Read more... )

Dear friends from Leo Burnett Moscow, Agency of the Year! I hear that reading my journal is now mandatory at your workplace! I think that's great. Is there any special area of Russian life that I could explain especially for you?

An American friend of mine wrote me a letter yesterday asking how to cook Russian bananas. I had no idea what he was talking about so he sent me a photo... Do you think these are good for banana fritters?


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There is only one photo from Moscow underground scene at the "21st Century Dress" online fashion photography competition. Do you know why Russians keep this habit of dressing in black from century to century?

It’s fascinating to me how many colors are named after food—fruits, vegetables, drinks and so on. It fascinates me even more to see how these names differ from language to language. In English we have “lime”, “banana”, “orange”, “eggshell”, “eggplant”… Here, in Russia they have “cherry” (dark-red), “raspberry” (crimson), “lettuce” (light-green), “ ( Read more... )

My readers keep asking me what the greatest souvenirs from Russia are. I decided to compile a Top 10 of the most original presents from "The Russia You Never Knew" with instructions on how to find them in Moscow. Any suggestions for the list?

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