Writing

In Limbo in Tbilisi

Memoir / A reported personal narrative about the Russian exiles in Tbilisi in the wake of Russia's full-scale invasion. Excerpt (read the...

Mystery of the Disappearing Teepee

Essay / I write about a mysterious teepee in Inwood Hill Park and about my experiences living in Inwood as an immigrant in the 1990s....

Living Without Fear: Elena Kostyuchenko in Profile

Article / I profile Elena Kostyuchenko, an investigative journalist at the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta.

A Revolution! Depicting Gorbachev

Article / I profile the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer William Taubman. One day in November 1985, General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev,...

The Politics of Pride in Brighton Beach

Article / I report on LGBTQ asylum seekers from Russia, and the first-ever pride parade on Brighton Beach. Artem Nevinchanyi is a...

Out of the Iron Closet

Article / I report the story of a gay Russian man seeking asylum in the U.S. in the wake of the 2013 antigay propaganda law. March, 2015...

They Hate Putin. They Love Trump. And they Live in Brooklyn.

Article / I report on Soviet-born immigrants in Brooklyn who support Trump but hate the man with whom he’s increasingly linked: Vladimir...

Without a Country: The Changing Face of Human Rights

Article / I profile the Russian academic and activist Dmitry Dubrovsky. It’s an unseasonably warm day in mid-November, one week after the...

Forgotten Art: Christopher Herwig and the World's Largest Collection of Soviet Bus Stop Photographs

Article / I detail photographer Christopher Herwig's hunt for Soviet bus stops. The former Soviet Union is remembered as a bastion of...

How Yelena Goltmsan Ended Up on the Front Lines in the Battle To Boycott the Olympics

Article / I profile the founder and co-president of RUSA LGBT, the Russian-speaking American LGBT Association. A warm, motherly...

What Ever Happened to the Smashing Pumpkins?

Article / I write about the lost magic of a onetime supergroup. On a warm Monday evening late last year, a crowd of late 20- and early...

Moscow, November 1982

Article / I recount the story of my birth. I was born during the dry Moscow November of 1982, three days after Leonid Brezhnev (ruler of...