What’s the Matter with Chechnya?
Audio / I interview experts about the gay purges in Chechnya. All eyes turned to Chechnya in early April 2017, after the independent...
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Russian Protests and Evolving U.S.-Russia Relations
Audio / I talk to three experts and a novelist about the public protests that erupted all over Russia in March 2017, and the evolving...
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...
Three Poems by Maximilian Voloshin
Translation / My translation of three poems by the early 20th-Century Ukrainian-born Russian poet Maximilian Voloshin. Maximilian...
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...
Free Expression in the Age of Security Threats
Interview / I talk to Dunja Mijatović, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) Representative on Freedom of the...
From Stanford to Spaso House: In Conversation with Michael McFaul
Interview / I talk to Michael McFaul, ambassador to Russia during the Obama Administration. In January 2009, Michael McFaul, a renowned...
How Past Informs Present: an Interview with Stephen Sestanovich
Interview / I talk to Stephen Sestanovich, ambassador-at-large for the former Soviet Union and special adviser to Secretary of State...
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...
Leningrad, Queens, Columbia: Gary Shteyngart's Little Failure
Interview / I talk to author Gary Shteyngart about his memoir, Little Failure. Gary Shteyngart, the award-winning author of three...
In Conversation with Sergei Guriev
Interview / I talk to the prominent Russian economist and public intellectual Sergei Guriev. In late April 2013, members of the...
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...
Great Games, Local Rules and the Shifting Dynamics of a Multipolar World
Interview / I talk to the political scientist Alexander Cooley about his book Great Games, Local Rules. The title Great Games, Local...
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...
Alyosha the Jug
Translation / My translation of Leo Tolstoy's short story. Alyoshka was the younger brother. They nicknamed him “Jug” because his mother...
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...
The Death of a Government Official
Translation / My translation of Anton Chekhov's short story. One magnificent evening, а no less magnificent administrator, Ivan Dmitrich...
In Conversation with Joan Acocella
Interview / I talk to the New Yorker’s dance and book critic, Joan Acocella, about writing, editing, and the political constraints of...
Parasites Rule the World!
Article / I ponder the reasons behind the absurdity of Russian societal behavior. As individuals, there is a lot we have to come to terms...
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