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


Road to Democracy?
Interview / I g-chat with Muscovite George Gogolev about the December 10, 2011 protest in Moscow. On Friday evening (early Saturday a.m....


The Russian Protests
Article / I write about how the Russian parliamentary elections resulted in a popular uprising. On Monday, December 5, the Organization...


Russia's Sinking Electoral Process
Article / I write about what happens when elections lose meaning. In March 2012 Russian citizens will be voting for their future...


The Generation Debate
Article / I write about getting older and why the aging process is becoming harder to pin down. A couple of months ago, I overheard a...


The Boxer Politician
Article / I write about Vitali Klitschko and his dream of a democratic Ukraine. Last Thursday I sat in a packed Columbia University...


Girlfriend (Podruga)
Translation / My translation of the first three poems of Marina Tsvetaeva's Girlfriend Cycle. These translations appeared in the volume,...


The Cult of Putin
Article / I write about how an authoritarian leader became a national celebrity. Last December my co-workers and I crowded around my...

From the Assassination of Sadat to the Birth of Brooklyn's Empire
Interview / I talk to Steve Hindy, a former AP war correspondent who founded the Brooklyn Brewery. “In so many ways, the Brooklyn Brewery...


Sunstroke
Translation / My translation of the Nobel Prize-winning Russian author Ivan Bunin's short story. They came out after dinner, leaving the...
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