Today I observed something curious. We’re told by diverse and sundry experts that we ourselves should take priority in our own life. Indeed, whose life is it, anyway?
Yet when it comes to practicing what we preach, the picture is altogether different. I’d even say it is nowhere near that expert propaganda. All of a sudden, relatives, children, pets, bosses and colleagues, not to mention Very Important Problems rise and shine in full glory.
And you end up reaching your projects late at night, when you’re barely awake but have just enough strength to pull things through.,,
This Monument to the Conquerors of Space is situated close to VDNKh metro station. I always enjoy its graceful silhouette on my way to and back from filming.
The Ostankino TV tower always lurks in the distance (in the photo it’s on the right). The actual walk takes some 15 or 20 minutes depending on one’s pace. Both structures, though, inspire and demonstrate the power of human will and goal-setting. It’s incredible that only a hundred years ago people only started to fly, and now mankind is thinking of a mission to Mars!
My new feature is dedicated to various notes made in the month of October. In Russia this is always the month when trees finally turn yellow and red, and the sun sheds its previous amber light in all directions.
Today we recorded three episodes for two Russian TV program about history. Also, in September I’ve contributed some 7 or 8 articles to different editions, including two academic publications. Once I’m done with these ones, I’m going to switch to books that I’ve planned to translate and to write.
It’s funny how the world listens to us and provides us with what we’ve asked for. I wanted to focus on writing – and this is now happening. I have focused so much that these opportunities come in packs, and I sometimes barely manage to handle things. But it’s happening, and I’m very glad. There’s still some way to go, but I’m on track.
Today marks the 100th birthday anniversary of my grandma Lidia Yefimovna Sokolik (nee Alekseeva). She was born near Dorogobuzh in Smolensk Region on October 1, 1924. Ten years later the family moved to Borovsk, Kaluga Region. In 1941, with the last bus they were evacuated from the town to the Kirov Region, thence – to Yaroslavl, exactly at the time of the Stalingrad Battle. Then they arrived in the Moscow Region, first to the village of Mamontovka, then to Klyazma. In Klyazma they stayed for some 25 years: my mother was born there, and my great-grandparents died. Finally, grandma and mum moved to the town of Zheleznodorozhnyi in 1969 and eventually to Moscow in 1974. In Moscow my grandma lived 40 years until her death in 2014.
I’ve only listed my grandma’s moving from one place of living to another. When she got married, her husband and she lived in his flat in Lviv, the Ukraine. In 1960s and 1970s she was the head of “Friendship Trains” delegations that took the Soviet people who worked for the Moscow Railways to the Warsaw Treaty member states: Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, and the German Democratic Republic. And she also made countless auditory trips to pioneer camps and cinemas to Bryansk, Oryol, Aleksandrov and other cities.
This graceful and fragile girl was only 10 when she had to do a lot of housework after her mother got her nerve pinched and had her legs paralysed. In evacuation, she helped building the Kirov-Kotlas railroad to transport the munition from the Ural to the front. Later, she cared for my mum, then for me. She had just enough time to apply some hand cream and to perm her hair. She loved the Red Moscow perfume. She taught me to use an encyclopaedia. She saw me enter the Moscow State University, get married, go to live abroad, then return to Moscow. I’m sure she continues watching me with great joy.
I took stability, confidence, consistency, and calmness from her. “Girl, where is logic here?” was a rhetorical question that taught me to read, think and speak with attention. “Very good, I believe you will be a writer”, she said, reading my then youthful poetry and prose.
In 2006, when I worked as a journalist for the BBC, I took part in People’s War project. There was a section on the website dedicated to Russian war-time memories (in English), and with my grandma’s permission I added her story to the website. Later I narrated it in Russian for some Russian resources.
I’m going through a stage when I produce copious amount of writing. The topics encompass history, literature studies, copywriting, geography, psychology, arts, and perhaps another two, travel is certainly one of them. I’m also editing a lot.
Busy as it sounds, I’m finally living the life of a writer, in that this life is gradually taking over teaching. I still teach a lot but I’m looking forward to 2026 when half of students will have graduated.
The question is this: how do I manage to write on so many different topics? For it’s not just the topics, it’s the style that each of them needs.
And the answer lies in special writing exercises when you have to impersonate a particular type of speaker. As you doit, your style, together with your mind, becomes flexible and easily adaptable to the task and the purpose.
Summer was extraordinary this year. It was scorching hot yet calm. I spent some days sleeping in the afternoon for it was absolutely impossible to do any work. And much work I did! Alas, I didn’t do any knitting – it was too hot, but I read a lot in Tudor history, particularly about Thomas More and Erasmus. I’ve literally just finished an original article on Etruscan Italy in travel essays of the writers of the fin de siècle. I’m yet to write another two articles. And finally, this summer I produced two online courses for my future school.
So it’s only natural that I took every opportunity to walk in my south-of-Moscow meadows at dusk collecting the glimpses of Nature relaxed and dosing. I needed those to unwind and reflect.
Yesterday, on March 22, more than 6000 people were under a terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall, a Moscow Region venue famous for tremendous concerts.
By night, 40 people had been reported as killed and over a hundred hospitalised with different injuries. Right now, the number of deaths is 133 and is expected to rise although the doctors are fighting for people’s lives. Three children were killed, but there may be more child deaths as some kids were found with their mothers on the staircases where they all died due to smoke poisoning.
The actual bandits shot at the crowd of people who came to watch a rock group concert. They also set the concert hall on fire. Some people tried to find rescue on the roof, but the fire spread there very quickly. Others rushed to the toilets in the hope to avoid the terrorists but were poisoned by smoke and died. The bandits continued to shoot at people on their way out, directing an open gun fire at a few who were trying to escape but got caught in the corner.
By now the entire concert hall has burnt down. The venue itself is still standing, the amount of damage has been roughly calculated and is around 9,5-11,4 billion rubles. The video shows the collapsed roof and debris.
The death toll could be higher; however, the terrorists weren’t too “diligent” in their job. They did some shooting, set the hall on fire, but as soon as people began to escape, they made their way out, too. In a white Renault car they tried to escape via Bryansk to the Ukrainian border but were stopped. Some of them don’t even speak Russian although they are reported to hold Russian passports which they have likely obtained illegally. They are under 30, coming from Tadjikistan, and one of them confessed on camera that he was promised half a million rubles for the attack and received 250,000 on his card. He was studying under some “preacher” in Telegram and got contacted by someone who offered him the money for the deal. The task was to go and just kill people.
The President has just addressed the nation. Tomorrow, March 24, is declared the Day of Mourning. Hundreds of people in Moscow, including my friends, have gone to donate blood, they are queuing up in the rain. My other friends have offered a psychological help, yet others and I donate money. The people have united across the entire country, and this obviously flies in the face of terror. The general consensus is that the ban on capital punishment must be lifted. Even my students who are only 14 believe this is the only way.
There is but one aspect that we can’t help mentioning. The tragedy at Crocus City Hall took place on the same day as Khatyn tragedy in Belarus in 1943. I wrote about its 80th anniversary last year. It is claimed that the US and the UK embassies warned their citizens from visiting concerts in Moscow at the beginning of March. There is evidence suggesting that the bandits were going to undertake the attack at the concert of Shaman at Crocus on March 9th. Perhaps, they realised that in such case the results of the Presidential elections would be totally overblowing. There was no chance to carry out the attack last weekend when elections were held. So they did it on March 22. I doubt they chose the date on purpose; rather God Almighty led them to show their diabolic fascist nature in full colours. The people of Belarus have been bringing flowers to the Russian embassies in the country and expressing their support.
We are also specially grateful to those foreign journalists who expressed their condolences on occasion of this awful attack at Crocus City Hall. It is in moments like this I personally believe that people are above politics.
Following THE INTERVIEW of the century (Tucker Kalrson and Vladimir Putin), I want to point you to some posts on this blog that illustrate or analyze Russian history. Being an historian who spent 7 years living in a Western country, I am perfectly qualified to talk on these topics since I know my subject and foreign people’s expectations and misconceptions underpinned by the lack of knowledge and unbridled propaganda. So below I gathered some posts from different years (I’ve been writing this blog since 2006) in the hope they will help you learn more about Russia, its history and culture.
Arkhip Kuindzhi – Moonlight Spots in the Forest in Winter (1898-1908)
Three days or so before Christmas all markets and squares were like a great forest of fir-trees. And what fir-trees they were! Russia is very rich in them. The ones here are thin and brittle. The Russian fir-tree, after it warmed up and spread its branches, was like a conifer thicket.
Moscow’s Theatre Square was like a thick forest. All trees stood there, covered in snow. And when it snowed, you could literally get lost! Traders were dressed in thick coats, as if they worked in the woods. And people were walking there, choosing a tree.
My word, the dogs looked like wolves in those fir-trees. The fires were burning, for people to warm up. The smoke was billowing in huge clouds. And in the thickness of the trees the sellers of sbiten were shouting: “Here, sweet sbiten, hot kalach!” Sbiten was everywhere – in samovars, in buckets with long handles. What is sbiten? My, it is so hot, and better than tea. It is a drink with honey and ginger, fragrant and sweet. One glass cost one copeck.
The roll was frosted, and a glass with sbiten was thick and faceted, it burned your fingers. Sbiten was nice to drink in that snowy forest. You sipped the drink, and your breath went up in clouds, like in a steam train. The roll was a veritable icicle, so you had to dunk it in sbiten, to make it softer. And so you walked in those fir-trees till late. The frost was getting bitterer. The foggy sky was burning purple. The branches were covered in frost. Now and again you would stumble on a frozen crow that crackled like a piece of glass.
Frosty may be Russia but… warm!
On Christmas Eve, we usually did not eat until the first star. Kutya was cooked with rye and honey, and so was stewed fruit: prunes, pears, and dried peaches…They were put on a heap of hay, under the icons.
Why did we do so? This was like a gift to Christ. Well, as if He was there in the manger, on that hay.
As you were waiting for that star, you would wipe all windows in the house. The glass was all covered with ice because of the frost. Oh, dear, how beautiful that ice was! There were fir-trees and wonderful streaks, all lace-like. You would scratch it with your nail: is there a star to be seen? There is indeed! First, there was one, then another. The glass turned blue. The stove was crackling because of the frost, the shadows were galloping, and the stars were lighting up one by one. And what stars they were!.. You would open a window pane, and the frosty air would sear you with its bitterness. Oh, those stars..! They were trembling and twinkling, and the black sky was boiling with their light. Oh, what stars! They were live and whiskered, and they were breaking into pieces that blinded your eyes. The air was so cold that it made stars appear bigger, and they shone like coloured crystals, sending down the arrows: azure, and blue, and green. And you would also hear the tinkle, as if it was coming from those stars! It was icy and resonant, like a silver bell was ringing. There was nothing like this, ever. In the Kremlin, when the bells rang, the peal was ancient, sedate, and very deep. And this starry peal was from tight silver bells, all velvety. It seemed like a thousand churches were ringing their bells at once. You would not hear such sound on any other day. At Easter, the bells were chiming, and at Christmas, it was a silvery hum that spread for miles and miles, like a song that had neither a beginning nor the end…
Ivan Shmelyov (1873-1950) was a Russian writer and essayist who emigrated to France after the October Revolution. The Year of God (Лето Господне) is a book of his recollections of pre-revolutionary life in Russia. The narrator, an adult person, recalls everyday life and religious festivals of a merchant family in Moscow, into which he was born. He turns a loving eye to his childhood memories, going through them like a fantastic kaleidoscope of events. For this Christmas season I have translated a respective chapter of his book…
Ivan Shmelyov – Christmas
You want, my dear boy, that I told you about our Christmas season. Well… Should you not understand something, let your heart guide you.
Konstantin Korovin – Winter. A Street.
Imagine me as old as you are now. Do you know what snow is? Here it is rare, and it melts as soon as it falls. But in Russia once the snowfall started, no light of the day would be seen for three days or so! The snow covered everything. The streets were all white, with large drifts. The snow was everywhere: on the roofs, on the fences, on the streetlights – lots of snow! It would even hang down from the roofs – and suddenly it would drop, like a heap of flour, and even get behind one’s collar. The caretakers collected the snow and took it away, otherwise everything would sink in it.
The Russian winter is silent and dull. The sledge may ride fast, but you do not hear a sound. Only when the frost comes, then the runners screech. And when the spring arrives, and you hear the sound of the wheels, then what a joy it is!
Our Christmas comes from afar, very quietly. The snow is deep, and the frost is getting stronger.
Once you see the frozen pork being delivered, then you know that Christmas is near. For six weeks people were fasting on fish. The wealthier ate beluga, sturgeon, walleye, navaga; the poorer had herring, catfish, bream… In Russia, we had all kinds of fish. But at Christmas everyone ate pork. At the butcher’s, they would lay those pigs, like tree logs – up to the ceiling. The gammon was cut off, for corning. And so these cuts were lying in rows, and the snow dusted the pink stripes on the ground.
The frost was so strong that it riveted the air, turning it into a foggy frosty haze. The wagon trains were coming for Christmas. What is it, you ask? Well, it is like a train, except there were wide sledges instead of carriages, and they were riding on the snow, coming from the distant lands. One after one, they went in single file, stretching for miles.
The horses were from the steppe, to be sold. The drivers were all healthy, strong men from the Volga Region, near Samara. They brought pork, piglets, geese and turkeys, from the “ardent frost”, as they said. Then there was a Siberian grouse and a black grouse. Do you know a Siberian grouse? It is mottled, or pockmarked, that’s what its Russian name means. It is as big as a pigeon, methinks. It is a game, a forest bird. It feeds on rowan, cranberry, and juniper. And what taste it had, my brother! Here this bird is rare, but in Russia it was delivered by wagon trains. The merchants would sell everything, including the sledge and horses, buy the cloths and calico and go back home by cast iron. What is cast iron? Ah well, it is the railroad. It was more profitable to travel to Moscow on a wagon train: the merchant carried his own oats for his horses from his plants on the shoals of the steppe, and sold the horses in the capital.
Just before Christmas, in Konnaya Square in Moscow – or the Horse Square, for they sold horses there – the groans never stopped. This square… how to say it? It was more spacious than… the one where the Eiffel Tower is, you know? And there were sledges everywhere.
Thousands of sledges stood in rows. Frozen pigs were piled like firewood for miles on end. The snow would cover them, but snouts and bottoms were lurking from beneath. Next stood the vats as great… as this room, perhaps! The corned pork was cooked there. The frost was so strong that the brine froze, and you could see thin ice on it. The butcher was cutting the pork with an axe, and sometimes a piece of it, as much as half a pound, would bounce off – no care! A beggar would pick it up. These pork “crumbs” were thrown to beggars by armful: have it, the fasting is over! In front of the pork there was a piglet row, for another mile. And farther they traded geese, chicken, ducks, black grouse, Siberian grouse… They traded directly from the sledge. There were no scales, and everything was mostly sold by piece. Russia is a very hearty country: no scales, things are done by the eye. Sometimes the factory workers would harness themselves to the large sledge and off they went, laughing. And in the sledge there was a pile of piglets, and pork, and corned pork, and mutton… Life was rich then.
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