Our country is at the juncture between Asia and Europe, the plate under us vibrates, turning some of us into predators and others into angels...

I would even hope that people would go home still thinking about the film. Let them reject it and berate the director. But let them think. Think how we can go on living together like human beings...

The Innovation state prize in contemporary art was awarded at the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture on Thursday evening. The ceremony was controversial long before it was even held as two major political projects were on the short...

In six matches (seven counting the Russia Cup), the main trouble maker, a spring-time transfer market sensation, has yet to win more than one. On top of that, it has been more than 40 days since that one victory against Volga. Now the Anzhi football club, with its sights set on the Champions League, is risking not even placing in the top eight...

The Lives of Extraordinary People series of books adds to its ranks “Dostoevsky” by Lyudmila Saraskina. The 20th century is a very recent memory, and you cannot understand it without Dostoevsky’s formula that he came up with while at a hard-labour camp: “Man grows used to everything”...

Women, imprisoned mostly on drug-related charges, occupy Perm prison #32. Their crimes range using drugs, selling drugs and murder – because of fairytale “drug dreams” and “cartoons” that they watch out of hopelessness and despair. Now they draw cartoons themselves in 3D. There are 18 of them. Someone is occupied with the fence, and by the end of the day it should be just like a real one, with all the splinters and nails to go with it...

With no goals, no passes, no dribbling, no tackles, he might as well not be playing at all. He’s no trouble to the opposing team, and his own teammates don’t notice him. But spectators, analysts and reporters do notice. The crowds boo every movement of the Russian national team’s captain, analysts advise selling him as quickly as possible and reporters dismiss him...

The tears came dripping down: Fetisov is leaving hockey! He didn’t come to terms with the system and cannot exist in an atmosphere where anything and everything is corrupt. He has almost switched over to the opposition and is a ready-made candidate for filling the ranks, scary to say, of adversaries of the regime! But he is not a noble hero

There were no high hopes on the eve of the biathlon championship in Yugorsk in Khanty-Mansiisk (see Novaya Gazeta No.22, 2 March 2011), but reality was worse than the gloomiest forecasts: our squad was lucky to place sixth (the male team...

I gave a lot of thought to the post-empirical space and understood that it’s not going to be all that easy. I knew that the empire was falling apart even as I was inside it, roaming around it. Empire and the USSR are not exactly synonyms, or they aren’t synonyms at all. You cannot, however, forget about this space: three generations were spent on it.

I have heard more than once that the play Otmorozki (Jerks) contains a “fascist message” from the author or the director. Some have clearly discerned the message and are constantly voicing their indignation. There are those who see and...

St Petersburg Governor Valentina Matvienko asked Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to “co-finance” the construction of a new football stadium on Krestovsky Island to the tune of 10 billion roubles. In this way, the St Petersburg administration...

The new patriotism’s failure is the most salient trend in Russian cinema. Enough has been said about the crisis of ideas, but the crisis of patriotic films is deeper than in any other genre. Shooting of The Star, widely believed to be the...

A documentary by German director Cyril Tuschi about the jailed Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky became a hot ticket at the Berlinale festival. This was bound to happen. First, the world is fully aware of the political motives behind...

“I’ll survive it” joked the forward of Omsk Avangard club Alexei Cherepanov when he had his gum cut in a Saturday’s match versus ZSKA. Lyosha had only too days: his heart stopped on 13 October’s night after the match Vityaz vs. Avangard in...