Publications
Living, a movie by director Vasily Sigarev that made a sensation at the 41st Rotterdam Film Festival, was declared the winner of the 12th International Film Festival goEast for Central and Eastern Europe, held in the German city of Wiesbaden. The jury, led by Romanian film-director Cristi Puiu this year, had this to say about the film: “The film dares to express the inexpressible with sheer cinematographic means.” Living is a philosophical film, whose author ponders the meaning of human life, whether it is worth fighting for survival… Soon the picture will be shown to Russian audiences, with its first showing scheduled in...
Article by Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko published in "Russia Now" supplement of The Daily Telegraph.
In March, I participated in a landmark event: the opening of the new office of the Russian Federal Agency for Humanitarian Co-operation (Rossotrudnichestvo) in London. While it is not a fully fledged cultural centre (there is no agreement on cultural centres between Russia and UK), it has extensive facilities: a large exhibition hall, a library and multimedia classes where Russian will be taught to adults and children for free.
Rossotrudnichestvo , at 37 Kensington High Street, is set to become a top venue for Russian cultural...
President of the Kurchatov Institute and Secretary of Russian Public Chamber, Academician Evgeny Velikhov comments on the problems of national science, the need of education work and on the public vocation of academics in his interview for the Russkiy Mir portal.– Why as an academic do you need this extra burden, serving as Secretary of the Public Chamber?
– The answer is simple: everything is interconnected in this world and so I’d like to do my best to promote freedom of speech and conscience as well as a civil society in which academics and researchers can stand up for their interests and rights. Alas,...
The first issue of the Sovremennik (“The Contemporary”) journal, published and edited by Alexander Pushkin, saw the light in St. Petersburg on April 23, 1836, 176 years ago.
In hindsight, this journal seems to have been guaranteed literary success. Yet one of Pushkin’s contemporaries held to the opposite opinion, writing: “The name of Pushkin as the publisher was sufficient for us to predict that the magazine would have no dignity or the slightest chance for success…”
The name of that contemporary of Pushkin is Belinsky. Interestingly enough, “Frantic Vissarion” spelled doom for the last...
Field Marshal Barclay de Tolly, whose merits before Russia are great indeed, is not deprived of his share of regard on the part of his descendants. It is no surprise that his monument was set up in front of Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg adjacent the Kutuzov monument. But among all of his merits there is one that is seldom discussed: just before the War of 1812, he established Russia’s military intelligence. Having acquired tremendous experience as both a combatant and general, Barclay de Tolly realized that information about the enemy’s plans should be obtained on a regular basis. Taking the post of defense secretary in...
I’d rather not follow the fashion of rebuking authorities or invent something that cannot be corroborated by the available sources. The best and most historically veritable work about that epoch is the Alexander Nevsky movie that hit the screens in 1938.
This is no wonder given that no new documents about those heroic days have been discovered in the archives or during the excavations. Yet there are all kind of fables, one of them saying that Batu Khan sent his heavily armed warriors, who decided the battle.
This could happen theoretically even as the Mongol or Anglo-American troops could theoretically appear in the Moscow...
