Tag Archives: world war ii
When failure is not an option
This Saturday, the scary but increasingly useless pro-Kremlin youth group “Nashi” had a rally in central Moscow. They bussed in thousands of kids. Many of them, a friend noted, were carrying shopping bags because the free trip to the capital … Continue reading
You want an adoption scandal?
It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything about Artyem, the 7-year-old boy whose adoptive mother took him back to customer service like some kind of irregularly knit sweater. The scandal around the boy’s unceremonious return — and let me be … Continue reading
'Pop,' or how I saw an anti-Semitic WW II agitprop film this weekend
This weekend, I dragged a friend to see “Pop” — Russian for “priest,” with some slightly negative connotations — one of a new crop of patriotic World War II films springing up ahead of the May 9 holiday, and the … Continue reading
Russians: a peaceful people victorious?
As TIME’s Simon Shuster reports today, a massive crackdown is underway in Dagestan to retaliate for last month’s twin suicide bombings in the Moscow metro. One of the two Black Widow bombers, was, in fact, a widow; the other one, … Continue reading
Scenes from the Moscow subway bombing
Last night, a couple hours after the affected red line was reopened in time for the evening rush hour, I went to look for what the metro looked like in the wake of the twin suicide bombing that morning. The … Continue reading
Enemy retreats from Moscow, re-enactors party like it's 1942
Okay, this is kind of great. On February 23, Defenders of the Fatherland Day (née Red Army Day), 22 employees from the Vadim Zadorozhny Technical Museum and activists from the Motherland’s History Milestones reenacted the momentous occasion when, in February 1942, … Continue reading
