The Walking Dead: In Praise of Stupidity
Many viewers of AMC’s The Walking Dead have complex feelings for the show. It’s kind of like a high school relationship that makes you listen to a lot of Cure and repeatedly doodle broken...
Author: Natalia Antonova
Natalia Antonova is a DC-based writer and editor
A New Cold War? The (Not) Surprising Crimea annexation
Wasting no time – and equally wasting no opportunity when it came to official spectacle – Russia has gone ahead and annexed Crimea and Sevastopol. The trumpets blared, a speech clearly meant to...
Dragons in their lairs: what Yanukovych’s golden paperweights say about Ukraine
Following recent bloodshed, the ouster of President Yanukovych, and new elections set for May, Ukraine is at a crossroads. It will probably remain there for some time, inspiring many overwrought...
A Country Divided: The EuroMaidan Protests in Ukraine
Well, the holidays are over, and sure enough, more clashes between protesters and riot police have erupted in Kiev. If you haven’t been paying much attention to what is happening in the Ukrainian...
The Past Lives On: Russian Homophobia and the Gulag
Russian actor Alexei Panin used to be mostly famous for overturning tables in restaurants when he’s in a bad mood. Or for the ugly custody battle he had with his ex-wife over their daughter. Or for...
The Wild World of Moscow Real Estate
When you hear the phrase “real estate” you don’t commonly think “thriller plot.” Yet in Moscow, where prices are high, lawlessness in the private sector is rife, and the police are...
Fear, Fatalism and Terrorism: The Minsk and Moscow metro bombings
The April 11 metro bombing in Minsk triggered unpleasant memories of the March 29, 2010 bombing for those of us living in Moscow. Though the Minsk bombing was not a suicide attack, and although there...
Editor’s Diary: Moscow expats and “going native”
I met an expat lady at GUM, Moscow's fanciest department store, the other day, and wound up horrifying her. She had asked me for directions in Russian, and I had noticed her accent, and spoke to her...
Editor’s Diary: attack on Oleg Kashin is a reminder of a twisted “norm”
Famous journalist Oleg Kashin, who works at Russia's leading business newspaper, Kommersant, and lives in my neighbourhood, was badly beaten over the weekend in Moscow. So badly beaten - that doctors...
Editor’s Diary: the moral lesson of a (mildly) bloody restaurant brawl
The other day, I saw a pretty classic drunken fight. I was just at the beginning at what I assumed would be a delicious nap - having drunk a concoction that contained heated-up rum, coconut milk and...