I was in a downtown Kyiv coffee shop the other day, quietly tapping away on my laptop, drinking tea and (not) minding my own business, when I overheard the same conversation you can hear almost...
This may seem like an odd question to ask in the aftermath of the murder of Russian human rights activist Natalia Estemirova, but please bear with me. The mainstream of Russian society is, I would...
Back when the Soviet Union was crashing around our ears, Michael Jackson was cool. I distinctly remember when, as a pre-schooler, I enraged my parents by refusing to get out of the car mid-song. It...
Already, much of the outside coverage of the upcoming Ukrainian presidential election, scheduled for January 17 2010, has boiled down to the absurd notion that "pro-Western" and "pro-Russia" forces...
Please note that the full version of this particular column is hosted at ArabComment. The regular column will return later this month. When I first met Rana Husseini, I was struck by how forthright...
One of the most endearing moments of Alexander Rybak's record-setting Eurovision win for Norway tonight came when the performer of the charming "Fairytale" alternatively gushed in both Norwegian and...
This is a special edition of this column. At some point, the team behind the new "Star Trek," the eleventh feature film of the franchise, must have considered the predicament Spock often finds...
"Inside Chernobyl," an exhibition by photographer and Fulbright scholar Michael Forster Rothbart, recently made its debut in Kyiv, and will be making its way to such places as Moscow and Washington...
The following review contains spoilers. Of course, if you are familiar with Nikolai Gogol, you probably know how the film ends. If you are not familiar with Nikolai Gogol, you should be. When I...
The first thing that greeted me as I browsed Russian LiveJournal today was a story on Ukrainian politician Vladimir Litvin - and his address to Ukrainian women on March 8th, International Women's...
