The joys of provincial repertory theatre
Robin Ashenden remembers the heyday of local repertory theatre – now sadly in terminal decline
Igor Girkin’s arrest was a long time coming
With the reported arrest on Friday of Igor Girkin (aka ‘Strelkov’ or ‘Igor the Terrible’) the career of one of…
How the Unbearable Lightness of Being enthralled a generation
If during the 80s and 90s you were any kind of book lover, Milan Kundera – who died this week…
Rostov returns to reality after Wagner’s botched coup
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, it always seemed likely that the war would come back to Rostov-on-Don, the…
Rostov-on-Don: scenes from an occupation
The main thoroughfare of Rostov-on-Don is today crawling with military vehicles and masked soldiers carrying automatics, and the entrance to…
How does the Russian public view the invasion of Ukraine?
It’s not just Putin’s war, says Jade McGlynn. The mass of Telegram data shows how much the nation as a whole supports the offensive
The Kakhovka dam and the cheapness of western rhetoric
Following the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam in Ukraine, politicians in the West have followed the familiar dance of…
The haunting words of Russia’s jailed Putin opponents
How many memorable quotes has the Russia-Ukraine war produced so far? Along with Snake Island’s defiant ‘F*** you Russian warship’,…
Should we ignore Putin’s criticism of the West?
Not much happens in Russian families without the say so of the babushka. Russia’s high divorce-rate, and a situation where…
The barbarity of Russia’s white phosphorus attack on Bakhmut
There is something oddly Christmassy about the scene: a night-time city bathed, festooned in twinkling white lights, the smoke around…
Why are some Russians still in denial about their troubled past?
Few books change your life but one that heavily influenced mine was Among the Russians (1983), Colin Thubron’s travel book…
The Internet Archive’s troubles are bad news for book lovers
The Internet Archive (archive.org), a San Francisco-based virtual lending library, is one of the quiet wonders of the modern world. A…
Putin’s feminist crackdown won’t crush the spirit of Russia’s women
In the wake of draconian laws against ‘LGBT Propaganda’ introduced in Russia at the end of last year – namely,…
Who is torching Russia’s military recruitment centres?
The last twelve months or so in the post-Soviet sphere have been, among other things, the year of the Molotov…
Why was the West so slow to see Putin’s true colours?
Cast your mind back just over a decade, to a charity benefit gig in St. Petersburg in 2010. Sharon Stone,…
Is Putin’s security service under attack?
Few people in Rostov-on-Don will weep over the news that a local FSB building in the city caught fire yesterday.…
What happened to the Russia I loved?
For three and a half years, between Autumn 2018 and 2022, the most thrilling words I could say to anyone…
Putin’s desperate recruits are in a life-and-death scramble for kit
As Vladimir Putin seemingly dithers over the question of whether to send a further 500,000 of his citizens onto the…
Russia’s wives and mothers are mobilising against Putin
On a Russian Telegram channel, Svetlana from Samara is making a public plea. She has not heard from her brother…
The Russian conscription adverts that show Putin is losing the plot
‘War is the realm of uncertainty’, said the Prussian military analyst Carl von Clausewitz, and this would seem to apply…
Putin’s unholy alliance and the sins of the Russian Orthodox church
Travel the length and breadth of Russia – as you could fairly easily before the outbreak of war last February…
Last Christmas in Russia
What a difference 12 months makes. Last year, at the Ikea in Rostov-on-Don, South Russia, I splashed out on some…
Would Solzhenitsyn have supported Putin’s war?
A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s first novel, appeared 60 years ago this month. Vividly portraying…
Is Netflix’s The Crown fact or fiction?
The latest series of The Crown has arrived on Netflix. To its predictable advantage, the show has already had the…
Putin goes to war on LGBT rights
When I moved to Rostov-on-Don, in the south of Russia, in 2018 for what was to be four happy years,…
