Back in the Soviet union we used to have this popular TV program by Anatoly Kashpirovsky where he was hypnotizing the whole country through TV. You could see people falling into trance, sleepwalking, raising their hands when Kashpirowski told them to...

Kashpirovsky had this heavy gaze and used to count slowly and tell people that "everything is good", "your headache is gone", "you feel light and happy"... Imagine all this was happening at the end of 80s, when the Soviet union was collapsing and some people didn't have much to eat. The best of escapist TV ever!

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Way to Russia presents the new feature: interviews with artists, musicians, and writers related to Russia. It follows the original idea of the Russian People interviews, which we've done over the last few years, but this time it's not random people in focus :-)

This first interview is with Vlad Sokolov, dj and producer, the founder of Sokolov Sounds breaks music label. He's currently based in London performing in various city's venues as well running his own weekly radio show. You can hear some tunes from the recent Perestroika album on Vlad's MySpace page.

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Kommersant newspaper published an article, which has interesting stats about the income of Moscovitans in 2006.

It turns out the average income in 2006 was 365 832 Roubles (about $13 549 US or about $1120 per month - 22.5% higher than in 2005 and more than 300% higher than in 2001).

More than 30% Moscovitans have income of more than $1000 US per month, and the top 10% earn more than $5000 US per month.

13% of Moscovitans live below the poverty line ($100 / month and less).

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Somebody said that we live the stories that we are telling to ourselves. And Tatyana Tolstaya writes about the people who live through the kind of stories that make their existence unbearable. The protagonists of her books -- Soviet clerks, doctors, engineers, and housewives -- are all stuck in something. For some it is hopes and dreams for a better life, for the others it's unbearable circumstances they chose for their own existence. And the only way to escape the burden of this reality is to create your own world of enchanting dreams and imagination, full of lively characters, magic objects, and playful interactions...


(Photo by Sasha Reshetilov)

Tolstaya's stories do not only offer an interesting way of looking at our perception of everyday life, they also provide a new understanding of life in Russia and The Soviet Union during that time. The period when Russian people had to transform from dreaming romantics into ruthless survivors and when the longing for material well-being came in conflict with the desire for inner peace.

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Ah, the Festive Season! People everywhere go a little crazy. Russia, of course, is no exception. Russians don't really celebrate Christmas, except for those who keep the Orthodox faith closely. Here it is acknowledged on 7th January, a hangover from the Julian Calendar (13 days behind the Gregorian), but for most people the really important festival is New Year's Day.

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A really weird and somewhat psychodelic video found on Live Journal. It lists all the famous people from Tatarstan, a republic within Russia, and then the chorus goes "Tatarstan Super Good!"



See Way to Russia Guide to Kazan

Have you ever wondered what do Russian women like in men, what Russians really think about Putin, and whether there's a lot of racism in the country? You could read a newspaper of course, but what about asking "real" Russian people on the streets?

That's why we created the Russian People feature where we invite our readers to send us the questions they want to ask Russian people but were afraid to do it themselves. Our writers then go out and ask these questions, however simple, shocking, or controversial they are. And then we post all the answers unedited on WayToRussia.Net

This time there are 3 interviews with people from Volgograd made by our writer Irina Irbis who lives there as well. We did not edit the answers, so if the English there seems a bit strange, I refer you to a very nice book called "Everything is Illuminated" by Jonathan Safran Foyer -- it's written in Russian English, in the way that a Russian person would speak English. Very seemingly some things sound unusual but we consider it adds to the overall impression. In the end of ends the main thing is what they talk about, and not how. :-)


Alena from Volgograd says: "I think the least European character trait of Russian is that we live by one day not being lost in thought about tomorrow’s day..." Read more...

Here's one from the archives. May Day 2005: I was taken along to some political rally by an acquaintance of mine at the time. It was something about Alexandr Dugin's Evrazia movement. I don't really know or care what it's about but if anyone's interested you can read about it in seven languages here. But it must be something a bit odd since the people I met there all seemed to be virulent racists or other assorted nuts. There was a young American lad there who gave a speech, warning about the danger of the Orange Revolution spreading to Russia and how terrible McDonald's is among other things. Later he came to join us for a meal at that very same eatery. Overall, the people were unimpressive, disorganised and generally uninspiring. If this is the calibre of people involved in Russia's radical fringe groups then there isn't a whole lot to be concerned about (or excited about, depending on your own views). And now I'm not sure if I had a point to make when I started writing this. At any rate, the photo of the little girl with the flag and the armband is quite cute, in a disturbing sort of way.

So this will be the first of my reports with pictures.

It will be quite short, I'm still testing... In February, 2006 we reached famous wooden architecture museum Kizhi in Karelia. As for me, that's probably one of my favourite places in Russia, but it's broadly visited from people all over the world mostly during summer, when you can get to Kizhi Island by 'Kometa' hydrofoil from Petrozavodsk.



In winter you can reach Kizhi by foot :), by helicopter that goes twice a week from local airport (or any time you like if you rent it) and by the hovership you also need to rent. Hovership variant was quite ingenious - nowadays hydrofoils are in a huge decay and ports that need vessels like that buy hoverships. But they do not know often what to do with them, confining themselves to service needs and taking people to a short trips on ice on weekends.

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