Lishnevsky house, also known as the house with ‪‎Mephistopheles‬, built in 1910 in St. ‪‎Petersburg‬ has lost its face, literally: This Wednesday, August 26th, several “faceless” workers have removed the Mephistopheles relief from the facade of the historical building. Some report that the removal of the bas-relief depicting the mythical demon might be connected to the construction of an Orthodox […]

Human memory is remarkable to me in a sense that small details such as smell, sound, texture, color, taste can elicit powerful images in our brain. Words too, like physical senses, evoke memories and trigger physical and emotional responses. Every time I read or hear the word “Kursk,” a face of an old woman instantly appears before my eyes. Each […]

It is important to understand that there are two manners of speaking в ру́сском языке́ [in Russian language]: formal and informal. Formal: Grammatically, formal simply means using a plural form of the pronoun you – вы to refer to a singular individual. Semantically, depending on a situation, a formal way of speaking can basically mean три ве́щи [three things]: уваже́ние […]

Learning назва́ния [names] of the months in Russian language is легко́ [easy]! Since they are based on the Latin names, Russian ме́сяцы [months] are easily recognizable when they are written or pronounced. Basically, say the months по-англи́йски [in English] with a heavy Russian accent, and you are good to go! Шу́тка! [Kidding]! Since the names are very close, it is ва́жно […]

Watching movies is a popular way to spend past time in many cultures. Who can resist a good story?! Growing up, I remember spending time in front of the telly watching comedies, dramas, thrillers, detective stories, etc. Out of all movie genres, I liked comedies the most. They made people laugh! In this post, I’ve made a list of 5 […]

Today we are going to learn how to count from 11 to 20 in Russian! We will be using our basic building blocks, numbers 1 through 10, to memorize the new ци́фры [numbers]. You will see how easy it is to learn ци́фры [numbers] 11 through 20 now that you know how счита́ть [to count] to 10 по-ру́сски [in Russian]! […]

If you know anything about Russian culture, you know that Russians love to eat капу́сту [cabbage]. Coleslaw salads with mayo or подсо́лнечным ма́слом [sunflower oil] are often served in summer, and ква́шеная капу́ста [fermented cabbage] is a staple of Russian diet in winter.

Watch our video and learn about Russian cursive with us! Every child in Russia learns how to write in cursive. They complete a lot of practice sheets to perfect their writing. Here is one of the practice sheets: The result that school children strive to achieve looks like this: However, when kids grow up, they all develop their own writing […]

On September 9th, 2014, Google celebrated 186th anniversary of the great Leo Tolstoy’s birth with the help of Roman Muradov‘s enchanting art! Roman created today’s doodle that millions of you had a pleasure of seeing. The artist wrote: “I hardly need to say that making a tribute to Leo Tolstoy was a daunting task. No set of images can sum up […]

Apparently, someone hacked Russian Prime Minster Dmitry Medvedev’s Twitter account this Thursday morning and announced his resignation to 2.5 million of his followers! The first update on his account read: “I resign. Ashamed of the actions of the government. Forgive me.”