“He saw them in such an undeniably concrete way, that it would have seemed to him falsehood not to mention them…”Tolstoy's characters seem to come alive so much, George Steiner argues, because they have their own internal lives, hidden even fro

Emily Couch and Vijay Menon in conversation

Jun 18th, 2021 1h 2m

Frankie Shalom speaks to Emily Couch, who lived in Russia as an ethnically Chinese British student, and Vijay Menon, who travelled on the Trans-Siberian Railway and wrote the book A Brown Man in Russia about his experiences. They discuss the tr

All About the Russian Banya

Feb 2nd, 2021 37m 58s

What is a banya? What do Russians do when they go to the steam-room, and what are those conical hats they’re wearing? Madeleine Cuckson speaks to Banya No. 1 founder Andrei Fomin to answer all the questions you might have had about the traditio

Protesting For Navalny: Three insider perspectives

Jan 28th, 2021 37m 17s

Ada Wordsworth speaks to Maria Kuznetsova, Alina Z, and Alina D, three young Muscovites who took part in protests this week against Alexei Navalny’s recent incarceration. They describe the reasons for their support of Navalny - even in the face

Hope and Community for LGBT+ Russians

Jan 13th, 2021 45m 37s

Ada Wordsworth speaks to Alexander and Suzy, two young Russians. They recount their experiences of coming out to family, friends and colleagues; describe the differences in Russia between the ways gay men and lesbians are treated; and tell us a

The Leviathan Awakes

Nov 9th, 2020 28m 41s

Sergei Medvedev on the resurrection and future of the Russian authoritarian stateHow has the Russian state evolved since the fall of the USSR, and is there a way to oppose it? Sergei Medvedev is the winner, with his book The Return of the Russi

Russia's Young Climate Activists

Oct 15th, 2020 28m 37s

Young Pushkin volunteer Ada Wordsworth spoke remotely to three participants in the Fridays for Future strikes, who are on the frontline of climate activism in Russia: Arshak Makichyan in Moscow, Dasha Khamaza in St Petersburg, and Daria Anufrie

All About Russian Icons: a 1969 lecture by John Stuart

Jul 2nd, 2020 1h 27m

In the latest of our archive recordings to be unearthed, we have here a 1969 lecture from the not-yet-29-year-old John Innes Stuart (1940-2003) - a renowned expert on Russian icons and historian of British biker culture. A remarkable character,

Gogol and the Grotesque

May 21st, 2020 1h 35m

“The most essential horrors revealed by Gogol are not of Russia, but of the soul...”Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol (1809-1852) is one of the most important figures of Russian literature, initiating a prose tradition that influenced everyone who came

The Religion of the Russian People

Apr 23rd, 2020 53m 27s

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, in archive footage from 1961, enlightens the salon at Pushkin HouseMetropolitan Anthony Bloom (1914-2003), a bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church in Great Britain, was one of the most important figures in the R

Food From Beyond the North Wind

Apr 13th, 2020 32m 50s

Darra Goldstein speaks about her new cookbook to Pushkin House’s director Clem CecilSpeaking via Zoom from her home in Massachusetts, food writer and Russianist Darra Goldstein discusses the process and peculiarities of writing a book on Russia

Benjamin Leigh Smith, Britain's Forgotten Arctic Explorer

Apr 8th, 2020 1h 31m

Charlotte Moore recounts the stranger-than-fiction tale of her great-great-great-uncleBenjamin Leigh Smith, born in 1828, was the polymath illegitimate son of an MP. Born into a radical family, by various twists and turns of fate he ended up as

Which Version of War and Peace Should I Read?

Apr 1st, 2020 1h 25m

Robert Chandler and Boris Dralyuk discuss the best translations of Russian literatureBy popular demand, Pushkin House presents a recording of our event from 15th January 2020. Acclaimed translators Robert Chandler and Boris Dralyuk discuss the

Kolyma Tales - Sketches of the Criminal World

Feb 28th, 2020 52m 51s

“A man becomes a beast in three weeks, given heavy labour, cold, hunger, and beatings.”Under Stalin, poet and journalist Varlam Shalamov faced fifteen years of brutal enforced labour in the gold and coal mines of Kolyma. These years formed the

Where The Cloudberries Grow

Dec 24th, 2019 13m 30s

More than melting ice. How should we understand the Russian Arctic?Elena Zaytseva talks with artist Ruth Maclennan about her exhibition exploring the Russian Arctic, as a place to live in, to travel through, to project onto, to control and expl

Bonus

Icebreaking on Bloomsbury Square

Nov 21st, 2019 2m 45s

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? We took to the streets of Bloomsbury to figure out what the public sees.An outdoor projection animates the exterior wall of Pushkin House on Bloomsbury Square on the opening night of Icebreaker Dreaming, a new solo

In a Room with Gorbachev

Nov 6th, 2019 13m 40s

What would you ask Gorbachev if you ended up in the same room?Borimir Totev talks with British documentary film-maker and anthropologist, André Singer, about his film ‘Meeting Gorbachev’. Mikhail Gorbachev, former President of the Soviet Union,

Godless Utopia: Soviets Against Religion!

Sep 30th, 2019 11m 35s

Why did the Soviets turn against religion?Borimir Totev talks with Roland Elliott Brown, author of ‘Godless Utopia: Soviet Anti-Religious Propaganda’, about the USSR’s war against religion of all denominations. Drawing on the early Soviet athei

Godless Utopia

Sep 30th, 2019 11m 35s

Exhibition Guide: In Paradise

Sep 19th, 2019 23m 25s

An audio guide to the 'In Paradise’ exhibition by Margarita Gluzberg.Borimir Totev follows artist Margarita Gluzberg, as she navigates the Zone of her Stalker inspired exhibition.This podcast episode was edited and produced for Pushkin House by

Russia's Super Mafia

Jun 11th, 2019 13m 5s

What are the Vory? A history of Russia’s super mafia from its Stalin era heydays to the late Soviet period.Borimir Totev talks with Mark Galeotti, author of The Vory: Russia’s Super Mafia, about Russia’s super mafia.This podcast episode was edi

Maybe Esther by Katja Petrowskaja

Jun 10th, 2019 13m 20s

Music used in this episode:sawsquarenoise - Tsuneni & David Hilowitz - Equilibrium I Cello version

To See Paris and Die

Jun 8th, 2019 22m 10s

How do we explain the influx of Western culture to the Soviet Union?Clem Cecil talks with Eleonory Gilburd, author of ‘To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture’. The Soviet Union was a notoriously closed society until Stalin's

The World at the Brink

Jun 5th, 2019 13m 51s

1983 holds an extraordinary and largely unknown Cold War story of spies and double agents, of missiles being readied, of intelligence failures, misunderstandings and the panic of world leaders.Borimir Totev talks with Taylor Downing, author of

The History of a Tragedy

Jun 1st, 2019 21m

The blast that put the world on the brink of nuclear annihilation, contaminating over half of Europe with radioactive fallout.Andrew Jack talks with Pushkin House Book Prize 2019 winning author, Serhii Plokhy, about his book ‘Chernobyl: History