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Apr 1, 2024 | 
almendron.com | Bela Shayevich
Every time a foreign friend asks me about elections in Russia, I go through a familiar cycle: first awkwardness, then confusion, then shame. I freeze inside. Now I will have to tell them. I smile stupidly and choose my words: “We don’t exactly have elections in Russia”. We have a ritual called an election.
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Apr 1, 2024 | 
nybooks.com | Bela Shayevich |Elena Kostyuchenko
Every time a foreign friend asks me about elections in Russia, I go through a familiar cycle: first awkwardness, then confusion, then shame. I freeze inside. Now I will have to tell them. I smile stupidly and choose my words: “We don’t exactly have elections in Russia.” We have a ritual called an election.
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Mar 16, 2024 | 
thisamericanlife.org | Elena Kostyuchenko |Bela Shayevich
Elena Kostyuchenko tells the story of how she was probably poisoned after reporting on Russian’s invasion of Ukraine, and how she kept not believing it was happening. Bela Shayevich translated this story from Russian and reads it for us. (21 minutes)We adapted this from an article in n+1 magazine. Elena’s book is I Love Russia: Reporting from a Lost Country.
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Mar 16, 2024 | 
thisamericanlife.org | Elena Kostyuchenko |Bela Shayevich
Elena Kostyuchenko tells the story of how she was probably poisoned after reporting on Russian’s invasion of Ukraine, and how she kept not believing it was happening. Bela Shayevich translated this story from Russian and reads it for us. (21 minutes)We adapted this from an article in n+1 magazine. Elena’s book is I Love Russia: Reporting from a Lost Country. By Elena Kostyuchenko and Bela Shayevich; Produced by Nancy Updike and Valerie Kipnis
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Oct 26, 2023 | 
lmtonline.com | Bela Shayevich |Ilona Chavasse |Nick Hilden
Penguin Press. 363 pp. $30 - - - "If you want to stay safe," the journalist Elena Kostyuchenko writes in "I Love Russia: Reporting From a Lost Country," "you must put a smile on your face." She's referring to the conditions in one of Russia's hellish "internat" facilities for the disabled, but you get the sense that the sentiment could be applied to the country at large: The prerequisite to safety is the acceptance of the maddest of circumstances, and even that is no guarantee.
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Oct 26, 2023 | 
nplusonemag.com | Bela Shayevich
There is no point to me anymore. My family was first to notice. In Soviet Glenview, the living room has twenty-one clocks in glass domes with spinning pendulums, all showing different times. Grandpa’s collection. Binders and pill bottles holding his coins are scattered around a plate of cranberry cake. Nobody touches it. Grandpa starts in on his line of questioning with the traditional fakely coy giggle. Had I met anyone “interesting” lately? Ha.Overblown, umbrous seascape.
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Oct 19, 2023 | 
harpers.org | Christopher Ketcham |William T. Vollmann |Alexander Sammon |Bela Shayevich
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Oct 11, 2023 | 
harpers.org | Bela Shayevich |Elena Kostyuchenko
From I Love Russia, which was published last month by Penguin Press. Translated from the Russian. Kostyuchenko is a reporter for Novaya Gazeta, an independent Russian newspaper. I am five, I am in preschool. It’s winter. We’re playing war. The big hill of snow is the fortress, it’s full of Germans. We storm it. There aren’t many, nobody wants to be one of the fascists, but they have the tactical advantage—it’s a lot easier defending a fortress. Snowballs are flying in every direction.
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Sep 7, 2023 | 
thenation.com | David Bromwich |Katrina vanden Heuvel |Bela Shayevich |Jeet Heer
The fantasy that the war in Ukraine is a war to secure democracy around the world has taken root among well-meaning liberals. Ad PolicyThis article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com. A new war, a new alibi.
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Sep 2, 2023 | 
thenation.com | Bela Shayevich |Jeet Heer |Mychal Denzel Smith
Books & the Arts / The Soviet remaking of the Pale Jews. The trials and tribulations of a tumultuous period. Ad PolicyThis article appears in the September 18/25, 2023 issue. Established in 1791 as the exclusive zone where Jews were allowed to live in the Russian Empire, the Pale of Settlement was a giant ghetto. Jews in the Pale were largely not allowed to own land or to farm. They were, for the most part, restricted to a set of villages and to a limited number of occupations.
