Russian

Prisoner of the Mountains (Кавказский пленник) is a 1996 film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s 1872 war novella “Prisoner of the Caucasus.” Directed by Sergei Bodrov (Сергей Бодров) and starring Oleg Menshikov (Олег Меньшиков), Sergei Bodrov, Jr. (Сергей Сергеевич Бодров), Dzhemal Sikharulidze (Джемал Сихарулидзе), and Susanna Mekhralieva (Сусанна Мехралиева), the film was nominated for an Academy […]

Nashestvie (Нашествие), or “Invasion,” is an annual Russian rock music festival held over a three-day weekend in the first half of July. Since launching in 1999, Nashestvie has become one of the largest open-air music festivals in Russia with a record 205,000 in attendance during the 2016 season. The first Nashestvie was organized by Nashe […]

Tangerines (Mandariinid) is a 2013 Estonian–Georgian drama film. It’s in Russian and Estonian, despite the fact that it takes place in and was filmed in Georgia. The film is about a village in Abkhazia (considered a part of Georgia or an independent republic, depending on who you ask), whose residents are mostly ethnic Estonians. The year […]

Aygul Barieva (Айгуль Бариева in Russian) is a renowned Tatar singer who’s been performing now for more than 20 years. She’s a Distinguished Artist of the Republic of Tatarstan, among many other awards. Most of her repertoire is in the Tatar language, though she occasionally performs in Russian as well. Barieva is from Kazan, the capital of […]

History of Kyrgyzstan (История Кыргызстана) is a series of cartoons telling the history of Kyrgyzstan. (I’m sure you didn’t see that one coming!) It was created in 2017. The series will ultimately consist of 20 several-minutes-long episodes, though to date (May 2017) only 11 have been released. The series’s creators have said that they are currently working […]

The Return (Хайтарма / Qaytarma) is a 2013 Crimean-Tatar (not to be confused with simply Tatar!) dramatic film. It was produced in Ukraine and is in both Russian and Crimean Tatar languages. The film tells the story of the events of May 1944, when over the course of a few days Stalin had the Crimean Tatars […]

Aminata Savadogo (she often goes by just Aminata) is a Latvian contemporary singer. Her music is influenced by her multiethnic roots—Russia, Latvia, and Burkina Faso—and displays a sound refreshing and unusual in today’s Latvia. She sings mostly in English, sometimes in Russian, and rarely in Latvian. According to her official biography, “her strong and unique […]

Treasure Island (Остров сокровищ in Russian; Острів скарбів in Ukrainian) is, among many other things, a 1988 Russian/Ukrainian/Soviet animated full-length film. Though it was produced by the Ukrainian animated film studio Kyivnaukfilm (Київнаукфільм), it’s entirely in Russian, as was common for the Soviet Union. It actually consists of two parts, “Captain Flint’s Map (“Карта капитана […]