Our next submission on the things we take with us growing up in immigrant homes is from writer Scaachi Koul, who writes about her distance from her Indian background. Scaachi is currently interning over at Huffington Post Canada. She also keeps a personal blog, Big Fists, where she’s recently started an advice column featuring her »Read More
Today’s peek into the immigrant home comes from Anna Tarkov, a journalist and blogger from Chicago. She’s been published in the Chicago Tribune, Time Out Chicago, and others, and her blog, THE OUTSIDER… and the rueful dilettante, is full of insights on the state of journalism today. Though she left the USSR much later than »Read More
A couple weeks ago I asked for people to send in their stories about immigrant household decor, an extension of my own musings on the question of whether what’s on your walls impacts your immigrant identity. I got some great responses, and I’m excited to be sharing them over the coming days! Today’s contribution is »Read More
Did you grow up in an immigrant family (Russian/Soviet or otherwise)? Was every available inch taken up with mementos of the “Old Country”? Or did your family shun any and all reminders? Or maybe it was you who made the journey to a new language, new food, new home and had to decide what to »Read More
I talked about Russian tchotchkes a few weeks ago. And then recently, I spotted this make-up collection from Anna Sui, and though it’s called “Dolly Girl” and references wind mills, it has an unmistakable waft of the Slavo-folksy to me. $27 worth, no less. I’m not a fan of the Russian “look”—tchotchkes, nostalgia, kitsch, call »Read More
I don’t talk about parenting issues too much on this blog. But an article in the Globe and Mail yesterday (“Why is it single people who get stuck working weekends?”), arguing that parents are “privileged” in the workplace, and moreover that maternity leave is an unfair form of privilege/discrimination, left me so enraged, I have »Read More
"In Russia today, journalists are murdered like Anna Politkovskaya, beaten like Oleg Kashin and intimidated like me, but — as terrible as this will sound — that is not the real problem. The real problem is that journalists are ignored. The risks they take in challenging Vladimir Putin and the Russian oligarchy have ceased to have meaning. One is valued only for telling a harmless story, an amusing anecdote that can exist, side by side, with ad space."Valery Panyushkin
Russian journalist Valery Panyushkin writes in the New York Times about how the government makes its displeasure known to journalists—your licence plate is removed from your car, and after that, any number of fates may await—and wonders what may have been the trigger for him. But it’s the conclusion here, of the journey from typed »Read More
My first list! I’m incredibly flattered and honoured to be among some very fine (and much more deserving) company for this year’s Big Jewcy from Jewcy.com. The Big Jewcy: Lea Zeltserman – Blogging The Soviet Jewish Experience And make sure to take a look at the full list (which is still being updated daily) and »Read More
A very long time ago (in internet years), I had a Twitter conversation with blogger and general funny girl Vicki Boykis (@vboykis) about our attitudes towards Russian tchotchkes. The original link is dead, but it was probably something along these lines. Her response was an unequivocal “yea,” while I was firmly on the “ugh, why?” »Read More
