My friend shared an article with me today, and for a minute I could almost hear the choir warming up. Not the church choir—the political one. The kind that turns diplomacy into a superhero movie, where history is an impatient editor and the messy parts get cut for runtime. The article’s own author is more careful than the headline energy around it: he says Trump’s claim to have “ended … Read the rest
The news that the Russian wheelchair-bound singer Yulia Samoylova has been given a three-year ban from entering Ukraine — thus spoiling her chances of representing her country in the Eurovision — causes me to recall the time when I first came to Russia. I confess — with more than a little shame now — that back then I couldn't have told you much about which country was which. I thought … Read the rest
