Unfinished hotel rooms, terrorist threats, egregious human rights violations and thrilling athletic feats: Sochi’s got it all. But Russia’s dangerous, government-sanctioned homophobia precedes and extends far beyond this year’s Olympic games. 1. “Closed, Destroyed, Deleted Forever.” (Dmitry Pashinsky, n+1, February 2014) Incredible interview with Lena Klimova, founder of Children 404, a social networking resource for […]
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Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
The 2015 National Magazine Award Winners: A Reading List
This year’s National Magazine Awards were handed out Monday night in New York, with General Excellence honors going to publications including The New Yorker, Glamour, Garden & Gun, Nautilus and The Hollywood Reporter.
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction, Story
What It’s Like to Grow Up Gay in Russia
“I had a career in Russia, a nice apartment, friends, family. I sacrificed all that to be with Ana.”
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
The 2015 National Magazine Award Winners: A Reading List
This year’s National Magazine Awards were handed out Monday night in New York, with General Excellence honors going to publications including The New Yorker, Glamour, Garden & Gun, Nautilus and The Hollywood Reporter.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
How Russia Began Using Poison in Assassinations
“The idea of poisoning — radioactive or otherwise — is not new to Russian intelligence. According to former Russian intelligence officer Boris Volodarsky, now a historian and one-time associate of Litvinenko, the Russians have a history of substance assassination going back nearly a century. It was Lenin who ordered the establishment of their first laboratory, known simply as the […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Being Gay in Russia Today: A Reading List
This week’s picks from Emily include stories from n+1, GQ, and The New York Times.
Posted inUncategorized
Russia's Battle with Alcoholism
“You can still see Russia’s drinking problem everywhere—in its cities and especially in its rural, less populated provinces. A 2011 report from the World Health Organization estimated that Russians were drinking an average of about 4 gallons of pure alcohol per year—about 70 percent more than their American counterparts. In 2009, the British medical journal […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
What It’s Like to Grow Up Gay in Russia
For this week’s Longreads Member Pick we are proud to feature a chapter from Gay Propaganda, a new collection of original stories, interviews and testimonials from LGBT Russians both living there and in exile. The book was edited by Masha Gessen and Joseph Huff-Hannon, and will be published by OR Books in February. We’d like to thank them for […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Inside the Iron Closet: What It’s Like to Be Gay in Putin’s Russia
Violence, threats and living in fear that things are only going to get worse: “Something is coming,” says Pavel. What it will be, he’s not sure. He’s worried about “special departments” in local police stations, dedicated to removing children from gay homes. He’s worried about a co-worker discovering him. He is worried about blackmail. He […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Adrift
As NASA seeks their next mission, Russia holds the trump card: access to the International Space Station. Mastracchio’s unglamorous return home last week in a Soyuz capsule has been described by some veteran astronauts as akin to going over Niagara Falls, in a barrel, on fire. Around the world, in Houston, mission control could only […]
