free samples
Thousands of subscribers to Russian Life love our 50-year-young magazine for its colorful feature articles, its independent tone and its amazing depth and breadth of coverage.
We think you will love Russian Life too. But don't take our word for it! Read what readers themselves say. And, to get a sense of what our magazine is like before you subscribe, sample some of our articles, linked below.
Since text alone does not do Russian Life justice, we have uploaded and posted here several stories in Adobe Acrobat format. If you don't have Acrobat Reader, you can download it for free here.
Please note: in order to keep file sizes small, photos are reproduced at low resolution. The printing in our magazine is of course of the highest quality!
- Unusual Russian Imports, from Ural motorcycles to paintbrushes and seeds [10 pages • 752k]
- The Russian Izba [11 pages • 588k]
- A beautiful look at Moscow's Abramtsevo Estate [10 pages • 368k]
- Life with Mushrooms (Survival Russian column sample) [1 page • 332k]
- Russian Oxymorons (Survival Russian column sample) [1 page • 304k]
- A biography of Alexander Blok [11 pages • 456k]
- Russian in the Real World: How Studying Russian has helped some get jobs [7 pages • 396k]
- A biography of Sergei Eisenstein [6 pages • 312k]
- Potatoes and Russian history [4 pages • 288k]
- Russian San Francisco [5 pages • 192k]
online only
Links to recent Russian Life Online articles...
Finding Russian Adventures
A guide, with links, to adventure travel in Karelia and beyond.
Russian Word of the Day
A great site for language learners. Thoughtful, funny, interesting musings on a new word or phrase every day. Bookmark this one for sure!
Obama's Russia Speech
"I speak to you today with deep respect for Russia's timeless heritage. Russian writers have helped us understand the complexity of the human experience, and recognize eternal truths. Russian painters, composers, and dancers have introduced us to new forms of beauty. Russian scientists have cured disease, sought new frontiers of progress, and helped us go to space.
"These are contributions that are not contained by Russia's borders, as vast as those borders are. Indeed, Russia's heritage has touched every corner of the world, and speaks to the humanity that we share. That includes my own country, which has been blessed with Russian immigrants for decades; we've been enriched by Russian culture, and enhanced by Russian cooperation."
Lenin Speaks
Recording purported to be Lenin on YouTube
Stalin Speaks
Hear Stalin's voice on YouTube. Speech given on Nov 7, 1941.
Where the Russians Are
A color-coded map of the US, showing which states have the highest percentage of Russian immigrants.
Cosmo Films
Part of the Roskosmos (the Russian equivalent to NASA) website devoted to films on space exploration. There are a number of films here in Russian (11 total) that can be viewed on the site itself or else downloaded to one's computer and viewed there. Titles include: "Kosmos govorit po-russki," "Kosmichesky prorok" (about Tsiolkovsky), "Zvezdnye amazonki," "Beloe solntse Baikonura" (about pre-flight traditions at the Russian launch site in Kazakhstan), and others.
The First Ambassador
America sent its first ambassador to Russia 200 years ago. He would go on to become the sixth U.S. president.
