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Russia Quotes

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Russia Quotes

“You're not content in your position as a factory owner and a rich heiress, you don't believe in your right to it, and now you can't sleep, which, of course, is certainly better than if you were content, slept soundly, and thought everything was fine. Your insomnia is respectable; in any event, it's a good sign. In fact, for our parents such a conversation as we're having now would have been unthinkable; they didn't talk at night, they slept soundly, but we, our generation, sleep badly, are anguished, talk a lot, and keep trying to decide if we're right or not. - A Medical Case”

ConscienceRussiaInheritanceGeneration GapLand Ownership
Book:Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov
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“Wanting to leave communist Russia is all fine and well | Actually leaving the country is where you might run into a few setbacks. Obtaining a visa for a simple vacation outside the soviet block was a long and arduous process. To immigrate to a free society was about as easy as finding whiskey in a church.”

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Book:Career Criminal: My Life in the Russian Mob Until the Day I Died
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“But clouds bellied out in the sultry heat, the sky cracked open with a crimson gash, spewed flame-and the ancient forest began to smoke. By morning there was a mass of booming, fiery tongues, a hissing, crashing, howling all around, half the sky black with smoke, and the bloodied sun just barely visible. And what can little men do with their spades, ditches, and pails? The forest is no more, it was devoured by fire: stumps and ash. Perhaps illimitable fields will be plowed here one day, perhaps some new, unheard-of wheat will ripen here and men from Arkansas with shaven faces will weigh in their palms the heavy golden grain. Or perhaps a city will grow up-alive with ringing sound and motion, all stone and crystal and iron-and winged men will come here flying over seas and mountains from all ends of the world. But never again the forest, never again the blue winter silence and the golden silence of summer. And only the tellers of tales will speak in many-colored patterned words about what had been, about wolves and bears and stately green-coated century-old grandfathers, about old Russia; they will speak about all this to us who have seen it with our own eyes ten years - a hundred years! - ago, and to those others, the winged ones, who will come in a hundred years to listen and to marvel at it all as at a fairy tale. ("In Old Russia")”

TimeFireFutureRussiaForest Fire
Book:The Dragon: Fifteen Stories
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“Умом Россию не понять, Аршином общим не измерить. У ней особенная стать, В Россию можно только верить! Fyodor Tyutchev, Russian poet, 1803–1873 You will not grasp her with your mind Or cover with a common label, For Russia is one of a kind — Believe in her, if you are able... translated by Anatoly Liberman, published in "Russian Life in the United States”

PoetryRussiaRussian Culture
Author:Fyodor Tyutchev Anatoly Liberman
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“En Union Soviétique, quand quelque chose ne va pas, dans un domaine d’activité quelconque, on pense d’abord structures. On l’a vu en août 1972, après le sévère réquisitoire du Comité Central du Parti contre la production cinématographique. Des mesures de réorganisation avaient tout de suite été prises. Un nouveau patron était nommé à la tête de Goskino. Deux mois plus tard, l’Union des Cinéastes se réunissait à Moscou. Un débat très libre s’ouvrait qui étonnait les correspondants étrangers par sa franchise. On y entendait Alexandre Medvedkine (Le Bonheur) s’interroger sur la notion de « film politique ». En même temps qu’étaient critiquées certaines mesures de réorganisation, on se félicitait de la création d’un « studio central des scénarios » susceptible d’assainir les rapports (difficiles, paraît-il) entre scénaristes et réalisateurs. Mais l’interrogation majeure de cette rencontre était : « Existe-t-il un cinéma pour les masses et un cinéma pour les élites ? ». On conviendra que c’était là une question d’importance. Surtout en Union Soviétique. Répondre oui c’était reconnaître l’existence possible de plusieurs publics avec ce que cela implique de conséquences sur la conception, la production, la distribution des films dans un appareil d’État qui fait volontiers du populisme une vertu.”

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Book:Cinéma 73 : Le Crépuscule des Dieux, L'Homosexualité à L'Écran, Le Cinéma Soviétique en Questions
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“The large helicopter circled the site of the borehole before landing. In his briefing he had learned that this place was a scientific drilling project that had begun in May of 1970, using the Uralmash-4E drilling rig, in an attempt to drill as deep as possible into the Earth’s crust. Apparently after losing the race upwards to the moon, the Soviets were now trying for the consolation prize of downwards to the Earth’s core.”

RussiaSoviet UnionSpy ThrillerDrilling Rigs
Book:White Room: A Cold War Thriller
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“Well, the truth is I’m in a bit of trouble. After that business on the bridge, I was going to be court martialled. I thought it was so bloody unfair… Well the thing is, I’ve escaped in order to clear my name.’ Oleg roared with laughter and crushed Edward’s ribs with a bear hug. ‘You! Bloody outlaw! Robin bloody Hood! How much price on your head? Maybe I claim bounty, eh?’ Shit, Oleg wasn’t taking this at all seriously. He should never have asked… ‘Of course, I help! Leave to me. One condition, you grow big beard, like oligarch… I have idea. Keep head very down. Will find you in two days. Then we hide you very deep.”

AdventureRussiaContemporaryThrillerEspionageSpy ThrillerRealistic FictionPolitical ThrillerMilitary FictionOligarchs
Book:Maskirovka
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“Maskirovka, a pulse-pounding thriller by debut author Willi Pochinov plunges disgraced officer Edward van der Velde into a web of Russian deception, coups, and disinformation from Suffolk to the Black Sea, where truth is the ultimate casualty. In an era where truth is a battlefield and deception reigns, Willi Pochinov’s debut novel, Maskirovka, emerges as a gripping political thriller that captures the zeitgeist of our disinformation age. But Maskirovka is more than a thriller — it’s a meditation on trust in an age where reality itself is weaponized. As Edward grapples with his dual identities and the machinations of those around him, readers are left questioning: when nothing is as it seems, who can you believe? For fans of espionage and political drama, this fiercely contemporary novel is a must-read, proving that even in his ninth decade, Pochinov is a formidable new voice in the genre.”

AdventureRussiaContemporaryThrillerEspionageSpy ThrillerRealistic FictionPolitical ThrillerMilitary FictionEditorial Review
Author:Table Reads Magazine
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“Hold your fire!’ screamed Edward, ‘it’s not a gun! She’s got a bloody camera! It’s not a gun! Stand down! Stand down!’ She swivelled at his shout and pointed the camera at him. They locked eyes. There was one more flash. She winked suggestively then sat down… The Harleys revved and were across the bridge in seconds. Edward bent double, head down, hands on knees, gasping for breath. She’d actually fucking winked! He picked up her abandoned helmet. He could smell her perfume.”

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Book:Maskirovka
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“Well, Captain van der Velde, you’re so deep in the ordure, you’re standing on tip toe and it’s still up to your ear lobes. I reckon you’re the ideal man to find some answers.’ ‘But I’m under mess arrest, Sir!’ ‘That’s not my bloody problem is it, Captain? Now you listen to me! We don’t know how far up this thing goes. I want you to find out what the hell is going on and report back to me personally. So, get your arse of that bed and get yourself out of here any way you like. But you can’t blame me, I can’t be connected to you!’ The Brigadier shook Edward’s hand. ‘Good luck!’ The door clicked shut.”

RussiaThrillerEspionageContemporary FictionSpy ThrillerAdventure FictionRealistic FictionPolitical ThrillerMilitary FictionSpy Novel
Book:Maskirovka
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“Edward, along with The King and Sir Oleg’s other guests, was glued to the rolling news reports of little green men in London. There were endless drone shots of Buckingham Palace surrounded by foreign tanks. Edward soon realised that the “news” items were constantly re-fuelled by speculation and counter speculation, rumour and counter rumour, real news and fake news. There was even a short piece to camera about the probable abdication of The King.”

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Book:Maskirovka
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“If the Russian people and the Russian elite remembered - viscerally, emotionally remembered - what Stalin did to the Chechens, they could not have invaded Chechnya in the 1990s, not once and not twice. To do so was the moral equivalent of postwar Germany invading western Poland. Very few Russians saw it that way - which is itself evidence of how little they know about their own history.”

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Book:Gulag: A History
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“Other terms used to describe the Putin regime were 'kleptocracy' and 'crony capitalism'---variations on Navalny's theme of the "Party of the Crooks and Thieves." A Hungarian sociologist named Balint Magyar rejected these terms because, he stressed, both 'kleptocracy' and 'crony capitalism' implied a sort of voluntary association---as though one could partake in the crony system or choose not to, and proceed with one's business autonomously, if less profitably. The fate of Khodorkovsky and the exiled oligarchs, as well as of untold thousands of jailed and bankrupted entrepreneurs, demonstrated that this was a fallacy.”

RussiaKleptocracy
Book:The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia
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“One story that circulated about (U.S. Minister to Russia Charles S.) Todd concerned his conversation with a lady-in-waiting at an Imperial reception in the Winter Palace. In his bad French with a Kentucky accent, he mispronounced the word for year, so that an explanation of his travels came out: "I was an ass in Paris, part of an ass in London, almost an ass in Germany, and I am two asses here." To which the lady reportedly responded, "And you will be an ass wherever you go.”

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Book:Distant Friends: The United States and Russia, 1763-1867
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“The fervor and single-mindedness of this deification probably have no precedent in history. It's not like Duvalier or Assad passing the torch to the son and heir. It surpasses anything I have read about the Roman or Babylonian or even Pharaonic excesses. An estimated $2.68 billion was spent on ceremonies and monuments in the aftermath of Kim Il Sung's death. The concept is not that his son is his successor, but that his son is his reincarnation. North Korea has an equivalent of Mount Fuji—a mountain sacred to all Koreans. It's called Mount Paekdu, a beautiful peak with a deep blue lake, on the Chinese border. Here, according to the new mythology, Kim Jong Il was born on February 16, 1942. His birth was attended by a double rainbow and by songs of praise (in human voice) uttered by the local birds. In fact, in February 1942 his father and mother were hiding under Stalin's protection in the dank Russian city of Khabarovsk, but as with all miraculous births it's considered best not to allow the facts to get in the way of a good story.”

ReligionAtheismChinaMythologyRussiaRomeReincarnationSyriaEgyptNorth KoreaHaitiAncient EgyptAncient RomeBabylonBashar Al AssadJoseph StalinKim Jong IlKim Il Sung1942DynastiesFrancois DuvalierBaekdu MountainHafez Al AssadJean Claude DuvalierKhabarovskKim Jong SukMiraculous BirthsMount Fuji
Book:Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays
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“As the 2018 World Cup Championship in Russia draws to a close, President Trump scores a hat-trick of diplomatic faux pas - first at the NATO summit, then on a UK visit, and finally with a spectacular own goal in Helsinki, thereby handing Vladimir Putin a golden propaganda trophy. For as long as this moron continues to queer the pitch by refusing to be a team player, America's Achilles' heel will go from bad to worse. It's high time somebody on his own side tackled him in his tracks.”

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Book:Lines & Lenses
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“The New START accord cuts the strategic nuclear arsenals on each side to 1,550 warheads. Can any of its critics make a case that our security would be imperiled if, the very next day, Obama and Medvedev made moves to take the levels down to 1,000—then to 500? If so, come show us the math. If not, it may be time to stop making arms control so politically complicated—time to stop letting arms control get in the way of disarmament.”

PoliticsUnited StatesRussiaNuclear WeaponsNational SecurityGeopoliticsNew StartNuclear DisarmamentBarack ObamaArms ControlDmitry Medvedev
Author:Fred Kaplan
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“Everyone I have spoken with about working with the Russians in space exploration believes that the United States has learned a great deal from Russia and that Russia has learned a great deal from the United States – and that the entire international space partnership is much better because of it.”

AmericaSpaceUnited StatesRussiaWorking TogetherCollaborationCold WarAstronautSpace ExplorationOuter SpaceInternational Space Station
Book:The Orbital Perspective: Lessons in Seeing the Big Picture from a Journey of 71 Million Miles
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“We essentially had to build a docking mechanism between the two capsules. We didn't have to share a lot of data, and we did that at the height of the Cold War, which was pretty symbolic." –Bill Gerstenmaier”

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Book:The Orbital Perspective: Lessons in Seeing the Big Picture from a Journey of 71 Million Miles
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“The elaborate and rather flexible political police system established in Russia in the early 1880s was unique in at least two respects. Before the First World War no other country in the world had two kinds of police, one to protect the state and another to protect its citizens. Only a country with a deeply rooted patrimonial mentality could have devised such a dualism. Secondly, unlike other countries, where the police served as an arm of the law and was required to turn over all arrested persons to the judiciary, in imperial Russia and there alone police organs were exempt from this obligation.”

RussiaPolice StateRussian History
Book:Russia Under the Old Regime
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