A Letter from the Editor
 

This is the cyrillic letter « П » (the equivalent of the English “p”). Many words in Russian start with the letter « П », including « почему » (“why”).

Why would you want to read the first issue of Russia! magazine? Why should you even care about Russia? 

This magazine is a partial answer to that question: You should care about Russia because finally, after quite a few years, there once again can be a magazine about this country that isn’t boring and makes surprisingly little use of the popular Soviet clichés. I think this is the first ever publication about Russia that doesn’t mention ballet, Leo Tolstoy, or Maria Sharapova. As it turns out, there are many more interesting things about Russia.

This magazine will be an ideal shortcut for “getting” Russia – a fascinating country where it was impossible to buy blue jeans in 1990 and where in 2004 people bought more Bentley automobiles than anywhere else in the world.

Before starting work on this issue of Russia!, we hosted a roundtable at one of the top universities in the U.S. About 400 students came and asked questions, some of which we promised to answer in the magazine. So here goes: Most Russian women do shave their legs. People do eat tomatoes here and the tomatoes do in fact taste a little different than in the U.S. A postal service does operate in Russia, but it is not very reliable.

Other questions, such as “What does a typical Russian apartment look like?” and “What about free speech there?” are answered elsewhere in this issue. 

If you have any other questions, please let us know.

Michael Thompson
Editor

P.S.

Why random Russian words at the top of most pages in the magazine?

They all start with «П» and are explained on page 128. With a little memory effort, after reading this issue of Russia! you will know at least 106 Russian words. Keep reading, and 32 issues from now, you will have an impressive Russian vocabulary (there are 32 33 letters in the Russian alphabet).