[I’ve been hard at work in archives and libraries over the course of the last two weeks. Although I’ve manage to accomplish a great deal on my multiple research projects, I have been less than assiduous in issuing dispatches from Moscow. In an effort to rectify my delinquency, I’m going to treat Avia-Corner visitors to [...]

One of the things that I most enjoy about researching with old periodicals are those occasions when I stumble upon some otherwise long-forgotten article that tells you as much about the present as the past. I found one yesterday afternoon while thumbing through regional newspapers at the Russian State Library branch located in Khimki. The [...]

Of all the major construction projects that graced the decade of the Triumph of Soviet Socialism none, arguably, was a greater success than the Moscow Metropolitan named for Lenin. True, the project was a mass of confusion that fell behind schedule and went over budget while squandering natural resources and human lives, but what else [...]

[From a meteorological standpoint, my arrival in Moscow last Friday came at just the right time. I managed to escape entirely an unusual spring heat-wave during which temperatures soared into the mid and upper 80s. Since then, the weather has been nothing short of marvelous (highs in the low to mid-70s, sunny, light breeze). After [...]