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Articles by Joy Neumeyer

Inside the Soviet Union's Secret Erotica Collection

In the depths of the Russian State Library, Marina Chestnykh takes the creaking elevator up to the ninth floor. She walks past stack after stack of books...

Controversial Lenin Death Mask for Sale in U.S.

In the quasi-religious personality cult surrounding Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, the leader's death mask became for many the Holy Grail — second...

Astronaut's Wife Reveals Hidden Life After Launch

In May 2009, Lena de Winne stood on a barren steppe in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, as she watched her husband, Belgian astronaut Frank de Winne, launch into space...

'Beauty' Contest Seeks Out Provincial Bachelor

Since the country's first perestroika-era pageant, Russia has welcomed the beauty contest as a stage to showcase the glamour of its women. But in Moscow's...

Moscow River Artists Look to the Country

A floor below the sprawling Soviet-themed exhibits at the State Museum of Contemporary History, a group of landscape painters is offering glimpses of a...

Exhibits Grapple with Gorbachev, Yeltsin’s Legacies

This spring, the Moscow House of Photography commemorates the 80th birthdays of Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union’s last head of state, and Boris Yeltsin...

Metro Stickers Take On Fascists

Among the usual barrage of ads, commuters on Moscow’s metro may be noticing images with a social mission more urgent than selling shoes or sushi.

Cosmoscow Brings Modern Art World to Russia

Prominent art galleries from around the world will take over Krasny Oktyabr, the Soviet chocolate factory-turned-gallery space, for the Cosmoscow modern...

'If Only I'd Known!' Makes Modern Art Easy

Museumgoers befuddled by Kazimir Malevich’s “Black Square,” rejoice: The Moscow Museum of Modern Art has come to the rescue in an interactive new...

Movie Festival Shows Brazil Beyond the Beach

Former football players reminiscing about their glory days, a shy copy-machine worker who falls in love with his neighbor, and a man combating the vestiges...

Student Art Fair Offers Russian, French Works

Moscow’s most talented art students will offer their work to the public at Artplay Design Center’s Student Art Fair this Dec. 18 and 19. Out of 1,000...

'The Victims Return' Looks at Life After the Gulag

In the 1950s, millions of people reappeared in Soviet society, like ghosts returned from the dead. They had been revolutionaries, scientists, petty criminals...

Meet the ‘Russian Arnold Schwarzenegger’

After 15 minutes of talking, Alexander Nevsky — aka “Mr. Universe” — is hungry. Really hungry. “Mind if we take a break?” he asks, his fork...

Tolstoy Tale Takes Literary Prize

Writer Pavel Basinsky has claimed the 2010 Big Book award for his work “Leo Tolstoy: Escape from Paradise.” Basinsky’s book traces Tolstoy’s life...

Memories of Soviet Emigres, Dissidents Go on Show

In an installation at the XL Gallery, Moscow conceptual artist Igor Makarevich returns to an intimate memory from his past — saying goodbye to his friends...

School Stages Music Marathon

International School of Moscow students will hold an all-day music marathon Friday in support of disadvantaged children. The event’s proceeds will go...

Turn-of-Century Russia in Color

In the “Russian Empire in Color” exhibition at the Photo Center, photographs by Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky reveal the churches, landscapes and inhabitants...

Remembering the Pain of Shtetl Life Under Siege

Meir Axelrod’s simple drawings, on display at Winzavod’s Proun Gallery, allow visitors to see a long lost way of life, of Jews in the Russian empire...

Singer Defends His Medvedev Meeting

Andrei Makarevich, lead singer of rock band Mashina Vremeni, has complained about “numerous distortions and inaccuracies” in the coverage of his and...

Shteyngart Aims at Collapsing U.S., Not Russia

Author Gary Shteyngart, who was in Moscow promoting his new book "A Super Sad True Love Story," is no stranger to mocking Russia’s foibles. The Russian-born...