Pushkin’s classic has been claimed by different generations. Is the latest screen ONEGIN anything more than a sterile extravaganza designed to glorify Russia’s Imperial past? Alexander Pushkin’s verse novel `Evgeny Onegin`is the best-known work of Russia’s national poet and upheld as a pinnacle of Russian literature. Alexander Seergevich, an aristocrat with some African heritage, harboured ..read more

A cinema adaptation of a once banned novel, directed by an opponent of the war and starring some non-Russian players has become a box office winner in Russia. Russia Beyond have dubbed Mikhail Bulgakov’s most famous work, Master and Margarita `one of the favourite novels of all Russians`. This accolade holds in spite of the ..read more

THIS BOLD NEW OCCULT THRILLER IS THE FLAGSHIP FOR A NEW GENERATION OF KAZAKH FILMS – AND THE LOCAL PUNTERS ARE TAKING NOTICE! With Tatraria Films comes an 18+ certificated `mystical drama thriller` called Dastur, which is Kazakh for Tradition Throughout its 90 minutes we get a kind of Revenge Tragedy (the film’s tagline is ..read more

Is the screen Chiller CLAUSTRO (VZYAPERTI) the first neo-Gothic Sovietcore film? The arrival of this film last September was heralded by elaborate installations about it in select cinemas – a rare promotional effort on behalf of such a low budget affair. Had it not been for that, I would not have been one of the ..read more

Saint Petersburg’s Veteran rockers tour Central Asia with their brand of Russified Metalcore. I am perched in the darkness in my coat on the metal stairs which lead to an upper level. I sip now and again from a Budweiser which had taken me an age to get. Ahead of me, obscured in part by ..read more

On a street in Almaty there is a brass statue of Viktor Tsoi. Here’s why. You stroll along the wide street called Abay Avenue which leads towards the Abay monument (dedicated to the poet, composer and reformer Abai Qunanbaiuly). You have a different poet and composer in mind, however, and just before you reach the ..read more

The film DETECTOR is a state of the art psychothriller that offers some cold comfort in its cloistered outlook. The 47-year-old Kostas Marsaan, hailing from a village in the far North East of Russia, Yakutia, made a name for himself with his folk horror film Ichchi from two years back and has since become identified ..read more

THIS APOCALYPSE YARN, FILMED ON LOCATION IN RUSSIA’S FAR EAST, IMPRESSES WITH ITS BANGS AND WHIZZES – BUT WHERE’S THE SUBSTANCE? Last December, an ambitious extravaganza, part disaster movie and part science fiction epic, reached Russian screens in time for the winter holidays. (I would have to wait another three months for it to get ..read more

A raw Kyrgyz gangster-movie-with-a-heart makes waves in Kazakstahn thanks to a Russian translation. Police and thieves on the street Oh, yeah Scaring the nation with their Guns and ammunition. Junior Murvin (song) To date the only modern cultural association that I could make with Kyrgyzstan was the charming pop band Gorod 312. I doubt that ..read more

MY NEW YEAR’S MESSAGE AND HOPE FOR A POLITICAL SETTLEMENT FOR THE RUSSIO-UKRAINIAN WAR IN THE YEAR OF THE RABBIT. …..`So why is there a war at all? ` asks Tjaden. Kat shrugs. `There must be some people who find the war worthwhile.’ `Well, I’m not one of them`, grins Tjaden. `No, and nor is ..read more