Clear out your TiVos: There's a program on Russian culture to record tomorrow night.

On Wednesday, August 29 at 9 p.m. eastern, the PBS series "Great Performances" will air a documentary on the early years of the great Soviet ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev. Using archival footage and KGB files, John Bridcut, the film's writer and producer has come up with a portrait of the dancer prior to his defection to the West in Paris in 1961. Nureyev's dancing gave new importance to the roles of male dancers in classical ballet, and his off-stage socializing with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Andy Warhol paved the way for dancers... more

When you travel to Russia on your adoption journeys, chances are good you'll be seeing a lot of in-flight movies. Particularly if you travel to the Russian Far East, as I did twice in 2005.

Now I realize that in-flight entertainment is rarely the best indication of a movie maker's cinematic prowess. Forgoing the standard G, PG-13, etc. ratings system, a dear friend of mine rates movies this way: Big Screen, Small Screen, Airplane and Airplane No Sound. And most of the movies I saw on my trips to Sakhalin definitely fell into the latter category. So it... more

I needed a break from a tech magazine story I was writing tonight and my channel surfing landed me on a great program about Russia that I hadn't seen in a long time.

The History Channel's affiliate, History International, is re-running its excellent 2003 series Russia: Land of the Tsars. It traces the history of Russian rulers from Prince Vladimir through the last of the Romanovs. If you have... more

Anna Karenina could have a lot in common with Ocean's 13, I've decided. The latter movie, which opens this coming week, has a cast that is packed with the cream of Hollywood's younger generation cream: Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, George Clooney, Casey Affleck and Scott Caan. There could be roles for more than a few of these guys in our fictional casting of new movie version of Anna Karenina. (For anyone who's late to this series, I've already thrown out ideas for a new Anna... more

There's a lot of Chekhov on the program in June.

In Los Angeles, you can see his 1904 drama "The Cherry Orchard" at the Evidence Room Theatre Project, where it is playing through July 2. Chekhov's story line, of a family that is losing its wealth and its home, seems likely to have a lot of resonance for the Evidence Room cast: It is being forced by a lease dispute to move from its theater when the production closes.

Down near San Diego in Solana Beach, Calif. four directors are staging four... more

OK, we've played amateur directors to cast the lead of a new movie version of Anna Karenina. Now comes the hard part: Vronsky.

Why so hard, you ask? Hollywood must be brimming with young men who could fill the role of the dashing young army officer and Don Juan.

Maybe it's just me (as I've said, I don’t get out to see many movies that are not G-rated) but I don’t see a lot of choices. Remember, my starting point for Anna, in the initial... more

According to the Internet movie database IMDB.com, there hasn't been a filmed version of Anna Karenina since 1997. So I think those of us who are reading Tolstoy's opus to pass the time until re-accreditation (or just because it's a great book) should turn our thoughts to casting a new version.

First up today: Anna.

In the movie that came out a decade ago, which had a largely British cast, Anna was played by Sophie Marceau, a French... more

I found the mother lode of information on Russia last night.

It's called "Sher's Russian Index", and it is a portal to all things Russian--art, culture, sports, science, language and much, much more. Well, there's not a section on adoption, but I can forgive its creator that because of all the other material that's here.

A word on the site's creator. He is one Benjamin Sher, and after a bit of sleuthing, I learned that he is a Russian translator by profession. His main Web site contains... more

If you live in or near Washington, D.C., then you get to enjoy the first event on this month's calendar of Russian art, music and dance in America. Tonight at 6 p.m., the Kennedy Center will host "TransAtlantic Duo". Alexander Paperny plays the balalaika and Vladimir Fridman contributes guitar and vocals to a program that promises Bach, klezmer, jazz and traditional Russian music.

If you attend Vassar College or know someone who does, you have a crack at... more

In the arts and cultural events calendar that I put up at the beginning of the month, I noted that there was going to be a big sale of Russian art at Christie's in New York mid-month. Well, if one picture is worth a thousand words, then the results of this sale--and a similar sale at Sotheby's--say more about the state of Russia's economic development than several hundred copies of Anna... more