I admit I go to great lengths to get my kids to see and learn about Russian culture, including letting them stay up late on a school night.

Yes, they stayed up a bit past bedtime last night to catch part of Dancing With The Stars. What's the connection to Russia? The professional dancers paired with the stars. Moscow-born Elena Grinenko is paired with former... more

I took my kids to see Meet The Robinsons a few days ago. My boys, who were both adopted from Russia, loved the movie. I was appalled. If I had known about the way adoption is treated in this new Disney film, I never would have taken them.

There's no way to write this post without spoiling some of the details of the film. So if you don't want to know, please click on something else.

Before I take my kids to see any movie, I read up on it. The plot... more

In my earlier post on Russian art and music around the United States in February, I mentioned a high-definition broadcast of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin from the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on Feb. 24. It's an interesting program and I thought it was worth a bit more ink (to use an antiquated term from my profession).

Between now and April 28, the Met will be streaming live Saturday matinee performances of six operas to theaters around the... more

Like many parents of children adopted from Russia, I do what I can to keep my kids connected with Russian culture. We read Russian folk tales and go to performances of groups like the Russian-American Kids’ Circus, which will be on Long Island this weekend and in Kutztown, Pa. on Feb. 11. It is good, old-fashioned circus fun.

So I thought it would be a good idea on this blog to scan the culture... more

If you have a Google Alert set up for the words "Russian adoption", chances are you've been getting a lot of items about a movie called The Italian. I'm not going to be seeing it, and I thought I'd take a minute to explain why.

It's not distance, though the closest theater now showing it is 14 miles and a stiff toll from my house. The Italian , or Italianetz as it was known when first released in 2005, is an art house movie and I do not live in an art cinema... more

There's a new film coming out called "The Italian," which was made by Andrei Kravchuk. It's been getting quite a bit of critical acclaim and I am very interested in seeing it...although since I'm living in the sticks I'll probably have to wait for Netflix to get it on video.

I've read quite a bit about this film, and although to me it sounds sad it's apparently not sentimental or maudlin and most people who've written about it say that it's a universal story and not as depressing as you'd expect.

Here's a bit about it from The Australian News:

Kravchuk describes it as... more

For Christmas I got my husband a bunch of DVDs. I got him season I and II (part I) of the new Battlestar Galactica (which is great, by the way), Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Batman Returns (are you seeing a pattern in his viewing?) and on a whim, I also got him Long Way Round, a reality mini series in cameras followed Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman as they rode motorcycles around the world.

The route they took went from London to Prague to Kazakhstan into Russia and out again, through Siberia and Mongolia and then on to Alaska and... more