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Leaving Home: Russia

A blond-haired person holds a smartphone as a train rushes by in the Moscow metro.
Photo by Dekler Ph on Unsplash.

Photo by Dekler Ph on Unsplash.


Pears from Gudauty
By Ludmila Ulitskaya
We could hear the dry coughing of our landlord, Khuta Kursua, through the partition wall, and Mother’s eyes were wide with fear. I was ten, my own lesions had barely healed, and now we were neighbors…
Translated from Russian by Arch Tait
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from A Dream in Polar Fog
By Yuri Rytkheu
She moved quickly and purposefully, as though she were handling walrus flippers or deer legs, not human hands.
Translated from Russian by Ilona Yazhbin Chavasse
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The Bed
By Vladimir Vertlib
“All decent Jews go to America.”
Translated from German by David Burnett
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February 2007 Graphic Lit The Only True Guide To Russia Ilia Kitup Feature
The Only True Guide to Russia
By Ilia Kitup
“Sometimes I think I can reach the skies…and no sea would cover my bare knees!”
Translated from Russian by the author
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The Stone Guest
By Hamid Ismailov
“Salamalaykum, Uncle, your nephew sent me. Said you’d give me the cash.”
Translated from Uzbek by Shelley Fairweather-Vega
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Soul, you are a street
By Aleksey Porvin
Soul, you are a street, leading into rain / from the outskirts full of dry leaves
Translated from Russian by Peter Golub
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On the Moscow Metro and Being Gay
By Dmitry Kuzmin
As long as the image of the enemy is being concocted out of gays, I must make all my public statements exclusively as a gay man.
Translated from Russian by Alexei Bayer
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An Uncoincidence, a Noncoincidence
By Larissa Miller
Someone rushes to a house that’s been moved away.
Translated from Russian by Richard McKane
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