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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

Mother loved pears that were within an inch of decaying, so that your fingers left indents and, when you bit into them, thick honeyed juice flowed out, summoning every wasp for miles around.

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

“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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