u/SemisolidOzmo

I loved this quote from Pushkin today, so thought I would share with you all.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time in Moscow, but haven’t yet made the journey to St Petersburg. My wife says it’s incredible there, and seeing all the wonderful images here I have to agree!

When I finally make the trip, is there anything a visitor has to see? (outside of the obvious and essential Hermitage of course)

Have a great Friday all!

Hi all,

A while back I shared Dead Souls Daily here, an app that gives you one quote a day from Russian literature, in the app or as a widget on your phone, and you had some amazing feedback. (Thank you all so much for that!)

I'm currently putting together the quotes for January to March, and I'd like to make sure I'm not missing anything special, as I appreciate Russian literature is such a wide topic. I have 26 writers in the collection so far. The biggest 19th-century names are well covered (Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Pushkin, Gogol, Lermontov), with a little Leskov and Goncharov. I have some poetry too (Akhmatova, Tyutchev, Blok, Tsvetaeva, Pasternak, Nekrasov, Fet, Yesenin, Sologub, Bergholz), but maybe less than it deserves, as it can be tricky to translate. Then there's a little 20th-century prose (Bunin, Bulgakov, Gorky, Kuprin, Zamyatin), and the odd wildcard for special theme days, like Tchaikovsky and Tsiolkovsky.

So, am I missing anyone you would highly recommend I check out? I'd especially love writers who deserve to be better known in English, and particular lines and passages you love. If you remember which book a line comes from, even better, as it will help with sourcing the original Russian.

Any hints and pointers from people that love all things Russian Literature will be gratefully received.

The app is at deadsoulsdaily.com if you haven't seen it.

"All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow."

This is a wonderful Barnes and Noble edition of Anna Karenina I bought for my wife. I love the look and feel of it, real quality. I will definitely add more of these Leatherbound Classics prints to the collection.

I took these on my last visit to Moscow, back in 2021, this is the Library room at restaurant Cafe Pushkin. It is my absolute favourite, the food is incredible. They have over 3,000 authentic period books on the shelves. The atmosphere there is fantastic, it’s incredibly easy to imagine yourself as a 19th-century gentleman, trying to find a great book to read.

It’s interesting to think about Pushkin and his legacy. He doesn't get anywhere near the same attention here in the UK as other Russian greats, but seeing how deeply he is respected in Russia is fantastic. I was surprised when I saw he has his own square! I can’t wait to go back there again one day.

Why do you think he’s not so well known, or widely read, outside of Russia? It feels like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are the default for most of us.

Hi all, I just wanted to share some exciting news with you all. When I first shared my daily quotes app you made two main suggestions. The first was releasing it on Android (which we did last month 🥳), the second was getting the quotes in their original Russian. I’ve finally done this, across both iOS and Android, along with a more precise source. This means you can now see the exact Cyrillic quote and the chapter a quote comes from. There’s been a lot of manual validation, and I leant on my wife a bit to help there, but it was definitely the right call, and has massively improved the app quality.

One more thing I added is the option to show your favourite quotes either in addition to, or instead of, the main daily quotes, just in case you have specific favourites that inspire you.

If anyone does give it a go, let me know how you get on! As always, all suggestions or comments are more than welcome. I will share the link below.

I’m not sure how many fans of classic literature we have here, but I know you all know your widgets and wanted to share mine. This is from Dead Souls Daily, an app I created that shares a daily quote from classic Russian literature.

I just released an update on the App Store today with improved widgets, so thought I’d ask for any opinions and feedback on the layout and typography.

What do you all think?

App Store link:
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/dead-souls-daily/id6762573929

One player has started with “raise” 192 times so far, a classic Wordle opener, but since Tripix gives you the theme first, it’s not so successful here!

Does anyone here have a favourite word to kick off their games?

My game (Tripix) has been running since April now, and today I pulled some data to see which words people guess first. I thought it was interesting and worth a share with you all.

It turns out “Water” has been the most widely used starting point, followed by “Cloud”. I really thought “audio” or “adieu” were going to be up there! The top individual word is “Raise”, but that’s just from one player who started with it over 180 times.

The game is slightly different to Wordle, as there is a theme, meaning people usually try something different (as you can see. 3,047 different words have been used so far), but I’m curious what words you all use in your daily word games, do you have a favourite word? Please do share!

Hi all, a few weeks back I shared my new Russian Literature inspired app, Dead Souls Daily. I had some great feedback from you all (thank you!). It was iOS only at the time and a few of you were looking for an Android version, it has taken me a lot longer than I originally expected, but it’s finally here!

If anyone is interested then please have a look at the website for more information and to download:
https://deadsoulsdaily.com

Any feedback or comments much appreciated!

I found this on my book shelf at home recently. It’s a 1952 Goslitizdat edition of Gogol’s Dead Souls that my wife brought to the UK when she moved from Russia several years ago. I have been looking through it in wonder, imagining the people who bought and read this originally, all those years ago.

It contained this small paper bookmark, saving the page at the famous Troika passage. I thought I would share this with you all, as I know many here will appreciate seeing this. It’s amazing how old books can really get your mind going, imagining a world gone by.

As one of my wife’s favourite books, it actually inspired an app I created for her called Dead Souls Daily, which provides a quote from the Russian Classics every day. I like to think whoever picked this book up back in the 1950s would have been amazed, and approved!

Any thoughts on your favourite classic books, or nice old editions which inspire you, are more than welcome!

Hi all,

I wanted to share something with you that I’m hoping you just might enjoy.

A few years ago my wife moved away from Moscow, and one of the things she misses most is being surrounded by Russian culture and literature. This led to a small personal project for her, which has gradually evolved into an app called Dead Souls Daily.

The idea is simple: a daily quote from Russian literature, delivered through the app itself or directly to your home and lock screens via widgets.

What I thought would be a straightforward project ended up becoming surprisingly complex. Authenticating quotations was often more difficult than building the software. The same quote would appear attributed to different authors, translations varied significantly, and occasionally the same phrase would appear in multiple works. I spent a great deal of time comparing editions, translations, and sources in an effort to make the collection as reliable as possible.

The app is free to use, contains no advertising, and includes quotes from many of the major Russian literary classics. There are also themed selections for particular days and occasions, which has become one of my favourite aspects of the project.

The iOS version is already live, and the Android version should be released in about four days once testing is complete. If anyone here would be interested in joining the Android test group, I’d be very grateful.

I suspect this subreddit contains exactly the people who will notice mistakes, challenge attributions, suggest better translations, and generally tell me what works and what doesn’t. That’s precisely the sort of feedback I’m looking for.

If you’d like to take a look, I’d genuinely welcome any feedback; positive, critical, or otherwise.

For more information:
https://deadsoulsdaily.com