Word: russian
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...were standing in the living room, and I looked at the shelves full of foreign editions of The Gulag Archipelago and at the writer with the biblical beard and piercing gaze and thought perhaps I should consider studying Russian...
...voices does not indulge writer's block, nor allow for vacations. It was a family affair. His wife Natalya, a gracious, fearless woman, made it her priority to ensure that he could work undisturbed. His sons helped too. There were letters to answer, writings to translate. Even a non-Russian-speaking guest could chip in. On a summer visit, I was dispatched to pick raspberries for dessert. We ate them with ice cream. The Solzhenitsyns spoke Russian at home, but they were good Vermonters; they kept Ben & Jerry's in the freezer...
...relatively spacious, and amenities like swimming pools are a nice touch. Despite the smog overhead, the trees and gardens spaced around the Village ensure a greener feel than in Athens. "In Greece, it was a dust storm," says Canadian boxer Adam Trupish. "You can tell China was prepared." Russian water-polo player Sofya Konukh raves about the TVs and easy Internet access in the Village. "I don't want to say anything bad about Sydney or Athens," she says. "But it's better here...
...time he was released in 1953, Solzhenitsyn's belief in communism was gone, but he had found a fervent Russian Orthodox faith and rediscovered his purpose as an author. At first he wrote for himself, but by 1962, when he was 42, the strain of remaining silent had grown unbearable, and the cultural climate had warmed enough that he was able to publish his novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, an account of an innocent man's experiences in a political prison camp, enduring brutal conditions without self-pity and taking solace from tiny pleasures, like...
Thus began a strange new life for Solzhenitsyn. With his wife and three sons he settled on a 50-acre compound in rural Vermont, where he preserved every aspect of Russian life that he could. Once a year he would commemorate the day of his arrest with a 'convict's day,' when he reverted to the diet of bread, broth and oats he ate in the labor camps. He rose early every day and wrote until dusk - producing, among other works, his novel-cycle The Red Wheel, a vast, Tolstoyan account of the Russian revolution that runs...