Well, maybe this is matt admitting that his book is a work of fiction

The Grilled Door: Tales from Seven Years in the Raion Your Friends and Neighbours

What has it been like living in the same Moscow building, with the same cast of characters, for the past seven years, as Moscow, and Russia, has changed course? kotelnaya.substack.com/p/the-grille...

The Grilled Door: Tales from Seven Years in the Raion Your Friends and Neighbours

Tales from seven years in one Moscow building -- be friends with your neighbours, as my late neighbour Dmitriy Ivanovich, whose grandfather was denounced by a neighbour, told me kotelnaya.substack.com/p/the-grille...

Weird things happening with Moscow mobile internet. While its down in parts of the centre, a few apps which have needed VPNs for months -- WhatsApp, Instagram, Signal -- are now working for me on mobile data without a VPN.

Sheila Fitzpatrick really is the best in the business www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

It would be a macabre story but relegation needs to happen for Tottenham | Jonathan Liew All the managers since Mauricio Pochettino have drained life from the club, which appears interested in anything but football right now

There's so much football writing out there these days, and, unlike the halcyon days of peak football twitter between 2008 and 2012, most of it isn't worth reading. But, every now and then, great storylines bring out the best in the great football writers

Хотя снег еще лежит и для прогулок все еще нужны ботинки, есть, наконец то, признаки того, что в Москву приходит весна. Воздух пахнет иначе, светит солнце, и на деревьях в моем дворе появились первые почки.

It is surreal that we are still locked in the never-ending debate over whether military intervention on behalf of democracy and human rights is good, when the current administration has been extremely explicit they are not intervening on behalf of democracy and human rights

Iran, by the way, are supposed to be playing New Zealand in California in their opening World Cup game in just over 15 weeks time.

There is still an Ural Airlines flight from Yekaterinburg to Dubai flying over Iran. Most flights I've taken to Dubai, whether from Moscow, Istanbul or the UK have flown over Iran. No more, I guess.

The Babies Kept in a Mysterious Los Angeles Mansion A wealthy couple obtained dozens of children through surrogates. Did they want a family, or something else?

Took me a while to get round to reading this but what a story. The New Yorker at its best www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

A war foretold: how the CIA and MI6 got hold of Putin’s Ukraine plans and why nobody believed them Drawing on more than 100 interviews with senior intelligence officials and other insiders in multiple countries, this exclusive account details how the US and Britain uncovered Vladimir Putin’s plans ...

Some interesting reporting absolutely and needlessly destroyed by the Guardian's art department www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...

In all my years here, I can't remember such sustained snowfall in Moscow over a 2-3 week period. It's been snowing for about 4 days straight now and a couple of weeks ago we had 5 continuous days of snowfall. I remember heavy snowfall, especially in 2017, but never so prolonged.

Btw, interested into what you thought I meant? Maybe that can inspire another article....

Even more reason for me to add a clarification!

I know, I realised that after. I sometimes forget that not everybody is aware of things I take for granted. But yes, the French, Spanish, Italian, German, Nordic correspondents are still here. I will add a line now.

Kotelnaya Weekly - 18 February 2026 This week: Khrushchev's Thaw on screen, a disaster for Russia-focussed journalism and how Viktor Tsoi and Kino taught me Russian

Kotelnaya Weekly, with some thoughts about why that New York Times Russia correspondent job speaks to a wider disaster for the future of Russia coverage in the Anglosphere -- the rest of the West's journalists are largely still here, btw kotelnaya.substack.com/p/kotelnaya-...

Ferocious blizzards for the lat 12 hours in Moscow. It's brutal out there. My walk to Krasnoe Beloe just now was like a full polar expedition.

Kotelnaya Weekly - 18 February 2026 This week: Khrushchev's Thaw on screen, a disaster for Russia-focussed journalism and how Viktor Tsoi and Kino taught me Russian

The second instalment of Kotelnaya Weekly, on the film of the Thaw era, what I think is a disaster for Russian journalism, how Viktor Tsoi and Kino taught me Russian and reflections on the Tsoi exhibition in St P.
kotelnaya.substack.com/p/kotelnaya-...

Kotelnaya Weekly - 18 February 2026 This week: Khrushchev's Thaw on screen, a disaster for Russia-focussed journalism and how Viktor Tsoi and Kino taught me Russian

The second instalment of Kotelnaya Weekly, on the film of the Thaw era, what I think is a disaster for Russian journalism, how Viktor Tsoi and Kino taught me Russian and reflections on the Tsoi exhibition in St P.
kotelnaya.substack.com/p/kotelnaya-...

Gol Şarkısı Galatasaray / Goal Song (I Will Survive) YouTube video by Hermes House Band - Topic

Non Moscow post, sorry, but what a win for my one-time local team Galatasaray. I remember a few special Champions League nights there. What a place. www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2k0...

European alternatives to Visa and Mastercard ‘urgently’ needed, says banking chief US payment processing companies account for about two-thirds of card transactions in Eurozone

It's quite something to see EU bankers begin to say the same sorts of things about Visa and Mastercard and payment processing that Russian bankers were saying from about 2010 onwards www.ft.com/content/fcc2...

Kotelnaya Weekly - 6 February 2026 Masala, retrofitted beerhalls, Adam Tooze, the Russian and Turkish languages

Last week in Moscow - Indian restaurants, the Turkish and Russian languages and their approach to ethnicity, Cubans clearing snow in Krasnogorsk kotelnaya.substack.com/p/kotelnaya-...

My monthly trip to Falanster to pick up Russian journals followed by a walk to Clovelly, a pub in Moscow made up completely of antique furniture from a village in Cornwall

Kotelnaya Weekly - 6 February 2026 Masala, retrofitted beerhalls, Adam Tooze, the Russian and Turkish languages

The first Kotelnaya Weekly, a collection of things from around Moscow and the internet that I found interesting in the last 7 days. This week: masala, a beerhall, Adam Tooze's Chinese 1989 and ethnicity in the Turkish and Russian languages kotelnaya.substack.com/p/kotelnaya-...

I have no idea what the word "Exclusive" means in journalism anymore. In what way are these articles on the FT exclusives? They're summaries of emails the whole world has access to. What is exclusive about reading publicly-available emails and writing a story about them?

I wonder how this can possibly classed as an "exclusive" when it's just quoting emails that are available to every person with an internet connection?

It might sound strange, at minus 13, but there's a hint of spring in Moscow today. The sun is shining, so much so that I've had to open the windows in my flat because it's too warm, birds are chirping and the ice is melting. We're creeping steadily towards zero from next week.

Wow, Industry season 4 is terrible, just designed to shock. It's popularity, and the more money HBO spend on it and its promotion, is inverse to quality. The first season was great, but nobody watched it so HBO made sure the second season was previewed everywhere and it became a hit.

Some of my friends sit around every evening and they worry about the times ahead, but everybody else is overwhelmed by indifference and the promise of an early bed — Elvis Costello in 1980 perfectly describing Moscow in 2026