A summary of some of our earlier presentations. For the latest event news, refer to our main News page.
20th April 2017 - "Lara" ‘Lara’, the untold love story that inspired ‘Doctor Zhivago’  an illustrated talk to be presented by Nadia Ainsworth. A new time, and a new place: 18th May 2017 - Russian Art and the state
15th June - Dickens's Russia and Russia's Dickens.
21st September - Sochi then and now
 Sochi is situated on the shores of the Black Sea near the Caucasus Mountains, hosted the XXII Olympic Winter Games in 2014 as well as the Formula 1 Grand Prix. It will also be one of the host cities for 2018 FIFA World Cup.
By Sandra Hurst
19th October - V. Lenin, Petrograd, 1917 V. Lenin, Petrograd, 1917 2:00 pm, Thursday. 19th October. 16th November - Three Remarkable Women  Three more remarkable Russian women
2:00 pm, Thursday. 16th November 18th January 2018 - Memories of Berlin during the Cold War  Espionage, intelligence, the night the Wall collapsed, and more…
Ian presents his own personal memories of living in Berlin - the divided city. An illustrated talk by Ian Gronbach
2:00 pm, Thursday. 18th January
15th February - Stone Carvers of the Ural Mountains  This talk will cover the practice of Stone Carving from the early years to the present day. Samples of some of the various rocks and minerals will be on display. You will learn of one famous Stone Carver, and find out about museums where such ornaments can be seen.  An illustrated talk by Geoff Youd 2:00 pm, Thursday 15th February 15th March - Siberia and the Russian Far East Russia's land beyond the Urals is a land of superlatives - immensely large, unimaginably cold, full of natural resources and "eastern promise".An illustrated talk by Barbara von der Heyde
2:00 pm, Thursday 15th March 19th April - Russian Churches a talk on Russian churches, including their architecture and historical background, as observed on a river journey from St Petersburg to Moscow. An illustrated talk by Jessica Houdret.
2:00 pm, Thursday 19th April 17th May - Uzbekistan and the Silk Road Uzbekistan is known for its mosques, mausoleums and other sites linked to the Silk Road, the ancient trade route between China and the Mediterranean.
This presentation looks briefly at the country, its geography and history, the importance of various cities along the Silk Road and the people who live there today.
An illustrated talk by Sandra Hurst.
21st June - Hello Dnipro... life today in Ukraine  Situated between Russia and the west, Ukraine is today one of the most important countries in Europe but it's also one with the most problems. It is a country torn apart by two opposing ideologies, by corruption, poverty, political uncertainty and extremism. It has little foreign investment, a government that is almost bankrupt and it fights a never-ending war against forces backed by the largest country in the world.
 This talk will give a brief outline of the history of Ukraine and in particular about the people's revolution of 2013/14 and the changes since then and the country's relationship with Russia. During the last 18 months the speaker has lived and worked in Ukraine for more than 6 months as an English teacher and charity volunteer. He will discuss his own experiences of travelling around the country and meeting people, and will discuss what life is really like for ordinary Ukrainian people. An illustrated talk by Alan Taylor
2:00 pm, Thursday 21st June Oak Room, Downley Community Centre. (Map, and how to find us) 19th July - When Tolstoy came to London in 1861 - and what he didn't hear As part of his European tour the 32-year-old Russian aristocrat Count Leo Tolstoy visited London in March 1861.
In this illustrated talk, Dr Tony Williams will explore Tolstoy’s reactions to and impressions of the metropolis in the nineteenth century. 
20th September 2018 - Who Lost Russia?  an illustrated talk by Nadia Ainsworth. 2:00 pm, Thursday 20th September 18th October - Three Remarkable Russian Women   Anna Dostoevskaya, Marie Bashkirtseff and Elizaveta Kuzmina-Karavaeva ...
an illustrated talk by Ruth Sobel. Also, Autumn Book Swap - Bring your unwanted books - Russian, German, English etc, and pick up a few gems for yourself. 2:00 pm, Thursday 18th October
15th November 2018 - Impressions of Russia Today an illustrated talk by Sandra Hurst. Also, Autumn Book Swap - Bring your unwanted books - Russian, German, English etc, and pick up a few gems for yourself. 2:00 pm, Thursday 15th November 17th January 2019 - Russian cinema and Andrei Tarkovsky
2:00 pm, Thursday 17th January 21st February 2019 - Part 2 - Russian cinema and Andrei Tarkovsky  2:00 pm, Thursday 21st February 21st March 2019 - News from Russia  2:00 pm, Thursday 21st March  16th May 2019 - Summer Palaces of the Tsars  The Summer Palaces of the Tsars : opulence and extravagance in the House of Romanov. an illustrated talk by Sandra Hurst.
2:00 pm, Thursday 16th May 2019
Oak Room, Downley Community Centre. (Map, and how to find us) 20th June - The Lykovs: lost to the modern world  Old Believers are members of a conservative and rebellious group within the Russian Orthodox church. They trace their origins back to a revolt over religious reforms made by Patriarch Nikon in the mid 1600s.
 2:00 pm, Thursday 20th June 2019 Oak Room, Downley Community Centre. (Map, and how to find us) 19th September - Imperial Images: Photography in Victorian London and Pre-Revolutionary Russia  ‘Photography is a young art, but from its present aspect we can judge what power it will have in its maturity’ (Household Words 9 March, 1853).
In this illustrated talk Past President of The International Dickens Fellowship, Dr Tony Williams will explore the way this new nineteenth-century art form enables us to make contact with a now vanished world from our vantage point onward in time.
2:00 pm, Thursday 19th September 2019
Oak Room, Downley Community Centre. (Map, and how to find us) 17th October - Music, Mahler and Russia  The talk is illustrated by video recordings. a presentation by Catherine Alderson See also The Gustav Mahler Society UK
2:00 pm, Thursday 17th October 2019
Oak Room, Downley Community Centre. (Map, and how to find us) 21st November 2019 - Three Remarkable Women
 Maria Bochkareva - a soldier during WWI and then organised a women's battalion, Larisa Reissner - took part in the civil war on the side of the Reds, Sofia Nosovich - emigrated to France, and was in the French Resistance. An illustrated talk by Dr Ruth Sobel 2:00 pm, Thursday. 21st November 2019 16th January 2020 - My Cossack Family and other Remarkable People  Caroline Walton talks about her new book, which describes her personal experiences, the people she has met and the Ukrainian-Russian family she married into. She has discovered in them a spiritual strength that has enabled survival of famine, war and nuclear disaster. The talk will include discussion. Caroline Walton is the author of several books on Russia and the former USSR, including The Besieged (about the siege of Leningrad). A Russian to English literary translator and editor, she helps Russian-language authors achieve publication in English (see Sirinbooks.com). Her new book My Cossack Family - And Other Remarkable People in Russia and Ukraine has recently been published and will be available to look at in the meeting.2:00 pm, Thursday. 16th January 2020 Oak Room, Downley Community Centre. (Map, and how to find us) 20th February 2020 - The story behind Beef Stroganov  The Stroganov family were wealthy and important traders throughout the history of modern Russia. They were instrumental in opening up the rich and valuable land of Siberia for the Tsars. This is the story of their own growth and achievements - with a look at some larger than life characters, and their whims and fancies.
An illustrated talk by Sandra Hurst.
8th April 2021 - Red Rollercoaster:
The Highs and Lows of the Russian Manned Space Programme  On 12 April it will be 60 years since Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to go into Space. The Soviet Union achieved a number of other "firsts" in the Space Race. But not everything went as planned ...
Presented by Stephen Dalziel.
Stephen graduated in Russian Studies at the University of Leeds. From 1988-2004, he was Russian Affairs Analyst at the BBC World Service, reporting on and from the USSR and Russia on the collapse of the Soviet Union, the chaotic ‘nineties and the coming to power of Vladimir Putin. More recently, Stephen has worked as a guide at the Science Museum's big Gagarin exhibition in April 2011.
20th May 2021 - A curiosity called Belarus?
Belarus is a little understood Slavic state, at times overshadowed by its much larger neighbour Russia, but with a discrete history and culture of its own.
The talk finishes with a short pictorial quiz illuminating the impact that Belarus has had on the modern world. Matthew has travelled all over Belarus and will give a personal account of this curious and little understood country. Matthew was 27 years a Royal Marine, of which a busy 18 months were spent as an arms control inspector, visiting the Russian-speaking countries of the East and escorting inbound inspections to Ministry of Defence bases in the United Kingdom and Germany. 10th June 2021 - Pretenders to the Russian throne
 Between the 17th and early 20th centuries about 100 pretenders to the throne ‘samozvantsy’ appeared from time to time in Russia claiming to be tsars. The most famous was the False Dimitri in the time of troubles (smuta) but there were others as well. Ruth will tell us about some of them and the phenomenon of ‘pretenders’.An illustrated talk by Dr Ruth Sobel |
In 1917 the climate of dissatisfaction in Petrograd — its name was changed from Saint Petersburg in 1914 — became too much for its people to bear. Disputes and conflicts between the city’s civilians, its police and its military culminated in the October Revolution bringing the Bolsheviks to power with V. Lenin as their leader.