Gridskipper

The next installment in the popular Grand Theft Auto video game series comes out on April 29th, 2008. This fourth edition of the controversial crime game deals with a Russian mobster running amok in Liberty City, a fictional stand-in for New York. Photos of a Liberty City map were leaked on Kotaku this morning and to help whet your appetite for spreading murder and mayhem through this virtual cityscape, I've mapped some GTA IV locations onto their New York inspirations.

Ivan kommt! These two words terrified the population of Berlin in the Spring of 1945, but this weekend they can be spoken in a more relaxed tone. This Friday, November 30, marks the beginning of the city's third annual Russian Filmweek. Entitled "Of Women, Drug Barons, and Gamblers ala Gogol," the festival showcases nine contemporary filmmakers whose works explore Russia and her people, past and present. The selected films, all current releases, will be enjoying their German premieres and will be screened in the original Russian versions along with German subtitles. So ring up Ivan, pack your makarov, slip the vodka from the freezer, and make for the movie house.

Brighton Beach, dubbed Little Odessa, has long been the home to Brooklyn's Russian enclave and associated wiseguys. The seaside neighborhood right on Coney Island brims with Russian, Ukrainian, and Georgian restaurants and nightclubs and has over 350,000 residents, mostly Russian and Ukrainian. Almost like Manhattan's Chinatown in the way it seems to transport you to a foreign city, the area has become a place for curious Westerners to eat borscht and caviar, watch elaborate live shows, and drink more vodka than they can handle.

Late at night, as we toss and turn sleeplessly on account of the latest Elevated Threat Alert, we find ourselves kind of missing the Cold War. The comfort of knowing that nuclear devastation was just around the corner, and that we would soon be wiped out by the Red hordes along with our friends, family, and everything we had ever touched or influenced or loved — we never knew how good we had it, did we? None of this "maybe there'll be a terrorist attack tomorrow and maybe there won't be" nonsense. Just a good solid enemy that we could see and threaten to nuke. Anyway, West Hollywood has one of America's largest Russian expat populations, and in addition to their subversive Communist ideology, they've built up a culture of insane rave parties, tasty deli snacks, and warm soups. You say Mutually Assured Destruction, we say Mutually Appreciated Nostalgia. More »

Russians are hardly Berlin's most loved immigrants. Their history precedes them: the failure of the Nazi-Soviet pact, the grim end days of the war, and the rape of thousands of German women by "Ivans" or Soviet soldiers, and then the long Cold War, when Uncle Joe and his successors loomed over the DDR, fingers poised over the button. The city is littered with memorials to the Russian lives lost in the street-by-street fighting which eventually broke the German Army, and some buildings still have bullet holes to show for it. There's been a fresh wave of Russian arrivals since the Wall fell, but it's nothing like London's "Moscow on the Thames." Nevertheless, there are plenty of places where you can eat, drink, and be merry Russian-style — which, after a visit to some of the heavyweight historical sights, you'll probably need to do.