Yuri Chekalin

Yuri Chekalin09.11.2026

What makes someone a good person? Their intentions? Their actions? Their capacity to empathize with suffering? Or their desire to make the world a better place? At first glance, the answer seems obvious. Good people help others, wish no one harm, and try to follow their conscience. But open a novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky, and […]

Yuri Chekalin08.11.2026

The rain went on all week It didn’t come down in sheets. It hung in the air, blurring the signs and turning people into ghosts. I went to work and explained to managers the difference between the Present Perfect and the Past Simple. One describes something that’s over but still matters. The other describes something […]

Yuri Chekalin07.11.2026

“Flowers fade, and who can remain in this world forever? Today we cross the mountains of existence and will no longer be intoxicated by empty dreams.” — Iroha-uta (Heian period) The train was twenty minutes late. In Tokyo, that’s an event. The announcer apologized twice—once in Japanese, once in English—after which everyone on the platform […]

Yuri Chekalin03.11.2026

The CommentaTHOR celebrates a milestone as diplomat and political commentator Michael Demurin becomes its 100th author. One hundred authors. One hundred distinct voices. And one magazine bringing them together. The CommentaTHOR has reached a milestone worth celebrating: our community of contributors has grown to 100 authors. By the way, the 99th name added to our […]

Yuri Chekalin31.10.2026

Morita-san first appeared near Yoyogi Park in late April. He wore yellow pants, a green jacket, enormous red shoes, and a round nose that, for some reason, kept falling off. Apparently, the nose was the only part of his costume with a mind of its own. Morita would try to put it back on. The […]

Yuri Chekalin24.10.2026

Time moved differently here than in Shinjuku, where it raced along on roller skates, or in quiet Nakano, which always seemed to have been pressed flat with an iron. Ikebukuro was like the worn pocket of a fall coat, where you might find someone else’s fifty-yen coin, a movie ticket from five days ago, and […]

Yuri Chekalin23.10.2026

That November in Tokyo was unusually cold and rainy. Every morning I got up at six, made coffee in an old Italian moka pot, and watched the gray Tokyo sky grow lighter beyond the window of my rented apartment in Gotanda. My contract was ending in December. Soon I’d have to pack my things, say […]

Yuri Chekalin14.10.2026

That winter I turned fifty-four, and I’d just about stopped expecting anything to happen to me. It wasn’t despair. It was more like the way you stop hearing your refrigerator. It hums somewhere in the background. You know it’s humming, but after a while you no longer notice. I translated articles from Russian into English […]

Yuri Chekalin30.09.2026

Whenever I came home, Rei was waiting for me in the entryway. No one else was. I would barely have the key in the lock when I heard a short sound from the other side. “Meow.” Then I would open the door and find Rei sitting on the wooden floor about three feet from the […]

Yuri Chekalin25.09.2026

A smartphone battery drops to 5 percent, and suddenly the search for a charger feels urgent. You leave home without your phone and experience the peculiar sensation that something important is missing. A subway enters a dead zone, messages stop arriving, and you reach for the device anyway. For some people, these moments are merely […]

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Dostoevsky’s Paradoxes of Goodness

The Last Stop. Part Two.

The Last Stop. Part I

100 Authors, One Magazine

The Clown at Meiji Shrine

The Narrow Door

A Confession of Love

A Minor Breakdown

Tokyo of Solitude

Nomophobia And How to Help Yourself

Dostoevsky’s Paradoxes of Goodness

The Great Financial Reshuffle

The Last Stop. Part Two.

The Last Stop. Part I