Past Events
Power and Faith in Russia
Cheltenham Literature Festival 2025
The British Academy Book Prize shortlist features powerful non-fiction that deepens our understandings of people and cultures across the world.
Ahead of the winner announcement, prize judge and former BBC Foreign Correspondent Bridget Kendall is joined by Lucy Ash, author of shortlisted title The Baton and the Cross, to discuss the complex ties between religion and politics that have formed Russia, how faith is used today to shape national identity and justify conflict, and how the Russian Orthodox Church became a vital force in Putin's existential war against Ukraine.
Friday 10th October 2025
12.30pm
Lucy Ash, The Baton and the Cross: Russia's Church from Pagans to Putin
Wigtown Book Festival
The former Moscow correspondent discusses her Orwell Prize-winning exploration of Russia's Orthodox church from pagan times to the age of Putin.
Lucy Ash is in conversation with Jen Stout.
"Spellbinding", Andrei Kurkov.
Friday 3rd October 2025
12pm
Culture or Collusion? The Kremlin’s Weaponisation of Art, Faith, and Influence
Parliamentary event
The Russian Orthodox Church as Geopolitical Actor with Professor Sr. Vassa Larin, Steven Lacey, and Lucy Ash. Church networks, propaganda, and community impacts.
Thursday 11th September 2025
2pm
The Palace of Westminster
Pushkin House Book Prize 2025 Award Ceremony
The evening will include illuminating discussions with the shortlisted authors – including Lucy – and distinguished judges, a stand-up performance by Vladimir Raevskiy, a speech by Ekaterina Schulmann, and a reception-style dinner presented by Zima.
This year’s ceremony will be held at The Foundling Museum in Bloomsbury, London from 6:30pm to 10pm. It will be hosted by Andrew Jack, founder of the Prize, and Elena Sudakova, Executive Director of Pushkin House.
Thursday 19th June 2025 6:30—10.00pm
Pushkin House
Christian Non-Conformism in East & West: Modern-Day Challenges
Join us at KRUG Community Circle for thought-provoking discussions on the challenges faced by Christians in both Eastern and Western society.
In the Russian Church’s world of an almost schizophrenic amorality, Lucy Ash reflects on the new truth tellers, the men and women acting as prophetic voices against abuses of power.
21st March 2025, 5.30pm
KRUG Community Circle
The Baton and The Cross: Russia's Church and its Embrace of State Power
Using interviews gathered across the country and evidence from the archives, Ash has assembled a compelling picture of an institution with a distinct line of politics. She tracks its engagement with the KGB, the FSB, and Russia’s current incursions into Africa, showing how the Church has long been part of the Kremlin's geopolitical ‘crusade’ for multipolarity. In conversation with Denis Maksimov, Ash will uncover some surprising tenets of Russia's ‘official' spirituality.
13th February 2025, 6.00pm to 7.30pm
Pushkin House
The Orthodox battlefield
The role and abuse of the church in Russia’s war on Ukraine, and the state of freedom of faith in Ukraine.
29th January 2025, 2:30pm to 4:00pm
Chatham House
Power and The Russian Orthodox Church with Lucy Ash
Join us for a captivating interview with award-winning journliast, Lucy Ash, as she delves into the powerful role of the Russian Orthodox Church in modern-day politics and its influence under Vladimir Putin.
7:00pm, Tuesday 3rd of December 2024, The Hearth
Trouble
Charity and War: The Russian Orthodox Church in Britain
Wednesday 11th December 2024, 5–6pm
House of Commons
Women’s Day: Screening and Q&A with Dolya Gavanski and Lucy Ash
Pushkin House is proud to present WOMEN’S DAY, a documentary film by Dolya Gavanski that includes personal testimonies by extraordinary women born in the Soviet Union.
After the screening, Dolya Gavanski will be in conversation with journalist Lucy Ash.
Monday 28 June 2021 7:00 pm
Sunday 4 July 2021 11:00 pm
Pushkin House
Making The Women Of The Gulag
Join us for an evening with filmmaker Marianna Yarovskaya director of ground breaking documentary film Women of the Gulag, that tells the compelling and tragic stories of the female last survivors of the Gulag, the brutal system of repression and terror that devastated the Soviet population under Stalin. In conversation with Lucy Ash.
Wednesday, 24 April 2019
7:00 pm–8:30 pm
Pushkin House
The Long Hangover: Shaun Walker in Conversation With Lucy Ash
The outgoing Moscow correspondent for the Guardian, Shaun Walker, in conversation with BBC journalist Lucy Ash about his new book, 'The Long Hangover: Putin's New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past'.
Thursday, 1 March 2018
7:00 pm–8:30 pm
Pushkin House
The War in Ukraine: Why It Matters to the World
The webinar with Serhy Yekelchyk explores Ukraine’s complicated history of ethnic and civic identity, its fraught relations with its former imperial master, Russia, and will situate the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine in the wider international political context.