Education
Born in Riga 1949, he studied at the Moscow Polygraphic Institute.
Born in Riga 1949, he studied at the Moscow Polygraphic Institute.
He moved to the United States in 1977, joining the station in the mid-1980s. He moved to the Prague headquarters in 1995. In 1995, he reported from Chechnya.
Vail"s best-known books include Genii mesta (The Genius of Place) and Stikhi pro menya (Poems About Maine).
He produced several books with Alexander Genis, including Russkaya kukhnya v izgnanii (Russian Cuisine in Exile) and 60-est Mir sovetskogo cheloveka (The "60s The World of Soviet People).
He co-edited Iosif Brodsky: trudy i dni (Joseph Brodsky: Works and Days), about Nobel Prize-winning poet Joseph Brodsky, with Lev Losev. He died in a Prague hospital.