tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70449659820872075972024-02-07T22:50:19.164+03:00A Year in Moscowayearinmoscowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10248377703774763764noreply@blogger.comBlogger38125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7044965982087207597.post-17613642268829398762012-07-04T11:38:00.000+04:002012-07-04T11:42:33.616+04:00Russian happiness?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Happy endings are not popular here, as a cursory acquaintance with Russian literature will tell you. Seriously, try it - any Russian novel. No one yet has been able to name me a single book with a happy ending in the "normal" style - boy marries girl/kills dragon/makes fortune/saves world, with the important proviso that <i>no main goody ends up dead</i>. If you are ever kidnapped and forced at gunpoint to predict the plot of Russian films you might want to use the following plot-prediction method: What is the ultimate nightmarish scenario for these people? Is there a couple? - one of them will end up married to someone else and the other one will die. Is there anyone around who could possibly commit suicide? - they will. <br />
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Maybe that was a slight exaggeration (but only a slight one). But seriously, I don't think the term "happy ending" exists here. In conversation Russians seem to use the English phrase (and in a slightly scornful tone). As you can imagine, this causes havoc in Disney films. In Beauty and the Beast, for example, instead of the boy-who-used-to-be-a-tea-cup asking if Belle and the Beast will live "happily ever after", he asks if they will live "happily for a long time", which isn't at all the same thing. Since he appears to be about three, a "long time" could be six months before they are both guillotined in the revolution.<br />
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Do different countries have different ideas about what constitutes happiness, or any other emotion? Possibly because I am more frightened of death than anyone I have ever met, the mere mention of anyone I like dying ruins a story for me. Thus the traditional Russian fairytale ending, "they lived long and happily together and died on the same day" is a total write-off, because all I can envisage is the fear and misery of the ninety-year-old Prince Charming and Princess Pea-pod as they succumb to heart-attacks or cancer. Or, to take another example, do comedies have to be happy? Or even funny? The first play I ever saw in Moscow was The Seagull (Чайка - Chaika). Being a heathen, I didn't know the plot, but the play bill assured me it was a "comedy in four acts". So I was a bit surprised when Konstantin shot himself and Nina appeared to have gone insane after being abandoned by Trigorin and the death of her child. Hilarious. And lest anyone think it was just Chekhov who had a few strange ideas about happiness (and even some Russians have thought this a bit - Chekhov was furious about the first production of Three Sisters, because he thought it was happy and everyone else thought it was a tragedy), there were other writers who had similar ideas. Griboedov's "comedy" <i>Woe from Wit (Горе от ума - Gore ot uma)</i>, for example, involves almost no comedic situations, and all of the characters end up miserable. Perhaps the difference is in the UK "comedy" mostly also implies "happy", but in Russia they are more into black comedy, i.e. the situation is just so appalling you have to laugh or you'll cry.<br />
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So what does this tell you about happiness? I think of happiness as bright and sparkling, but when I try to define it, I can't seem to get the words right. But I am pretty sure that whatever my definition would be, it is different from the prevailing view here. I am currently reading a book that tries to explain the Russian "soul" to foreigners (Какие мы русские? - А.В. Сергеева). The books talks about the connection between happiness and unhappiness (which appears to at least partly come from Orthodox Christianity). Happiness, in this reading, is more about peace than joy, and is a reward for having undergone suffering, which purifies your character. Joy is something ephemeral and not particularly important - the important thing is that life goes on regardless (unless you throw yourself under a train, of course). And maybe this is why Russians are scornful of "happy endings", because to them they are not only trite, but have also missed a deeper philosophical point about what happiness means. Thankfully, I am not a philosopher (because this is the quickest route to insanity), but I think this is a bit harsh - children's happiness is uncomplicated, but is considered by lots of people to be especially pure.<br />
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Anyway, this kind of thinking may itself cause a predilection towards unhappiness. According to the book, almost 50% of Russians consider themselves unhappy, compared with only 1% of English people (although I find this latter number very hard to believe). Life is obviously materially tougher in Russia than in England, but there are countries poorer than Russia which are significantly happier. <br />
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[In all seriousness, though, if you can think of any happy Russian novels, let me know. I lack all sophisticated artistic feeling, so I much prefer happy things, but I am beginning to think I have read most happy great works of literature in the world.] </div>ayearinmoscowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10248377703774763764noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7044965982087207597.post-73730106813197318822012-07-01T00:00:00.001+04:002012-07-01T00:01:14.434+04:00Fools and roads<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Russia, Gogol may have said, has two misfortunes: fools and roads. If Gogol didn't say it, Pushkin did, or possibly Karamzin (a 19th century historian) - the point is, somehow or other this has come to be a famous saying. The fools issue is a given in all countries. I don't know if you've met any people, but if you have you will know that most people think most other people are morons. This has been a constant in society for a long time - read Pliny or Marcus Aurelius or Cicero (but only the last one if you are prepared to have your idealistic vision of the man smashed to pieces and trampled into the dust). I am sure there must have been an ancient Egyptian hieroglyph for "idiot". You could probably work out what it was by seeing which hieroglyph is the most common.<br />
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The roads thing is more interesting. It's not clear from the saying whether the problem is that the roads exist, that their condition isn't good, or that they don't exist at all. Google would suggest the latter two - search for "Russian roads" and you'll see all sorts of horror pictures of cars trapped in window-height mud after a rain storm. However, judging by some of the comments alongside them, at least some of these pictures are either not of where they say they are of, or were taken a long time ago and the situation has improved since them.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://www.ssqq.com/archive/images/russian%20road%2025a.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Maybe I am being incredibly naive, but I just don't believe this can be a regular occurrence. Locals would be too smart to get themselves into this situation, and if the roads were normally this bad people would just drive off-road like in Mongolia. <i>Photo from www.ssqq.com</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
When I was travelling the Trans-siberian last summer there were long stretches of the railtrack that went alongside what looked to me like a perfectly fine road - tarmac/gravel and everything. I also met an English guy in Ulan-Ude who had driven there from London - not in one of those transformer-like monsters with giant wheels, but in a normal car - and he said the roads had been fine. The only time I personally ended up driving on an appalling/non-existent road was between Irkutsk and the shores of Lake Baikal to get a boat to Olkhon Island. In some places there was a mud track, but it was very uneven and often disappeared altogether. The whole journey took five hours to go 250km, and along the way we passed overturned trucks and cars that had misjudged the steepness of the camber (it was very steep at times) or the depth of a pothole. But on the way back from Olkhon island a week later the same mashrutka went along a normal gravelled road! So either the Russians are super road-builders extraordinaire or the first mashrutka driver was on crack and took us a needlessly bad way. Maybe he just hated his suspension and wanted it to suffer. It's possible that further north, or in more remote locations the roads are very bad, but I haven't been there so I can't say.<br />
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I'll admit that around Moscow some of the road surfaces could do with replacing. There are some alarming pot holes on roads along which people drive pretty fast. There is also a problem with the capacity of the roads - the main route between Moscow and St Petersburg is currently a single lane in each direction for most of the way, which is clearly ridiculous (although there is a new toll road being built currently, the first parts of which will open next year), and in Moscow the traffic jams are worse than I can possibly describe. Although Russia spends a larger percentage of its GDP on roads than the US does, as pointed out by President Obama in his 2011 State of the Union address, it's a much bigger country and it is starting out from a much less roady position. Russia has a paved road network less than 10% of the size of the US's, and only 5% of its total road network is considered to be "good quality". Investment spending collapsed after the fall of the Soviet Union and
only recovered to the world average in 2007, and since then the
financial crisis has caused infrastructure spending plans to be chucked
out the window. Plus, when the government does spend, they get very few miles of road for their money - <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/russianow/business/8102639/Road-building-in-Russia-six-times-more-expensive-than-in-the-US-or-EU.html" target="_blank">this</a> article from the Telegraph estimated road building is six times more expensive in Russia than in the US or the EU. <br />
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Another problem is that too many people act like fools on the roads. Partly this is because you can buy a driving license here without having to do any kind of training or test (illegally, obviously). What happens next depends on what kind of a lunatic you are. If you are a misanthropic lunatic, you will drive around in your car and possibly kill someone. If you are just an idiotic lunatic you will be too concerned about killing someone to do this, so you will not drive, and will instead just have wasted the money you spent on bribing everyone to get the license in the first place. <br />
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I have also seen some pretty spectacularly bad driving on the roads - either collectively or individually. In St Petersburg I saw a car reverse at high speed straight down a main road, although for various reasons I think he may have been trying to get away from the police, in which case he was successful so...well done. In Moscow cars frequently drive up the tram tracks to try and bypass the traffic, which at times has the lovely side effect of preventing the trams from moving, which creates gridlock at intersections when aided by the Manhattan-like compulsion of all drivers to enter a box junction even if the exit is blocked (and unlike Manhattan, this is technically forbidden because in Russia, as in the UK, all junctions are box junctions). I spent half an hour on a tram once whilst it tried to turn left from a main road to a minor one. Drivers were so desperate to get across the intersection that all rules - including sticking to your own side of the road - were abandoned as people tried to weave their way through the traffic.<br />
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Finally, there is a big problem in Moscow regarding the use of sirens. These are given out to help people bypass traffic jams, officially only to members of the Duma etc, and officially only for use in emergencies (like trying to get to a vote), but in practice there are people who don't need them who have them, and some of the people who do need them use them whenever they feel like going shopping rather than only for official government business. Cars displaying sirens have been involved in fatal accidents because to get to their important business they drive up the wrong side of the road and speed like crazy. Naturally they are not prosecuted for these accidents, which has tended to annoy normal people. So nowadays when everyone has to stop to let one of these VIPs through you can hear people beeping their horns and remarking sarcastically about the "servants of the people" who are zooming by. It must be super-annoying for Muscovites, but I love these types of comments, because it sounds so much like something people would say in Britain about our MPs, and I like to think that British people and Russian people have an awful lot in common.</div>ayearinmoscowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10248377703774763764noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7044965982087207597.post-13650264335811233482012-06-28T22:14:00.001+04:002012-06-29T17:20:09.928+04:00*@!$@!! Russian swear words<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I have an unfortunate tendency, when very upset, to want to lapse into nineteenth-century English. I am not sure how people nowadays are expected to react when their sister runs off with some unsuitable man or when someone insults them, but I just want to throw my gloves on the floor and tell the offender my second will be round in the morning. There is something in the back of my mind, though, that tells me I should be swearing at the person instead.<br />
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Swearing at people is best avoided in foreign languages, even apart from the obvious rudeness, since swearing is all about attitude, which is much harder to pull off with a funny accent. Plus you really need to understand a lot about the nuances of the words to use them properly, otherwise we are back to sounding silly or just odd rather than threatening. The upside of all this is that it is also very difficult to be insulted in a foreign language. Even if you technically know the words are very rude, you don't FEEL that they are rude, and hence it is almost impossible to take offense. <br />
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Russian swear words, it turns out, are much "stronger" than British swear words, in the sense that you can't actually use them on TV, radio or in print, whereas I think you are allowed to swear as much as you like after nine o'clock in the evening in the UK. There are two groups of Russian swear words: one set that are pretty bad but are in fact usable, although not in polite company, in front of children etc, and one set that are much stronger and are basically not usable if you are an educated person (this group of words is called мат (mat)). There are four basic words in this group, but if four words is not enough there are basically limitless variations - you can add prefixes or suffixes or combine them with other words. Four words should be four times as many as you need though - Dostoevsky wrote that a Russian could express the entire range of his feelings with one word of мат. But I guess people like to be creative. A quick Google search will take you to <a href="http://www.russki-mat.net/e/Russian.php" target="_blank">this</a> site, which lists an unbelievable 1700 words or expressions you shouldn't use. Or <a href="http://www.waytorussia.net/WhatIsRussia/Russian/SwearWords.html" target="_blank">this</a> Russian language tutorial site, which hilariously has a lesson on Russian swear words between discussions on meeting people and shopping. <br />
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There is a long history of intolerance of the use of мат. Catherine the Great issued a special proclamation banning all use of one of the words. Under the Soviets you could end up with a fifteen day jail sentence for using мат, and even today public use of these words is punishable by a fine and possible arrest (although in practice this is rarely enforced). According to a 2003 article in the <i>New Yorker,</i> the prejudice against these words came in with Christianity in the 10th century. The theory is that these words, which are all to do with sex, were previously part of a pagan fertility cult the Christian missionaries were trying to stamp out. They apparently still sound, to Russian ears, fairly blasphemous (and Russians are overall more religious than people in the UK so this matters more). For example, one of the most basic formulae implies that the mother of the person you are talking to slept with the devil. On the other hand, Pushkin, Lermontov, Turgenev and Chekov all used мат in their writing, and it shows up in a lot of folk tales. Some people feel that while it can be rude, it isn't necessarily - it can just be expressive. That <a href="http://archives.newyorker.com/?i=2003-09-15#folio=042" target="_blank">article</a> in the New Yorker referred to it as "more of a philosophy than a language", indicating everything from power dynamics to sincerity, with the real meaning of the words heavily dependent on intonation and context and thus almost impossible to translate. I don't think you'd find anyone saying that about British swear words. Or maybe I just don't know enough about them.</div>ayearinmoscowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10248377703774763764noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7044965982087207597.post-25340533712702918202012-06-27T22:42:00.001+04:002012-06-27T22:52:03.731+04:00Policeman on a train<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Generally speaking, Russian policeman (or militiamen, or whatever) are supposed to be scary. The first time I came to Russia, for work, the head of the office in Moscow told me that if I saw the police I should walk very quickly in the opposite direction. He even thought it necessary to give me his phone number in case I got into trouble. Clearly, Moscow was a dangerous place.<br />
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Except of course, the policemen I spoke to on that visit, after ignoring his advice (unintentionally - I just forgot), were very helpful, laughed at my feeble attempts at Russian and generally didn't try to steal all my money (or in fact any of my money). Still, if you read the guidebooks, they still tell you never to show a policeman your real passport (in case they take it off you), and to pretend to call your embassy if they start asking too many questions. <br />
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So when I got on the train to St Petersburg a week ago, and found myself in a compartment with two militia people, I wasn't very amused. The younger one (in his mid-20s) launched into a long speech about something or other, of which I understood absolutely nothing, and told him so. He smiled and said, "it's alright, you don't have to do anything", and then, since it was by now obvious that I was a foreigner, we started on the normal topics of conversation. After a while he inevitably asked me what I was doing in the country. Unfortunately my face unconsciously twists in some peculiar way whenever anyone asks me about real life, and he thought he had offended me. He held up his hands and said, "no, no, I'm not asking officially, I was just interested", and since I hadn't meant to evade the question in the first place, I of course explained. We talked some more about home and abroad, life etc etc, and I actually felt kind of sorry for him. He wasn't from anywhere near Moscow, and he got sent round the country to wherever, so he must have been miles away from everyone he knew. He told me that he had learnt English years ago in school, but he had never been able to practice it because no foreigners came to his home town. And then he plucked at his uniform and said, "and now foreigners won't approach me because of this". To which the only response is <i>yes, that would do it</i>. We carried on talking and eventually his boss said they had to go and do some work, and they both left the compartment.<br />
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After half an hour or so, the younger one came back and opened up his laptop. I was reading a book, but periodically I could hear American voices emanating from his computer, saying things like, "enemy forces sighted" and "fire". So when his boss reappeared and they both went out to do some more work, obviously I looked at his computer to see what the hell he was doing. And guess what it was? Some US video game where you go round shooting baddies - Call of Duty 2 or something.<br />
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It's somehow comforting to think that so many 20-something year old guys around the world are the same. No matter what their job, they really want to be playing video games and shooting bad guys.</div>ayearinmoscowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10248377703774763764noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7044965982087207597.post-74405204943829190542012-06-13T17:11:00.001+04:002012-06-13T17:27:19.209+04:00Hummus is how much? The cost of living<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Today I did my weekly food shop, got back, looked at the receipt and thought, <i>holy crap! I just spent £4.50 on hummus!</i> I don't know how it is possible that hummus is so expensive - maybe there was an unspecial offer. Before I came to Russia I assumed that food would be cheaper than in the UK, but this has not turned out to be the case. Specifically, anything I eat appears to be expensive.<br />
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Of course, I don't have to eat hummus. But it does take a while, when you move to a new country/new living situation, to work out what you are now going to live on. You have to go round the shops, pick up the food, examine it from all sides, and consider the all-important question, <i>can I cook this in my current kitchen?</i> For me, this has generally meant on one ring. Technically when I lived in New York I had an oven for a couple of years, but I was short of bookshelves at the time so I had to fill the oven with books, which made turning it on difficult. Currently I subsist almost entirely on risotto, which I can cook in one pan and requires a minimum of excess water. This is important because everything has to be done with bottled water so it is a huge waste of water to boil anything. At the end of the month I will have another problem, as my room mate is going back to Japan, taking her fridge with her. No more cereal for me. <br />
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In Russia there is a lack of several important (to me) food items, including tins. There is very little tinned food in the supermarkets near me, and instead they go in for dried food in a big way. This means no tinned soup, no tinned chickpeas or butter beans (well, they have imported tinned butter beans in Елисеевский (Yeliseyevsky), the Moscow equivalent of Harrods food hall, but at more than £1 per tin, it's just not worth it). I am too lazy to soak beans overnight, and dried soup is not as good as tinned soup. These aren't the only deficits: Russia, along with the entire non-UK world, is yet to discover the delights of salt and vinegar hula hoops, neither are they alive to the wonders of orange squash, although you can get the strange French mint squash in Ашан (Ashan - a French supermarket chain). One the other hand, they have better bread than we do, especially dark rye bread, which is hard to get hold of in the UK, and Armenian bread, which is a bit like a tortilla. There is also something called творог (tvorog), which is like cottage cheese only less liquid, which is wonderful stuff. The honey here is better, and they sell пряники (lebkuchen) all year round, which is an improvement on trying to eat a year's supply at Christmas, my usual custom. Plus they have a lot more types of cured meat. In terms of fruit and vegetables, you can get most things, just possibly not when you want them. Either that, or the supermarkets near me need to fire whoever does their buying. One week they will purchase an enormous quantity of red peppers, which will proceed to slowly rot over the next few weeks, without them getting any more in. Likewise with broccoli - sometimes loads, then none for a month. Prices for some fresh foods vary from week to week, sometimes by as much as 25%, for no discernible reason.<br />
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A few (currently) strangely expensive foods here (using Ocado as a comparison): hummus (£4.58 vs 99p for 200g), squash (£5.16 vs £3.20 for a litre, using lemon syrup as squash), cauliflower heads (£1.46 vs £1.05), broccoli heads (£1.32 vs £1.20), Activia yoghurt 4-pack (£2.10 vs £1.84), cottage cheese 340g (£1.65 vs 95p). Rye bread is much cheaper (50p vs £1.60 per loaf), as is risotto rice (£1.11 vs £2.24 for 900g), and orange juice (79p vs £1.20 for 1 litre). Overall I spend about the same amount on food here as I did in when I was a student in the UK. <br />
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The trouble with this is the difference in wages. The average (median) annual wage in Russia in 2011 was £4,200 ($6,875), vs £20,800 ($33,385) in the UK (2010) and £16,425 ($26,364) in the US (2010). Even assuming the median wage in Russia is actually higher due to the white/black income thing, food must take up a much higher percentage of a family's income than in the US/UK. As <a href="http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c39/266542.html" target="_blank">this</a> article indicates, for 10% of the population it takes up 100% of their income, and 53% of the population only have enough money for food, utilities and clothing. Something like buying your own apartment is only possible for 1% of the population. To buy a one-bedroom flat in Moscow would require the average Muscovite (who already earns more than most Russians) to save 100% of their income for 12 years! <br />
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[Of course, in the UK unless you're really rich you have to pay tax on income, and in Russia, well, multiple people have told me no one in their right mind pays their taxes. Theoretically income tax is 13%, but you can get around this by having a difference between your white income and black income.Your white income is your official
income on which you have to pay tax. The company you work for will often
set this really really low, and then just pay you the rest (your
black/grey income) on the side. However, if one day you suddenly need a
much larger official income, for example if you want to get a visa to
visit Europe or the States, your firm will just print you out a new
piece of paper saying you now earn shed loads of money.]<br />
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As newspapers in the UK are constantly telling us, the most expensive thing in life is children. The Guardian reported this year that the cost for raising one child to adulthood is now £218,000, a number that cannot possibly be true, because it would mean most of the population would be unable to afford any children at all. [In fact, if you look at how they calculate these numbers it becomes clear that the people who write for the Guardian are quite odd, since this total includes more than £62,000 on childcare and babysitting and their list of "essentials" includes buying the child a car.] In Russia, however, it must be legitimately difficult for parents to afford to raise more than one child, given the high cost of essentials that are actually essential. This is why you get situations like the tour guide I had in Krasnoyarsk, who had an undergraduate degree in Physics, a PhD in Political Science and had to work three jobs to support his one son. He wasn't even doing this on his own - his wife also worked, as a lecturer in Mathematics at the university. These were highly educated, professional people - if they had to work this hard just to support one child, what hope does anyone else have? Maybe this is why Russia has such a big demographics problem.<br />
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Note on source for median wage: Rosstat (Russian source for statistics) didn't provide median, only mean from what I could see, so I averaged the mean wages for the 5th and 6th decile of workers. Not perfect obviously, but I think the underlying point still stands. I was surprised about the difference in median wage between the US and the UK as well, but I think this is correct. The mean US wage is of course higher than the mean UK wage, but wealth is more unevenly distributed. And the tax rate might be lower in the US, I can't remember, and this is wage not income, which might also make a difference. Exchange rates used as average over period. </div>ayearinmoscowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10248377703774763764noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7044965982087207597.post-26102185088574537852012-06-09T21:11:00.001+04:002012-06-09T21:30:02.498+04:00End of term and accents<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Yesterday was the last day of the summer term at the language school I attend, so the last week or so has been taken up with farewells. It is not the last day for me, since I am staying on until September at least, but most of the university students are leaving. We had another talent show type thing, which was marginally less embarrassing than the one at Christmas, but rather more depressing, because it did underline how bad most of us still are at Russian. According to the US State Department, it should take a native English speaker around 2,300 hours (1,100 hours of classes and the rest self-study) of study to reach competency in Russian, whatever that means. I think so far I am at around 850, so I am not even half way there yet. Must work harder. Presumably the number of required hours is higher for Japanese/Korean/Chinese people, who form the majority of the student body. Since a lot of them basically didn't know any Russian at all when they got here, a year isn't really that long. <br />
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Even with 2,300 hours I don't expect I'll get the accent right, which is another problem. British people, so presumably Americans as well, mainly have problems with soft sounds in Russian, i.e. we tend to pronounce щ like ш, and don't say things like счастье (shactiye - happiness) and любовь (lubov - love) correctly, or anything else that involves soft signs (ь), i.e. almost every single verb. I have now watched over 60 hours of my Russian soap opera Poor Nastya (Бедная Настя), and the word любовь comes up a lot (it is a melodrama), and every time I try to copy the way the actors say it, but I still can't get it right. People from Belarus have the same problem according to my teacher, so I guess maybe British people and Belarussians sound similar when speaking Russian?<br />
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Speaking of accents, I started watching a different soap opera last week, because I already know the only people I like in Бедная Настя are going to end up unhappy, and it really disturbs me when people I like are unhappy, even fictional people (perhaps especially fictional people, since in reality the possibility of future happiness always exists, whereas in fiction being unhappy at the end of a book is final). This one is called Грехи Отцов (Grekhi Otsov - Sins of the Fathers) and the main attraction of it is that it has most of the same actors as Бедная Настя, including the people I like, so I am hoping they will end up happy this time round. Anyway, the point of all this burble is that they have a couple of American characters (played by Russians), who have to do American accents in Russian, which is really strange to listen to. It's obvious, I suppose, that actors from every country must have to do foreign accents, I just hadn't really thought about it before. It would be really interesting to know how they describe different accents to Russians in theatre school - what does an American/French/English accent sound like to a Russian person? And do they bother trying to distinguish a New York American accent from a Texan American accent?<br />
<br />
Lots of native English-speaking people like foreign accents, especially French, Italian and Spanish ones, but apparently these accents don't sound so great when you are speaking Russian. My teacher said French accents sound especially bad, which is a new and totally bizarre concept to me, since almost everyone loves French accents in the UK. The best foreign accents to have are from the Baltic republics, which are pleasant to listen to. Maybe like Irish accents sound to the English?</div>ayearinmoscowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10248377703774763764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7044965982087207597.post-689140678914721332012-05-30T01:04:00.001+04:002012-05-30T11:33:07.077+04:00Cold water and Moscow summers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In the eternal search for the perfect hot water pipe, the Moscow authorities are tireless. So unrelenting is their spirit, that rather than accept second-best they "repair" and "improve" the system every summer. Of course, this has the minor (to them) side effect of cutting off hot water to parts of Moscow for ten days at a time. This happens in rotation round the city, starting after the May holidays (so around May 11th or so), and continuing until August 31st. Naturally, no process runs absolutely smoothly, so when they have upgraded the water pipes for your area, it is almost inevitable that there will be some sort of mishap in the newly repaired part, which will result in the water being turned off again.<br />
<br />
Today was the first day without hot water in my area. Notices went up yesterday, and I actually read them due to the masses of red underlining below the words. Normally I don't read notices because if I read everything that got stuck up in the общежитие (hostel), I would never get anything done.<br />
<br />
So what are my choices? The first, obviously, is to suck it up and take cold showers. This is possible, although it should be noted that cold water in Moscow is not like normal cold water. It's a lot colder. However, if we keep the windows shut at night to make the room an unbearable sauna, I will probably want an ice-cold shower in the morning. I'll still have to psych myself up, have a countdown etc etc, but I have spent summers without hot water before. The second option, which is what a lot of people do, is to heat water in massive pots on the stove, and then throw it over yourself with a thing called a ковш (kovsh), which is like a ladle only bigger. This option is pretty much a non-starter for me. Firstly, I don't own a massive pot, and I don't think the electric rings in the shared kitchen could take the weight if I bought one. Secondly, everyone else on my floor would hate me for hogging the electric rings. And thirdly, at the moment the electric rings are broken anyway. <br />
<br />
On the bright side, in three years we are promised that this will only happen for three days a summer, and a few years after that, not at all. A decade or so ago, everyone used to have to go a month without hot water, and it has gradually been coming down ever since. I know the systems were created in the 1950s, and I understand that they now need updating, but I don't understand why they don't just do the whole thing in one go instead of a little bit every year. Unless of course, they are not really doing any updating at all, but instead have some nefarious purpose. Which is totally fine, I just wish they would be honest about it. </div>ayearinmoscowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10248377703774763764noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7044965982087207597.post-18482083675097129062012-05-28T21:48:00.000+04:002012-05-28T23:43:58.603+04:00Choosing the right tree for your city<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Let's say someone has come along and bombed the city you live in to hell, and an insane dictator has tasked you with rebuilding it. Eager to not be shot in front of your children, you want to do a good job, so you decide for the sake of general greenery to plant a whole bunch of trees pretty much anywhere there is space. What kind of trees are you going to choose?<br />
<br />
If your answer is, "why the hell does that matter? Just give me some trees that grow fast so I can keep my head", congratulations, you have saved your life, but condemned your grandchildren's generation to extreme attacks of hay fever. This is basically what the Moscow town planners did after WWII, and then results can be summed up in one word: пух (pookh). This stuff is currently descending on Moscow like a biblical plague. It can get through locked doors and windows. It defies all attempts to catch it, which makes people look like demented cats scrabbling at ghosts in the air. I have spent the last several weeks looking for a tree with a massive ball of cotton wool stuck on top of it, which is what I imagine the poplar trees that produce this stuff must look like. Apparently no one at the time when they were planted knew that this is what these trees do, which just goes to show what happens when you terrify biologists so much they are afraid to tell you the truth. Poplar trees, incidentally, along with birches, are incredibly popular with Russian writers. I am yet to read a work of literature entirely lacking in both.<br />
<br />
In other pollen-related news, another type of tree planted in large numbers around Moscow made the newspapers a couple of weeks ago, when a massive cloud of its pollen approached the city. It apparently looked like a cloud of green smog, and some people thought it was either Armaggedon or from a fire in a chemical factory. <br />
<br />
However, according to yet another set of reports (I spend way too much time reading the news), we only have to wait 20 years or so and all these trees will be dead, thus ending the пух's reign of terror. The Moscow authorities are so efficient at picking up dead leaves (and this is true, in the autumn there are marauding bands of men with rakes sweeping up everything in sight) that the trees are beginning to lack in essential nutrients provided by the composting effect of the dead leaves, and will start to die off in a few years. At which point maybe they can plant some cherry blossom trees like in Japan.</div>ayearinmoscowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10248377703774763764noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7044965982087207597.post-30248914396984534782012-05-19T01:49:00.000+04:002012-05-20T14:24:07.917+04:00Victory Day (День Победы) - Part 2<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Everyone assured me that it never, EVER rained on Victory Day, that the government took steps to ensure that the Sun shone, and that any other outcome was totally impossible. So naturally, when I woke up on Victory Day and it was raining, I was unsurprised. But the rain didn't last long, and in the afternoon I wandered down to Victory Park, where huge numbers of people had gathered under the watchful eyes of equally huge numbers of police. It was a good opportunity to play spot-the-different-types-of-police, of which there are many, but I don't know all of their names. The ones who wear grey camouflage outfits had formed a continuous line along the edge of the road around a kilometre long, and then there were mounted police, police surrounding all the fountains (and there are a lot of fountains), police separating the area in front of the stage into sections and manning the barricades, and then a whole lot more police to make sure everyone went through the metal detectors and had their bags searched. All of this seemed to me to be completely pointless, since no one appeared to be the slightest bit inclined to make trouble.<br />
<br />
If you don't know Victory Park, it basically is a very long walkway with fountains on either side leading up to a massive obelisk with a woman and two cherubs stuck on top. Along the centre of the walkway are stones that represent each year of the fighting (starting in 1941). And on each stone, but especially on the first, which was the most terrible part of the war for Russia, people had left flowers.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhddP7jcb9JYjSQXMB33OFtj705-Eo5pqhnhy0FRBfRRh-eGgQv_gRrPRDQLXFv5P0loVyLnQVd2wGMdpZFGM4cVCtZnSciqyZy9dh4H_qFJ-j0WJ1udQW6iVkj99OHzF5WGyUJI1mJlKI/s320/Victory+Day+-+03.jpg" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1941 stone</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdazNnPJrb8CTP1cYBYWL1KoIfklZ8mpIHtl2flcOCEmjik0SknFJf0EcMaIOAlfleouSptOe1oSZYjrS8EJUfb02RVouJhkqC0DvRi9EBgQrB04EvQQuOjCP2ej0Tix_hkb-HAOW-Lcg/s320/Victory+Day+-+04.jpg" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1941 stone</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
This is remarkable when you consider that many of those flowers were laid down individually - many people brought a small number of flowers and either put them on these memorials or gave them to one of the veterans who were walking around the park wearing their medals. This was extremely touching - most of the veterans were carrying armfuls of flowers. And of course, the financial services industry wanted to express its thanks too:<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp5dGUZcU_a_gCpbXFKpNqRg7rN9TjprW_09eTqHFySi9XR30uAFbGIGjWk1xxTQOR-vdlFXhkha852W4fPxvpG7gLbkbHMI_Im9dtfYr3cB5SALcbD3_lg-0Kz3U-g72g0C1T06Yz_HE/s1600/Victory+Day+-+07.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp5dGUZcU_a_gCpbXFKpNqRg7rN9TjprW_09eTqHFySi9XR30uAFbGIGjWk1xxTQOR-vdlFXhkha852W4fPxvpG7gLbkbHMI_Im9dtfYr3cB5SALcbD3_lg-0Kz3U-g72g0C1T06Yz_HE/s320/Victory+Day+-+07.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Advert for Sberbank. It says, "Thank you for the victory!"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
There were food stands along the edges of the park, and under the obelisk a stage had been constructed, from which performers recited war poetry and sang old songs about the war. Everyone in the crowd appeared to know the words, but like people the world over were reluctant to be seen to be getting too into anything in public and so only half-heartedly joined in. People waved Russian or USSR flags, some of the veterans danced with each other, and huge television screens showed footage of the war and the first victory celebrations in Moscow, 67 years ago. Note Stalin's cameo in the video. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmOsiLpwcwA9qruH2ryBQt0MaEGYvtvmOSlKVrfUGZ9HhUerSavJZnMVI3U6btgmR8GE64bJBTBqCUrUoDPQVdEmmdJwAywMSHNglpPsiGn3jxCz4NZX9fW-gpvj0uZR1cB9wxrmw1cRc/s1600/Victory+Day+-+10.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmOsiLpwcwA9qruH2ryBQt0MaEGYvtvmOSlKVrfUGZ9HhUerSavJZnMVI3U6btgmR8GE64bJBTBqCUrUoDPQVdEmmdJwAywMSHNglpPsiGn3jxCz4NZX9fW-gpvj0uZR1cB9wxrmw1cRc/s320/Victory+Day+-+10.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dy86TkftGYcdpDko5-EU3oyazUSYsA9J1rSUhkUWpr3HG0pOJBoowByvGvHSllid1_I6zJ6UUXxERzm4LSfPw' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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After a few of hours of old songs I needed a change of scenery, so we headed off to the main building of Moscow State University to wait for the fireworks, which were due to start at ten. Most of the people in the city appeared to have had the same idea, and as a result when we all got out of the metro at Боробьёвы горы (borobyovy gori) no one could be bothered to walk up the path because that was the long way round and all the best spots would have been gone, so we all tried to climb the incredibly steep hill instead. It was so steep that this could only be done by forming a human chain and dragging up people after you, which is what happened. It was really bizarre - the hillside was swarming with people holding onto trees trunks to stop themselves falling whilst offering their hands to the people below. It was also really, really fun. I don't get to climb up muddy hills nearly enough anymore. When people got to the top everyone cheered, and then, since all the roads had been shut, we meandered down to the river and waited for the fireworks. Many people decided now was a good time for a sandwich, and Subway probably made more money that evening than they normally do in a month.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisQZlERqCudR2JCI40oDuM1OQWuszwt25brKetIz5NNx-bgDXVajD31ZjUdSQHzUT1jZ3Ldh-n8t_4iuY1q8LxTdGLQjopSRgbYZpTCgJ5b3P4ueKumlz846TlY93YAAUCK0qKuiGW2CU/s1600/Victory+Day+-+28.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisQZlERqCudR2JCI40oDuM1OQWuszwt25brKetIz5NNx-bgDXVajD31ZjUdSQHzUT1jZ3Ldh-n8t_4iuY1q8LxTdGLQjopSRgbYZpTCgJ5b3P4ueKumlz846TlY93YAAUCK0qKuiGW2CU/s320/Victory+Day+-+28.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Waiting for the fireworks to begin</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQhwXHsBwp9q-DSDUGq38NAk7y3A2Z4O4Lfh2xScj20kvrAipS0eZ9kDfVrJzBrwyhQWj6u157rRKTDd24e5xsnqawae-1FfvvKfRD3BR3qcaPTwZDfgQ2l3gotEyImlEZ4wTh7EVWXFo/s1600/Victory+Day+-+46.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQhwXHsBwp9q-DSDUGq38NAk7y3A2Z4O4Lfh2xScj20kvrAipS0eZ9kDfVrJzBrwyhQWj6u157rRKTDd24e5xsnqawae-1FfvvKfRD3BR3qcaPTwZDfgQ2l3gotEyImlEZ4wTh7EVWXFo/s320/Victory+Day+-+46.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fireworks, one of my favourite things about life</td></tr>
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I ended up right next to where the fireworks were launched from (the top of a ski jump), and I think they have more powerful fireworks in Russia, because they were much, much louder than I am used to. When the rockets took off, you could feel the ground shake under you. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbGm8Zlm77OzVQub3W-Ks-yqHMoM2pExfvy_bEbnNaKV_liaRyBOWadWTZe6UGKyphiY3drzX5d0kV8VPx9zlmihDL_zJnu9VBPERMXF5Uuiz2_nkqlYtoJMVkPXAG6ZouOF9vL1DpEEY/s1600/Main+building+MSU+on+Victory+Day+-+2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbGm8Zlm77OzVQub3W-Ks-yqHMoM2pExfvy_bEbnNaKV_liaRyBOWadWTZe6UGKyphiY3drzX5d0kV8VPx9zlmihDL_zJnu9VBPERMXF5Uuiz2_nkqlYtoJMVkPXAG6ZouOF9vL1DpEEY/s320/Main+building+MSU+on+Victory+Day+-+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Walking back towards the main building. It looks like something Batman would perch on, but I like it</td></tr>
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There were probably 15 minutes of fireworks, and then we all walked back to the subway. The path had so many bottles strewn on it I kept kicking them at people accidentally, but although by this time all the police had disappeared, everyone was happy-and-peaceful drunk, rather than violent-and-angry drunk. It was a really great holiday - we should really think about importing it into the UK. Not necessarily the whole war thing, but a four-day weekend with outdoor concerts, fairs and fireworks at the beginning of May would be nice.<br />
<br />
Finally, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0zr877200s&feature=mv_sr" target="_blank">here</a> is a link to a very touching Soviet film (with English subtitles) about a young soldier in the war - <i>Баллада о солдате</i>
(Ballade o soldate - ballad of a soldier) made in 1959. It is worth
watching just to get an impression of the total confusion in Russia
during the war. Even if the hero had survived, how on earth would he
have found the girl? [This isn't a spoiler because a) it's a Russian
film so there is a 99% chance the hero will die, b) it's a war film, so
that percentage rises to 100%, and c) they tell you in the first minute
of the film that he doesn't make it.] Normal society was so broken-down,
and the movement of people around the country so large-scale, that they
never would have found each other again.</div>ayearinmoscowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10248377703774763764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7044965982087207597.post-50793885979083833942012-05-12T19:07:00.000+04:002012-05-19T02:03:37.255+04:00Electronic dictionaries<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
No one would call America a small, insignificant country (at least not to its face), so why don't the manufacturers of electronic dictionaries make products with the base language as English? Almost every single Japanese, Korean or Chinese person at my school (i.e. 60% of the entire student population) has an electronic dictionary. I was in Media Markt (an electronics store) yesterday, and I even overheard one employee telling another that if a Japanese person comes in to send them straight to the electronic dictionaries, since that's all they ever buy.<br />
<br />
I don't remember electronic dictionaries as working very well, but that was when I was twelve, which is like the age of the dinosaurs in electronic-dictionary terms. The Casio Ex-word versions the Japanese use now are fantastic. Not only do they include Japanese-Russian-English dictionaries, complete with conjugations, usage examples etc, but also monolingual dictionaries in Russian and Japanese, an encyclopaedia in Japanese, grammar textbooks in Russian and Japanese, and they have audio recordings of all the words so you can hear how they should be pronounced. Pretty cool, right? Having one massively reduces the time spent looking up words, and since they are really small, they are perfect for people who want to exercise in the gym rather than carrying around dictionaries the size of a couple of bricks.<br />
<br />
Naturally I wanted to buy one, preferably a Russian-English-German-Spanish one, since then my dictionary buying days would be forever at an end, but I was prepared to accept Russian-English. Unfortunately Casio's UK/US websites don't even mention the things, because they don't produce them for English-speaking people. If I wanted one where the base language was German, or French, or Italian, Spanish, Russian, Japanese or seemingly any other language known to man, I could buy one, but not for English. You might think I could buy the one built for Russians learning English, and I might end up doing that, but it is far from ideal. For a start, you can't click through to see the conjugation of a verb you have looked up in English, you have to look it up again in Russian. Secondly, there is only audio for English words, not for Russian ones, and thirdly, the thing includes ten monolingual English dictionaries and only one Russian monolingual one, and no Russian grammar. I didn't even know that you could have ten different monolingual English dictionaries - doesn't that just mean the first nine were missing out words? It even contains 100 works of world literature in English, and the texts of famous English speeches. Even though it doesn't exactly take up space, I would still have to pay
for all that rubbish, when I only actually want two out of seventeen
volumes on the machine (or three if you count the encyclopaedia in Russian). Since these things cost £250, it means that only £45 of that would be useful to me. <br />
<br />
I feel very aggrieved.</div>ayearinmoscowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10248377703774763764noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7044965982087207597.post-16502574681283602112012-05-11T00:05:00.000+04:002012-05-11T00:33:56.062+04:00Victory Day (День Победы) - Part 1<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
As you may know, Hitler lost World War II. This result is celebrated every year in Russia on May 9th, and Wednesday was Victory Day +67 years in the Great Patriotic War. So Happy Victory Day for Wednesday. If you are thinking, "That was a really long time ago - they need to get over it," I advise you not to voice those thoughts to a Russian - it is a really big deal here. Thousands of people turned out for the parade down Тверская (Tverskaya), and all over town people were wearing orange-and-black striped ribbons, which is the symbol of victory (it represents the Order of Saint George, the patron saint of Russia). Russians mark this day because the Soviet Union lost around 25 million people in the war. If the total number of people killed in the war was 60 million (usual estimates 50-70 million), this means over 40% of the dead were Soviet citizens. 14% of the entire population of the USSR was killed, compared with less than 1% of the UK population and 0.3% of the US population (although some countries lost almost as high a percentage, amongst them Greece and the Baltic Republics, and Poland lost an even higher percentage of its people). In some towns taken by the Germans, literally every single inhabitant died. Over one and a half million people starved to death in St Petersburg. The Soviet Union sacrificed possibly more than any other country to defeat Hitler, and they don't think that the rest of the world appreciates that enough. <br />
<br />
One the other hand, it is slightly weird to see banners around Moscow proclaiming "USSR Victory", or hear the defeat of Hitler described as "a gift we gave the whole world" - victory in WWII was kind-of a joint effort. Once, when we were discussing what foreigners think about Russia in my English conversation class, one of the women came out with the statement that "British people think that there have only been three people to rule Russia well - Peter I, Catherine II and Stalin." I almost choked on my biscuit. Apart from the fact that I doubt most British people have even heard of either Peter I or Catherine II, let alone hold considered opinions about their leaderships skills, I am pretty much certain that people in the UK don't, in general, have a favourable opinion of Stalin. When I explained this, as tactfully as I could, she responded with, "But Stalin won WWII". So maybe there is just a general lack of appreciation amongst all the old Allied powers about what the others did.<br />
<br />
Regardless of the historical rights and wrongs, in mood the day is a lot like Independence day in the States, with a bit of Memorial day thrown in. People give speeches about how great the country is, and there are concerts and fireworks displays.<br />
<br />
It all starts with a huge military parade, 1.5km long, with 14,000 soldiers and 100 units of heavy equipment. It was invitation-only - at least in Red Square, and we were advised to stay away from the whole thing, as the centre of town is currently hell, what with all the soldiers, police, barriers everywhere and the protests going on. I was in the centre on Sunday (for the final parade rehearsal), and Monday (to generally wander around), and it took an age to get anywhere. Every street you started down turned out to be blocked at the end, and if you think walking past policemen makes you feel guilty, try walking past large groups of soldiers. I had the permanent feeling I was about to be arrested and/or shot. <br />
<br />
The final rehearsal on Sunday should have been just like the parade, only with a lower probability of being crushed by swarms of people. The noise was incredible, as was the clouds of black smoke these things give off as they move. I suppose being environmentally friendly isn't a priority for tanks. <br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEXMkmnH8MdN9X_W-p3sTgeQMsTfWfs_H9TGoqijxddqDzLnPF2y_7faPfwdYqu2lroike1_O53kntkcyii_fP2NYbu8EcVh-fDpkRgdLVmUZo6JKei2cCGaGyylKl-G12XaNZXBvOAtY/s1600/Final+rehearsal+for+Victory+Day+Parade+-+11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEXMkmnH8MdN9X_W-p3sTgeQMsTfWfs_H9TGoqijxddqDzLnPF2y_7faPfwdYqu2lroike1_O53kntkcyii_fP2NYbu8EcVh-fDpkRgdLVmUZo6JKei2cCGaGyylKl-G12XaNZXBvOAtY/s320/Final+rehearsal+for+Victory+Day+Parade+-+11.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Everyone getting bored waiting for the rehearsal to begin. We were two hours early, so it was a long wait.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaPhse_KbBAo3HtesV5RFqaMlPAVPuCgHVHKfQepgVKVK-3t2jqQJZRIHUel6bwgWPw2YfnAhctb0GJ3ApVvUQQMNkXpNSyR3Ytvx341IJmMfYaPW1qkYPW_HCz77pL8JIsginf8ZQmII/s1600/Final+rehearsal+for+Victory+Day+Parade+-+25.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaPhse_KbBAo3HtesV5RFqaMlPAVPuCgHVHKfQepgVKVK-3t2jqQJZRIHUel6bwgWPw2YfnAhctb0GJ3ApVvUQQMNkXpNSyR3Ytvx341IJmMfYaPW1qkYPW_HCz77pL8JIsginf8ZQmII/s320/Final+rehearsal+for+Victory+Day+Parade+-+25.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tanks</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBHd1IMFlXbi3G6B8Uyr2SfHhfv85Um-z2_Zis8GPaAlcV4E91wqTaWg-BbDAmfY7hr2s1vgC048htbOuG2DHEHmn0eF8IoKIEpejN004DOUArDl_zEUQpd9njdonnmHAfItnygw_d3rc/s1600/Final+rehearsal+for+Victory+Day+Parade+-+33.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBHd1IMFlXbi3G6B8Uyr2SfHhfv85Um-z2_Zis8GPaAlcV4E91wqTaWg-BbDAmfY7hr2s1vgC048htbOuG2DHEHmn0eF8IoKIEpejN004DOUArDl_zEUQpd9njdonnmHAfItnygw_d3rc/s320/Final+rehearsal+for+Victory+Day+Parade+-+33.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Despite having a Master's with a focus on Strategic Studies, I know nothing about military equipment. Some sort of amoured vehicle? </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil_vy5inQNn1y-faARAFdO6nLVpG_6M4aB8qz00LRShmDJtjwD1H2ROi2lqXGebJY6SP1L4vl-oxOEOv0yHOEz3xkXw29b2cUc3nsJN1tHA7ToHhLkSmFQ35M6-8HIEAiRAtAKgixS1I8/s1600/Final+rehearsal+for+Victory+Day+Parade+-+37.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil_vy5inQNn1y-faARAFdO6nLVpG_6M4aB8qz00LRShmDJtjwD1H2ROi2lqXGebJY6SP1L4vl-oxOEOv0yHOEz3xkXw29b2cUc3nsJN1tHA7ToHhLkSmFQ35M6-8HIEAiRAtAKgixS1I8/s320/Final+rehearsal+for+Victory+Day+Parade+-+37.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Big missiles</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit_BA2j6JTiGy57BzHoc74FZqNK8Jg0e5z-jJuRlzpsjq0rg_9JR_xHY8cGfaIewFDoUMsBb3BGMJFAIDRkNr6Q1DTkRYE_v2rqE90RQxXZHpLceBYfmZgdXZ1DElWdoiVHE2wq8VZLTk/s1600/Final+rehearsal+for+Victory+Day+Parade+-+46.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit_BA2j6JTiGy57BzHoc74FZqNK8Jg0e5z-jJuRlzpsjq0rg_9JR_xHY8cGfaIewFDoUMsBb3BGMJFAIDRkNr6Q1DTkRYE_v2rqE90RQxXZHpLceBYfmZgdXZ1DElWdoiVHE2wq8VZLTk/s320/Final+rehearsal+for+Victory+Day+Parade+-+46.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Very big missiles, normally with nuclear payloads according to the people standing behind me, who said they needed them to shoot at the US. They were joking (I hope) </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsv7R63psGXsIu-EKSiPFhaUqs7aSMiSR3T-OtbU8XT7l0IVTsdEhrFv23pDCj7ysB-j1mSDIqH8wmzQDgvRq6xE-Y9rJobc3nZqbfAysiQ4R3WpA-zkcLCDk0Utd36UQnAw7baZOzXO0/s1600/Final+rehearsal+for+Victory+Day+Parade+-+55.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsv7R63psGXsIu-EKSiPFhaUqs7aSMiSR3T-OtbU8XT7l0IVTsdEhrFv23pDCj7ysB-j1mSDIqH8wmzQDgvRq6xE-Y9rJobc3nZqbfAysiQ4R3WpA-zkcLCDk0Utd36UQnAw7baZOzXO0/s320/Final+rehearsal+for+Victory+Day+Parade+-+55.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of the helicopters that flew overhead in formation. The flag weighs 1.8 tonnes</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
This was only the second military parade of my life - the first being last November, also in Moscow. That one was to commemorate 70 years since the parade of 1941, and used only equipment from that time. Tanks were an awful lot smaller then.<br />
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</div>ayearinmoscowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10248377703774763764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7044965982087207597.post-41826509004262864282012-05-08T12:07:00.000+04:002012-06-27T22:54:39.902+04:00Russian buildings are falling down...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I love old buildings. If I ever manage to scrape together enough money to buy a house, I want it to be an old one, which I will then fill with old furniture and sit around drinking tea out of an old cup whilst listening to old music. So I find it fairly distressing that many of the older buildings in Moscow, and in Russia more generally, are in an appalling state of repair. As I've said before, it's not like they have that many to start off with. Yes, Russia would be the ideal place to have one of those annoying property shows where an obnoxious, over-privileged family moan about the difficulties of restoring a old house whilst complaining that there is nowhere to put the horses. If someone actually made a programme like that in Russia, I might even watch it.<br />
<br />
Why are these buildings falling down? Russia is not a poor country, so if the government wanted to, they must have the money to repair them. Many of the buildings are right in the centre of cities, so apart from being historically valuable in themselves, they are sitting on incredibly valuable land. It's also interesting that the delapidated buildings are not evenly spread across the towns and cities I have visited. Last summer I started in Vladivostock and over the course of six weeks or so, made the trip to Moscow, stopping off in various places along the way. Vladivostock, Irkutsk, Tobolsk, Kazan and Moscow contained an awful lot of buildings in dire need of repair. Khabarovsk, Ulan Ude, Krasnoyarsk, Yekaterinburg and Nizhny Novgorod not so much. Maybe it would be possible to create a corruption or incompetence index for local governors based on the number of buildings falling down on their patch.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4e0H1WxpaNLieSPaSA8cY2YzSDOJlA9p4TdaKkgx0BxPkwIPMyr1EfIMyqK_iVs-h4yNEnphdjN6NtkphehScj7T0B7Dwx0L_re83whltTSZ-Ng0BaF2odz-QTu-P423OV_zb2BdLckc/s1600/Russia+-+July+and+August+2011+-+0034.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4e0H1WxpaNLieSPaSA8cY2YzSDOJlA9p4TdaKkgx0BxPkwIPMyr1EfIMyqK_iVs-h4yNEnphdjN6NtkphehScj7T0B7Dwx0L_re83whltTSZ-Ng0BaF2odz-QTu-P423OV_zb2BdLckc/s320/Russia+-+July+and+August+2011+-+0034.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vladivostock. Doesn't look too bad until you realise there is a plant growing out of the roof and the decoration around the windows is starting to fall off.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I didn't really take that many photos of buildings falling down in Vladivostock, partly because I didn't know that it was going to become a major theme of the journey, and partly because it seemed somehow rude when I had just arrived in the country. In hindsight, however, Vladivostock was a total disaster zone. The roads looked like an earthquake had just passed through - great chunks of tarmac were jutting out at different levels at the edges of the roads, buildings had been half torn down and then abandoned, and if you arrived by sea, like I did, your first view of the city was this:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg05fve6bnaDW7Dib6J4FMf7Mmv-7d5aW7sLRELPTEx8dXqRr_iaI39t_lRCi5hwSOfMxmA56Fc06yJ_gx736dYFOJ4mYjgSis9MVejusQlpXXucMOU4kzPLCKHL2wj0KZN8zNCDug6gis/s1600/Russia+-+July+and+August+2011+-+0030.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg05fve6bnaDW7Dib6J4FMf7Mmv-7d5aW7sLRELPTEx8dXqRr_iaI39t_lRCi5hwSOfMxmA56Fc06yJ_gx736dYFOJ4mYjgSis9MVejusQlpXXucMOU4kzPLCKHL2wj0KZN8zNCDug6gis/s320/Russia+-+July+and+August+2011+-+0030.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Exactly. After having said all that, you probably won't believe that I really liked Vladivostock, but I did. It has so much potential, and I want to be the mayor.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvj8XAsg1JIJ0egic9yA6xDxRAXsvbz9Ai2fhe6QcVf0OaWNx4WNH414dU1I898RtdMGBz4Rm0xedgmBv5AJW-WM9BfCjLfYTc03xCgkP5c0zCv9VsSw0SFgjmUPkSA8u0y9GRS0iGHOM/s1600/Russia+-+July+and+August+2011+-+0392.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvj8XAsg1JIJ0egic9yA6xDxRAXsvbz9Ai2fhe6QcVf0OaWNx4WNH414dU1I898RtdMGBz4Rm0xedgmBv5AJW-WM9BfCjLfYTc03xCgkP5c0zCv9VsSw0SFgjmUPkSA8u0y9GRS0iGHOM/s320/Russia+-+July+and+August+2011+-+0392.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Irkutsk. There were still people living in this building.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Irkutsk - "the Paris of Siberia" had large areas filled with beautiful old houses. Unfortunately, many of them looked pretty much exactly like this one, where the building has started sinking into the earth, and not just the window frames, but the actual walls had started to decay. Some houses had sunk so much it was no longer possible to open the doors on the ground floor. Even without this, the difficulty with Russia is that the climate is so extreme that buildings need constant upkeep. In Moscow, where the winter is milder than Siberia, they had to get busy repainting all the fences once the snow melted. A coat of paint only lasts a year. Unfortunately they chose to paint the ones near me in bright pink and violet stripes, but that's another story.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEOyrYxzuePM9vFU7ITu0e79KgfUneuMfhqS83bwT5WJx_9vT3c4TsqkLtoQufBgqnAAJU-UzljZ0uoI7EKBxevp59ilMKkJYoP5tHYFf6xpTcjWFQ36WZ78r0OMU3F3Eg3O71Ev9-6oM/s1600/Russia+-+July+and+August+2011+-+0749.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEOyrYxzuePM9vFU7ITu0e79KgfUneuMfhqS83bwT5WJx_9vT3c4TsqkLtoQufBgqnAAJU-UzljZ0uoI7EKBxevp59ilMKkJYoP5tHYFf6xpTcjWFQ36WZ78r0OMU3F3Eg3O71Ev9-6oM/s320/Russia+-+July+and+August+2011+-+0749.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tobolsk. Right at the bottom of the hill on which the Kremlin perches.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4nwM18udmlfE9jXcgLN0_6tEamTLRYTTMXtiWs2q9TjTpaBGRIkcEfrb5WecE_7giVipa-_rGLPKlX6kJgvPbrFlC2K5H32QPVHFd3NNehxPhM0tfbqB_KpjMN36N_sPRAcl64Xcl_Io/s1600/Russia+-+July+and+August+2011+-+0779.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4nwM18udmlfE9jXcgLN0_6tEamTLRYTTMXtiWs2q9TjTpaBGRIkcEfrb5WecE_7giVipa-_rGLPKlX6kJgvPbrFlC2K5H32QPVHFd3NNehxPhM0tfbqB_KpjMN36N_sPRAcl64Xcl_Io/s320/Russia+-+July+and+August+2011+-+0779.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tobolsk.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkyk9ZoPoE335vhqt4TxHPADzhAx9XHKBKjUYqi_FP8BDquFq2ND_nJBDnHMpOCQG01aN27_YJN0Z143JIfpHtY1AuZBNKipX6rrpLbQdjV1ymhpSDx22g3J0ZYvLVW8pEOYDQI7-kD84/s1600/Russia+-+July+and+August+2011+-+0787.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkyk9ZoPoE335vhqt4TxHPADzhAx9XHKBKjUYqi_FP8BDquFq2ND_nJBDnHMpOCQG01aN27_YJN0Z143JIfpHtY1AuZBNKipX6rrpLbQdjV1ymhpSDx22g3J0ZYvLVW8pEOYDQI7-kD84/s320/Russia+-+July+and+August+2011+-+0787.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tobolsk. The funny thing is the plaque on the corner says the building is an architectural monument.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
A word of advice: don't go to Tobolsk. Yes, I know the guide book says that there is a
beautiful old town there, but in fact it has been almost entirely demolished and
replaced with empty apartment blocks, leaving only a few ruins half-sunk into the ground and covered with netting.
There is a Kremlin, but you can get into just one of the buildings, and the only person in town is a mad old bone carver who carves
things from the mammoth tusks he finds lying around the place. He used
to work in a beautiful old building, but then it fell down and he had to
move round the corner to one almost as decrepit, but not remotely
beautiful. He is really friendly though, and he'll let you have a go at carving bones if you ask nicely.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxZE0_HxnXuZGYl3oX5Cc9QuTP0ahK6IH4C9X9oWSCPz3eiyg6PVEdm7FEdtej6ueseGSqm2evoRTvYXDAB2DZ1Y9GCksBhrfhSeIn73iqwV1KH2RVMdwaWkmXLai7jbbCcoqMH5W2OQ4/s1600/Russia+-+July+and+August+2011+-+0847.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxZE0_HxnXuZGYl3oX5Cc9QuTP0ahK6IH4C9X9oWSCPz3eiyg6PVEdm7FEdtej6ueseGSqm2evoRTvYXDAB2DZ1Y9GCksBhrfhSeIn73iqwV1KH2RVMdwaWkmXLai7jbbCcoqMH5W2OQ4/s320/Russia+-+July+and+August+2011+-+0847.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kazan. On the high street.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4ijmtTEWQXFEtxM9UaWgd3pSomFhuv90UxhDgl9yMqUbONIPQVExTgLUrIPm2aAdL3qSfFmDaBEOiR-ZCITH5Mro0gbV_K_9kU4N7rbIhQCiZqB3raeqEldoWghIyRQDSCzeo-9Hhyxg/s1600/Russia+-+July+and+August+2011+-+0853.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4ijmtTEWQXFEtxM9UaWgd3pSomFhuv90UxhDgl9yMqUbONIPQVExTgLUrIPm2aAdL3qSfFmDaBEOiR-ZCITH5Mro0gbV_K_9kU4N7rbIhQCiZqB3raeqEldoWghIyRQDSCzeo-9Hhyxg/s320/Russia+-+July+and+August+2011+-+0853.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Also on Kazan high street.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYQFenLnnD0-rEXim91uhNXWMhBa400d_plI2vKyGFhXVewPXmQ9dqNfDXtynGcG_lzvDNNOEwsJIkvIt2r50b6Tp-wVGwkGCPcuL-NNepLEzlnYYEAqzqYoWTDd_nf72FKamFSh5YC8I/s1600/Russia+-+July+and+August+2011+-+0857.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYQFenLnnD0-rEXim91uhNXWMhBa400d_plI2vKyGFhXVewPXmQ9dqNfDXtynGcG_lzvDNNOEwsJIkvIt2r50b6Tp-wVGwkGCPcuL-NNepLEzlnYYEAqzqYoWTDd_nf72FKamFSh5YC8I/s320/Russia+-+July+and+August+2011+-+0857.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kazan high street is a bit of a disaster, no? These buildings have already reached the point of no return.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Aah, Kazan. A place that according to the guidebook is extremely rich due to its oil wealth, but when you get there you find that this somehow doesn't fit with the fact that half the buildings are falling down and the toilets in the cathedral where the Virgin of Kazan icon is held are just holes in a raised platform, with the waste falling straight onto the ground below. The last picture is of what used to be the grandest hotel in the city. How did they let it get into such a state?<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMBDcatAjv_xrfGin7Pp5jaCxJGgDh9hfLnLxgTme-zZBMAHueaip8muxEZk4Z43duRvxkWe2bHVUiuk8rXUXS6ksYfx3V1lfguFvs_s_m2kOaNkRuK3dZms7yMxBIzp4gP-vg6R4DVYo/s1600/Russia+-+July+and+August+2011+-+1042.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMBDcatAjv_xrfGin7Pp5jaCxJGgDh9hfLnLxgTme-zZBMAHueaip8muxEZk4Z43duRvxkWe2bHVUiuk8rXUXS6ksYfx3V1lfguFvs_s_m2kOaNkRuK3dZms7yMxBIzp4gP-vg6R4DVYo/s320/Russia+-+July+and+August+2011+-+1042.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Suzdal. This is a painting on the inside wall of a church, but it is so degraded you can't even made out what it is anymore.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyDOfT3k_GDehV3ZEgyzK0jITxSCoa-_PVEOW9cBPziLpCi9twQ4aMEhgBa3vo1RqxW5rRK8BYsIN2i9hlxrKaMrBEVZ9xoahQJYBIS7YwwF-GU05336c9YRIvjvC61Vx1AhRU-vr-lf0/s1600/Russia+-+July+and+August+2011+-+1088.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyDOfT3k_GDehV3ZEgyzK0jITxSCoa-_PVEOW9cBPziLpCi9twQ4aMEhgBa3vo1RqxW5rRK8BYsIN2i9hlxrKaMrBEVZ9xoahQJYBIS7YwwF-GU05336c9YRIvjvC61Vx1AhRU-vr-lf0/s320/Russia+-+July+and+August+2011+-+1088.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A nunnery in Suzdal.</td></tr>
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I've mentioned Suzdal before, and it really does have that trapped-in-time feeling. The churches are stunningly beautiful, the air is clean, the streets are quiet. It is basically paradise. Except for the fact that you get the impression that your grandchildren won't be able to see it like this. There is a fine line between slightly faded in a melancholic-for-past-glories kind of way, and just run down, and some buildings in Suzdal have gone straight over that line and not looked back. Part of the problem in Suzdal is that so many of the buildings are churches, and the Russian church must already have a list a mile long of buildings that need repairing. Judging by what I have read about the position of the Orthodox church under Communism, it must have been both financial and politically very difficult to do any repair work on churches in the USSR, so they are probably now playing 70-year catch-up.<br />
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And this is all before we even get to Moscow. All of the following pictures are within two blocks of the Kremlin. You can't see much in the photographs, but under the netting the buildings look pretty much like the picture of the hotel in Kazan - only the brick structure of the building is left without any of the beautiful mouldings.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsn4EQ1t_Lve-V2NJKU-eltmCR62GmGjmdZj-P3nVOcyksGCZCqRr9_lJ-_IzyOqyZHA-iTIPZ44TI80Ujz9LYn9HxurAnhD1ti1XksDWWSViZK0WHZXesTnr7iBTIre0q1sAJa2VmIgo/s1600/Wandering+around+Moscow+-+02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsn4EQ1t_Lve-V2NJKU-eltmCR62GmGjmdZj-P3nVOcyksGCZCqRr9_lJ-_IzyOqyZHA-iTIPZ44TI80Ujz9LYn9HxurAnhD1ti1XksDWWSViZK0WHZXesTnr7iBTIre0q1sAJa2VmIgo/s320/Wandering+around+Moscow+-+02.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This building is just behind Театральная (Teatralnaya) metro station. Right next to Red Square.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-fHsLQL7GN49oOZ3e-WgsGaQz4K_0QDlFV-WU6uXWfNx7D9miGtpvBWbReGr-6_sp2y8SSbjD9q9tJkNGmX3qmvvV_hjMUxL7nI8mBqsLO6hJf4OsaIc2Z8JXJm8kXMZF8W3bKbha-Vo/s1600/Wandering+around+Moscow+-+09.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-fHsLQL7GN49oOZ3e-WgsGaQz4K_0QDlFV-WU6uXWfNx7D9miGtpvBWbReGr-6_sp2y8SSbjD9q9tJkNGmX3qmvvV_hjMUxL7nI8mBqsLO6hJf4OsaIc2Z8JXJm8kXMZF8W3bKbha-Vo/s320/Wandering+around+Moscow+-+09.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You might think the netting means they are repairing it, but judging from the amount of rubbish that has built up inside the netting, I don't think anyone goes in there much.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdsOGDQ-ttx1OoFrIYZ0LqiBo3VqIq4LRcdeQkhn-JEqlCRUKNnN2ywjKRTQKPMTTfDUxKOr8J0BCAN85Vel_y0RzAhyHJ3MqLXH4o1p2TOHGK1FOf8xn7mbK7pje78YmErLjM-zoDdfQ/s1600/Wandering+around+Moscow+-+11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdsOGDQ-ttx1OoFrIYZ0LqiBo3VqIq4LRcdeQkhn-JEqlCRUKNnN2ywjKRTQKPMTTfDUxKOr8J0BCAN85Vel_y0RzAhyHJ3MqLXH4o1p2TOHGK1FOf8xn7mbK7pje78YmErLjM-zoDdfQ/s320/Wandering+around+Moscow+-+11.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The church on the far left? That is on Red Square. </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFWu38MH-NXSv6O5bCmt9KlrNRMJ4pomyN-Kg6PBMdBYpeWVN3CgU__DjGMI_fYoali5aG_W68O0ytaXjI8ttla4GA-T2G9N6lDoU_1698gzP47JVIRoyMC-SjAsfMD7hj1PUZTcK1K5o/s1600/Wandering+around+Moscow+-+12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFWu38MH-NXSv6O5bCmt9KlrNRMJ4pomyN-Kg6PBMdBYpeWVN3CgU__DjGMI_fYoali5aG_W68O0ytaXjI8ttla4GA-T2G9N6lDoU_1698gzP47JVIRoyMC-SjAsfMD7hj1PUZTcK1K5o/s320/Wandering+around+Moscow+-+12.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A block down from ГУМ (GUM - big shopping mall)</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNSV8NDRsW5L1CRxVTGfD5htnf7gGjoGx_VHcxzd1VLe5UijEt-Gz0jojVJA8eF7tAfuHzLninX9ZpdpwbgVs8lDlDA1EZtU_3_m3H2s1pSkk_RnhrzFRaWo-aNDF8LoNWKiwRwyDZVBI/s1600/Wandering+around+Moscow+-+18.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNSV8NDRsW5L1CRxVTGfD5htnf7gGjoGx_VHcxzd1VLe5UijEt-Gz0jojVJA8eF7tAfuHzLninX9ZpdpwbgVs8lDlDA1EZtU_3_m3H2s1pSkk_RnhrzFRaWo-aNDF8LoNWKiwRwyDZVBI/s320/Wandering+around+Moscow+-+18.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is over the other side, nearer Christ the Saviour cathedral.</td></tr>
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It's difficult to know whether things have got better or worse, as I wasn't in Russia in the 1990s. Possibly they are improving. My grad school WMD professor had, in a previous life, negotiated nuclear weapon reduction agreements with the USSR. He travelled frequently to Moscow in the 1980s and 1990s, and he said at that time chunks of masonry used to regularly fall off buildings. I think that is much rarer now.<br />
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Anyway, it's not as if other countries have always taken good care of their historic buildings. Just look at London, which over the years has employed some of the most criminally stupid town planners known to man. And if you read what Charles Dickens had to say in <i>Pictures from Italy</i>, his account of his travels in the country, you realise that a large number of the monuments he saw were falling down. He describes how a particular cathedral was "odorous with the rotting of Correggio's frescoes in the Cupola". I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be the case now. So maybe Russia is like Italy 150 years ago, and 150 years in the future, all of these places will be sparkling. It's just a pity for me that I won't be here to see them.</div>ayearinmoscowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10248377703774763764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7044965982087207597.post-76018363702933386182012-05-06T20:00:00.000+04:002012-06-27T22:54:39.905+04:00What happened to all the stately homes?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It's easy to imagine, when walking around parts of Moscow, that the entire city was founded by some sort of crazed builder cerca 1950. There are a lot of identically run-down apartment blocks that were originally put up as short-term solutions to the accommodation shortage, but which have somehow managed to limp on into the modern day, despite the fact that everyone is continually expecting them to fall down. One day they will, and everyone will have the satisfaction of telling their friends, "I told you so."</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Residential block, Moscow:" class="size-full wp-image-151" height="224" src="http://www.amazing-architecture.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/622vs1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Residential block, Moscow:" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not architecture's finest hour. <i>Photo from amazing-architecture.com</i></td></tr>
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In reality, however, Moscow is at least 850 years old, and probably older. Unfortunately, there is almost nothing left that is actually old, because people invading Russia have a nasty habit of burning the place to the ground (I'm looking at you, Golden Horde and Crimean Tatars), and if it looks like they might forget, the locals do if for them (see Napoleon). However, the French left 200 years ago, which gave the local aristocrats about a hundred years to get down to the serious business of building stately homes before they were all massacred by the Communists. So what happened to all the stately homes? <br />
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A lot of them are still here. <br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="350" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://maps.google.ru/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=ru&source=embed&oe=UTF8&start=200&num=200&msa=0&msid=201199497118880444240.0004937f7be657ed1a071&ll=55.880881,36.515122&spn=3.464336,13.666993&t=m&output=embed" width="425"></iframe><br />
<small>Просмотреть <a href="http://maps.google.ru/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=ru&source=embed&oe=UTF8&start=200&num=200&msa=0&msid=201199497118880444240.0004937f7be657ed1a071&ll=55.880881,36.515122&spn=3.464336,13.666993&t=m" style="color: blue; text-align: left;">Усадьбы</a> на карте большего размера</small><br />
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<i>Map created by nataturka.ru </i><br />
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I know - that is a lot of stately homes. And they turn up in the most surprising places. For example, every day when I get the tram to school, the route is basically down one street and turn right, but at one point the tram tracks take a massive detour round a big red building.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq5rxuKsWzKucB-iYF312wV86cJMXA6FwEPj7yb7Qyh2M4B55O6mjuoRQukSAgYU-gaqQkN9zLUJf26r9HVC1BUuZthWsdVqBZpve3YxHUSzJ1TqDLtUee9Cy7UCxgSeJA8G7uakpgTT0/s1600/%25D0%25A7%25D0%25B5%25D1%2580%25D0%25B5%25D0%25BC%25D1%2583%25D1%2588%25D0%25BA%25D0%25B8+-+01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq5rxuKsWzKucB-iYF312wV86cJMXA6FwEPj7yb7Qyh2M4B55O6mjuoRQukSAgYU-gaqQkN9zLUJf26r9HVC1BUuZthWsdVqBZpve3YxHUSzJ1TqDLtUee9Cy7UCxgSeJA8G7uakpgTT0/s320/%25D0%25A7%25D0%25B5%25D1%2580%25D0%25B5%25D0%25BC%25D1%2583%25D1%2588%25D0%25BA%25D0%25B8+-+01.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the good half of the building. Has a bit of graffiti and blocked up windows, but otherwise intact.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAAvgSL3McGojhZI7yKuzexK2Goem0YtbowEXqZRyDOfsn5M83opsHYEoW5WCLPjOw8FitWN2TaXiKX1tEtfe0CNsFLI5RV3T5eJDSIlvtNhf3XtRk3uJOcrXT8m-tJT8ktlvXrVzmULU/s1600/%25D0%25A7%25D0%25B5%25D1%2580%25D0%25B5%25D0%25BC%25D1%2583%25D1%2588%25D0%25BA%25D0%25B8+-+05.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAAvgSL3McGojhZI7yKuzexK2Goem0YtbowEXqZRyDOfsn5M83opsHYEoW5WCLPjOw8FitWN2TaXiKX1tEtfe0CNsFLI5RV3T5eJDSIlvtNhf3XtRk3uJOcrXT8m-tJT8ktlvXrVzmULU/s320/%25D0%25A7%25D0%25B5%25D1%2580%25D0%25B5%25D0%25BC%25D1%2583%25D1%2588%25D0%25BA%25D0%25B8+-+05.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Definitely some sort of gate.</td></tr>
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The building itself is semi-derelict. On the other side to the photo, it is bounded by an overgrown garden and most of the windows are smashed in. But it definitely looks like it was once some kind of gate house. And if you walk down to the road, the picture is even clearer. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNS5o1s1-la3FZXJeyNGP-qTNINvVr8d7DGhBdKSiitlHolITEzmvt8raqekDxr2kvtyO8M8IseV-02w8FhZGGcyMInrs__p33SFEvIkJtQ3L29zY3ATinsV7TaMKEEvsZETP5eH4d2nA/s1600/%25D0%25A7%25D0%25B5%25D1%2580%25D0%25B5%25D0%25BC%25D1%2583%25D1%2588%25D0%25BA%25D0%25B8+-+09.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNS5o1s1-la3FZXJeyNGP-qTNINvVr8d7DGhBdKSiitlHolITEzmvt8raqekDxr2kvtyO8M8IseV-02w8FhZGGcyMInrs__p33SFEvIkJtQ3L29zY3ATinsV7TaMKEEvsZETP5eH4d2nA/s320/%25D0%25A7%25D0%25B5%25D1%2580%25D0%25B5%25D0%25BC%25D1%2583%25D1%2588%25D0%25BA%25D0%25B8+-+09.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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So what was it the gate house to? Well, through the trees on the other side of the road you can make out some sort of big house, but I'm pretty sure they don't want visitors. Partly because there is a sign saying Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics, which is the kind of thing people like to keep secret, and partly because if I jump up and down by the fence surrounding it I can just about see what is on the other side - two more fences. Three fences in a row is generally a keep out sign (although my friend says that if you go round the side there is a place where the fences are broken and you can climb through). Until I summon up the courage to do that, according to Google, this is what I am missing out on:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" height="300" src="http://www.mosgid.ru/image/1286781420_734.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Photo from mosgid.ru</i></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a class="postlink" href="http://www.uzaok.ru/go.php?http://lugerovski.gallery.ru/watch?ph=uOk-coCf0" rel="nofollow" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Изображение" class="reimg-width-portrait" height="400" src="http://data4.gallery.ru/albums/gallery/79370--32997258-m750x740.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Photo from uzaok.ru</i></td></tr>
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Not too bad, right? I should have been a Russian physicist.<br />
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The estate is called Черёмушки (Cheryomushki - this is still the name of the tram stop there), and although the origin of the name is not definitively known, the most common story is that it comes from the word черемухи (cheremukhi - bush cherry), which supposedly used to grow here. This may be complete rubbish, however, and there are other stories, even other plants, that could have given the estate its name (including черемошка - cheremoshka - wild garlic). Although you do have to think, would anyone really have named their estate "wild garlic"?<br />
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Anyway, when I was trying to find out the history of the place I read possibly the most boring essay ever written since the beginning of the world, which I will now summarise for you: in the last four to five hundred years, not much happened here. Legend has it that the manor was originally owned by Boris Gudanov, and it then passed through a series of families, none of whom appear to have spent much time in the place, because they were all so rich that they had multiple estates. A couple of them were hanged by their feet and then thrown off buildings, probably when someone realised that, as a method of execution, hanging someone by their feet is exceedingly slow. The only other interesting person to have owned the estate was Duchess Anastasia Golitsyn, who was a favourite of Peter the Great, was at one point arrested for treason, and ended her days being a clown for the Empress, whom she used to make laugh by crawling around on her stomach picking up gold coins. From this we learn that she had no pride, and the Empress was a sadist. <br />
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Eventually the estate was bought by the Yakunchikov family, who renovated it in 1909 to look like it does today, although the red building the tram goes round is actually older, from the end of the 18th century. After the revolution the place was nationalised, the house stripped and its contents sent to Moscow. Yankunchikov did survive though - he emigrated in the early 1920s, so if he has any descendents, they are probably now members of the Assembly of the Russian Nobility (there really is one - their webpage is <a href="http://www.nobility.ru/eng/" target="_blank">here).</a> According to some people, Trotsky lived in a very aristocratic style in the house from 1918-1922, complete with servants etc, but I couldn't find anything that would corroborate this. The estate became a collective farm, then a rest house, then a training centre for military vets, and then after the war it housed the omnious-sounding Laboratory No. 3, which later became the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://testan.rusgor.ru/moscow/book/moscow_usad/cherem_shema_1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img alt="Схема усадьбы Черемушки" border="0" height="274" src="http://testan.rusgor.ru/moscow/book/moscow_usad/cherem_shema.jpg" title="Схема усадьбы Черемушки" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is what the estate used to look like. To the bottom right is the gatehouse the trams now go round. <i>Photo from testan.rugor.ru</i></td></tr>
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Unfortunately, in the mean time, the area around the main buildings changed from the above picture to a collection of hideously ugly apartment buildings, one of the first regions in Moscow to experiment with the sort of low-cost, no-soul housing developments than later became common. At the time, however, the government was very proud of it. They even commissioned Shostakovich to write an operetta about the place in 1958.<br />
<br />
This type of apartment block is, thankfully, out of fashion. But it did manage to provide the plot for the Russian version of <i>It's a Wonderful Life</i> (in that it's happy and shown at Christmas) - <i>Ирония Судьбы</i> (Ironia Sudbi - the Irony of Fate). In this film, the hero gets incredibly drunk and ends up getting on a plane to St Petersburg by mistake. He is still drunk when he gets there, but because in Soviet times there was not much variation in street names between cities, and no variation at all between apartment blocks, he manages to get a taxi to "his" apartment and even unlock "his" front door and fall asleep in the place without realising that he is, in fact, in completely the wrong city. The real owner of the apartment then comes home and hilarity ensues. They eventually fall in love and by the end of the film it looks like they will live happily ever after. Of course, they made a sequel twenty years later in which it transpired that in fact they hadn't got married and instead had spent the time being miserable.</div>ayearinmoscowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10248377703774763764noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7044965982087207597.post-9915749707665904632012-05-01T21:16:00.000+04:002012-05-01T21:31:38.411+04:00The prosody of Russian poetry<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The guy who lives next door to me likes love songs by 90s US boybands. I know this because he sings along to them at high volume late at night or absurdly early on Sunday mornings, mispronouncing half the words. Occasionally this is loud enough to wake me up, at which point I lie for a while in bed, debating the merits of turning the other cheek and why it is that I am still capable of getting so angry at things like this. Eventually I yell "замолчи" (zamolchi - shut up) and then "shut up", since English is the international language of shouting. If this doesn't work I jump out of bed and bash the wall several times with my fists, which isn't recommended, since the building is alarmingly flimsy and every time I do things start falling from the ceiling. By this point I am normally laughing and he usually shuts up, so everything is ok.<br />
<br />
In my more awake moments, I think I should be more considerate of his attempts at karaoke, since the way he feels about the Backstreet Boys is probably the way I feel about Russian poetry. He loves the way the lyrics sound, and I think the prosody of Russian is beautiful. Listening to Russians recite poetry, or really just speak Russian at all, is like listening to a song. It's one of the things that attracted me to Russian in the first place. One the other hand, since my accent is not terribly good, I'm sure I would cause Russians exquisite pain if I were to recite poetry at them. At Christmas my school had a "talent show" of the type I abhor, where overly-jolly administrators bully participants into ritually humiliating themselves in front of an embarrassed audience. A couple of people decided to recite Pushkin, so I watched the Russian teachers to see how they would react. Several of them spent the time wincing whilst rubbing their eyes, and one had her head in her hands. Russian is only beautiful when spoken by Russians, I guess. Or maybe they just feel the same way I do about talent shows.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I don't think you need to be able to understand the words to appreciate the sound [in fact, since one of the parts of the brain that responds to rhythm and is involved in emotional reactions to music is the cerebellum, a part of the brain we share with, for example, reptiles, there is a possibility that crocodiles would also like Russian poetry].<br />
<br />
So here are two of my favourite Russian poems, one by Lermontov, and one by Pushkin. They are both fairly short, which makes them easier for me to remember. Learning poetry is a good way to learn vocabulary, since everything is easier if it rhymes. Plus then you have something to recite at tram stops to save yourself from death-by-boredom whilst waiting for your tram to show up. Translations into English obviously not done by me.<br />
<br />
Lermontov - Парус<br />
<br />
<object height="81" width="100%"> <param name="movie" value="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F44969785">
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<embed allowscriptaccess="always" height="81" src="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F44969785" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%"></embed> </object> <span><a href="http://soundcloud.com/ayearinmoscow/07-1">Парус</a> by <a href="http://soundcloud.com/ayearinmoscow">ayearinmoscow</a></span> <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
Белеет парус одинокой</div>
В тумане моря голубом!...<br />
Что ищет он в стране далёкой?<br />
Что кинул он в краю родном?...<br />
<br />
Играют волны - ветер свищет,<br />
И мачта гнётся и скрыпит...<br />
Увы, он счастия не ищет<br />
И не от счастия бежит!<br />
<br />
Под ним струя светлей лазури,<br />
Над ним луч солнца золотой...<br />
А он, мятежный, просит бури,<br />
Как будто в бурях есть покой!<br />
<br />
<i>A single sail is passing, white<br />
In blue and oceanic haze.<br />
What does it seek in foreign seas?<br />
Why has it left its native bays?<br />
<br />
The waves are playing. Wind is wailing<br />
Against the bending, creaking mast.<br />
Oh no, it seeks no happy future<br />
And does not flee a happy past.<br />
<br />
The azure waves roll out beneath it,<br />
The solar gold above it glows,<br />
And yet this rebel begs for storms<br />
As if a storm could hold repose.</i> <br />
<br />
Pushkin - Я вас любил<br />
<br />
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<embed allowscriptaccess="always" height="81" src="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F44970472" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%"></embed> </object> <span><a href="http://soundcloud.com/ayearinmoscow/xaumfzmscrp5">Я вас любил</a> by <a href="http://soundcloud.com/ayearinmoscow">ayearinmoscow</a></span> <br />
<br />
Я вас любил: любовь ещё, быть может,<br />
В душе моей угасла не совсем;<br />
Но пусть она вас больше не тревожит;<br />
Я не хочу печалить вас ничем.<br />
Я вас любил безмолвно, безнадежно,<br />
То робостью, то ревностью томим;<br />
Я вас любил так искренно, так нежно,<br />
Как дай вам Бог любимой быть другим.<br />
<br />
<i>I loved you; even now I must confess,<br />
Some embers of my love their fire retain;<br />
But do not let it cause you more distress,<br />
I do not want to sadden you again.<br />
Hopeless and tonguetied, yet I loved you dearly<br />
With pangs the jealous and the timid know;<br />
So tenderly I love you, so sincerely,<br />
I pray God grant another love you so.</i></div>ayearinmoscowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10248377703774763764noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7044965982087207597.post-90219999748897798962012-04-25T00:27:00.000+04:002012-04-25T00:27:01.277+04:00How to find a Moscow address<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
On my first day in Moscow I was told to go five stops on the tram from where I lived to find the school. The trouble was, once you got off the tram it was impossible to find out the names of the streets, because most of them didn't have signs, and the numbering system appeared to have been put together by someone who couldn't count. Without a map or internet on my phone, I was reduced to asking random passers-by:<br />
<br />
Me: Excuse me. You don't happen to know, by any chance, where no. 24/35 K-- street is, do you? (polite questions in Russian are generally phrased as negatives, so rather than "could you tell me" it would be "couldn't you tell me" etc)<br />
Local: There are a lot of streets round here with that name, so really, it could be anywhere.<br />
Me: Oh.<br />
<br />
Actually, as is almost always the case, the girl I stopped was incredible nice, and stayed with me whilst we asked a series of other people, none of whom knew either. After I'd recruited four people to my cause, we eventually found someone who had heard of the school. Guess where it was? Right across the street from where I was standing, of course. Ho hum. Sometimes I forget that I am supposed to be smarter than the average bear.<br />
<br />
The reason I got confused is that Moscow uses a different method of building numbering from the UK. There is a similar system in Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia), where I once spent three increasingly frustrating hours trying to find a hotel, despite the fact that there are only two roads in the entire city. The problem, of course, is that there aren't REALLY only two roads in Ulaanbaatar, it's just that there are only two roads on the map (because these are the ones with names). To use a Moscow example, the address of my school is 24/35 K-- street. It is on a street corner, so it has two numbers, one for each road. BUT there are five other buildings which are also 24/35 K-- street, and most of them have multiple entrances. Even within one entrance there are often multiple businesses. Obviously, not all six buildings can be on the corner of two roads - they together cover an area roughly the size of a city block. So there are small roads criss-crossing the interior of this block. These, however, are not counted as roads and are not named on maps.<br />
<br />
This system has two results. Firstly, distances between numbers on streets are much longer than you think. If you are at no. 27 and you need number 37, this is likely to be quite a walk, not just five houses down. Secondly, if you want to find an address, you need to know the street name and
number, the building number, which entrance you need, and then the
number of the apartment or business. Basically an address will not do -
you need a description of how to find the place. Or alternatively Google
maps, which knows everything.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I am off to Tokyo for a wedding tomorrow, so I won't be updating for a few days. Moscow weather has finally caught up with the rest of the world, decided to skip spring entirely and go straight into summer. A couple of weeks ago the temperature jumped 15 degrees in one night, and has been 20 degrees or so every day since. Since this is almost exactly the same as the temperature in Tokyo at the moment, this is ideal for me.</div>ayearinmoscowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10248377703774763764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7044965982087207597.post-28063572162298683992012-04-23T00:08:00.000+04:002012-04-23T00:08:09.307+04:00Tricking your brain into learning vocabulary<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I like grammar. This may put me in the minority, but I think there's something fascinating about understanding how sentences work, and the ways you can twist and play with words and word order to emphasise different things. I love learning a new grammatical construct and then feeling that there is now a whole new group of thoughts I can express.<br />
<br />
What I don't love is learning vocabulary - mainly because it can never, ever end. There are always more words to know, and as soon as you learn them, you will forget the old ones. I used to try and learn vocabulary in lists, but this is no good at all, because my brain outsmarts me and remembers the words in sequence rather than each one separately connected with a meaning. Thus I can tell you the Russian word for "prophetic", but only if you've just asked me to translate "to whine", because these words happened to come up in the same lesson at school. Clearly a non-starter.<br />
<br />
Possibly the rest of the world has known this for years, but I came across a programme that temporarily gave me the lead in the arms race between me and my brain, by randomly asking me words from a list I have inputted. It then remembers which ones you got wrong and asks you them more frequently in the future compared with the words you got right. It also automatically assumes you will forget words after some time, so it repeats everything every month or so. In case anyone else would find it useful, it is called ProVoc, and you can download it for free <a href="http://www.arizona-software.ch/provoc/" target="_blank">here.</a><br />
<br />
Of course, in the medium term my brain found a way of getting round this. It now appears to operate on a group basis instead of sequentially. So it now knows the word for "prophetic" only if we have been previously discussing words from the Chekov story Дама с собачкой (Dama s Sabachkoi - Woman with small dog). </div>ayearinmoscowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10248377703774763764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7044965982087207597.post-42561519852593800322012-04-22T23:14:00.000+04:002012-06-27T22:54:39.904+04:00I have a spare cold war bunker to sell you...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
What do you buy when your country starts selling off everything it owns, and it owns everything? This was a decision that various now-oligarchs had to make in the 1990s, and it turns out the correct answer was oil, metal or media companies. Everyone with the correct answer - pass go and collect a billion pounds (also the eternal hatred of most of your compatriots, but don't worry - you can always move to London).<br />
<br />
Some people, however, made more...unusual, perhaps imaginative choices. For instance, at least one person decided that what they had always wanted was a bunker or two designed to withstand a nuclear attack. Preferably in a good location...ooh, and wouldn't it be nice if it had some fake marble pillars? "Fear not", said the government, "we have just the thing". A short while later, probably after slamming his head repeatedly into a wall for not going with aluminium smelting firms, said owner had to decide what to do with his 50-year-old metal tunnels under the ground. And the answer was....wait for it...a bar.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTSOnGVjknTgbi5bjt7U-X1gU_8PhN5nKP8iAfhRaaNgLqQXmR4xHWjzyt3IleCH1GeiiD9WaoYawPqr4e_dm56cXMVSllb1NBRx7h7QoBYJ_u9jOXtqkxdvFZNREiLPp7e_S_KkMXfxs/s1600/CWB22.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTSOnGVjknTgbi5bjt7U-X1gU_8PhN5nKP8iAfhRaaNgLqQXmR4xHWjzyt3IleCH1GeiiD9WaoYawPqr4e_dm56cXMVSllb1NBRx7h7QoBYJ_u9jOXtqkxdvFZNREiLPp7e_S_KkMXfxs/s320/CWB22.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The best place for a party...a nuclear bunker with the shiniest red sofas money can buy</td></tr>
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Unfortunately, that left him with another 7000 square metres of bunker to use. Having almost certainly bankrupted himself on red sofas, the cheapest thing was to leave the rest exactly as it was and then charge tourists for seeing it in the "original" state...and so the "Milestones of the Soviet Era" tour was born.<br />
<br />
Actually, I'm both being unfair and conflating two separate bunkers, so I will now stop. The tour I went on spent five hours exploring two sets of bunkers - one built in the 1930s as a place for Stalin to escape to if the Germans entered Moscow, and one built in the 1950s to ensure continuity of government and telecommunications in the event of an American nuclear attack. Since they were both in Moscow, I couldn't help thinking that the former was fairly useless - if the Germans entered Moscow, surely the obvious thing would be to leave Moscow completely and retreat eastwards, not just across town.<br />
<br />
According to the tour guide, whose had a bit of a thing for Stalin's "leadership", the whole of the Moscow metro was built as a cover for the construction of a series of underground command points, bomb shelters and storage facilities that began in 1933 when Hitler came to power. [Part of the preparations was a factory that could go from making pasta to making gunpowder in fifteen minutes, which I think is utterly brilliant]. A plan to build a massive 120,000-seater stadium and sports complex near Измайловский (Izmailovsky), a former imperial hunting lodge, was used to distract from the immense amount of work needed to build a back-up central command post there. Ultimately the bunker was finished, but work on the stadium was abandoned in 1939 and never restarted. It is now one of those bizarre places filled with small kebab shops that make everyone wonder who on earth would come all this way for a kebab. [Answer based on what I saw: no one] Underneath the stadium is a series of tunnels and rooms, including parking spaces and fuel for 150 tanks. What they actually let you see is the main conference room (the first room you come into) and the two rooms on either side of it - Stalin's study and his dining room, and then a couple of rooms now used for conferences/ as a cafe.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR-V9FhyphenhyphenDNGjotSxHc8PFCmIoUplv9HHWgAeNo0bmLRP5eFtV-VMYVL_XKSDpEhv2rs58S1d4UuWeN-6QBciiBoUE14Gu3SwtEEpmt_Y9r0AOEKFREJr_U_1OuOOVfEUcrOKqmK7VhOYQ/s1600/CWB+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR-V9FhyphenhyphenDNGjotSxHc8PFCmIoUplv9HHWgAeNo0bmLRP5eFtV-VMYVL_XKSDpEhv2rs58S1d4UuWeN-6QBciiBoUE14Gu3SwtEEpmt_Y9r0AOEKFREJr_U_1OuOOVfEUcrOKqmK7VhOYQ/s320/CWB+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Unfinished stadium used as cover for the building of the bunker. Complete with guns on the field to shoot the losers.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGPMVuTIwQw4TyvMbf2BLH-wcVVu0etlHvYu1JJe7-3t6mnaUupuABXUJ5osI6oxudJk15jQ2nJTRi-W5gd99eSUUVpyPLsactMDhD4v649ZzISBL5WVyad88CAF3zHR1TLxZpQ6Ypn3w/s1600/CWB3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGPMVuTIwQw4TyvMbf2BLH-wcVVu0etlHvYu1JJe7-3t6mnaUupuABXUJ5osI6oxudJk15jQ2nJTRi-W5gd99eSUUVpyPLsactMDhD4v649ZzISBL5WVyad88CAF3zHR1TLxZpQ6Ypn3w/s320/CWB3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Main conference room in the bunker with fake marble pillars (actually I think these are rather good - I still want to learn Venetian plastering).</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The conference room has a special dome over the circular table so that Stalin's voice, which was naturally very quiet, would be amplified without him needing to strain himself. Facing away from the entrance, to the left was Stalin's study, which contained a desk, couch, map of the front, strange multi-player chess-like gaming-table and pictures of Lenin, Marx and Engels (the latter two look almost identical). <br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFKoebtyy6t1clJujZM9XHmImpY-vQb1W-aJCY0nyogC39NuQlsiGW40dfGwtxxVDtPkn5eIfYF4UpVnXzV8ZG_SG8IIrS9dlmCyzIPqQZ3e_Nu1SrAPzXwb7nKBf_kpYUA4qaGc78oyo/s1600/CWB10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFKoebtyy6t1clJujZM9XHmImpY-vQb1W-aJCY0nyogC39NuQlsiGW40dfGwtxxVDtPkn5eIfYF4UpVnXzV8ZG_SG8IIrS9dlmCyzIPqQZ3e_Nu1SrAPzXwb7nKBf_kpYUA4qaGc78oyo/s320/CWB10.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stalin's desk in his office. There is a map of the front behind him, and Lenin's picture keeping an eye on him to his right.</td></tr>
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<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVehAdgjYlHolragXDZdFs011fMTRP5Uj7m-imhFtB8VdLkacZgfiWcFlzJSDtKvk3GX_5WI5OgMarnhFvgGeJS-2EnW6Kctnj11hvHmvBFIdQZUQMECCGg8QPqeJ7gCU6L36cvr-zQ5E/s1600/CWB9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVehAdgjYlHolragXDZdFs011fMTRP5Uj7m-imhFtB8VdLkacZgfiWcFlzJSDtKvk3GX_5WI5OgMarnhFvgGeJS-2EnW6Kctnj11hvHmvBFIdQZUQMECCGg8QPqeJ7gCU6L36cvr-zQ5E/s320/CWB9.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It looks like something Gandalf would play, but it was actually it was one of Stalin's favourite games.</td></tr>
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<br />
To the right was the dining room, which Stalin had decorated to look like a Georgian tavern, because he liked those. He also apparently liked artistic representations of himself, because pictures and sculptures of him were everywhere. I like busts on pillars, but personally I would have chosen my favourite Roman emperor (Julian II). However, there's no accounting for taste, especially Stalin's, who appears not to not have had any at all, judging from the monstrosity of a statue in one of the adjoining rooms. If you can look at the picture and not think, "what the hell is that?", there is something wrong with you. I may be being too harsh though - the heads may have been added later by the guide, who, as I said, was a fan.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgduOTMg5iXmp1Iit7oDyeALavAhOzaCz1kfXHInIRi_9KZYacDVaVOfMAa4CDKu1GwSZv1csog_H3eE0WQcF55tLm6FbxPOYWdqJab3Gm7ziXKjRiliYIZsGlz_AZ9WOIV3BRmXzIwVqw/s1600/CWB11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgduOTMg5iXmp1Iit7oDyeALavAhOzaCz1kfXHInIRi_9KZYacDVaVOfMAa4CDKu1GwSZv1csog_H3eE0WQcF55tLm6FbxPOYWdqJab3Gm7ziXKjRiliYIZsGlz_AZ9WOIV3BRmXzIwVqw/s320/CWB11.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stalin: A man fond of Georgian taverns...and his own head</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_df2HwrKStGmE6N4xIOrj74a1cez9kWo4INjKjb7awW_5R9gN7G6bm5vKh3GDpQez6ptLCOOdNYbO_duaJCBwwBFbTSKIhQLLVFP-YqLmVe0MuAFj6Xu1G1dEHPu71c05n5DxrMzQolI/s1600/CWB13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_df2HwrKStGmE6N4xIOrj74a1cez9kWo4INjKjb7awW_5R9gN7G6bm5vKh3GDpQez6ptLCOOdNYbO_duaJCBwwBFbTSKIhQLLVFP-YqLmVe0MuAFj6Xu1G1dEHPu71c05n5DxrMzQolI/s320/CWB13.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Irrefutable proof that having near-unlimited dictatorial power does not bring you taste</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The bunker was linked to the Kremlin in Moscow by a 10 mile underground road. The plan was that Stalin would come here from the centre of town, and then either stay and work here (this is what actually happened in December 1941 when the Germans were bearing down on Moscow), or, if this was too dangerous, he had one of three options. Plan A was to fly out from the airfield next door. Plan B, in the case of bad weather, was to leave on the secret underground railway to the East. Plan C, in case of bad weather and the train breaking down, was to fight the Germans to the death using his 150 tanks. Not a bad set of plans.<br />
<br />
The other set of bunkers, which is located near Таганская metro station (Taganskaya) was built in the 1950s when the possibility of the US launching a nuclear strike on Moscow seemed like a real threat. From an unassuming entrance off a quiet street, you then pass through a 50cm thick, 6-ton door before descending 60m (18 storeys) to the tunnel system. The depth of the bunker hit everyone at the same time, around the -10 storey mark on the staircase we were walking down, as the group suddenly realised that we would have to WALK UP the same way to get out. There was grim silence from that point on.<br />
<br />
The tunnels and rooms are mostly empty, because in the 1980s the government decided to repair and update all the technology in them, and this was still going on when the funding dried up in 1990. At this point the whole project was mothballed until they sold off the bunkers, but there are a couple of rooms that have been reconstructed - including one with a reproduction nuclear-missile-launching interface, where you can go through the motions of pushing the red button and then watch an American city being blown into smithereens on a large screen above you. I'm not sure whether this is meant to be fun or not. As I am really pretty fond of America, I found it moderately disturbing.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWJXWcG7klOq4uYEjeY6WxIvhTQLf7gaJdlgAzOS686JO6af-bx4JFbrsQ90yowj0k3nrYIdnGNCZ_URuge4sT16_e3kAEnIjvZcYadnvJsXjyH9O6l0J09uCd02KIRBYdBa8OE1wEyCY/s1600/CWB20.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWJXWcG7klOq4uYEjeY6WxIvhTQLf7gaJdlgAzOS686JO6af-bx4JFbrsQ90yowj0k3nrYIdnGNCZ_URuge4sT16_e3kAEnIjvZcYadnvJsXjyH9O6l0J09uCd02KIRBYdBa8OE1wEyCY/s320/CWB20.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The most depressing working environment ever</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUt9jGmrWna2oPLu-51uxnd6w6uaD-_Jb0IFgii0aDPklXpwpNyXZj6EZ7Zu6AltEeC8EGCtnyB7L8VxIzANKL9Qw0Rom7O-aYTCuw8vwx8REMHw_it_mdW4kN_21F3gWsUaIMMiqS3JE/s1600/CWB21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUt9jGmrWna2oPLu-51uxnd6w6uaD-_Jb0IFgii0aDPklXpwpNyXZj6EZ7Zu6AltEeC8EGCtnyB7L8VxIzANKL9Qw0Rom7O-aYTCuw8vwx8REMHw_it_mdW4kN_21F3gWsUaIMMiqS3JE/s320/CWB21.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Work on repairing and updating the tunnels was called off in 1990 half-way through the process</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgVQg_25HKTNHkcbO8UDju4UQWVHjOg6iH62lZ3X458BzT93RdUy45MKqldw3IBElhTx7tuvzc-iYN0z5rq1fT8V2e0mXQ31eKZEXL9TEaQGF3tBIpqtpMxLKO4T05qTHxI9fHLU1g-4I/s1600/CWB19.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgVQg_25HKTNHkcbO8UDju4UQWVHjOg6iH62lZ3X458BzT93RdUy45MKqldw3IBElhTx7tuvzc-iYN0z5rq1fT8V2e0mXQ31eKZEXL9TEaQGF3tBIpqtpMxLKO4T05qTHxI9fHLU1g-4I/s320/CWB19.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is where they ran into the seven dwarves coming from the opposite direction</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihoQ661Ki41zs9Eh9ElqTwsOujnhOc8NLteTGB0_80CjXjIfXichNpKavW17DJKErkpU_fvFNUI324NqGQ5LxZBv6OjrXcTJcYwcGmRC4-VRLVTCSAs__BAzMcGZNgX2WF7W0qr7QmbZM/s1600/CWB14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihoQ661Ki41zs9Eh9ElqTwsOujnhOc8NLteTGB0_80CjXjIfXichNpKavW17DJKErkpU_fvFNUI324NqGQ5LxZBv6OjrXcTJcYwcGmRC4-VRLVTCSAs__BAzMcGZNgX2WF7W0qr7QmbZM/s320/CWB14.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pretending to launch nuclear missiles against the US...what larks!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR86-63seGIELkJU2bgix5J6fqnfV8YkHLQUWzVZtoSSjhcGsjIpY4nkSjsR0d_OdWV7ZRL2QnLNerKcX-fS3qBucgSsdUH9CnOc5dciSJGvNXgGx_514lwnTnmy9iN3a3DgfNSbCMz88/s1600/CWB16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR86-63seGIELkJU2bgix5J6fqnfV8YkHLQUWzVZtoSSjhcGsjIpY4nkSjsR0d_OdWV7ZRL2QnLNerKcX-fS3qBucgSsdUH9CnOc5dciSJGvNXgGx_514lwnTnmy9iN3a3DgfNSbCMz88/s320/CWB16.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Now you see why the place needed updating</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh92pTaRUFBJKhjT9IH4xgdmZLR87Jcpl0VhuhcmyydrapRSqAluOjizujkdf4U1P98WBN0CpmjB4-KAFz39mwh0Z5r2-6Kppo95rzls2GQq6wYH9HB9R0RcyHb40CFJ3u_-IjKFE_GG-0/s1600/CWB18.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh92pTaRUFBJKhjT9IH4xgdmZLR87Jcpl0VhuhcmyydrapRSqAluOjizujkdf4U1P98WBN0CpmjB4-KAFz39mwh0Z5r2-6Kppo95rzls2GQq6wYH9HB9R0RcyHb40CFJ3u_-IjKFE_GG-0/s320/CWB18.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Desk of telecommunications operator. The machine on the right is for morse code, complete with little tapping thing.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
We eventually emerged from more tunnels into the bar, where we were served a traditional meal of beef, buckwheat, tea and vodka. It was pretty good, but getting back to ground level was even better. Being in a bunker, even for a few hours, makes me realise how much I like grass and trees and the sound of birds, and how quickly I would go insane if I were trapped underground. And not just because I have seen The Descent.</div>ayearinmoscowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10248377703774763764noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7044965982087207597.post-73712474729508938202012-04-17T00:48:00.000+04:002012-04-17T00:49:46.826+04:00Update: Why Putin is a crab<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
So I am now in a position to be able to tell you why Putin is a crab. He gave a press conference a while back during which he stated that he had been working "как раб" (like a slave), but several journalists, either accidentally or otherwise, misheard him. They thought he said he had been working "как краб" (like a crab), and reported his words as such. Cue internet proliferation of pictures with Putin's head superimposed on the body of a crab.<br />
<br />
Diction is very important for politicians. </div>ayearinmoscowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10248377703774763764noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7044965982087207597.post-91661138212081600552012-04-16T17:09:00.001+04:002012-04-16T17:09:47.980+04:00Google and what people want to know<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
If the futility of life is starting to get you down, and you feel yourself sympathising with Pechorin more than is strictly healthy, I suggest you look to Google to restore your affection for the human race. I like to type in "why" to Google, because it then suggests the most popular continuations of this question. These questions form the current preoccupations of humanity (or those parts of humanity with access to a computer). And then I like to do this in different languages to see if it makes a difference:<br />
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<b><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">Country</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">Why…?</span></b></div>
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<td style="border-bottom: solid #4F81BD 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: none; border-top: solid #4F81BD 1.0pt; mso-border-bottom-themecolor: accent1; mso-border-top-themecolor: accent1; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 141.95pt;" valign="top" width="142">
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<b><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">Why am I…?</span></b></div>
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<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 0;">
<td style="background: #D3DFEE; border: none; mso-background-themecolor: accent1; mso-background-themetint: 63; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 93.95pt;" valign="top" width="94">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-yfti-cnfc: 68;">
<b><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">US</span></b></div>
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<td style="background: #D3DFEE; border: none; mso-background-themecolor: accent1; mso-background-themetint: 63; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 141.95pt;" valign="top" width="142">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-yfti-cnfc: 64;">
<span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">…is the sky blue?</span></div>
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<td style="background: #D3DFEE; border: none; mso-background-themecolor: accent1; mso-background-themetint: 63; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 141.95pt;" valign="top" width="142">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-yfti-cnfc: 64;">
<span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">…so tired?</span></div>
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<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 1;">
<td style="border: none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 93.95pt;" valign="top" width="94">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-yfti-cnfc: 4;">
<b><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">UK</span></b></div>
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<td style="border: none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 141.95pt;" valign="top" width="142">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">…is the sky blue?</span></div>
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<td style="border: none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 141.95pt;" valign="top" width="142">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">…always tired?</span></div>
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<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 2;">
<td style="background: #D3DFEE; border: none; mso-background-themecolor: accent1; mso-background-themetint: 63; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 93.95pt;" valign="top" width="94">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-yfti-cnfc: 68;">
<b><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">Russia</span></b></div>
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<td style="background: #D3DFEE; border: none; mso-background-themecolor: accent1; mso-background-themetint: 63; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 141.95pt;" valign="top" width="142">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-yfti-cnfc: 64;">
<span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">…is the sky blue?</span></div>
</td>
<td style="background: #D3DFEE; border: none; mso-background-themecolor: accent1; mso-background-themetint: 63; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 141.95pt;" valign="top" width="142">
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<b><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">Germany</span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">…is a blonde standing at Hamburg port?</span></div>
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<td style="border: none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 141.95pt;" valign="top" width="142">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">…so happy?</span></div>
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<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 4;">
<td style="background: #D3DFEE; border: none; mso-background-themecolor: accent1; mso-background-themetint: 63; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 93.95pt;" valign="top" width="94">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-yfti-cnfc: 68;">
<b><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">Spain</span></b></div>
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<td style="background: #D3DFEE; border: none; mso-background-themecolor: accent1; mso-background-themetint: 63; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 141.95pt;" valign="top" width="142">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-yfti-cnfc: 64;">
<span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">…because?</span></div>
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<td style="background: #D3DFEE; border: none; mso-background-themecolor: accent1; mso-background-themetint: 63; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 141.95pt;" valign="top" width="142">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-yfti-cnfc: 64;">
<span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">…a Christian?/ sad?</span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 5;">
<td style="border: none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 93.95pt;" valign="top" width="94">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-yfti-cnfc: 4;">
<b><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">Italy</span></b></div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 141.95pt;" valign="top" width="142">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">…is Picnik closing?</span></div>
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<td style="border: none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 141.95pt;" valign="top" width="142">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">…a vegetarian?</span></div>
</td>
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<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 6;">
<td style="background: #D3DFEE; border: none; mso-background-themecolor: accent1; mso-background-themetint: 63; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 93.95pt;" valign="top" width="94">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-yfti-cnfc: 68;">
<b><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">France</span></b></div>
</td>
<td style="background: #D3DFEE; border: none; mso-background-themecolor: accent1; mso-background-themetint: 63; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 141.95pt;" valign="top" width="142">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-yfti-cnfc: 64;">
<span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">…is the sky blue?</span></div>
</td>
<td style="background: #D3DFEE; border: none; mso-background-themecolor: accent1; mso-background-themetint: 63; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 141.95pt;" valign="top" width="142">
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<span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">…single?</span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">Australia</span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">…pay more?</span></div>
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<span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">…so tired?</span></div>
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<br />
These are the most popular questions. Spain gets two answers because of the two verbs "to be" (assuming my limited memory of Spanish is correct). Picnik is a photo-sharing website, and I think the German question about a blonde is part of a joke. <br />
<br />
I'm sure you could do this for hours, but I don't know any more languages. I tried doing this with Google translate for some countries, but you never know with Google translate. Either their translation is off or the Greeks are googling why Greece was given the opportunity to rise up against their government and attain the 5th dimension, whatever that means. Although I suppose rising up against the government possibly IS what the Greeks are googling.<br />
<br />
The reason for the sky being blue appears to interest a lot of people - this question was at No. 1 in US, UK, Russia and France, No. 2 in Spain and Australia, and No. 3 in Germany and Italy. It was the only question all countries had in common, although variations of "why am I so tired?" were also quite common, appearing at Nos 1 and 4 in the US, 1 and 2 in the UK, No. 2 in Spain and Italy, and No. 4 in Germany. The French and the Russians apparently get enough sleep. <br />
<br />
Anyway, the point of all this is that you see how much you have in common with the rest of the human race, i.e. most of them are exhausted as well. The Spanish are depressed - "why am I so sad" appeared at numbers 1 and 3, and the French are lonely - "why am I single" appeared at number 1 and "why am I alone" at number 2. And the Russians are all voting for Putin...well, maybe. "Why am I voting for Putin" was actually higher than "why am I an idiot", but I ruled this out because, judging by the results, I think it is a statement rather than a question, i.e. it should be read as "why I am voting for Putin". The second most popular question beginning with "why?" in Russian was literally "Why is Putin a crab?" but since this doesn't make any sense, there must be something I am missing. It's not zodiac signs, but it must be something.<br />
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</style></div>ayearinmoscowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10248377703774763764noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7044965982087207597.post-62084144794031624902012-04-16T15:11:00.000+04:002012-04-16T15:11:03.785+04:00Oleg Menshikov (Олег Меньшиков)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Last Tuesday I went to the theatre to see my favourite Russian actor, Олег Меньшиков (Oleg Menshikov). It wasn't a play, more of a monologue of him talking about what music has meant to him throughout his life, accompanied by a band playing his favourite pieces. I didn't understand a single word he said, because his usual talking speed seems to be about fifty times that of a normal person, but the music was nice, and it was interesting to see him in person rather than on TV. <br />
<br />
I can't think of who the equivalent of Oleg Menshikov is in the UK or US, possibly because I am appalling bad at anything to do with modern life. When I moved back to the UK in 2009 I kept seeing all these headlines about someone called Cheryl Cole, a person I had never previously heard of, and after a month I was so annoyed that I actually had to google her. But it's also possible that no equivalent to Oleg Menshikov exists, and this is because (trying not to sound like a teenage fan here), he is really, really talented. He speaks French and English as well as Russian, he dances, he sings and he plays the guitar and the piano and God knows what else. And when I say he plays the piano, he doesn't just play it a bit, he REALLY plays the piano. I think he must have a clause in every film contract he signs that he gets to play the piano, just to show off how good he is.<br />
<br />
One of my favourite of his films is called Восток Запад (East West), in which he stars with another actor called Sergei Bodrov Jr (now sadly deceased). Sergei Bodrov Jr had a PhD in Art History. He wrote his thesis on "Architecture in the Venetian Renaissance Painting". So there are several (well, at least two) super-intelligent and cultured Russian actors. It's people like this that make you feel like a failure as a human being.<br />
<br />
Back to the theatre. The female spectators outnumbered the men by about 30:1, and at the end of the performance so many people went up to the front to give him flowers, that he couldn't carry them all, and had to go and put them down and come back on stage and carry on collecting bouquets. He had to do this three times. Three times! That is what you call popularity. But what does he do with all the flowers?</div>ayearinmoscowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10248377703774763764noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7044965982087207597.post-55023203538676148762012-04-15T18:00:00.000+04:002012-04-15T19:36:15.551+04:00On the edges of the midnight Easter service<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Happy Russian/Orthodox Easter! Orthodox communities, unlike Catholics and Protestants, use the old Julian calendar to calculate moveable feast dates such as Easter, in order to comply with Canon Seven of the Holy Apostles and various other decrees that state Easter should never coincide with Jewish Passover, which it does sometimes in the Gregorian calendar used in the West. This means that Orthodox Easter is anything from 1-5 weeks after Catholic/Protestant Easter. [Somewhat confusingly, fixed feast days are calculated according to either the new (Gregorian) or old (Julian) calendar, depending on the country - hence Christmas in Greece is on the 25th of December (Gregorian), whereas in Russia it is on the 7th of January (Julian), despite the fact that both are Orthodox countries. Still, it is simpler than pre-1918, when the whole of Russia was permanently thirteen days behind the rest of the world for everything.]<br />
<br />
Easter is the most important festival in the Russian Orthodox church, so I decided to go to the midnight service at the church next to my общежитие, to see what happened. I was warned beforehand to try and stay close the door so that I could escape if I wanted to, because although no one seemed to know exactly how long the service might last for, the general view was that it could go on all night. In the end I stayed for 2.5 hours and then left, because the whole thing seemed to be going in circles, both literally and figuratively (the same music and chants kept coming up again and again, and the priests and associated people kept rushing round and round the edges of the church carrying staffs and incense whilst crying "Христос воскресе" - Kristos voskrese - Christ is risen). This is not meant to be offensive - I am sure it all had a theological purpose, but since I didn't know what that was, it seemed to me a bit repetitive. Plus the whole thing was in Old Slavonic and not Russian, so I couldn't understand anything. Nevertheless, the service was beautiful, and I been humming the chants from it all day. [And just so you know, it wasn't rude to leave early - Orthodox services are more informal than in the Catholic or Protestant churches, with people entering and leaving as they like throughout the whole service. I checked this both with locals and with books about Orthodox Christianity, and both sets of sources said it was fine to leave early.]<br />
<br />
My impressions of the service are naturally going to be very shallow, because I don't really know anything about Christian rites. To start off with, at the gates to the church compound were a collection of people asking to alms, and most people gave them money before fighting their way into the church to buy candles, and then fighting their way out again and trying to find someone with a lighter. Inside the church there was some sort of ceremony going on, complete with chanting, and then at midnight the church bells all rang and the priest, deacons and other related people came down from the altar carrying icons, staffs and such-like, and everyone piled out of the church after them. We all then processed around the church, during which time the priest chanted something, and people periodically joined in, presumably in a call-and-response thing. The procession was very beautiful in the dark, what with everyone carrying candles, and a lot of people had lined up on the fire escapes of the next-door общежитие to take pictures. When we got back to the church, the service continued, but to be honest, it was impossible to see what was happening, there were so many people. Outside the church a small boy kept yelling out "Христос воскресе" (Christ is risen), to which everyone else shouted back "Воистину воскресе" (Truly, He is risen), but I don't think this was part of the service, since the boy in question had a rather bored tone, and in between these declarations spent his time swinging round a metal pole in the courtyard.<br />
<br />
There are three main dangers inherent in this kind of service - being crushed, fainting, and being set on fire. The first happens because the service was incredibly popular, and the church wasn't that big. There were probably 500-600 people trying to get into a space really only big enough for 200 or so. A lot of people stood outside in the courtyard in front of the church, but enough people were trying to get into, or out of the church, that at times I could hardly breathe for being squashed between the wall and the crowd. I don't know how popular services are normally, but judging by how happy the priests looked last night, the attendance on non-feast days may be lower.<br />
<br />
Related to this crowding is the second problem of fainting. Since there are no seats in Orthodox churches, everyone has to stand, and when the churches are very crowded, the place can get uncomfortably hot and airless. This would be less of a problem if the services were short, but unfortunately Russian services are notoriously lengthy. When Paul of Aleppo arrived in Russian in the 17th century, he wrote in his diary, "And now we are entered on our travail and anguish...God help us for the length of their prayers and chants and Masses". And bear in mind he was still Orthodox, just from Syria. How well people cope with these conditions is a matter of opinion. According to a book I read, one of the amazing things about Orthodox services is that old women and children manage to stand for hours on end without any sign of fatigue, but I think this is a bit optimistic - three people fainted during the Christmas service my room mate went to in January, and last night there was an ambulance waiting outside the church I attended.<br />
<br />
To be fair, the ambulance could also have been there in case of the third danger - being set on fire. Candles are a big part of Orthodox services, and 90% of the people at the service were carrying some sort of naked flame - mostly small taper candles stuck through pieces of paper to catch the drips, but occasionally oil lamps, and in the case of one old woman, who was clearly not going to be outdone by anyone, a torch. And no, we're no talking the electric kind, but the Indiana Jones kind. So you have a lot of people carrying naked flames within a small area, and periodically bowing to the altar...you can see how this could end badly, even though people were generally very careful about shielding their candles. Perhaps unavoidably, the fur hood of the girl standing next to me was set on fire, but it got swatted out pretty quickly, and only the smell of burnt hair was left to mingle with the incense from the thuribles (although the girl was very unimpressed with the man responsible for the offending candle). The moral of this story is that you shouldn't wear anything flammable to church - concentrating on the service is that much harder when you're trying to remember what medical insurance you have, and debating whether you could get your headscarf off quickly enough to avoid serious burns if it went up in flames.<br />
<br />
Obviously on a much grander scale, and it jumps around a lot in time, but here is some video of the service in Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow, attended by Putin and Medvedev. The thing they're all shouting at around 3mins is "Воистину воскресе" - truly He is risen, at 5mins 30secs the Patriarch is giving Medvedev and Putin Easter eggs (but not chocolate ones, which don't exist here), and at 8mins 15secs the XB on the red decoration stands for Христос воскресе - Christ is risen. I didn't take my camera to the service I went to because I thought it would be disrespectful, but I actually think it was more beautiful there, possibly because it was for ordinary people rather than VIPs and TV cameras.<br />
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</div>ayearinmoscowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10248377703774763764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7044965982087207597.post-25303954461918110362012-04-09T16:46:00.001+04:002012-04-09T16:55:46.007+04:00The best Russian western<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I don't think many people truly dislike westerns. There's something incredibly appealing about the independence of the people in them, and who hasn't dreamed of (literally) riding off into the sunset? I even took horse riding lessons so that if I ever get the chance to do so, I will be able to take it (although I'm not actually very good, so if the horse starts galloping I will probably be too worried about hanging on for dear life to notice that I am fulfilling a life-long dream). Of course, there aren't many (any?) British westerns, and you might think that there wouldn't be any Russian ones either, but this would be WRONG.<br />
<br />
What many people think of as the best Russian western (sometimes called an eastern, ho ho ho) was made way back in 1969, and is called Белое Солнце Пустыни (Bieloe Solntze Pusteeni - White Sun of the Desert). It tells the story of a Red Army soldier Comrade Sukhov who, having been discharged from fighting the Whites in the civil war, is making his way home from the deserts of Central Asia to the green fields of Russia. Or trying to, at least, because he keeps having to stop to dig up people who have been buried to their necks in the sand and left to die. He befriends the fourth person he digs up, Sayeed, and together they get roped into helping out a Red Army cavalry unit...<br />
<br />
The film is considered a classic of Soviet cinema, and is often watched by cosmonauts before they blast into space, which isn't something you can say about most films. I really liked it, especially the character of the customs officer, who was played by a famous Ukrainian-Russian-Armenian actor called Pavel Luspekayev, in his final role before he died of peripheral vascular disease. Apparently he's everyone's favourite character in the movie, so at least I'm in good company (although technically, I suppose, also bad company). A lot of the best lines, however, go to Sukhov, and some of these have become so famous they have entered everyday speech, including what to say when you don't want to hear any objections ("Вопросы есть? Вопросов нет!" - are there any questions? No there aren't), a pathetic catch-all excuse ("Да гранаты у него не той системы" - his grenades are the wrong type - although Sukhov doesn't say this himself - pathetic excuses are not his style), and what to say when you are given the choice between death and torture ("лучше, конечно, помучиться" - torture is better, of course). You never know when such phrases will come in handy.<br />
<br />
Obviously being set in a different culture at a different time means there are some major differences between US westerns and this film. For a start, whereas in westerns you often get the girl who from the outset is condemned to die because she once dated the main baddie, here you get the harem of the main baddie, all of whom wear burqas (actually apparently yashmaks, but it's still a full-body cloak), which does put a slightly different spin on things. <br />
<br />
This link is to the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yia2azQd4GY&feature=watch-now-button&wide=1" target="_blank">entire film</a>, complete with English subtitles for non-Russian speakers. Or if you can't be bothered with all that, here is a "trailer" that covers the whole plot without using any words.<br />
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<br /></div>ayearinmoscowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10248377703774763764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7044965982087207597.post-86839716601847393902012-04-09T00:35:00.002+04:002012-04-15T18:07:06.508+04:00The Moscow Metro<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The Moscow metro is the most beautiful underground system I have ever seen (which actually isn't saying much, but just pretend it is). You can tell how impressive people find it because many of the videos about it on YouTube are set to soaring, dramatic music (think 2001 Space Odyssey type stuff). I don't know if YouTube music is generally an accurate guide to reality, but in this case it definitely is. <br />
<br />
Every station is unique, and they encompass a wide range of different artistic styles. That's the most pretentious I'm going to sound, because I know precisely nothing about art. But the point is that there really is art in the stations - a couple of years ago when the BBC made a programme about the history of Russian art, the presenter lay down on the floor of the Moscow metro to look at the mosaics in the ceiling. In general, to my untrained eyes, they have a lot of differently shaped light fittings, and a lot of mosaics and stained glass. For some reason they remind me of ancient Rome, possibly because I can't separate mosaics from Rome in my head, and possibly because Rome was another place where people lived in very cramped and none-too-nice apartments, but had some incredible public spaces. <br />
<br />
So here, without further ado, is the a video of some of the stations. Whoever made it missed out most of the stations in the interests of time (both your time watching it, and, I imagine, his/her time traipsing round all the stations at the crack of dawn to get pictures when hardly anyone is there), but it gives you an idea:<br />
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<br />
<br />
I know what you're thinking - how do they keep the floors so shiny? The answer is, unsurprisingly, lots of polishing - very often you will see people sweeping or polishing the floors with those little machines that look like lawnmowers you sit on. And if you don't see them they will run you over, so it's best to keep a look out.<br />
<br />
This isn't everything. Not content with beating the rest of the world in the beauty stakes, the Russians have also beaten everyone else in the how-frequently-trains-arrive stakes, and the price stakes. You know those displays on the Underground in London that tell you how long until the next train arrives (the ones that seem to think one minute lasts for five)? Well they don't need them here because you never have to wait that long for a train. The longest I have ever waited was three minutes. And the cost for my unlimited monthly pass? Around £7.50 (less than $12). Compare that with £78.40 for a student monthly Oyster pass. Considering Moscow is supposed to be one of the most expensive cities in the world (and the price of food here really is extortionate), I have no idea how they manage it.<br />
<br />
[A lot of people seem to think this is still too much to pay. If you don't feel like paying, you can walk through the ticket gates, which will play a short tune that is also used by ice-cream vans in the UK, and then shut themselves. However, since the barrier is only knee high, you can jump over it no problem. If you are unlucky, the lady whose job it is to stop people doing this will blow a whistle, but movement is absolutely out of the question.] <br />
<br />
The only problem with the metro is getting down to it. For this, you need to open two sets of doors. You can see how the design process went - it's cold here and the stations are heated: we need doors. Ninety-nine percent of people are incapable of shutting doors: the doors must shut automatically. Every second the doors stay open we lose warmth and have to pay more for heating: the doors must shut as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, they tried to reduce t, the time the doors stay open, to zero, and to do this used some very heavy doors on some very tightly-wound springs. The result is a death trap. People here nearly always hold open the door for the next person, because if they don't it will smack the poor guy in the face as it accelerates backwards. You could knock someone out like this. If you are behind a very rude person who doesn't hold the door open, on no account try to catch the door - your arm may be wrenched out of its socket. Instead you need to treat it like obstacle course. Wait for it to swing back, run through afterwards. By now the rude person will have gone through the next set of doors. Wait for these to swing back too, and run through. If the door is shut and you need to open it, it is best to take a couple of steps back and ram it with your shoulder, as though you are trying to break down a door in a film. Standing next to it and pushing will just make you look like a fool. So, perhaps not ideal, but since the designers were right about people never shutting doors, it's difficult to see what else they could have done.<br />
<br />
The authorities are still expanding the Metro - recently they announced five new stations to be opened by 2015, which would bring the total to 190. It is the world's second most-heavily-used rapid transit system after the Tokyo subway, carrying an average of 6.6 million people a day (2009 figure), versus around 2.9 million a day for the London Underground (2009) and 4.4 million in New York (2010). Plus it has a 99.96% timetable fulfillment, which is really throwing down the gauntlet, considering that in 2006 the average Metropolitan line commuter wasted 3 days, 10 hours and 25 minutes due to delays. Furthermore, if you are going to be delayed, wouldn't you rather be delayed in somewhere that looks like a palace?</div>ayearinmoscowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10248377703774763764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7044965982087207597.post-68558151919731534792012-04-03T16:57:00.000+04:002012-04-09T17:03:00.541+04:00Etiquette and harrassment<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It's tough being a Russian woman - especially if you work. Sexual harassment is more common here than it is in the UK (to put it mildly - in a 2008 survey, 100% of female professionals in Russia said they had been harassed by their bosses). Out of a group of eight or so women I discussed this with, all of them either had personally experienced it or had a close friend have to deal with it. And before anyone starts thinking that they are being unduly sensitive, we're not talking about some offhand comment that was taken the wrong way. One example: a woman went on a business trip and found out that her boss had booked the two of them into a double room together. Or another example: a woman's boss when drunk can't keep his hands to himself and makes obscene comments, even in front of his own wife. And unlike in the UK, suing is not an option. Well, technically it is an option, but only two women in the entire history of the country have won sexual harassment cases (not an exaggeration. Literally two - one in 1993 and one in 1997). <br />
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It's very strange, because in some ways, men here are more stereotypically gentlemanly than guys in either the UK or the US (the two places I have the most experience of). Men routinely stand up to offer their seats to women on the tram or the metro (which I have seen in London, but not as frequently), help old ladies carry their bags up stairs, and guys have frequently offered me their hand to help me get out of cars/trains. On the other hand, several men on the Transsiberian this past summer were extremely aggressive in, shall we say, pressing their suit, and on one occasion, a guy tried to illustrate the worthiness of him and his mates by informing me that they "don't even hit" their girlfriends. I mean, what can you say to that? Er, well done?<br />
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Although those men may well have been drunk and/or mad, overall gender roles are very traditional here. I have no idea if this has anything to do with the higher incidences of sexual harassment and domestic violence, but it is interesting. Men are expected to pay the bill in restaurants, bring a girl frequent presents, and give her a ride home after a date. One guy told me that if you don't like a girl you just give her the money for a taxi home - but I just can't imagine how this could possibly work in practice. Perhaps most bizarrely, some men here (mostly older ones) still bow and
kiss a woman's hand, which I have never seen in my entire life in the
UK. My understanding of how it works there is that the guy is supposed to OFFER to pay the bill, and then the girl says oh no, I couldn't possibly let you, and then the guy insists, and then they have a contest of politeness until one of them backs down, but in principle, either one of them is allowed to back down depending on how broke they feel. And as regards transport, you're on your own. <br />
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There isn't really a conclusion to any of this, it's just one of those interesting things about living in another country.<br />
<br />
Source for statistics: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/2470310/Sexual-harrassment-okay-as-it-ensures-humans-breed-Russian-judge-rules.html </div>ayearinmoscowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10248377703774763764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7044965982087207597.post-20370779008734707402012-04-02T16:52:00.000+04:002012-04-09T16:56:20.833+04:00Russian Winnie the Pooh<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I have never actually seen or read the US/UK version of Winnie the Pooh (Винни Пух), because, in general, I like neither stuffed animals nor idiots, and Winnie the Pooh seemed to be a nightmarish combination of the two, a primitive version of Jar Jar Binks. However, we watched the Russian version in class, and I may have been totally wrong about the whole thing, because I think this version is fantastic. It is VERY famous in Russia - everyone has seen it and people can quote from it at length (I tested this on several people and it is true).<br />
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The interesting thing is that Pooh looks totally different from the way he does in the Disney film - he looks a lot more like a real bear, complete with claws - maybe because here, they have real bears, so they know what they look like. He is still supposed to be a toy though, and is stuffed with sawdust, which would make for one very hard toy. I wouldn't want some child to playfully hit me round the head with what is, essentially, a block of wood. There are a few other differences: Piglet is called Pitachok, because his head looks like an old 5-kopek piece, and Eeyore is called Eea, because this is the sound donkeys make in Russian [a comparison of animal noises in different languages is very interesting, and I keep meaning to try and compile a list. I spent a whole lunchtime comparing animal noises with a Pole, a Japanese girl and an Italian, and they appear to be different in every language, sometimes to the point where you have no idea what kind of animal someone is impersonating].<br />
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For this, you don't even need to sign up for the fabulous В Контакте, because it is all on You Tube. There are three episodes, but the third one is by far the best. Here is a version with English subtitles (the Russian is pretty fast at times).<br />
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Part 1: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73uIn56G1YE&feature=related" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73uIn56G1YE&feature=related</a><br />
Part 2: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtVVRuy1T9c&feature=relmfu" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtVVRuy1T9c&feature=relmfu</a><br />
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Of course, it's not perfect. They do the stupid thing where they all laugh together at the end, something I have always found intensely irritating (Thundercats was a particularly egregious offender, I seem to recall). Almost as annoying as jolly peasants (another one of my pet hates).</div>ayearinmoscowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10248377703774763764noreply@blogger.com0