Fragments of a blog
Fragments of a blog
A worthwhile article in the Washington Post, by Peter Baker. But first, a correction is in order. For more than eight decades, Russians charged with a crime in Moscow were brought shackled into cramped courtrooms, where Communist Party-appointed judges and…
I do not write about Russia as often as I probably should: it hurts. A few days ago, a Russian submarine sunk in the Barents sea on its way to the shipyard where it was to be scrapped. See what…
Paul Jané cites a Reuters report showing that Brazil is about to become the first nation in Latin America to send not just its astronauts and sputniks to space, but propel them by their own, Brazilian-made rockets. No wonder Paul…
So they say Russians are collectivists? That’s partly true. For the most part, though, it’s sheer nonsense. Russians have had an overdose of collectivism, both ideological and practical, – a forcibly administered overdose. Now it’s table-turning time, which means lots…
Just stumbled upon a review of a Khruschev bio. I’ve known most of the stuff all along, but I still couldn’t help laughing at the zebra/cow gig. No wonder the Political Joke became the greatest achievement and the star genre…
Pravda means (the) Truth. The best name one could come up with for the voice of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. I like those multiple genitives. Initially, though, Pravda was a minor, half-legal opposition…
Actually, they were more than seven. Ten or twelve or twenty… Four days after the Soviet-led ìnvasion of Czechoslovakia, on August 25, at noon, a small group of people (three women and five men, one of the women with a…
I don’t know if Tupak Shakur was a great artist, but if you read his name the way most Russians do, you get “too-PAHK” — that is, a sort of blockhead in Russian. If Mark Steyn got it right, which…
The town of Zhukovsky is named after an outstanding Russian physicist who contributed so much to the development of aviation. Located not far from Moscow, it is — or used to be? — a major center of (military) aviation research…
Glossary. Yorsh (Russ.), literally, “a ruff”, is a mix of vodka and beer. A “brown bear” is a mix of champagne and beer, known at least since mid-19th century. “Northern lights” (Aurora Borealis) is a cocktail of vodka and champagne.…
Whether or not Stalin ordered John Wayne killed, it is well known that the Great Leader was a big fan of Hollywood movies. As an anecdote goes, he once asked a certain Jewish Soviet composer of popular music whether his…
Vitali Vitaliev on Brighton Beach, or “Little Odessa”. I haven’t been to Brighton Beach myself; as I see it from afar, it is a Soviet neighborhood in New York City that speaks Russian with a slight provincial Jewish accent. Most…