Have you heard the complaint that Russians don’t smile? Have you traveled to Russia to find the sales people rude or disengaged? Have you ever looked at a Russian photo album and wondered if they’re not all depressed?
It’s true, Russians smile less than Americans, and they’re well aware of it.
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Александр Татарский скончался 22 июля. Он был великим режиссером русского анимационого кино. Делал такие фильмы, как ‘Падал прошлегодный снег’, ‘Пластилиновая ворона’ и ‘Ворон-обманщик.’ Ему было 56 лет.
Alexander Tatarskii died at age 56 on the 22 of July. He was an active member of the Russian animated film community — yes, he made cartoons — and was a well known director. Most recently he directed the Pilot animation studio, which has produced many of the best animated films from Russia of the last couple years. He died of a heart attack in his sleep. We will miss him and his good work.
You can see a little bit more about him on Animator.ru’s site.
You can also listen to an undistributed soundtrack from his film Падал прошлегодный снег. It’s very good.
When I lived in Russia for the first time for a while, people kept asking me, “Договорились?”
The first few times I didn’t know what the word meant. So I said, “I don’t know,” or “No?” And then we would go over everything that we has just said. “We’re meeting at the Orbit Movie Theater, outside the metro station, at 4pm, you think this is ok?” “Sure that’s ok.” “Хорошо, договорились?” Um. Did we? Did someone else? You tell me.
Well, to end the repetition, I started saying “да.”
The Садовое Кольцo circles Moscow. In tsarist times it was a ring of greens spaces and gardens (сады) on the rim of the city. Today its name is an oxymoron, as it is a common place for пробки, Moscow’s massive traffic jams. But in this video, it’s unusually empty, and the driver makes it all the way around the city in six minutes.
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BBC correspondent James Rodgers is living in Moscow and writing about it. Last week he talked about midnight shopping, this week he wrote about life in Yekaterinburg. His impressions match many that I felt just coming to live in Moscow. And the responses he gets betray what he doesn’t see as a newcomer.
