Russian Blog

I suppose everyone already knows which country is the biggest in the world – Россия. But that’s the kind of second-hand knowledge one acquires from studying a map of the world. If you’re actually in Russia, and not on a train or on a plane traveling through it, but walking around in a big Russian city, you won’t believe that this country has the amount of space it (allegedly) has, because everywhere you go here it’s cramped or crowded. The Russian equivivalent of the English expression “It’s a small world” is «Мир тесен» [The world is very crowded/cramped], and uses the adjective «тесный» which translates into ‘crowded, cramped; tight, compact, close; fig. close, intimate; tight’. Surely, for the people of the world’s biggest country, the rest of the world might seem “cramped”, but then again – where else in the world were families forced to live in one room for the better part of the 20th century? Flipping through «Русский репортёр» this Saturday morning, as always thoroughly enjoying a new issue of the weekly magazine with the slogan «вдумчивое чтение для интеллигентного среднего класса» [thoughtful reading for the intellectual middle class] I came across the following article: «Мечта о миллионах домов: Первый указ Медведева хорош, но трудновыполним» [A dream about a million houses: The first decree of Medvedev is good, but hard to fulfill]. Though while walking through any city of Russia you’ll get the idea that they’re building as much as possible here, wherever and whenever feasible, the truth remains a bleak one: they’re building far from enough. And what they’re building is not what is needed the most, but what generates the most money – luxury apartments that the avarege Ivan can’t afford even with risking everything on a loan or high-end fashion malls where the average Tatiana can only dream of shopping. The larger part of the population can’t afford even a half-decent place to live. Today I was very happy to see the new president concerned with this very same problem, that has bothered me for quite some time now, too bad the cautious journalist who wrote the article is realistic enough not to get as optimistic as me and Димочка.

Read More »

The day after Victory Day I went to a local grocery store in my neighborhood where I saw this magazine with a cover picture from which I could simply not tear my eyes. It must have been the combination of buff arms with a hat on a gorgeous horse and that carefree facial expression that did me in – I never buy tabloids in any country, let alone in Russia (did they defeat the dictatorship of the proletariat so as to read brainless gossip and look at paparazzi pictures of the rich and famous half-naked on the beach?), but this time I forked up the 20 rubles because I couldn’t wait to gorge myself in useless information about the elite in Moscow, including everyone’s favorite Vovochka. I don’t know how it was back at the beginning of his ‘reign’, but it must have seemed very unlikely in 2000 to imagine the then new president Vladimir Vladimirovich in eight years time turning into – like it or not, but that’s what it looks like – a sex symbol. Back in November last year I did a review of magazines to read while in Russia, but for some reason I left out all of the tabloids, each and every one of them, though in Russia, like in any other country embracing Western cultural standards, tabloids outsell almost all other printed materials. This article was found in a magazine that proudly calls itself StarHit in English and translates that into Cyrillic on the main page as «СтарХит». Since it lacks an official website of any sort, I am forced to share the article with you here in pictures [one day I swear I’ll get a scanner and go crazy, but until then…], and with the first paragraph translated into English, so as to give you a general idea of the journalistic value to be found within it’s plenty flattering pictures of the ex-leader.

Read More »

Or, more correctly speaking, not we, and least of all I [being a legal alien with a mere «прописка» allowing for my stay in the country], but the Russian Federation has a new president. The bombastic inauguration ceremony was broadcasted live on TV from the heart of the Motherland, from the inner center of the Holy Capitol of Moscow, at noon (Moscow Time, of course), and contained very few surprises. It was disappointing to see both Владимир Владимирович Путин and Дмитрий Анатольевич Медведев driving through (empty!) streets up to the Kremlin in a black Mercedez each – is neither the new nor the old president patriotic enough to forgo comfort and safety in order to turn to the native car of Volga? Putin gave a stern farewell speech, being a master of stern speeches, and Medvedev happened to smile a tiny little bit while inspecting the armed forces at the end of the ceremony. Despite the presence of the patriarch at the ceremony, the new president was not blessed by him after saying his «присяга» [oath] and giving a confident speech full of expectancy, though I suppose there was no need for a second blessing (a second baptism is, after all, a sin also in the Orthodox Church) as he was already blessed by the patriarch last fall after Putin announced he was to be his heir, oh, sorry – successor.

Read More »