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Archive for December, 2008

And the ‘Name of Russia’ is… Posted by on Dec 29, 2008

…АлександрНевский [Alexander Nevsky]! If you remember (and have been a reader of this blog for long enough – thanks, by the way!) I wrote about the Russian people voting in the national contest/TV show «ИмяРоссии» [Name of Russia] in a post of mine back in July [ИмяРоссии: who’s your pick?]. Well, ladies and gentlemen, yesterday…

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«С Рождеством с Урала!» [Merry Christmas from the Urals!] Posted by on Dec 24, 2008

«С Рождеством с Урала!» This Christmas card is old – from 2006, when I had just moved to Yekaterinburg, and there’s a mistake in it (guess where?). When I sent it out to friends and family that year it caused a sensation because of its… well, partly because of its portrait of Russian contemporary society…

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В моем иглу [in my igloo], or The Weather Forecast for Next Week Posted by on Dec 21, 2008

This is the weather forecast for next week in my corner (read ‘igloo’) of the planet Earth. In Russia igloo is «иглу». This is not a Russian word, even though Russia is a cold country. One knows that some words are not Russian words by the way they’re written. If a word ends on an…

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Ничего Себе! [Not Bad! Pretty Good! Pretty Well!] Posted by on Dec 19, 2008

Wrapped up in a thrilling conversation in Russian (this also goes for in Russia) and feeling rather impressed with what someone else has just said, but at a loss for concrete words to express such notions, one does not always know what to say. Of course, you could always make the classical comment of «хорошо!»…

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Russian Winter – An Annual Event Posted by on Dec 14, 2008

Until I moved to Russia – and even more so after arriving in Siberia – I never knew the strength and power and glory of «колготки» [pantyhose; or just plain ol’ tights]. This word is plural, and only in plural (perhaps because there’s two legs to each pair, or because it is just that –…

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The Russian Ironic T-shirt Posted by on Dec 12, 2008

Walking down Yekat’s answer to Moscow’s Arbat – улица Вайнера – I came upon these two t-shirts on an ad for a souvernir shop. The first one says: «Лето на Урале было! Но я в тот день работал» [There was summer in the Urals! But on that day I worked.] The second one says: «Екатеринбург…

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A Great Russian Writer: Варлам Шаламов [Varlam Shalamov] Posted by on Dec 7, 2008

Though it’s been over a month since I finished reading his masterpiece «Колымскиерассказы» [“The Kolyma Tales”] I have not yet been able to let go of him as a writer. Not only the fate of Варлам Шаламов [Varlam Shalamov] but also his person has stuck on me for good. I wanted to write about him…

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