Russian Politics 101 Posted by yelena on Jul 22, 2010
Our next guest blogger, Natalie, is a university student studying history and the Russian language. She writes the blog birdbrain and can be found on Twitter at @natalie_. Her interest in the Russian language was sparked by Russian history and a Russian course at university and she’s been hooked ever since. When learning about a…
Reading «Мастер и Маргарита»: Chapter 7 Posted by yelena on Jul 19, 2010
Have you ever been hung over after an especially rowdy night of partying? If yes then you can probably relate especially well to the opening of the Chapter 7 of M&M, «Нехорошая квартира» [The Evil Apartment]. After all, poor «Стёпа Лиходеев» [Styopa Likhodeyev] suffered through a horrible «похмелье» [hangover] all through this short chapter. Another…
Word of the Week: «Жара!» [Heat!] Posted by josefina on Jul 18, 2010
In Russia you’ll only find «такая пустая улица» [such an empty street] in the city «летом» [(instrumental case: when?) in the summer] when «жара» [the heat] has driven all citizens either «на дачу» [(accusative case: direction) to the dacha] or – as one can read about in this article – «в подвал» [into the basement]…
There Is More to Sundress Posted by yelena on Jul 13, 2010
Time flies and it’s already mid-July. Can you smell the winter frost in the air? With the thermometer stubbornly in the 90ies (Fahrenheit), I personally can’t. And yet, while the summer is in full swing, there are many signs pointing to the approaching winter. I have at least 3 of these signs in my own…
Reading «Мастер и Маргарита»: Chapter 6 Posted by josefina on Jul 12, 2010
It doesn’t really feel like «лето» [summer] until you’ve spent an entire afternoon doing nothing but the following simultaneously: «лежать в траве» [to lie in the grass], «пить холодное молоко» [to drink cold milk] and «читать Булгакова» [to read Bulgakov]. «Россия» [Russia] is a wonderful country in many, many ways – but during my six…
Once, at Summer Camp… Posted by yelena on Jul 10, 2010
Summer in Russia seems to be a theme for most of this week’s posts. So it only makes sense to «выразить поддержку» [express support] by writing about my summers growing up in Russia. For me, summers were like «американские горки» [roller-coasters]. First, there was excitement of the last day of school, of returning textbooks to…
A summer in Russia Posted by josefina on Jul 8, 2010
We spent two years in Russia, when I was Naval Attaché in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, 1981 to 1983. Here are some of my memories of summer there: «Белый пух» [white down; fluff; fuzz]: Summers in Russia are short, but intense, and sweet. In Moscow, our first memory of summer is «белый пух» [white…