The one great principle of the…law is, to make business for itself. There is no other principle distinctly, certainly, and consistently maintained through all its narrow turnings.
~Charles Dickens (Bleak House)
Today is Legal Profession Day! This holiday was introduced to Russia by the once and future President Vladimir Putin relatively late in the game in 2002. It marks no special legal occasion or milestone that I could discern, but rather reflected the rise in importance and prominence of the profession, keeping pace with the hyper-development of Russia’s economy in the early oughts.
Russia has very few famous lawyers. The equivalent of our Attorney General, the General Procurator, is a uniformed position, usually occupied by some portly guy who speaks that horrific officalspeakski the Russians developed somewhere in the 1950s and 1960s, after all the people who knew how to deliver lofty rhetoric had been killed in the war (or other places), died of natural causes, or fled the country. My friend Tess made the excellent point that it was probably what a lot of badly educated peasants thought intelligent people should sound like.
Sentences are delivered primarily in statacco phrases, which intone up and down for emphasis. The speaker generally employs a condescending tone, as if it is a total waste of his very valuable time to read off his prepared statement. The language he employs makes as full a use of the past tense as possible, as well as the full names of companies or government organs, and the speaker, characteristically avoids eye contact with the camera or audience, and waggles his hand up and down in a chopping motion to underscore his words. So, for example, an official, keeping his eyes firmly to the left of camera might say something like this:
“I, Ivanov, Yuri Borisovich, Deputy Head of the National Carrier of the Russian Federation can confirm that, in compliance with Law # 648 of the Federal Aviation Services of the Russian Federation, by the National Carrier of the Russian Federation, all scheduled flights for today, May 31, 2010, were carried out and executed by the National Carrier of the Russian Federation on time and on schedule. And what is more, I can add that by me, Ivanov, Yuri Borisovich, Deputy Head of the National Carrier was received a personal congratulations from the Stepanov, Vassily Dmitrievich, the Head of the National Carrier of the Russian Federation.”
Rhetoric in Russia is sick puppy, so it’s no wonder there aren’t any famous Russian lawyers, apart, that is, from the two who currently run the country. You don’t have any real live Clarence Darrows or Alan Dershowitzes. There isn’t a golden thread of Russian legal fiction to give us Rumpole, Atticus Finch or Jarndyce and Jarndyce. There aren’t even any lawyer jokes. Because the law in Russia isn’t funny. It’s tedious and plodding and Byzantine and changing. Russian lawyers enrage me. They charge a gazillion dollars a minute and used to muck up my beautifully written press releases with their legalese just to get their fingerprints on to some document.
What Russia can boast, however, is a Pornographic Portia. She wasn’t made in Russia, but she’s certainly made it in Russia, many many times.
Deidre Dare is an American who worked for Alan & Overy in Moscow, which has to have been very dull work indeed. To spice things up, Ms. Dare went out a lot, got up to all kinds of things, and wrote about it in an erotic novel (not the very best of that genre, but still). She published the novel in her own name in weekly installments on her web page, each chapter charting her escapades with men of varying nationalities. In 2009, her bosses at the law firm asked her to take down the web site; she refused, and was sacked. For about thirteen and a half minutes, this was Headline News. It looked like book deals and film rights would rain down on Ms. Dare, who made some outraged statements, which were much better crafted than her erotica or, of course, Russian officialspeakski, about suing the firm for slander or liable or something.
The book deal may be in place, but the lawsuit seems to have fizzled out. I have to admire Ms. Dare, though, for staying in Moscow and parlaying her exploits into a weekly column in The Moscow News called Sexpat (not the very best of that genre, but still), which you can find here. People keep threatening to bring her to my dinner parties, and I may just pluck up the courage to say yes. She’s obviously not stupid, has no reservations, and is enjoying being a writer much more than being a lawyer.
Rumpole would have adored her…
Congratulations to all of the lawyers in Russia! If you want some unsolicited advice, try some Cicero or John Mortimer...read To Kill a Mockingbird, or watch Inherit The Wind. Rhetoric, people...rhetoric!!
These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard,
And there may be many others, but they haven’t been discovered.
~ Tom Lehrer
Today is the Day of the Chemists! Today we celebrate all the eggheads who mix things up in test tubes and make the world a better place to be! The most famous Russian chemist is Dmitry Mendeleev, whom we last saw trying to get Russia to adopt the metric system. Mendeleev came up with the Periodic Table of Elements, a systematic grouping of the elements by atomic weight. He claims to have seen it in a dream, and then wrote it down. He won the Nobel Prize and all kinds of other cool stuff, like having the Periodic Table etched into the wall of a house he used to live in. I wonder if, in his wildest dreams, Mendeleev could have imagined the popularity of the Periodic Table as a shower curtain. Seems unlikely.
Alexei Soloviev, the COO of The Bank I used to work for, and I spent one rather dull winter week, trying to come up with a list of ten things Russia had invented or given the world. It was the week we both discovered Wikipedia. We had incredibly high standards: for example, the Kalashnikov rifle didn’t qualify because you had to have invented the firearm, which Russia didn’t do. We looked at space exploration, but the French were responsible for coming up with the original technology for that, and if you don’t count that, then you have to give it to Italy since Leonardo da Vinci had some pretty definitive drawings. We looked at vodka, which was invented by the Swedes, although our buddy Mendeleev was responsible for answering his country’s call by coming up with the chemical “standard” for vodka. We had the radio screaming match. We looked at a number of things, which are useful to mankind, that were invented by Russians who emigrated to other countries, such as helicopters and television, which I ruled out as possible entrants. That’s like saying Maria Sharapova is a Russian tennis player, about which Alexei and I had a heated argument, which I eventually won. Of course Maria Sharapova isn’t a Russian tennis player…how silly is that?
This is the kind of argument one does best to avoid with Russians. They are the first to tell you just how truly useless their country is, but suggest that Maria Sharapova is not a Russian tennis player and they go ballistic. They moan and groan about how badly things are run, but throw a national conniption fit when their gold medalist figure skater doesn’t win another gold medal and behaves badly in public. A Russian can bore you to death over all the reasons why the government is going to hell in a handbag, but just you try to suggest that other countries took part in the Victory Over Fascism and you find yourself feeling like you’ve done 16 rounds with a heavyweight.
I did finally give Alexei these points: Russia did invent the musical synthesizer, chromatography, and synthetic rubber.
But the big contribution remains the shower curtain. Russia definitely gave the world The Periodic Table of Elements.
However, it took an American Harvard professor to really make it a hit:
Happy Chemists' Day to Russian Chemists everywhere!
The voice of protest, of warning, of appeal is never more needed than when the clamor of fife and drum, echoed by the press and too often by the pulpit, is bidding all men fall to fall in and keep step and obey in silence the tyrannous word of command. Then, more than ever, it is the duty of the good citizen not to be silent.
~ Charles Eliot Norton (True Patriotism)
Today is the Day of the Military Automobilists, which might be running a dead second in terms of popularity, did it not share today with the Day of Veterans of the Custom’s Service. Today’s holiday is the tenth since it’s official ratification in 2000, marking the day in 1910 when the first Russian Automobile Corps was founded in Saint Petersburg.
Anyone who has ever been to Moscow is familiar with olive green army trucks belching toxic fumes, affixiating the exhausted looking 18 year old military recruits they are ferrying from one construction sight to another. This is the Army Auto Corps helping to keep Moscow’s streets at a total standstill from dawn ‘til midnight, Monday through Saturday.
Driving in Russia is traditionally a boy’s bailiwick; it really is the ideal outlet for the Russian alpha male to channel his own inner Alexander Nevsky. The disturbing fusion of not-the-brightest-men-God-ever-put-on-the-planet, and way too much horsepower, turns driving into a primeval contact sport in Moscow, with its own very specific playbook. Woe Betide the uninitiated knucklehead who ignores the highway hierarchy. Brand and size rule these roads; by universal unspoken agreement, a Mercedes enjoys the inherent moral right to rudely cut off a Ford who, in turn, is entitled to nose into an adjacent lane, without the burden of signaling, cutting off a box-shaped Russian-made Lada. The poor Lada driver can assert dominance only over the darker-skinned or female drivers of other Ladas. How I absorbed this information, I do not know. Osmosis, I suppose. But this I know to be true: my ozone-slashing Land Rover Discovery beats a Volvo SUV or Subaru Forester, but I deferentially cede the road to a BMW stretch sedan or Porsche Cayenne. Hummers fly off the shelves here, and it’s easy to see why. Very little trumps a Hummer.
Some drivers are more equal than others. We are all supposed to get out of the way of anyone sporting a blue siren on the top of his vehicle. This siren, called a meegalka, emits a noise I’ve never heard anywhere else but Russia, best described as a nuclear submarine with a bad sinus infection. “Mbuhooooooooiiiiiiggggghhhhhhhh:” fanfare for an uncommon hegemony. In total gridlock, they fire up the meegalka and attempt to forge a path through solid blocks of cars. If in a greater hurry than usual, or if the meegalka fails to dislodge total gridlock, the privileged ease their way onto the double yellow line, which, the theory goes, separates northbound and southbound traffic. Into this too-narrow channel, they switch on the sinus infection and “Mbuhooooooooiiiiiiggggghhhhhhhh!” their German car speeds away at 250 kilometers per hour.
It used to be that any tin-pot minigarch wannabe with 5,000 USD and an ego the size of Kazakhstan, could get a blue light, but a grass roots movement is looking to change that, and they may just succeed. On the heels of an unfortunate head on collision by a blue light and a female OBYGYN on her way to a delivery, and some other abuses of power by the blue light brigade, a protest movement is gaining momentum as motorist affix powder blue toy buckets on the top of private cars in protest of the blue lights. Check out this video and decide for yourself…
Congratulations to all of Russia's Army Automobile Corps!
----------------------------------------
Author's Note: Photograph from The Daily Telegraph's online archive, published on Google.
Today is also Day of the Veterans of the Customs Service. The veterans, mind you, not the actual guys who do the actual job. What will they think of next? Bookmark "Dividing My Time" to find out!
There has been a terrible storm in our part of New England, the power was out at Velvet’s school for three days, which was distressing, but there was very little I could do about that, being, as I was, in the City of Brotherly Love worshiping at the John Dickerson shrine: my family of origin + wonderful brother-in-law attended the Slate Political Gabfest’s Live Philly Gabfest, and were lucky enough to score tickets to the reception beforehand where we met John Dickerson and his cohorts Emily Bazilon and David Plotz! It was amazing! But the catch up has been intense. I’m busy: Velvet and I are getting ready to head back to Moscow, these Russian holidays don’t let up until Tuesday, at which point I have a column due about okroshka of all things, and where I will find kvass in Northampton is anyone’s guess. The only thing I can say I have going for me is that, through the direct intervention of the Almighty, there isn’t a horse show this weekend. It seems, however, that this weekend is Memorial Day, which, not being a Russian holiday, I hadn’t clocked nor factored into the logistics of plowing through my To-Do list. Seems I won’t be able to call in my refill for Ambien on Monday and I don’t like to let things like that slide.
On top of all of this…we have Day of the Veterans of the Custom’s Service.
There are moments when I feel the Russians can go a little bit overboard and today is certainly one of those days. Frankly speaking, as we’ve learned Russians are wont to say, I could do without Day of the Veterans of the Customs Service, which is not to be confused with Day of the Customs Workers, happening later in the year. Those people are the ones actually doing the job. Today’s crowd is the people who used to, but are no longer working for the Custom’s Service in Russia. So, today, we have a whole bunch of Retired Customs Officers running around congratulating one another.
I call that a Bit Much. I have lots of great stories about Customs…but I don’t want to squander them today on the people who used to work for the Customs. I’m already resigned to the fact that I will have to use the Oscar Wilde quote again, which seems a shame. I fail to see why we should pander to this particular crowd. I don’t mind having a day for each naval fleet and a few extra naval-related events coming down the pipeline. I get the wisdom of having Teacher’s Day and then Day Care Providers Day…I’m all for that distinction. I note there isn’t a day of Retired Code Crackers, or a day of Put Out To Pasture Firemen…so I don’t understand why there is a day set aside for some Past Their Sell By Date Customs’ Officers. And, my research suggests, this is a day given over to full-throttle Soviet style bacchanalia: lavish cheesy concerts,
Josef Kabzon, Russia's Tom Jones, mayonnaise fueled banquets; vodka waterfalls, over-the-top award ceremonies, and, get this…annual bonuses.
This crowd seems to have way way way too much sloshing around in their discretionary funds.
And does that amaze, shock and awe any of us?
Apparently this holiday, which was ratified in 1999, that bumper year for Russian holidays, came about by “numerous requests from the veterans of the Customs’ Service to achieve the goal of preserving the ties and traditions down the generations of Customs’ employees.”
I’m sure that the majority of my readers will agree: if there are traditions that do not bear preserving and maintaining, those of the Russian Customs Service are right up there with Stalin’s NKVD, Ivan The Terrible’s Oprichnina, and the late, but not-at-all lamented Russian Economic Forum. These people do not increase the sum total of human happiness. They aren’t curing cancer, or solving Global Warming (which, as we will learn next week, Russians believe is American propaganda) they haven’t solved the traffic problem in Russia, and, frankly speaking, it’s people like them, and those snotty-nosed 15-year old bartenders who insist that a Martini is made out of Martini & Rossi and orange juice instead of Bombay Sapphire and olives, who keep Russia out of the WTO.
I do not want to appear mean-spirited or anti-Customs, and we certainly are an equal opportunity holiday employer here at The Stunt, so I want to wish all those Veterans of the Customs Service a very happy professional holiday, which you may not quite deserve, but you got, so enjoy…knock yourselves out.
Tell me honestly – have you ever had a positive experience with any of the Veterans of the Russian Customs’ Service? Are you planning a lavish dinner tonight to celebrate their “profpraznik” which is Russian slang for “professional holiday?” Do you think this one is just Bit Much? Do you have any idea of where to find kvas in the Pioneer Valley? If so, leave a comment in solidarity by clicking the comment button below! And thanks, as always, for stopping by Dividing My Time.
Lock up your daughters and batten down the hatches...today is Border Guards' Day! If you were thinking about invading Russia, today might just be the optimal day to do it, since all of Russia’s border guards will be otherwise occupied:
photos courtesy of pics.livejournal.com/drugoi
Some Russian holidays we have seen, like the Day of the Defense of the Fatherland, are nation-wide extravaganzas where even the weather is micromanaged, while others, like yesterday’s All Russia Library Day pass with relatively little hoop-lah. Today, however, is the first of our massive-scale casual piss-ups and one of the best of the genre.
May 28th commemorates the day in 1918 when the Border Guards were officially formed during the chaotic days following the Russian Revolution. The holiday was first officially celebrated in 1958 in the Soviet Union, and confirmed as a fixture of the calendar of the Russian Federation in 1994. Though the window dressing of statehood may change, Border Guards and Border Guard Day traditions have remained. The day is spent in watching formal displays of the border guards military prowess, evening witnesses fireworks Moscow and all of the “hero cities, and between those two events, the border guards hold mini-reunions around the fountains of parks of major cities. These are opportunities to hook up with friends one made during mandatory military service, share a few cocktails, and kick back. Sort of like a high school reunion…on steroids.
Russia’s border guards are responsible for patrolling and protecting the world’s longest border, which has very few natural barriers such as rivers, oceans, or mountain ranges to define them or add to the ease of protecting them, and thus the borders have ebbed and flowed over the centuries: retreating back in lean years, and expanding out in the flush years, such as after The Great Patriotic War, which, as we know, didn’t work out so well.
At the moment, Russia has 14 neighbors, and not all of them are the kind you could pop over and borrow a cup of sugar from. Some of them didn’t bring a casserole over when the borders shifted in the 1990s. Here they are in metric, because, as we agreed last week, metric is the way to go: Azerbaijan 284 km, Belarus 959 km, China (southeast) 3,605 km, China (south) 40 km, Estonia 294 km, Finland 1,340 km, Georgia 723 km, Kazakhstan 6,846 km, North Korea 19 km, Latvia 217 km, Lithuania (Kaliningrad Oblast) 280.5 km, Mongolia 3,485 km, Norway 196 km, Poland (Kaliningrad Oblast) 232 km, Ukraine 1,576 km.* Thanks to the Bering Strait and the Tsars needing a quick cash influx, Russia does not share a border with the US, but let’s not forget that Sarah Palin can see them from her house…which is always a cause for concern.
But all in all, I like Day of the Border Guards. It’s nice to see so many people who have so many concerns kicking back and enjoying themselves. It’s nice to see them act human for a change…with unbridled frivolity and mirth. It makes a change, as anyone who has ever waited in line at passport control knows…Border Guards don’t always roll out the welcome mat with unbridled enthusiasm…even for VIP guests like these…(this video is highly highly highly recommended and you need no Russian to understand it, the title reads, "Long Awaited Burger King")
Happy Border Guard Day to all those who patrol and protect Russia’s borders!
Do you have a border-crossing story? Of course you do! Share it with all of us by clicking on the comment button below, and the one who can claim the longest wait at passport control will win a guest blogging gig here on Dividing My Time…until I stock up on those Russian Christmas Tree ornaments to dazzle the mommy bloggers with, that is. Then we’ll be in warp factor nine! Thanks, as ever, for dropping by on another Russian holiday!
My buddy Joe Kelly is what Yiddish speakers call a mensch – a great guy who seems to have an innate sense when to turn up.. In May of 2005, I was single-handedly unpacking and shelving my book collection in our new flat in Moscow. I had been itching to get this done, and so had spent much of the day, unpacking and stacking boxes with careful labels announcing, “Fiction Buchan – Dickens,” or “Dan Brown Studies,” and “Queen Marie of Rumania bios.” When Joe showed up, looking for a clean bathroom, a cold drink, and a nap on my new couch, he found me more than ready to take a break.We sipped our ginger lemonades, feet up on piles of books, as we surveyed the stacks on the floor and partially filled shelves, which stretched across the length of two rooms.
“Want me to help you throw these up onto the shelves?” asked Joe.
“No,” I said, shaking my head, “Thanks…but I have to figure out where to start each section…that will take me a while.”
“Dude,” said Joe laughing, “what do you mean…section?”
“You know,” I explained, “like biography, early church history, interior design, fiction, foreign fiction –“
“Jenny B!” exclaimed Joe, laughing his head off, “you really catalog your books…like according to what, the Dewey Decimal system?”
I was confused.
“Don’t you?” I asked.
Joe is still dining out on this…he calls me the Call Number Girl, and because he’s Joe, it’s funny.
Today is All Russian Library Day! From Kaliningrad to Nakhodka, we are celebrating Russian libraries and librarians! Be sure to take a moment and stop off at your neighborhood public library and thank the librarians for all they do to make our lives richer, fuller, and happier.
That, of course, could be a problem if you live anywhere between Kaliningrad and Nakhodka, because you might not be able to get into the library. Not unless you have a special access pass (which is very different from a card) like the one Lyudmila, the gutsy husband-hunting heroine of “Moscow Doesn’t Believe In Tears,” finagles in order to spend a Sunday afternoon in in search of a likely-looking graduate student in Moscow’s Lenin Library.
“What are you going for?” asks her more practical and studious friend, Katya, “surely not the books?”
“Well,” says Lyudmila, “you see…there is a cigarette break room.”
It goes without saying that there isn’t the Library culture in Russia that exists in the West. There are libraries, to be sure, but you don’t get taken to them in a stroller for Story Hour as a toddler, or exhaust the Young Adult section by the time you are 13. You don’t inhale Victoria Holt or become riveted by Nicholas & Alexandra. They don’t offer free Internet access, and aren’t staffed by nice people who talk to you as they check out your books about the latest Rachel Cusk. They certainly don’t hunt down an out of print copy of “My Ordeal” by Queen Marie of Rumania for you. You can’t check out a DVD of “My Man Godfrey” when you are feeling blue or a 30 hour engrossing Book On Tape for a long car drive…in fact you don’t check out anything, you stay in and read stuff there. You don’t volunteer to go to an endless series of what are known in my family as “regularly scheduled emergency meetings of the Library Board,” on cold January nights.
There are no real libraries in Russia. Not that I could find. Not that satisfied my insatiable desire for books. There is the Library of Foreign Literature which doesn’t smell super, but is a place where you can go and sit and read Jane Eyre or a three-month old Time Magazine if you are that desperate, but you have to bring six copies of your passport and leave your first born as hostage.
I took three books with me to Russia in 1992, and I read them until the spines cracked and the pages were waterlogged. When Saint Steve came out with the iPod and I could download audio books, I thought I’d died and gone to Heaven. English books were like gold in Moscow: every trip to London included a long session at Hatchard’s or a slow trawl up Charring Cross Road. You had to know someone really really well to lend them a book, and Russian drivers criss-crossed Moscow to deliver and return the precious commodities to book club members. Today, my own library in Moscow to me seems nothing short of miraculous: Over 2000 volumes: impressive lit in the public areas of the flat, comfort lit downstairs in the privacy of the bedroom. Each one, a triumph over logistics. Each one, a friend. Each one painstakingly trawled for in used book shops or online to satisfy the completist in me: my childhood favorites added to Velvet’s shelves: Laura and Mary, Heidi, and Frodo joined the five sisters from All-Of-A-Kind-Family, and made room for newcomers Princess Mia, Harry, Ron and Hermione.
As Velvet got older, she would ask for new stories and I’d pull Lizzie Bennett, Linda Radlett and Fanny Logan, Patrick Dennis or Scout down from the shelf.
My books keep me company and make me feel safe. It isn’t too much of a stretch to say they keep me sane.
After we closed on the new house in Northampton, title documents in hand, HRH suggested we head off for a long celebratory lunch at our favorite French restaurant, Bistro Le Gras.
“One stop to make first,” I said, climbing into the car.
Let's shout it out for the Librarians!!!!! Leave a tribute by clicking on the comment button below, and don't forget to say "Thank You" to the people who make your library possible! Consider becoming a member of your own local public library, volunteer for story hour, or just browse the shelves. Or, if you're in Moscow, come and see my Library....if you are very good, I'll lend you a book!
If I were a rich man, dah-dah-deedle deedle deedle deedle deedle dum…
~ Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof
Today is the Day of the Russian Entrepreneur, which I guess is sort of like dressing for the job you want, rather than the job you have.
I fear I will disappoint my loyal readers today (both of you) since I am really hitting a wall on this one. I can’t think of anything to tell you about Russian Entrepreneurs…because I’m not sure there are any. There is an association of Russian Entrepreneurs, but it is staffed by government flunkies. I know several people who have started and (more to the point) sold successful businesses in Russia…but they are all foreigners. Nowadays, everyone wants to either work for the government or for a foreign company. No one seems to want to start a business, and, you can't because the paperwork is so complicated. Even HRH, who started off with a kiosk selling cigarettes and beer, has decamped to higher ground.
I was having a very interesting conversation on just this very topic with the father of one of Velvet's classmates last week. He noted that Poland seemed to have done very well after the Fall of the Wall.
"Well," I said, "that's the whole Roman Catholic thing."
He was riveted. We talked between Hayden concerti and acapella singing groups about how the countries with an Orthodox Christian heritage don't have any tradition or understanding of an individual's sense of his own place in the world, or an ingrained conviction that you can, and should better yourself. Think about it: Poland, Slovenia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, The Baltics and so on are all predominantly either Roman Catholic or Lutherans. They are doing well, whereas Russia, Serbia, Belarus, Ukraine and Romania, the Orthodox counties, are still struggling to implement positive change 20 years after the Wall came down.
I wracked my brain while writing this post, and as I was on a train with no wifi, I couldn’t turn to my friends in cyber space for any inspiration. I wanted to come up with a shining example of 100% Russian entrepreneurial success that:
1. Wasn’t linked to either the wild 90s acquisition of former Soviet industries like Norilsk Nickel or Severstal.
2. Was not in someway connected with a foreign manager, foreign investment, or foreign know-how.
3. Is not a government or semi-government company
4. Is still a viable business…by which I mean the CEO is not in financial exile in London.
Not easy.
There is this Russian Silicon Valley getting up and running: the pet project of Blogger-In-chief Dmitry Medvedev and Ashton Kucher, but until that begins to bear fruit…we’ll just have to have a modest celebration today.
Thank you for stopping by Dividing My Time. I'm sorry today was not as sparkling as usual. It makes you think, though, doesn't it....why I couldn't come up with anything. Do you know some Russian entrepreneurs? Like real ones, not the ones who run your cab company.
Arabians learn Arabian with the speed of summer lightening
And the Hebrews learn it backwards, which is absolutely frightening
~ My Fair Lady (Lerner and Lowe)
Today is the Day of the Philologists, and before you give up and click over to The Daily Beast, I’ll tell you what philology is: the study of a language, including grammar, history, and literary tradition. Just like I surprised you when I said I knew a lot of military translators, you may be interested to learn that I also know a ton of philologists, and in actual fact, they are the same crowd. Philology is what the military translators were actually studying at their various Departments of Philology, which they universally refer to as “Phil Fac,” making the abbreviation for “Faculty” rhyme with “truck.” So witty.
Russians place a high premium on learning foreign languages, or making their children do so, which you have to applaud, especially as the US is so awful about this. Every very well-educated Russian my age has read Galsworthy and Faulkner in the original, and every well-educated Russian Velvet’s age has read The Twighlight books and Harry Potter in the original. And, as we know, HRH is starting a book club. Our godson, George, whom some of you met on the Day of the Divers, studies at a Chinese immersion school in Moscow. I think this is very visionary of his parents, although his mother worries occasionally that the algebra isn’t up to much at the Chinese school, but we shout her down. George also takes English, which he polished up last summer at American summer school. We gave him a little Moleskin notebook, just like Auntie Mame gives to Patrick, saying, “Every time you hear a word you don’t understand, you write it down and Auntie Mame will explain it to you.” George’s notebook from July 20, 2009, reads: road kill, sick! (Used as a positive interjection), awesome (also a used as a positive interjection, which I finally had to ask him to stop using), gnarly, grodey (which no one knew how to spell) Vitamin Water, and lurid (which I used to describe the large bottle of Windex-colored Vitamin Water he was interested in acquiring). George’s mother is sending him to China this summer, and I can’t say I blame her.
Some Russians, of course, don’t ever bother to learn any foreign languages, even if they decide to permanently distance themselves physically from the Slavic-speaking world. This can work as there are parts of the US and UK where this kind of thing is not only tolerated but downright encouraged. I was surprised, however, to discover one such Russian in Monterey California, which I don’t think of as an entrenched Russian Diaspora community. The Russian was one of those bleached blond women called Natasha who ensnare and marry foreign men who aren’t, let’s face it, the sharpest tacks in the box. I normally give that crowd a very wide berth, but my brother-in-law’s Mom, whom we call Tutu, had taught Natasha’s daughter (yes, she was one of those bleached blond women called Natasha who marry foreigners AND get the foreigner to adopt her kid AND get the foreigner to pay for a private school) who had briefly been at Velvet’s school in Moscow, where mother and daughter were in the holding tank before the fiancée visa came through. Tutu had put this together somehow, saying that she knew a Russian girl called Velvet and bingo…one degree of separation.
Tutu is the nicest woman in the world (so typical – my sister gets the nice mother-in-law, the cool sister-in-law, their fun accompanying spouses and so on...NOT FAIR!!) and when we were out in Monterey visiting, she very kindly suggested we all get together with Natasha and her daughter, and went to what has to have been a lot of trouble to set it up. Tutu meant well, and since I only have one brother-in-law, and he only has one mother, I had Firm Words with Velvet, advised HRH to develop a conference SKYPE prontissimo, so that, alas, he was unable to join us and I girded my loins for a long afternoon.
Natasha arrived in skinny jeans, mirrored sunglasses, a baby blue Lexus convertible (“Oh my,” said Tutu) with a GPS system and not one single solitary word of English, even though she’d been in the United States for two years, married, it turned out, to a Japanese-American peach farmer. (“Oh my,” said Tutu.) “Ellen,” her daughter, who I sensed as “Elena” had aspired, but failed to crack into Velvet’s inner circle while at the school, had impressively achieved almost accent-less fluency in English. She and I shared the burden of translating between Tutu and Natasha.
Natasha had naturally assumed we would spend the afternoon at a shopping mall, but Tutu is made of sterner stuff than her 4’2” frame and incredibly nice disposition would suggest. We went to the Monterey Aquarium with her Membership Guest Passes. As “Ellen” and Velvet played with the interactive expos, Tutu and Natasha carried on a lively discussion, through the medium of me, about California Real Estate. The one exchange needing no help from me was this:
“And you live in….Carmel?” asked Tutu.
“Carmel Vall-EH,” Natasha quickly corrected.
“Oh My,” said Tutu.
Most of the Russians I encounter these days speak very good English. If I could offer one tiny piece of unsolicited advice it would be this: to listen to your 9th grade English teacher, Mariya Ivanovna, when she tries to instill in you the dulcet tones of British English instead of the over-the-top American drawl you want to acquire. Apart from the sound of a matrioshka doll being forced open, a Russian speaking American English is the single most annoying noise I can think of. HRH and I refer to this kind of 30-something smart-alack Russian as a “Waaaaaaaaaaaaallllllll yew Naaaaawuh,” since they begin every sentence with this unfortunate phrase.
Since today is Philologists’ Day, I feel it is not amiss to offer a mini lecture to aspiring English speakers in Russia on how you can avoid some of the more annoying pitfalls in your quest to showcase your English to native speakers:
1. Don’t start every single solitary sentence with the phrase “Frankly speaking.” Had I not had doubts about your “frankness,” I now begin to develop them.
2. Regarding articles such as “the” and “a:” when in doubt, include them, don’t exclude them, and this also goes for the verb “to be” in its present tense. I realize you have neither of these things in your language, but when you articulate what you think are full sentences like, “This Moscow Metro,” or “you make me gin tonic,” it sounds funny.
3. “Do I disturb you?” is not an acceptable salutation in English in person or on the telephone. Don’t push your luck: of course you disturb me!! You disturb me deeply: you don’t believe in iced drinks, you have a couple of very scary political skeletons in your national closet and, way way way too many holidays. Way too many.
4. Mariya Ivanovna was right: use the English you learned in school. Think (if you are over 35) Maggie Smith not Sarah Palin or (if you are under 35) Emma Watson, not Kim Kardashian. Don’t say “Raaaaaaaaaaaaasha” to refer to your country, or “Mos-COW,” or, “MAAAAAAAAAA-scow” to refer the capital of your country.
5. Spend an afternoon focusing on the subtle differences between the English words “comfortable,” and “convenient,” which are the same in Russian, but mean different things in English. This will avoid unfortunate consequences in future when you are trying to secure that crucial date with the not-too-bright foreigner. Saying, “we meet with you 6pm…is it comfortable for you?” could possibly get you in trouble, though, of course, might just help you slide into home plate.
6. Don’t start a sentence with “I want to say you,” Apart from being wildly and unacceptably grammatically incorrect, it is just a waste of my time and yours. No wonder nothing gets done around here.
7. Finally, eye contact. You don’t need any vocabulary or grammar for this one. Just eye contact. Occasionally. Every now and then.
Happy Philologists’ Day to lovers of language everywhere!
What language are you studying, and why? Do you love it? Do you agree with me that you should never ever start a sentence with"Frankly Speaking?" If you are Ian W-M, did you notice that I got, "Oh My" into this post a few times. Quite right too. Whatever your thoughts, please do express them, by leaving a comment below! Can't wait to see what you say!
From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.
~Karl Marx (Critique of the Gotha Program, 1875)
Today is Human Resources Day, and quite frankly, that doesn’t have me up at dawn sifting the dry ingredients, or throwing caution to the wind at Liquors 44, saying, “Hang the expense, we’ll have the bottle of $9.99 chardonnay, instead of the usual $6.48 bottle.
HR day is celebrated on May 24th because this day marks the occasion in 1835 when the first Tsarist Imperial degree was published, spelling out the exact rights of both employers and employees. And we all know how well that worked out. Nevertheless, in 2005, the government decided that the HR types needed their own holiday, and thus was born HR Managers day.
The mistake foreigners make about HR managers when they come to Russia, is that they think these people will perform the same functions and services as they did in the West simply because they have the same title on their business card. Big Mistake. Same job description as good ole’ Joe back in Indiana, only this one’s name is Svetlana Vladimirovna, and she doesn’t seem to want to help organize a new employee get-together, a refresher course on the company’s software, or, indeed, the Christmas party. What she does want is about 69 pieces of paper and your blood -- literally: she will send you out to the other end of Moscow to some clinic that looks like it was last cleaned in during the reign of Leonid Brezhnev, to have an HIV screening, a leprosy test, and a skin scratch for bubonic plague. Her job is to keep the “trudoviye knishki” or work record books in order, and not to help employees maximize their potential.
You get a lot of this in Russia: words that sound like words we have back at home, but mean something completely different. Angina, for example, pronounced in Russia “ahn-GEE-nah” is tonsillitis, whereas “angina” in English, pronounced “An-Jaiy-NAH” is a dress rehearsal for a heart attack. When a hapless uninitiated potential traveler to Russia is told he needs “an invitation” to Russia, this does not mean a stiff cream colored card with engraved lettering, or, indeed, a badly spelt, but enthusiastic email from 19 year old Natasha Quelque Chose whom he met on vanillalove.com. No no, they mean a form you get after extensive outlay of time and money from some organization like the Permanent Representative of Kalmikhiya to the President of the Russian Federation, which comes, wait for it, by TELEX to a Russian Embassy near you. Yes…a TELEX.
Letters of invitation, in theory, are handled by the HR Managers, but not always. They are mainly paper pushers, “nyet” sayers, and in cahoots with major league scary organizations such as the Ministry of Labor and the Tax thugs.
HR Managers do not worry about what Russians call “teembeeelding” which you and I would know as “Team Building,” but when pushed, they can produce the name of some company, which can be brought in “nah out-suuuuursing-guh” or outsourced. This kind of company is usually run by someone called Sergei, who reeks of cigarettes and will come to make a presentation on the many exciting “timbeeelding” opportunities, which are available through his extensive network. He will be either related to the HR Director, or on an active referral list. Either way, money will change hands for the meeting.
I sat in on just such a meeting when I was working at The Bank. The idea was that the Management Committee should go somewhere and “teembeeld.” Since the cotton was relatively high back then, there was a tidy to spend on an executive “teembeeld.” I was dozing off as Sergei showed slides of a visit to Formula 1 in Italy, which is not my idea of a dream vacation, and a rock climbing opportunity in Andorra that looked even worse, when up on the screen came a much more pleasing image: a long scrubbed pine table with bunches of herbs, mixing bowls and happy looking people in aprons chopping and stirring.
“Cooking in Tuscany!” proclaimed Sergei.
“I don’t think so,” said Alexei, the conservative COO, who had dragged me to the meeting.
“Oh, I think that would be GREAT,” I said a little too loudly, and heads turned.
“Cooking is great teembeelding,” I added.
“No..no,” said the CFO, waving his hands in a dismissive fashion.
We didn’t end up going anywhere, but the mirage of the teembeelding at a Cooking School in Tuscany remained with me for months to come. I fantasized about it during meetings, when they all went on about debt instruments, or did that thing where they pretended The Market is a real person with like emotions and feelings: “The Market likes this”, or "the Market isn't sure about that”…grown men in nice shirts! I would imagine us all at the cooking school, for once my skill-set the predominant.
“Dmitry,” I would say tersely to the snooty Head of M&A, “I told you to crush that garlic, not chop it…don’t you know the difference?” Or, I would be incredibly patient showing the Assistant Head of the Trading floor, who I was convinced suffered from Asbergers’ syndrome, how to rip leaves off a basil plant. I’d make the really bitchy new female IPO specialist beat egg whites into stiff peaks.
Do you have a labor book, (pictured above?) As they sell them in the corridors of the Moscow Metro, I could do a giveaway like all the Mommy Bloggers do.
Do we think that would have universal appeal? No? What's the HR situation in your place of work? Let me know, by leaving a comment below! Thanks for
“With over 340 different verbs of motion, those three sisters couldn’t get up and go to Moscow!”
~A.N. Wilson
Here is an opportunity to raise a glass if you ever stayed up all night to study for a genitive plural or perfective/imperfective test…if you ever had to forgo a frat party to make your plodding way through Lermontov’s "Hero Of Our Time," or Pushkin’s "Captain’s Daughter," today is your day! If you can speak Russian beyond (Dee Dee this means you!) “to the left,” or “to the right,” or “a diet coke with ice please,” then get yourself some flowers and a bottle of wine. You’ve earned it!
Today is Slavic Writing and Culture Day! This holiday was established in 1863 as an Orthodox Christian saint’s day, celebrating brothers Cyril and Methodius, 9th Century Christian missionaries from Greece, who were sent to convert the Slavs. As part of their efforts, they invented first the Glagolitic alphabet and later, the alphabet that bears Cyril’s name: Cyrillic. I think the naming thing was politeness on Methodius’s part, as Cyril died much earlier, but they may have flipped a coin. With these letters, they were able to translate the Greek New Testament into a vernacular the Slavs could understand. Then presumably, they taught the Slavs to read and write. And that worked out pretty well. This language can still be heard today by the clergy in the Russian Orthodox Church, and is known as Old Church Slavonic.
Learning Russian is not as hard as Mandarin Chinese or ancient Persian, but it has some challenges to it. The letters brought to you by Cyril and Methodius can be tricky. English “P” is a Russian “R” and, as fan’s of Murder on the Orient Express know, English “H” is a Russian “N.” Sometimes reading Russian makes one feel slightly dyslexic and mildly nauseous but you get used to it.
Russian verbs are complicated. They have two “aspects:” the imperfective, which refers to the action of doing something, such as “I am reading "War & Peace,” as opposed to the “perfective,” doing the action with the intention of getting it done. Very confusing, and something I still haven’t really mastered, although I find the distinction curiously germane to the national character somehow.
Verbs of motion, which take up most of the second year of any course in Russian, have the perfective/imperfective thing going on, as well as the distinct difference between moving on your own steam, or in a vehicle, which does cut down on the drunk driving, like a little bit.
Russian is full of diminutives, both for people and things. These are achieved in a staggeringly extensive range of endings, but some common ones are “-chick,” or “-sulia” and “-ichka.” My mother-in-law manages to combine all of these when referring to Velvet as her "vnutchichkuliaetchka," taking the simple word "vnutchka" meaning granddaughter and turning it into "darling little tiny granddaughter." In this case, a diminutive conveys affection. When a Russian is trying to get something out of you, they automatically make what ever they are asking for a diminutive and insert the adjective “nimnogo” or “not much” so you get a request for…”a teeny weeny advancechick on the salariula,” for example, or, “just pour me a miniscule not a lot amount more voditchka.” This gets old really fast, particularly up in St. Petersburg, where they have turned this into a fine art.
On the more formal end of the spectrum, you have the names. Names are confusing, and a lot of people just throw up their hands on the first page of War & Peace, since everyone has three names. Russians have first names and there are only roughly 10 of each sex: Alexander, Dmitry, Mikhail, Nikolai, Andrei, Vladimir, Ivan, Igor, Sergei, and Boris for boys. Anastasia, Svetlana, Olga, Tatianna, Ekaterina, Valentina, Elena, Irina, Natalia, and Nadezda for girls. These basic names have endless diminutives.
Tatianna, for example, can be Tata, Tanik, Tanya, Tanyuissia, Tanechka etc.
Alexander can be Sanya, Shura, Sasha, Sashenka, Sashulia, Sashka
You can tell this is a society that likes to remain largely anonymous.
Russians also carry an obligatory middle name, called a patronymic, which is the name of their father (of course) and an ending, which is –evna for a girl and –ich or -evich for a boy.
So, for example, the youngest and most famous daughter of the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II was called Anastasia Nikolaevna.
In my cross-culture marriage group you get a lot of funny combos of names and patronymics, mostly from the well-populated ranks of foreign men who married Russian women. I know a Cyril Brucevich, a Ashley Christopherevna, and a Tom Eduardovich.
[Here is your intrepid blogger, marching with the Williamstown Public Library on July 4, 1990. The assignment was to march as your favorite book, so I chose "War & Peace."]
Russians use the patronymic as formal address and very intimate address. To address a Russian formally, an equivalent to “Mrs. Smith,” you refer to them by their full first name and patronymic together: Alexander Dmitrievich or Olga Vladimirovna. For someone with whom you are very intimate, say a child, a spouse, or a childhood friend, you can address him or her with his or her patronymic only. I don’t have a patronymic, but my father’s name is Peter, and the patronymic for girls is “Petrovna,” which is how HRH addresses me. It’s important not to confuse these two very different forms of address, as I did, by referring to the 60-something veteran head of the National Tourism Committee’s English section as “Vassilievna,” which was incredibly rude. Everyone was so embarrassed that no one told me for about six months, at which point, thank goodness, she retired.
Finally, a Russian has a last name, which normally ends in –EV or OV like Medvedev, but sometimes doesn’t, such as Putin. Mrs. Medvedev is Svetlana Medvedeva and Mrs. Putin is Lydmilla Putina. This is a problem for us, as a family, since Velvet and I have an “A” on the end of our name, and HRH doesn’t, as we saw earlier this year with the TSA crowd. He always gets an “A” on his nametag at Velvet’s school, which I have to white out before we can throw ourselves into non-stop fun and games of parents’ weekend.
Learning Russian has gone somewhat out of fashion lately, which may be because we now need more Arabic and Chinese speakers to help run the windowless buildings just over the river from Our Nation’s Capitol, but that seems a shame. There is nothing like curling up with my favorite book, which is actually not "War & Peace," but “500 Russian Verbs” (they are ALL fully conjugated...perfective AND imperfective!!!) and a teeny weeny glassulia of chardonnaychick.
Happy Day of Slavic Writing And Culture to all Russian speakers, those with patronymics, and those who wish they had one!
Today is also Day of the Human Resources Managers and the excitement is almost uncontrollable – there’s Team Building, and Formula 1 Racing, and Leprosy, and…well don’t miss it!
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Dear Reader:
Cпасибо! Thanks for checking in with me here at Dividing My Time on Day of Slavic Writing and Culture. Did you learn something new? Does this make you want to race out and get a copy of "War & Peace?" Give it a try…you can skip the battle scenes: I always do. Let me know how you are getting on learning your foreign language by clicking the comment button below!
Another article in Figaro this week, courtesy of Russia Beyond The Headlines French edition! Originally appeared in French, but here is the English version:
People who read my columns are very special, so when reader Laura, wrote to ask if I would do something on beet salad, I was more than ready to accommodate.
But the lilacs distracted me. Spring comes quickly to Russia: one moment the world is a jar of dirty water full of muddy paint brushes, and then, overnight, it blossoms into the vibrant pastel colors of spring. Up from Central Asia and the Crimea come the first of the fresh strawberries and ripe tomatoes, sold by peroxide blonds in pinafores and dirty fingernails.
Beets: at this time of the year? No, beets in Russia are part of the musky bounty of autumn, not the budding promise of spring.
Spring in Russia comes with the first whiff of the pungent smoke of the “kostor” the barbacue grill. As the lilac blooms, the “snowdrops,” those rickety, rusty, banjaxed cars used only to get to country houses, or “dachas,” from May to August bounce out to the dachas, where, even if the dacha has electricity, and many do not, the menu is traditional and unchanging: shashlik: skewers of marinated pork or lamb grilled over an open wood fire.
Like so many of its cultural fulcrums, shashlik is not native to Russia, but Russians have made it their own. That is to say, Russian men have made it their own. Russian men are not natural cooks: cooking is a bit effeminate, is not associated with world domination, and involves cleaning, multi-tasking and long-range strategic planning. Not madly them. The big exception is shashlik, which, Russian men assert “cannot tolerate woman’s touch.” I’ve noticed shashlik seems able to tolerate a woman’s touch during preparation and clean up, but Russian men do throw themselves into their sole culinary endeavor with gusto: spirited debates over the exact chemistry of the secret ancestral marinade (consisting of vinegar, oil, salt and pepper), and the proper arrangement of kindling in the “kostor” last as long as it takes to consume a bottle of vodka. Tenderly and lovingly, they spear the clammy chunks onto lethal meter -long shashlik imaplers, and carefully lower them onto the flames. I sometimes think that if Russian men lavished this kind of attention on their wives, the burning issue of Russia’s declining birthrate could be solved.
What to serve with shashlik? Very simple: tomatoes, cucumbers, dill and lavash, the chewy bread of the Caucuses. No dressing, save salt, and when the produce is fresh, and the sun is in the sky until after 9 pm, what else, really, does one need?
Shashlik:
Ingredients:
1 kilo of pork or lamb, cubed
2 yellow onions cut into 1/8 half moons
1 cup of red wine vinegar
cold water
The juice of one lemon and/or 12 cup of fresh pomegranate juice
Chopped fresh parsley
5 sprigs of dill
4 Tbls of peppercorns, coarsely crushed in a mortar and pestle
4 Tbls of coarse sea salt
4 scallions, diced
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
1/8 cup of fresh coriander
½ a cup of olive oil
Trim the meat of all fat, and cut into 5 cm cubes. Place the meat in an airtight wide dish with a lid. Combine the remainder of the ingredients except for the onion, olive oil, coriander and the water together in a jar and combine by shaking vigorously. Pour the marinade on top of the meat, using water to top up so that the meat is covered. Refrigerate, covered overnight, or, if you are in a hurry, let stand at room temperature. Toss the meat at intervals, making sure that all the pieces are well marinated.
Using long skewers, spear the meat cubes and onions in a pattern of your choosing. Grill the skewers until the meat is browned and the juices run pink. Turn frequently, and baste with the olive oil. Serve immediately garnished with the chopped fresh coriander.
A Note on Sauces: For the many kinds of shashlik, there exist an equal number of traditional garnishes. The sauces of the Caucuses combine the tartness of citrus, musky flesh fruits and salt with fresh herbs to make Tkemali (sour plum sauce) or the pungency of walnuts, pounded with garlic and the tang of coriander to make Satsivi (walnut sauce). Other sauces take their cue from the Balkans: garlic yoghurt sauce and a diced tomato salsa. Be creative!
Shashlik Sides
Traditionally, shashlik stands alone – not accompanied by any fancy salads or complicated garnish. Russians serve fresh vegetables of the season such as tomatoes, peppers or cucumbers with only salt for seasoning. The reasons for this are primarily practical: shashlik is prepared and eaten in the outdoors, or in the back garden of a dacha which may well lack refrigeration, sharp knives, or electricity to facilitate preparation and storage. Russians are wise to avoid heavy, starchy accompaniments such as potatoes or the mayonnaise-based salads that grace a Russian indoor zakuska or hors d’oeuvre course. Complicated accompaniment can also take away from the pure flavor of the freshly grilled meat, tinged with the smoke of the kostor, freshly mown grass and hint of pine. In our Russian/American family, we’ve experimented with different culinary traditions to find side dishes that compliment shashlik. Lighter, citrus-based salads with tangy herbal dressings seem to be the perfect match for enhancing shashlik without stealing its thunder. Note: these are not traditional Russian salads, but they made from ingredients readily available in Russia and make frequent appearances at our table in Moscow.
Gingered Lentils:
I brought this recipe with me to Russia from my childhood in New England, where it was always referred to as “Lentil Sludge,” and I don’t think there has been a piece of lamb on my table without these for the last twenty years. When I first came to Russia in the early 1990s, puy lentils were almost impossible to find, so I made do with the abundant green lentils. The tang of ginger and the red wine vinegar are a perfect foil to lamb, while the fresh scallions and peppers provide the essential “crunch” to the meal’s ensemble.
2 cups of puy or black “beluga” lentils
2 bay leaves
3 tablespoons of grated fresh ginger
4 cloves of garlic
1/3 cup and 1/8 cup of olive oil
¾ cup and ¼ cup of red wine vinegar
Malden salt and pepper to taste
½ cup of chopped dill
5 scallions chopped
Diced orange, red, or yellow peppers
Preparation:
Place the lentils and bay leaves in a large pot of cold, salted water and bring to the boil. Reduce heat, and simmer until lentils are tender.
Drain the lentils and return to pot. Add the 1/3 cup of olive oil, and ¾ cup of vinegar, ginger, garlic and Malden salt and pepper. Set aside, uncovered, and allow lentils to come to room temperature. This can be made ahead of time 1-2 days before serving and stored, covered, in the refrigerator.
To finish the lentils, add the remaining olive oil and vinegar. Toss dill, scallions, and peppers and correct seasoning to taste.
Lemon, Tomato and Basil Salad:
In Moscow, we are lucky enough to have a roof garden with a grill, where we eat some form of shashlik or grilled meat most evenings from May to September. This salad appears with every dinner during the summer, and when it doesn’t appear on the table, family and friends protest violently! They all ask for the recipe, which makes me laugh, since it is so easy!
Ingredients:
1 kilo of small fresh tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, or sliced beef tomatoes
A drizzle of good quality olive oil
Juice of one fresh lemon
2 Tbls of sugar
Generous handful of basil leaves, coarsely chopped
One loaf of French bread
Preparation:
Slice the tomatoes into quarters or halves, depending on their size and your taste. Lay them on a large, flat platter. Scatter basil leaves generously around the tomatoes. Drizzle with olive oil, squeeze the lemon juice on, and just before serving, and add sugar and sea salt and cracked pepper to taste.
Why the bread? To soak up the delicious juices from this salad, mingled with the drippings from the meat. Delicious!
“Granny Pasta”
My nieces are vegetarians, so when we are together, we often to serve some form of this light, but nourishing pasta dish for them, and this is my daughter, Velvet’s favorite picnic dish for her horse shows. As the name suggests, my mother – their grandmother – invented this and it’s great as a side dish to shashlik, as well as on its own. I made it for a group of guests recently and a very polite, but I think sincere 14 year old looked down at his plate of Granny Pasta and barbecue, sighed deeply, and said, “This is the perfect meal.” And so it is!
500 grams of penne pasta
½ cup of olive oil
1 cup of fresh green basil leaves
Malden salt
Pepper
1 cup of grated cheese: we use Asiago or Parmesan Reggiano, but I’ve also used goat cheese, sheep’s cheese, or just the ends of the cheeses left in my fridge!
Preparation:
Place the olive oil and basil leaves in a food processor or blender and pulse 6-7 times, so that the basil is finely chopped but not fully combined as in a pesto.
Bring a large pot of cold, salted water to the boil. Skim surface with a teaspoon of olive oil and add the penne. Cook according to package instructions until al dente. Drain the pasta and quickly return to the pot. Place the pot over low heat and add the grated cheese and combined olive oil and basil mixture. Toss vigorously until the cheese begins to melt. Remove from the flame. Can be served immediately or at room temperature.
Make this your own family recipe by adding your favorite ingredients some ideas include: cherry tomatoes, black olives, fresh asparagus, peas,
Priyatnogo Appetitita!
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Dear Reader:
Do you know a man who thinks only he knows how to grill? If so, leave me a comment about it by clicking the button below! Tell me what you'd like to learn how to make next. I'm being encouraged to try okroshka which is a cold, kvas and cucumber soup. I'm panting for an alternative...so weigh in!!
Sarah Palin may well regret until her dying day that she erroneously claimed that she could see Russia from her home in Wasilla, AK; but for the boys in Russia’s Pacific Fleet – it means job security for life, and I for one sleep easier knowing that they are keeping their collective eyes on her.
Today is Pacific Fleet Day! On this day, in 1731, Russia’s first permanent Naval Base was established at Okhotsk. Some of you may not think Russia has anything to do with the Pacific Ocean, but that’s just not true. Where else do you think the Trans-Siberian Railway goes…Siberia?
In addition to keeping their eyes on Sarah, the Pacific Fleet keeps Russia safe from Japan and their insane cars with the steering wheel on what my British friends call “the correct side.” Almost 50% of the cars in big Pacific Coast cities like Khabarovsk, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and Vladivostok are beat-up but serviceable Subarus with the steering wheel on the correct side. Occasionally some lunatic transports these to Moscow to make an already intolerable traffic situation even more horrific, since the people who drive these all seem like they haven’t taken their Lithium that day.
The real reason, however, to keep the Pacific Fleet yar, as C.K. Dexter Haven would say, is China, and if you ask me (and no one ever ever does) it’s a bit like locking the barn after the horse has been stolen. When the world’s most spacious nation, chocker block with rich mineral resources that are hard to access, populated by people who only ever get galvanized by military engagement and don’t seem to want to do anything about their worrying declining birth rate, is bang up against the cramped and overcrowded worker ant nation: a crowd who brought you affordable Hot and Sour Soup, then osmosis is simply going to take over.
Osmosis is “the physical process in which a solvent moves, without input of energy, across a semi permeable membrane (permeable to the solvent, but not the solute) separating two solutions of different concentration,” and that seems to sum up the situation between Russia and China to a tea. The semi permanence of the membrane in this case is economic, and the physical process has already started in Russia’s Far East. This might not be the worst thing to ever happen to Russia…the last invasion and occupation of Russia by an Asian Power, the Tatar Mongul Yoke from 1237 – 1480 gave Russia all kinds of useful things like shashlik, primogeniture, bureaucracy, and, something they’ve put to very good use, taxes.
And the Chinese drive on the right side of the road.
To Admiral Viktor Dmitrievich Federov, and all those who serve with him: Congratulations on Pacific Fleet Day!
Today is also Day of the Military Translators, where you will find your intrepid blogger adrift, attractive and adroitly doing a little military translation on the Volga River! Don't miss it!
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Dear Reader:
First of all - to those very kind people who I haven't actually met in person who send me the lovely e mails about this blog...THANK YOU!!!!!! The last few days have been kind of stressful and those were lovely moments. I am so pleased you like this blog.
I've had some questions from readers about leaving comments. Here are the answers to some FAQ:
1. It is super kind to leave me a comment on Facebook, but then I suspect you haven't quite read the post, which is entirely up to you, of course, but, comments here on the blog are like potato chips without the calories.
2. You don't necessarily have to give your real name, which is what is keeping HRH from leaving anything, (althoughI know for a fact he isn't reading 1/8 of what he says he is, because I think he'd divorce me if he actually did.)
3. You don't need a URL to leave a comment - you can leave that blank.
4. Yes, Dad, you do have to put in the CATCHPA code in. It keeps the Spammer crowd at bay, and, for someone with a College degree, you shouldn't have to wait for your wife to do it for you.
I am happy to speak Russian whenever they do not speak English.
~Eloise (Eloise Goes To Moscow)
Today is Military Translator day, marking the day in 1929 when the Peoples’ Commissar for The Army and Navy signed an Order to create the profession of military translator. I love when you get to say "Peoples’ Commissar." The date was turned into a holiday in 2000, so this makes a nice round number for the military translators to celebrate this year.
This may come as a surprise, but I actually know a ton of military translators; most of my Russian friends are people I met during my time in tourism, who studied foreign languages at prominent Universities in The Soviet Union. This exempted the men from obligatory active military service, but exacted a commitment for both men and women to attend the “voyennaya kaftedra," or military department, were they learned how to say all kinds of menacing things in various languages. Really. The next time conversation lags during your tour of the Pushkin Museum of Art, casually ask your tour guide what to say to a prisoner of war. He or she will automatically rattle off: “What is your name, rank and serial number?” They also know how to say, “I’m a member of the Geneva Convention,” which is sort of stretching it, really.
It may come as a further surprise that I can also boast a little hands-on experience in military translation. This is in addition to teaching HRH about D-Day.
One summer, I received an invitation to take part in the three-day cruise on the Volga to celebrate the (some round number that I’ve forgotten) anniversary of the National Tourism Committee. This invitation had been handed down through the food chain from my company’s venerable 80-year old founder (who knew better than to accept), to it’s very busy President, (the one with no head for liquor), and subsequently through his even busier Vice-Presidents of Product Development, Operations, and Sales, down to me. There was no one for me to pass it down to, so I got my executive wardrobe together and headed for the River Terminal.
After boarding the vessel and getting situated in my 3 meter by 2 meter cabin, I drew on my experience as a cruise ship employee, and went up on deck where I supposed there would be both liquid refreshment and human contact.
I was correct on both counts; and I was neither surprised nor disappointed to note that the National Tourism Committee people, who were all men dressed in the standard Russian travel attire of nylon track suits, plastic flip flops, and too much knock off “Farenheit by Dior” aftershave, were on one side of the deck – the side near the bar, and the international guests, attired in what their particular culture considered “Business Casual,” were clustered in pods according to their nationality and language.
Through the crush of Australian diplomats and Indian airline executives, I recognized Linda, a cheerful British woman from another tour company I had met once. We fell upon one another like long-lost sisters, and, linking arms, we started in on the tepid sweet Russian champagne which was the only alternative to shots of vodka. As we pulled away from the River Terminal and out into the Moscow canal, the parties moved in parallel groups to opposite sides of the dining room to consume possibly the worst meal on record. Linda and I gravitated to the English-speaking/NATO-countries table, where we were informed by a nervous, beige-colored Danish dairy rep that the KGB was following us.
“Rubbish,” said the Australian Under Secretary, refilling our glasses.
“And if they are,” I said reassuringly, “surely that is a good thing.”
“Safety first,” agreed Linda.
We finished the worst meal on record and made our unsteady way into the dimly lit bar/lounge area, where the Russians clustered around a karaoke machine. Ear-splitting ABBA tunes made the room pulse and vibrate with a life of its own, and a mirrored ball spun in the center of the 3 foot square dance floor, throwing dappled hot pink specks in a chaotic whirl around the room. I felt slightly ill, and switched to tepid Pepsi for a few hours.
Linda and I, and another woman from Holland called something like Antje were the only females, and, with the exception of those 8-day/No Ports of Call cruises around the Antarctic Peninsula, I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed that level of popularity with the opposite sex. The unfortunate thing was that most of the attention was coming from the Asian Sub Continent contingent, all dressed in three piece polyester suits and their own version of knock-off-knock-you-out after shave, who all wanted to slow dance. This would have been okay, I suppose, except that I am 5’9” and they were all about 10 inches shorter. Having endured “Fernando,” and a longer-than-usual version of “Hey Jude,” with an electric guitar solo that made my fillings rattle, I excused myself to the ladies, where I sat for a while on the loo, massaging my temples and vowing to get some subordinates as soon as I could.
I returned to the dance floor to see Linda locked in an embrace on the dance floor with one of the Russians who had been sitting slightly apart from the National Tourism Committee types.
“Interesting development,” I screamed to the Under Secretary who rolled his eyes.
“What is the program for tomorrow?” asked Antje.
“Bloody Mary’s, I hope,” I said and the Under Secretary rolled his eyes even further heavenward. He put his mouth into my eardrum and confided:
“I’ve got a case of Australian chardonnay in my cabin."
“And you’ve kept quiet about that for the last five hours?” I hollered at him.
“Let’s go,” he said to us, and we prepared to make a strategic retreat when Linda disentangled herself from her dance partner and, leading him by the hand, came up to ask us where we were going. Largely by means of sign language, since the Deputy Director of the National Tourism Committee was launching into his signature party piece, which was a syrupy rendition of “Santa Lucia,” we indicated that we were doing a runner and asked Linda to come with us. She dragged her Russian along with her.
We squeezed into the cabin and settled ourselves with tooth mugs of wonderful oaky buttery Australian chardonnay and then turned our attention to the Russian, who told us his name was Misha. I introduced myself, Antje and the Under Secretary in Russian, at which point his eyes lit up.
“Can you speak Russian!?” he asked me, “I need help – I want to talk to Linda.”
“Linda,” said Antje aghast, “Don’t you speak any Russian at all?”
“No,” she said sanguinely, cuddling up to Misha, “I don’t need to, do I?”
“What do you do?” I asked Misha, who looked slightly uncomfortable, as do all Russians when you lead with this question.
“I’m here for your security,” he said elusively. I translated this to Linda who cooed and snuggled up even closer.
Misha turned out to be a high-ranking Major in a very scary part of Russia’s military, which is all I can say about that. They disappeared for the next 24 hours, emerging only as we approached Moscow, to help us finish off the chardonnay, to the accompaniment of the excellent pickled mushrooms and pickles we’d bought in Uglich. I helped them exchange contact information, Antje took over to help them get the details of their personal biographies clear – Misha had thought Linda was from New Zealand, and she hadn’t quite got the information that he’d been married before and had two children. We all staggered off the ship and went our separate ways.
Today is also the Day of the Pacific Fleet: those brave sailors and seamen who keep Russia safe from Sarah Palin, right-hand steering wheels and other perils. But, can they do anything to stave off the inevitable invasion by the real threat? Don't miss it!
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Dear Reader:
Thanks for stopping by on Day of the Military Translators! Have you ever translated for budding lovers? What was your experience? Let us all know by clicking on the comment button below and leaving your story!
Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure; Like doth quit like, and Measure still for Measure.
~William Shakespeare (Measure for Measure)
He’s Russian: I’m American. He’s Male: I’m Female. He’s Metric: I’m Imperial. Marriage is uphill work at the best of times, but marriages like ours mean you have to try just that little bit harder to achieve total understanding. I imagine Velvet in therapy as a 42-year old saying, “No, my parents were happy enough, but they didn’t always speak the same language.”
And she will mean that literally. HRH and I decided early on to bring her up bi-lingual and all the baby books agreed that the best way to do this was to have each parent stick to their native tongue. After about a year, this became habit, and Velvet grew up listening to Mommy speaking English at Papa, and Papa responding automatically in Russian. She speaks both, choosing her language to match her interlocutor. This makes perfect sense to all of us, although we get some odd looks pretty much everywhere we go.
In bi-lingual marriages like ours, you sometimes have to push the PAUSE button, literally and figuratively to be sure you understand one another. HRH pauses the DVD of the 30 hour classic Soviet spy thriller “17 Seconds of Spring” every 18 minutes or so to explain a phrase containing World War II-era military slang; and I pause in the middle of the pre-Christmas chaos to explain in detail why I’m tipping the garbage collector $50. These cultural details are certainly very nice icing, but something as basic as weights and measurements – that’s the cake, and it is essential.
Clearly, the burden was on me to go metric, and quite right too: only the USA, Burma and Liberia aren’t members of the global metric club, and that’s not what I call an A-list group. But, it was like going green: such a good thing to do in theory: we should all have a Prius, but it’s easier to get to a horse show in a Land Rover.
My learning curve was steep. Math has never been part of my core skill set, and in the days before there was an app for that on metric/Imperial conversion, I made a lot of mistakes. A kilo turned out to be about 2 times what a pound is, so I was always buying much more food than we needed. This calculation allowed denial about my own personal weight to get wildly out of hand. I knew that a 10K run was equivalent to 6 miles, so I did every calculation based on this ratio. I never really understood meters versus feet, but, since real estate is a National Obsession in Russia, I have a highly accurate understanding of what a 90 square meter apartment is, versus a 220 square meter apartment, and when George, HRH’s godson reached the astonishing height of 2 meters, that made sense, but the rest was lost on me. I have no idea how many square feet the house in Northampton is. Like, a lot.
Weather also presented a challenge. It was many years before I automatically understood that the perfect temperature, for me, was 17 Degrees Celsius, and it took HRH a while to realize that 23 Degrees F was not shorts and T-shirt weather. I would have burnt the Thanksgiving turkey more than once, if not for a handy conversion table in the back of my grease-stained copy of The Silver Palate Cookbook!
Kilometers and miles still present problems for us. On his first trip to America, HRH was shocked to see the gas price, which in Russia is listed in litres, until we explained, by holiding up a plastic jug of apple cider what a gallon looked like. Years later, he puzzled over the dashboard of our new Subaru in Northampton for a while before he admitted he didn’t know what the “MPG” dial meant.
“Miles per gallon,” I explained.
“And, remind me, a gallon again is…” he asked, and I went to the store and bought another gallon of apple cider.
Of course, we should all go metric, just like we should all go green, if only so we never have to worry about MPG ever again. It would give Sarah Palin and the Tea Partyers something to really get ticked off about, though I think if you explained it to them carefully, even they would think twice about the cache of being lumped in with Burma and Liberia.
Today is World Metrology Day, celebrating the sense and sensibility of the metric system, marking the first Metrology Convention in Paris in 1875, when a lot of sensible people got together and decided upon a reasonable, universal method of measurement.
HRH would tell you that a Russian, Dmitry Mendeleev, about whom we will hear much more in the next few weeks invented the metric system, which is no doubt what he was taught in school, just like the one about Alexander Popov inventing radio. Alas, no, HRH, sorry to disappoint you but the metric system was first dreamed up by a Flemish scientist in the 16th Century, first proposed in England in 1668, and polished to a high gloss by the French in the 18th Century. Mendeleev certainly supported the move to a metric system, which Russia supported in a delusory fashion at the Paris Convention on May 20th, agreeing to “try” to adopt it, but, as anyone who has ever struggled through Turgenev and Tolstoy knows, Russia was still using its outdated units by the late 19th Century. And it is a shame they changed, really, because these have great names like piad (palm), verst’, krushka (cup), vedro (bucket), butilka (bottle) and butilka vinnaya (wine bottle) and others. Imperial Russia did finally adopt the metric system in 1889; fearful it would be thought backward (surely not!). The Soviet Union officially adopted the metric system in 1924. America, as you know, along with Burma and Liberia, still waits.
Happy World Wide Metrology Day to all those who think in terms of meters, grams, liters, and Celsius!
Are you metric or Imperial? Do you think in cups, buckets, and bottles? Do you know the point at which water freezes? Are you sure? More importantly, do you and your partner understand the fundamentals of your weights and measurements? I’d be interested to know: leave me a comment by clicking the button below!
Quick update to say I will be the featured blogger over at expat+HAREM, for the next few days. This is a fantastic forum for international and expatriate writers talking about the ups and downs of expat life, third culture hiccups, and life lived outside the box. It's become a big part of my daily trawl, and the debates are usually lively and sometimes heated, so I hope you'll check it out and join the discussion!
(Your intrepid blogger's personal tribute to the Baltic Fleet in Leningrad circa 1990)
Today is Baltic Fleet Day! The oldest of Russia’s naval fleets was founded by Tsar Peter The Great, himself as part of his Herculean efforts to secure a “Window on the West” for Russia. On this day, in 1703, Peter led his troops in a naval victory against two Swedish battleships, and thereby secured the strategic mouth of the Neva River, where he went on to build the naval city of his dreams, St. Petersburg.
The Baltic Fleet, like the Black Sea Fleet, has a sticky wicket in terms of the territorial waters it defends, a historically complex relationship with its near-neighbors, and, of course, the base question. One Baltic Fleet base is in Kronstadt, and the other in the Russian enclave, Kalingrad. Kronstadt has the advantage of being cozily tucked deep into the Gulf of Finland, and Russia’s second city, St. Petersburg has its back. Kalingrad, formerly German Konigsberg, on the other hand, is handicapped by being the lone blueberry in a NATO muffin. As with the Black Sea post, it’s a visual so check out this helpful map:
The Kaliningrad question has been in the news a lot. Short history lesson may be in order: Soviet troops captured Konigsberg from the Germans in 1945 at the end of The Great Patriotic War and renamed it “Kaliningrad” after a prominent Bolshevik. In 1991, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia said “Thanks, but we’ll take it from here,” which meant that Kaliningrad was cut off from the rest of newly forming Russia. Then those crybaby Baltic States and that wimp Poland went to hide behind NATO’s skirts, which meant Kaliningrad was more than just mildly logistically difficult. Every time the US talks about putting missiles in places like Poland “to fight terrorism in the Middle East,” Russia drops a hint (thud) that Kaliningrad would also make a nice place to stick a few warheads. Kaliningrad is a special economic zone, but some of the Kaliningraders feel they might have more fun being part of the EU.
A few years ago, my friend Jack, who goes to Russia frequently for business, was being held hostage at a long liquid lunch in St. Petersburg with some tourism types. This happens to Jack a lot, and not having much of a head for liquor, he was tuning out, letting his local representative do the heavy conversational lifting, until he vaguely noticed that the conversation kept including a funny word he’d not heard before, which sounded like the syllable “nat-“ (as in “fat-“ “cat-“ or “rat-“) and then “oh.” Nat-OH. Jack first thought it might be a newly opened summer palace, which, as far as he was concerned, are all unpronounceable: “Gatchina,” and “Orianbaum,” Forchrissakes, or the ultimate tongue twister, “Tsarskoye Selo.” But that didn’t seem right, because the battleaxe he was lunching with kept saying things like,
“But you know that nat-oh has absolutely no right…”
or
“And you know, nat-oh never ratified..”
“Perhaps,” thought Jack, “it’s a new hotel and they haven’t got the price points we need.” That seemed plausible: God knows most St. Petersburg hotels were both overpriced and unpronounceable – after 25 years he still couldn’t say “Pribaltiyskaya,” “Pulkovskaya,” or “Oktyabrskaya,” and, really, he thought, why on earth should anyone want to try?
“Putin is having all kinds of trouble with nat-oh,” said the Battleaxe.
“A-ha,” thought Jack, relieved he’d at last got the right end of the stick, “it’s a tourism ministry thing.” He prepared to jump into the conversation, when his interlocutor said, bafflingly,
“And then there is the question of Kaliningrad.”
“Kaliningrad?” thought Jack, wildly, downing another shot of Stolichnaya in an ill-advised attempt to achieve some clarity, “Where the hell is that?” Then, because he’d been on 461 city tours of St. Petersburg, he recalled that St. Petersburg had been called Leningrad from 1924 - 1991, (well, that’s not what Jack thought…but I’m supplying the correct information) and as The Battleaxe paused to take in another lungful of air, he interjected what he hoped was an overdue intelligent observation.
“I find it interesting that some people still call it that,” he said affably,
The Battleaxe leaned over and slammed her fist down on the table, making the silverware dance, and the crockery rattle. Sour cream splashed onto the tablecloth. Jack sighed, thinking that much – perhaps too much -- of his professional life had been spent in a semi-alcoholic-induced stupor, sitting across the table from Slavic battleaxes from the tourism industry who rested their titanic bosoms on the shelf of a groaning lunch table, and banged on the grease-stained tablecloth to make some emphatic point the vodka kept him from fully understanding. Perhaps, thought Jack, it was time to begin to contemplate partial retirement.
“We are not giving it back!” she shouted, “No matter what nat-oh says!”
“Golly,” thought my friend, “this new tourism ministry is even more powerful than the old guys.”
“But who would you give it back to?” asked Jack, searching his memory for a sketchy understanding of 18th Century Russian history.
“The Swedes,” asserted Jack’s local St. Petersburg representative, who had much more of a head for lunchtime drinking and had been following along with a certain amount of wicked amusement.
“The Swedes!?!?!?!” howled The Battleaxe, bosom heaving, “What have they got to do with it.”
“NATO,” said the local rep, making it rhyme with ‘Plato,’ and kicking Jack under the table to silence him. “You have to keep your eyes on them at all times.”
To Vice Admiral Viktor Nikolaevich Mardusin, and all those who serve with him – many congratulations on the birthday of the Baltic Fleet!
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Today is also International Museum Day, and your opportunity to weigh in on your favorite museum bathroom, pick up value, desirability as a runaway venue and other categories! Be sure not to miss it!
Thank you so much for stopping by on Baltic Fleet Day! Is it part of your job description to have too many cocktails at lunchtime? What's your strategy? And, does anyone know why Finland hasn't joined NATO yet? That seems silly...
Claudia knew that she could never pull off the old-fashioned kind of running away…She didn’t like discomfort…Therefore she decided that her leaving home would not be just running from somewhere but would be running to somewhere. To a large place, a comfortable place, an indoor place, and preferably a beautiful place. And that’s why she decided upon the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
~Opening lines of "From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler"
Happy International Museum Day! This is not so much a Russian holiday as a universal one, but it was an international holiday created in Russia, and there aren’t so many of those (until this blog goes viral that is), so we’ll make a note of it.
In 1977, in Moscow, the 12th Congress of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) adopted a resolution proposed by the Russian Delegation (who else but the nation that treats public and professional holidays like crack cocaine?) to instigate International Museum Day. Each year, on May 18th there is a large conference with a theme, and this year in Shanghai they’ll be looking at “Museums For Social Harmony.” Some, but not all museums offer entry free of charge. Check your local listings.
Like anyone with a coverless, warped paperback of “From The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler:" the timeless story of two suburban pre-teens who run away and live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a week, I’m a big museum fan, although I did take a decade-long hiatus from visiting them. As a college student in New York City, I wrote all my Art History papers at the Frick, and sometimes just went there to hang out. During my misspent youth in the UK, before I met The Bloke, I went to almost every museum in London, Edinburgh, Oxford, Cambridge and so on. Then, there was the template backpacking through Europe, but I really went into Museum overload during my misspent youth as a tour guide.
Herding 78 people through the Hermitage is a very different kettle of fish than spending a leisurely morning on one’s own at the Wallace Collection, and after a few seasons I began to look forward to an afternoon at the Hermitage as one would a root canal, and spent more time in the adjacent cafes and tea rooms than I did in the galleries.
“Can we spend a week at the Hermitage?” tourists would beg on Day 1.
“Let’s see how you manage a morning, and if you like…” I would say innocently, mentally assigning the group a numerical drop-out spread, “You can go back after lunch.”
Three hours later, I’d watch them stagger out the exit onto Palace Square, gasping for air, waving away the picture book sellers. Having assembled them all on the coach and bribed the driver with a pack of cigarettes to put on the air conditioning, I would innocently ask: “Now, who would like to return after lunch?” The answer was usually no one.
Because the tourist infrastructure in Russia in the 1990s basically sucked, tourists to Russia had to be supervised as vigilantly as a group of energetic toddlers, and we tour managers and local guides would have conversations more appropriate to the parents of 3 year old twins:
“If you do Peterhof without me,” I’d say to the Russian guide, “I’ll take them on a Moscow Metro after the Pushkin Museum, and you don’t have to come back to the hotel with us in the evening.”
“OK,” she’d say, then up the ante, “But you’ll have to bring them home from Swan Lake on Tuesday.”
“No problem,” I’d say.
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Today is also Baltic Fleet Day, a genuinely Russian Holiday! Don't miss it!
Thank you very much for stopping by on a double-header day! I’m taking a definitive poll: nominate your Museum of Choice by copying and pasting this list into the body of a comment with your votes for the following categories:
1. Best Bathroom
2. Worst Bathroom
3. Best Gift Shop
4. Best restaurant/café
5. Most Push and Shove in Front of a Major Work like the Mona Lisa in the Louvre
6. Biggest foot sore
7. Most Labyrinthian layout
8. Most unpleasant attendants
9. Top Choice to run away to and live in like Claudia and Jamie Kincaid in From The Mixed Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
Finally a holiday made for me! I’m accepting congratulations in the form of comments below! Maybe HRH will remember to send me a bouquet of flowers (which, as I mentioned earlier, he’s just learned how to do – blown away by the technology!) This is one of those relatively new holidays, and takes its cue from the founding of one of the “oldest” freelance web sites, which, like every “innovation” in Russia in the past 15 years, is a direct lift from a pre-existing site in the West (they even tried to copy The New Yorker, can you imagine?). In any case, Free-lance.ru was founded on this day in 2005. They act as a cyber-exchange primarily for web designers, and something called an “optimizer” which The Oxford Russian Dictionary does not recognize. Any thoughts?
I’ve been a freelancer for about the same time Free-lance.ru has been around, though, of course, a number of the “full time positions of responsibility” I had in Russia were, in fact, technically free-lancing gigs, since no one had the time, knowledge, or inclination to do the paperwork needed to make it official.
I have to say, freelancing is harder than the pajama-clad Nirvana HRH seems to think it is. It takes a lot of motivation to stop alphabetizing your DVD collection, or perfecting your sorrel soup recipe, and get down to work without the stimulus of a boss or snarky colleagues surrounding you. Deadlines help, as does a faux office such as Starbucks to “go to” each day, which you realize early on is the only way to get anything done. At least, I’ve found it so. Home, as I have mentioned before, is way too distracting.
I don’t want to reveal any secrets of the guild, but the fact of the matter is that Russia is a freelancer's Klondike. If you are a native English speaker, you have opportunities. If you are a native English speaker with a passing knowledge of the rudiments of English grammar, you can live very comfortably. If you are a native English speaker who knows Russian, and therefore can interpret what Russians are trying to say and express it better than Google Translate, avoiding mistakes like the opening salutation of a letter reading, “Expensive Mr. Smith,” then you can start planning for a second home. And if, like me, you can do all those things AND you worked at A Bank and know how to use words like “synergy,” “expedite,” and “galvanize” (concepts which do not really exist in Russian and thus are often used erroneously by thrusting Russian bankers and lawyers), then you can allow yourself the delicious luxury of having this kind of conversation with Olga Quelque Chose, who calls you up on a Friday afternoon from Minigarch Trust in desperate need to have her Annual Report translated from English by Google Translate, into English by me:
Me: Well…my schedule is pretty tight at the moment. How many pages is it?
Olga Quelque Chose: it’s 50 pages double-spaced, but there are a lot of charts.
Me: You know, I don’t take any responsibility for the content of your charts.
Olga Quelque Chose: Well, we can have our lawyers do that.
Me: Hmm…that never really works well, does it? And I hope Dee Dee told you that I don’t do second drafts to incorporate non-native English-speaking lawyers’ comments.
Olga Quelque Chose: Yes, she did. We’re okay with that. How much would you want to be paid?
Me: Twenty-five thousand…
Olga Quelque Chose: [a sharp intake of breath]
Me: Euros.
Olga Quelque Chose: That seems a lot. We’ve had other bids of ten.
Me: [sigh] Yes…I’m sure you have. I’ve had a number of contracts to clean up work in that price range lately…but it’s up to you.
This halcyon period of my life in Russia was incredibly satisfying, not to mention obscenely lucrative. Come to think of it, I can’t think why I gave this up to write my own stuff.
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Congratulations to all those who toil between school runs, manage to perfect sorrel soup, and don’t forget to pick up the dry-cleaning!
Thank you so much for stopping by Dividing My Time on my very own personal holiday. Are you a freelancer too? What’s your favorite story? Do you want the recipe for sorrel soup? No, you want Olga Quelque Chose's e mail, don't you?
Today is The Day of the Black Sea Fleet, founded on this day in 1783 by Prince Potemkin – of the Villages fame. Traditionally, and it now seems that tradition will continue, the fleet has been headquartered at Sevastopol, located on the Crimean Peninsula. Sevastopol has the disadvantage of not actually being in Russia, not that Russia worries about this too much. This would be like Britain having its Naval Headquarters in Galway, Ireland. So likely. If you’ve been watching the news recently, you’ll recall that the subject of extending Russia’s lease of numerous naval bases in the Crimea resulted in this dignified moment in the Ukrainian parliament:
Russia’s navy has four fleets: The Baltic, The Pacific, The Black Sea, and the Northern, as well as one flotilla, The Caspian Sea Flotilla. While I am sure each of these has its own particular cross to bear, it has to be really uphill work to keep Russia’s interests safe in this particular part of the world. Ukraine, which Russia does treat as a mildly irksome younger sibling whose left shoe is untied and nose is running, is not the only problem. To make it clearer, I’ve made a helpful map:
The Black Sea fleet guys are known for their somewhat hotheaded approach to seamanship, the most famous example being the uprising in 1905 of the sailors of The Battleship Potemkin, (named after the guy with the Villages.) Sailors mutinied killing 18 officers. They then tried to shop the battleship round to minor countries like Bulgaria and Roumania, who knew enough to send it back to Russia, but the uprising was seen as one of the early victories of the Russian Revolution and later made into a famous film.
The other thing you think about when you think about the Black Sea, of course, is the site of the 2014 Winter Olympics, Sochi --
“Where?” asked my high school friend, Madeline, whom I met for a drink on a visit back to the US.
“Sochi – it is a resort town on the Black Sea Coast – backs up on the Caucasus mountain range? They’ve turned it into a winter recreation center and Putin and Medvedev are always there skiing and stuff.”
“Wasn’t the Olympics in Canada this year?” she asked, confused.
“Yes, but the next winter Olympics is in Sochi.”
“Are you sure?” she said. “I never heard about that place in my entire life.”
Madeline is clearly not Russian, because every Russian knows about Sochi – you can’t avoid the nightly updates on the Russian news about it. The Olympics in Sochi – or “Sochi 2014” as it is branded, is likely to be the biggest national embarrassment since the Russo-Japanese War, but to hear Russians talk about it, you’d think it was the Second Coming of Christ. Russia watchers have concerns that things may not be going according to schedule. Putin changes the person in charge every three months, and eventually, I suppose, he will simply have to go and run the damn thing himself.
Maybe he should get that Potemkin guy in. Him with the Villages.
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Happy Black Sea Fleet Day to Vice-Admiral Kletskov and all those who serve under him!
Can you believe Russia has four fleets in it’s Navy and that they ALL celebrate different holidays? I confess I was a little taken aback. Had you heard about the egg roll in the Ukrainian parliament? Had you heard of Sochi before this post? Could you have correctly identified it on a map before today? Did you realize it was so close to Georgia? Well, there’s no homework here at Dividing My Time, just a sincere thank you for stopping by and reading this post. I’d love a line from you, telling me more about you and what you think of this blog, or Russia in general. You can leave a comment by clicking the comment button below!
And I'll leave you with a charming montage of the Black Sea Fleet Musical Ensemble's performances:
Today is Victory Day!! I usually put the entire name of the holiday in the title of the post, but this one doesn't fit. Once again, post-perestroika political correctness at work: День воинской славы России — День Победы советского народа в Великой Отечественной войне 1941—1945 годов (1945) which translates as Day of Russia’s Military Glory – The Day of Victory of the Soviet People in The Great Patriotic War 1941 – 1945.
What can I say about Victory Day that hasn’t already been said? As you know, May 9th of course commemorates the glorious moment in 1945 (choreographed by Stalin with the tacit agreement of Roosevelt and Churchill, who no doubt just wanted the whole thing to end one way or the other) when the Soviet Army triumphantly marched into a vanquished Berlin.
World War II, or “The Great Patriotic War,” as any Russian schoolchild will tell you, was a conflict primarily fought in the Eastern European theater of war: starring the Russians as the Good Guys and featuring the Nazis as the Bad Guys. As guide books say : while many millions of brave and patriotic Russians perished, the Soviet Forces ultimately triumphed over the powers of Fascism, and peaceful productivity was restored to the peaceful-loving Soviet people. Footnote: there were, perhaps, other skirmishes taking place on the periphery of this major conflict such as a minor air battle over the English Channel, and some unpleasantness in the Pacific, but they do not cover this in national curriculum of Russia, even in elite officer-training military academies such as the one HRH attended. As I have written before, HRH was baffled and unable to identify D-Day as an historical event during a screening of “Saving Private Ryan.” I rashly suggested that D-Day had been the turning point in World War II, with dire consequences.
On May 9th, there is a huge parade through Red Square. Huge ostentatious military parades complete with goose-stepping have rather gone out of fashion, so Moscow's parade is one of just a handful of opportunities left on the planet to experience this live. I recommend it, if only to see the bizarre moment when Very Senior Military Guy tries to remain standing in the 1950's style convertible car at the beginning of the parade, as the car clatters over the uneven cobblestones of Red Square. Velvet feels, and I must say I agree with her, that there is really no excuse for this sort of thing: Very Senior Military Guys should be on horseback, like Field Marshall Zhukhov who led the first May 9th parade astride a pure white charger, and here is his statue just outside Red Square:
In case your local TV station didn't cover the parade in as much detail as you'd hoped, here is a link to the 2009 parade.
We always watch the parade at home with Bloody Mary's and smoked salmon, and avoid going out on the streets since you can hardly move thanks to crowd control brought to you by the Ivan The Terrible School of Civil Defense. After the parade, the veterans march down from the Belorussian Railway Station to the Bolshoi Theatre and have a big piss up. Rather nice fireworks later in the evening. Barack isn’t coming, which is a blow, although my Very Good Friend The Famous Newscaster interviewed him the other day and he wished all the Russians well. There is this issue of Moscow's pint-sized mayor seeding the clouds to ensure good weather which is true. No one believes it, but its true: helicopters fly up the sky and put something in the clouds and they go away for the day, ensuring bright, hot sunshine on the day, and cold, cloudy, clammy weather for the next week after. The estimated cost of this, according to Moscow News: 45 million rubles, and that never seems like a lot in Monopoly money does it: but is actually $1,474,208.58 USD or £996,858.62 Pounds Sterling. Seriously.
May 9th this year happens to coincide with Mother's Day in the USA, but I'm not expecting HRH to remember to send floral tributes my way (he recently learned how to purchase floral tributes on the Internet and send them places...was astonished by the technology) since he is hosting a small gathering in our apartment, so everyone can enjoy the five second moment when you see the fighter planes come from Tyushino Airport at the speed of sound right towards our large living room window. Then you see the same thing on the TV and then you see red, white and blue smoke from the opposite window as they make their way over Red Sq. Prime real estate.
Since all my clever readers know about World War II (if not, see Cliff Notes in Paragraph 2), in lieu of a history lesson, I'll tell you a very funny story about what happened to our family on May 9, 2005 in Malta:
Sometimes, if I want to make HRH rein it in, I need only cock my eyebrow and say, “Darling, let’s not forget Malta 2005 now, shall we?” He nods, shudders, puts down the shot glass and, tail between his legs, moves to fizzy water for an hour or so.
Malta was my choice for our annual May Holiday getaway. I had always had a hankering for Malta, which I vaguely wanted to test drive as a possible second home for when we struck it rich. On paper, it seemed to combine a number of things which are high up on my list: Italian culture, British history, a glamorous Order (with a capital “O”) of Knights, stone architecture, the San Antonio palace connected with Marie of Romania etc. It seemed like a win-win travel destination for the whole family, offering Velvet and HRH the opportunity to sun and swim while I poked around Valetta. The food, I felt sure, would be heavenly Mediterranean.
Disappointment ensued. Not the stabbing kind of disappointment that motivates you to pen an outraged letter to the New York Times; rather a dull sinking feeling that pervades you like soy sauce spilled on a white cotton T-shirt, that this travel destination is not the travel destination of your dreams. Yes, the ornate hotel was nice and comfortable, and sure, Valetta offered up some of its interesting history, but the sea was cold, the beach rocky, and the “charming” port town of St. Julian was full of brassy British expats, loud sunburnt German holiday makers, and shifty looking Eastern European youths from the myriad Maltese language schools. The blocks of flats looked depressing, the drink of choice was Belgian lager, and the plat du jour tended to be lasagna and chips. As I poked through Valetta’s streets with the growing awareness that even Dan Brown couldn’t conjure up an ancient Maltese secret, at the hotel, HRH and Velvet fell into a nodding acquaintance with a group of disgruntled Russian tourists from Perm, fellow refugees from the cold sea, they pulled deck chairs around the hotel pool and shared their general disappointment in the entire experience.
This cordial entente continued until the evening of May 9th, arguably the most important holiday in Russia. Returning to the hotel after yet another fruitless foray out into St. Julian to find something more appetizing than lasagna and chips, we found about sixteen of the Permites had taken the liberty of rearranging the hotel lobby’s furniture into a stereo-typical festive Russian living room configuration: couches pulled up around two coffee tables. They motioned to us to join them, and have a Victory toast.
It seemed vastly ill mannered on the 60th anniversary of Russia’s unqualified victory over Nazism to flee, although this was my immediate gut reaction. Since nothing as major as the 60th anniversary of the end of the Great Patriotic War could possibly be put to bed in a mere half an hour – I braced myself for a lengthy session in the trenches. We squeezed onto one of the couches. An elegant Maltese waiter immediately approached to ask what I wanted to drink, and I mentioned a local wine I’d tried and liked. HRH ordered a cognac and we secured Velvet a Fanta.
“Lissssssssen,” Arkady, the ringleader, hissed at us knowledgably. “No need to pay those bar prices…just order juice, look see what we have!” He motioned us to look between his legs, which I felt might not be completely appropriate for 8-year Velvet, but I followed his eyes to the bottle of Duty Free Chivas under the table.
This under-the-table tactic was one I knew well: having successfully employed it frequently, off-duty, during my misspent youth as a tour guide in the late 1980s in Eastern Europe. It’s a good trick, if somewhat obvious, and yet somehow, as a full paying guest in the “oughts” it seemed somehow awkwardly out of place.
“Um…” I began, but HRH gave me a no nonsense warning look, and I just smiled. Arkady deftly topped up eleven orange juices with Chivas and we hoisted our collective glasses to victory: “Za Pobediy!”
This all-too-familiar ritual was repeated about six or seven more times. I was getting woozy, and I could see Velvet was on the verge of collapse from the gassy combination of stodgy lasagna and chips and three large Fantas. I cast a few pleading glances at HRH across the coffee table, but he ignored me, deep in a conversation about the 900 Day Siege of Leningrad with an older men who’s face was borscht red with sun and drink. We drank to the Soviet Army a number of times, and Arkady was kind enough to indicate, that, of course, America had had a role in World War II, so a toast was drunk to me, which I tried to acknowledge gracefully.
A discreet cough.
“Madame,” said the suave waiter in English. “Madame, may I speak with you?”
“Of course,” I said, welcoming the interference, but wary about the conversation I felt sure would ensue. I awkwardly extracted myself from between Sveta and Aniuta, who were on either side of me, and went to join the waiter a discreet distance from the group. My tour guide days had made me feel an intense solidarity with hotel staff, and I smiled encouragingly.
“Madame, I realize your friends are guests of our hotel, and as such are most welcome in the lobby bar. They are, we recognize, celebrating a national holiday, but we cannot allow them to continue to top up their drinks from under the table. There are a number of hotels and hostels where this kind of thing is permitted – even encouraged -- but this is not one of them. It is not our custom to allow such things.”
I sighed; feeling much as I imagined Roosevelt must have done at the Yalta Conference.
“I understand,” I said, “and I will try to get them to move the party elsewhere, but I fear these things are –“
“We know, Madame…we have many Russian guests. If you could explain that they are very welcome to order their drinks from the bar, I’d be most grateful.”
He had the impeccable manners to hand me a complimentary glass of wine and we exchanged watery smiles.
I returned to the couches and explained, as sweetly as I could, that the guerilla tactics with the Chivas under the table had been outed, and I thought it best that they repaired to someone’s room to continue the party.
Arkady shook his head and, thumbs tilted at right angles to his body, pounded his upturned wrists in the universal gesture of Russian emphasis.
“Urodiy!” he spat out, “Italian Axis Power BASTARDS! But what can you expect…all these other countries can’t stand it that we won the war…and look at it now…EU money while we…”
“Besieged,” I whispered, miserably, but with the confidence of one with a complete tour of the Valetta History Museum under her belt, which I (correctly) conjectured Arkady wasn’t, “Malta. Under siege by the Germans from 1940-1942. British Naval Base. Allied forces all the way.”
Abject silence ensued, as seventeen pairs of eyes squinted in suspicion and an effort to focus vision. The suave waiter gave me a big smile and a nod of acknowledgment.
“I think Velvet and I are going to say good-night now, she seems very tired. Once again, congratulations on victory in The Great Patriotic War.” I beat a hasty retreat, dragging Velvet, now on a sugar high, behind me.
HRH lurched in around 9:00 the next morning as I was trying to decide whether to go to breakfast or call the Maltese police first, while simultaneously trying to reassure Velvet that Papa had just stayed awake with the nice people we’d met the night before. HRH stood in the doorjamb, swaying back and forth. I felt a rush of relief that he was alive, which is all that matters in moments like this.
“Vraaaaaaagggg-eeeeee…” he drawled, in is his standard morning-after condemnation and accusation of the external forces – or “enemies”, which have forced him, unwillingly, into a drunken stupor the previous evening.
“Allies, surely.” I quipped as he fell senseless onto the bed.
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Happy Victory Day to everyone...where ever in the world you may be!
The phrase “In defeat unbeatable: in victory, unbearable,” is attributed to Sir Winston Churchill, who used it in reference to Lord Montgomery, not The Russian Federation.
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Dear Reader:
Happy Victory Day! Unless, of course, you don’t celebrate Victory Day, and there are those who don’t. There are those who already celebrated it yesterday, but anyway. What’s your take on seeding the clouds? Do you think I was right to get Velvet out of the Maltese lobby? Did you think the waiter was being churlish? Thanks for making it through a long story…but hopefully a funny one. You can tell me to “edit edit edit” which is what my Mom always says to my Dad, by clicking the comment button below and leaving me your thoughts! Stay with me as we set sail (hint hint) for next week’s exciting line up of Russian professional holidays!
~ Metronome played over the radio during the 900 Day Siege of Leningrad (1941 - 1945)
Today is Radio Day in Russia, and if you can have a fight via SKYPE, I’ve just had a particularly vicious one with HRH, over, what else, who actually invented the radio? Was it Italian Guglielmo Marconi who worked out how to transmit the human voice, took out a patent and formed the Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company, or was it Russian Alexander Popov who was the first to present a thunderstorm monitor on May 7, 1895? Russians seem to favor the Popov theory, which is why today we celebrate anything and everything to do with radio!
Whoever did invent radio, there is no question: it is a boon to mankind. When I first started coming to Russia in the 1980s, radio was piped into houses like electricity and water, and many of the older people I met could not believe we purchased separate units to listen to the radio. In flats, there was a button on the wall, and you dialed it up or down, and that was it. You have to wonder, given what we know about the political climate of Russia in the early and mid 1900s about the two-way street aspect of Soviet Radio, which got me thinking how amazing it would be if NPR’s Terry Gross or Michelle Norris could actually hear me during "Fresh Air" or "All Things Considered?" But then I thought, uh-oh, potentially very cringe making: Does Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me! host Peter Sagal listen in on my SKYPE fights with HRH? What if “This American Life’s” Ira Glass has heard me curse when I cut my thumb chopping onions, or, God Forbid, BBC’s Melvyn Bragg knows that I sometimes take phone calls during “In Our Time.” Thank God for perestroika and podcasts!
The mere phrase “Radio Day” will make Russians with a sense of humor smile, because they are thinking of the play, and later movie of the same name by the amazing comedians from “Quartet I.” If Russia has a SNL, it’s these guys. "Radio Day" is set at a radio station trying to keep one step ahead of a made-up tragedy, which the DJs and writers are making up themselves as they go along. Their better-known movie, "Election Day" or “Deyn’ Vyborov” is a family favorite with HRH, Velvet and myself, with the same cast of characters, now sailing down the Volga with only 2 weeks to create a winning PR strategy for a dud gubernatorial candidate in a rigged regional election. I’ve been fortunate enough to see the group live and they are phenomenal. If you speak Russian, be sure to catch their movies or, if you have a husband as nice as HRH who buys tickets, their live shows. You will wet your pants, I promise.
I’ll finish on a touching note, by drawing your attention to today’s quote: which is merely the sound of a metronome. This sound was broadcast via radio throughout the 900 Day Siege of Leningrad from 1941 to 1945, and to survivors of the Blockade, the sound is instantly associated with the cold, dark hungry days when the city was surrounded by German troops. But, as Harrison Salisbury noted in his definitive book on the subject: "900 Days" a besieged city is not an occupied one, and radio played its part in keeping citizens informed and alert. Actors read classic poetry, musicians played live music, and when there was no one to speak, the metronome was placed in front of the microphone, communicating the steadfast heartbeat of a city determined not to give up. The metronome was also used to warn citizens of impending air raids: if the tempo increased, Leningraders knew to seek shelter, and when the tempo decreased, this was the sound of the all-clear.
Happy Radio Day to radio broadcasters and listeners everywhere!
I won’t even ask if you are a radio listener, because, of course you are! What is your favorite program and when do you listen to the radio: in the car, as you try to wake up, making dinner, or all of the above? Have you listened to Russian radio? If so, you have my sympathy. Thank you very much for tuning in to Dividing My Time to find out more about the funnier side of life in Russia. That means a lot to me, as does your feed back, which you can leave by clicking on the comment button below.
We aren't going to give a lot of attention to this CYA post-perstroika footnote holiday. Not when today is also Radio Day, which is a lot more interesting.
Today marks the 18th anniversary of the Creation of the Military Forces of the Russian Federation, which happened on May 7, 1992. It's a post-perestroika, sign the decree thing.
Which is an excuse for a lot of 40, 50, and 60-something alpha males to kick off the REAL holiday on Saturday a few days early. I can see the logic -- make sure their hangovers are well and truly cured before the rigors of the big day. Stay tuned!
Wait a minute....18 years? That long? This is where I came in...
YIKES!
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Dear Reader:
Unless you are a military buff, I don't think you'll have much to say about this...neither do I, but thanks, as ever, for tuning in!
The only difference between a saint
and a sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.
~ Oscar Wilde
Today’s is
St. George’s Day and before you Brits go ballistic, remember that, despite all
that “religion is the opium of the masses” stuff, Russia still goes by the
Orthodox calendar, and thus is always about 13 days behind the rest of the
world.We’ve talked about this
before.
Having
conceived this stunt, I was determined to steer clear of all but the most
important religious holidays…once you get into things like Day of Saint Simeon the Stylites, you kiss
any hope of seeing Grey’s Anatomy on a regular basis good-bye.But St. George is actively
celebrated in Russia, possibly due to its proximity The Major Event (stay
tuned) happening later this week, and therefore is something of a warm up.It’s also a very good example of how post-perestroika Russia
has returned to Tsarist traditions. Catherine The Great established the Military Order of St. George in 1769, and this was revived in 1994 by President
Boris Yeltsin, with an obvious hiatus from 1917 – 1994.The Order of St. George, said she in a
know-it-all voice, is the highest military order in Russia, and before you HRHs
out there start mouthing off about The Hero of The Russian Federation, which
used to be called The Hero of the Soviet Union, that is the highest military
honor associated with a medal.So
there.
When HRH
does something truly astonishing such as carrying his empty coffee cup upstairs
to the kitchen (our kitchen is upstairs) and is obviously looking for the gold
star, I will often say to him:
“What to do
you want, The Order of Lenin?” to which he will instantly and rather cheekily rejoin
“First
class.”
I think I
will start asking him if he wants the Order of St. George the Triumphant.If I can figure out how to say
“Triumphant” in Russian, which could be uphill work.
If you were
in Russia this week, you’ll have seen a lot of these ribbons, the “George
Ribbon” which is a fad that got going five years ago when Russia celebrated the
60th anniversary of World War II:motorists tie this on their antennae or on the dashboard to
show their patriotism.The
colors of the ribbon are said to represent fire and gunpowder and are possibly
derived from the original Tsarist Coat of Arms, which also features George and
the dragon.
St. George
appears on a lot of coats of arms in Russia, as well as on the Presidential
flag.You can see him in the
middle slaying the dragon, which interestingly in Russian/Orthodox tradition
never dies (classic) but is locked in eternal struggle with the noble George,
who embodies all the virtues of bravery, faith, Christian morals and
compassion.No wonder he’s the
patron saint of the Boy Scouts.
We don’t
know much about George himself, except that he was a noble Roman soldier who
was beheaded by Emperor Diocletian (who was often known as “the dragon” which
perhaps gave birth to the legend) for protesting the Roman persecution of the
early Christians.
Whoever he was, today, St. George
is a busy guy:he is the patron
saint of soldiers, cavalry, chivalry, farmers, field workers, Boy Scouts,
butchers, horses & riders, saddlers, archers (hence the Henry V speech),
and those who can’t get their visa to Russia because they have leprosy, plague
or syphilis.Saint George is supposedly buried
outside Tel Aviv, but that doesn’t stop Moscow from making him its patron
saint, along with many countries and cities.
Happy St.
George’s Day to all who claim him!And who is the patron saint of Pony Moms…huh? Huh?
Happy St. George's Day! Are you a Boy Scout or a Butcher? Did you have to get a leprosy test to get to Russia, or do you think that's just the straw that might break the camel's back? Thank you very much for stopping by Dividing My Time. That means a lot to me, as does your feedback. Tell me, how do you celebrate St. George's Day, if indeed you celebrate it at all? Does your husband think he deserves a medal of honor for picking up his dirty socks? Whatever you're thinking, leave me a comment by clicking on the comment button below and let me know about it!
Do men who have got all their marbles go swimming in lakes with their clothes on? ~P.G. Wodehouse
Today is The Day of the Divers – the SCUBA folks -- not the ones off the diving board. Alexander III, who made his own children sleep on army cots, bathe in cold water, and sometimes made them wait so long to be served a meal that Nicholas II ate the wax in his crucifix, founded the world’s first deep sea-diving school in Kronstadt on May 5, 1882, which today is part of the Naval Engineering Academy of St. Petersburg. Kronstadt is an island near St. Petersburg with numerous associations with the Russian Revolution, and I think it is fair to say that the water temperature never gets what you and I would call tepid.
I am not a SCUBA enthusiast myself. If you ask me, one is just asking for a solid week of Neti-Potting after a few hours, and I didn’t care for the distinctly amphibious look of the feet of the guy who taught HRH and Velvet and me a few years ago. It is very expensive, and I feel I don't look my super best in the kit. However, HRH’s godson, George, really IS into diving. At only fifteen, he is already PADI certified and goes diving whenever he can. Oddly enough, May 5th is also George’s birthday, so do click on the comment button below and leave a comment for George to wish him Happy Birthday AND Happy Diver's Day – because he will be checking to see that you did!!!
Russian Diver, George is 15 today
George is not unusual in his passion for a sport that his hometown (Moscow) can’t really support or accommodate.
A while ago, a glamorous American journalist called Dinah rang me up from Prague in a panic: having had a few too many pints of beer with an editor in a downtown bar called "The Scarlett O'Hara" she had insinuated that she knew rather more about Really Tacky New Russians than she actually did. She’d scored a 1500-word gig, intimated that this was not all she had scored, and thus was suffering from a horrible hangover, some guilt, and severe writer's block. Dinah needed sound bytes and she needed them fast. We covered the cost of a bottle of cheap and cheerful chardonnay from Australia ($37 USD), that famous story when the BA plane was delayed by 75 minutes while flight attendants tried to fit 10 (ten!!!!) Jimmy Choo shopping bags into the overhead compartment while their owner, a human Barbie doll, talked non-stop on her diamond-studded Nokia to someone called “Ksiusha,” at which point Dinah took another swig of Alka-Seltzer and said:
“What do Really Tacky New Russians in Moscow like to do for…ummmmmmmm…sports?”
I knew this one.
“Really Tacky New Russians in Moscow like to find the most impossibly exclusive, completely unavailable sports with the most complicated and gut-wrenchingly expensive kit possible.”
“Such as?” asked Dinah.
“Golf, downhill skiing and yachting.”
There was a long pause.
“But…” began Dinah.
“That’s right,” I said, “Moscow is flat, landlocked, and you can only play golf for two months of the year.”
“Unbelievable,” said Dinah.
“Actually, what is unbelievable is that some idiot bankers have started to play polo.”
There was a sound as if Alka Seltzer was going down the wrong tube.
“You made that up, Jennifer,” she accused.
I don’t often snort, but I snorted then said:
“How could anyone possibly make up something like that?"
Do you think I made the polo players up? More fool you….I didn’t. Did you ever think you'd see something as silly as this in the middle of a financial melt down? No, you're right. It would be funnier if those clowns from Citi were supporting it.
Do you like to SCUBA? Did you see that otherwise so-so film with Jennifer Aniston when the French guy comes down the beach asking, “Are you for scuba??” and makes off with Debra Messing?
But more importantly: Please please please leave a comment wishing George a Happy Birthday. Seriously, he’s a great kid, is nice to his little sister, I'm concerned that HRH didn't get him the iPad he wanted, and he can sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" in Chinese." I kid you not.
"I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key…”
Sir Winston Churchill
Where would we be without our code crackers? Dan Brown, for one, would just be a geek in a turtleneck. Cryptography is as old as time, in fact, it seems to me that it has to be about the 5th oldest profession (after the Oldest Profession**, hunter/gatherer, housewife, and marriage counselor) out there. I was interested to learn by literally stumbling on this tidbit of information on a Russian government web site (!) that the Kama Sutra lists cryptography as one of the 64 essential arts for a cultured person, along with carpentry, tattooing, and, of course, cooking.
**Before you ask, as my buddy Joe Kelly did, no there isn’t a Day of the Sex Worker. Sorry about that.
The history of Russia’s code crackers is interesting, if short. Peter The Great (1672 – 1725) who was into big ideas, like creating a crackerjack navy for a land-locked country, realized that a world class autocracy could not function without some secret code, and the Petrine (as we Russian history buffs smugly but correctly call this period) reforms and campaigns made extensive use of coded messages and ciphers.
Fast forward two hundred years and things are virtually unchanged from Peter’s time.
From about 1850, Russia’s rulers dealt with a sharp uptick in violent revolutionary activity at home. In 1881, Alexander II was assassinated minutes from the Winter Palace by members of the revolutionary group “Narodnaya Volya” or Peoples’ Will, and after that the secret police, or Okhrana, the forerunner of the KGB, was beefed up and more attention paid to creating and cracking more complicated ciphers, such as the particularly successful Nihilst code. Go ahead, click it! It will show you how to say "Blow up the Winter Palace" in code!!!
The Revolution of 1917 split Russia in two: the “Reds” those loyal to the Revolution and “White” monarchists fought for control until 1921. The Whites got most of the cryptologists and cryptanalysts, making it necessary for the fledgling USSR to start all over again.
After this, the trail leads to the FSB (current incarnation of the KGB) website. The Cryptographic Service is part of that crowd. From there, the trail goes cold.
As well it should.
My theory about the relative late start and lax attention to cryptography during large swathes of Russian history, for what it’s worth, is this: I think Russians more often than not think they talk in code already…and of course they do. With an alphabet that makes a normal person feel they’ve developed instant dyslexia, Russians can, and do, use their truly foul curse words in the lobby of posh hotels in New York and Paris, confident that no one (except the bellboys) understands a word they are saying.
This, however, is erroneous, as I can attest from my days as a tour guide. Once, I was doing what is called a "Fam" or Familiarization Tour (you may know it better as "boondoggle") for travel agents in Eastern Europe. The National Guide was Serbian, the driver was Slovenian, the Czech guide we were dropping off at the border spoke Slovak and Czech, and I spoke Russian. We got to the Czech/Polish border and, I kid you not, this really happened, everyone spoke his or her language and we understood one another perfectly.
Velvet and I often lapse into Russian over here in the USA if we need to communicate sensitive info. For example, when my vegetarian nieces dig into the tofu, pea pod, and tempeh salad their mother has provided as the children’s’ meal, I cock an eyebrow and say to her in Russian:
“If you eat some of that, after dinner I will take you to that red restaurant with the golden arches for the largest item on the menu and their very good potatoes”
Which is code for: “Eat a little and then I’ll get you a Big Mac and fries.”
Congratulations to all the employees at the Cryptographic Service of The Russian Federation!
Thanks for sticking with me on this double-holiday day! I sincerely appreciate you visiting Dividing My Time, and I'd love to know how you and your family talk in code! Click on the comment button below and leave me a message (in code or not!) And if you haven't done it yet, be sure to visit the other people we are honoring today, the divers and wish my personal favorite PADI-certified diver, George a happy 15th birthday and Happy Divers Day (lucky him to be born on the day of his favorite holiday!!)
In my last post, I noted that May 1st signals a mass exodus of Russians to their dachas, or country cottages. And I mentioned that I hate dachas. And here is why:
A dacha, in its most basic incarnation is a country house or weekend cottage, sitting on a postage-stamp plot of land. Banish from your mind that nice scene in “Dr. Zhivago” where Omar Sharif, Geraldine Chaplin and Ralph Richardson arrive off the train from hell and are ferried out in the pony trap to that very bizarre interpretation of Variykino. The one with the implausible onion domes (onion domes are only on churches). That is not a dacha.
This is not a dacha.
Traditionally, at a real Russian dacha, every available inch of the postage stamp is given over to the cultivation of root vegetables. These form the basic subsistence, through sale at minor profit or consumption, for the dacha owners, a strategy that Omar, Geraldine and Ralph pursued until he went off to the Library and didn’t come home until after Geraldine and Ralph go off to Paris. This socio-economic base is still relevant for about 90% of the population of Russia today, representing only the most minor inching forward in the micro-economic dynamics of rural Russia since the baptism of Prince Vladimir in 988 A.D.
Before perestroika, a dacha, added to a Soviet-made car and a tiny two room flat, formed the Holy Trinity of “The Soviet Dream” come true: the pinnacle of economic well-being in the Stagnation Era. Some government jobs provided dachas as a benefit, the luxury being commensurate with the grandeur of a job. Other dachas, or more accurately the deed for the house but not the land, were passed down through generations, making it one of those frustratingly elusive “sure things” along the greasy pole of life in the Soviet Union.
An increasing number of dachas were built last week. The Great Russian Soul strives for many and varied things, but a dacha is universal. True to Russian form, however, the dacha is a lot more complicated, and seriously less appealing than its obvious counterparts in South Hampton, Sussex or Aix-en-Provence. Dismiss the idea of “On Golden Pond:” that remote, idyllic and nostalgic summer retreat with games of Scrabble missing the X, Y and J tiles, mismatched jelly glasses, and battered and waterlogged Herman Wouk hardbacks. Despite Russia being one of largest countries in the world, most dachas are inexplicably built in clumps, one on top of the other, creating an effect of housing developments rendered in Lego by a four year old. HRH has patiently explained to me that the water and electricity lines are limited outside of major city areas, but this is surely ludicrous excuse, for a country that put the first man in space.
Most of what I know about this kind of dacha settlement, I know from frequent air travel in and out of Moscow. Analysis at ground level is more challenging because of the nine-foot cast iron gates that surround dacha settlements.
Dachas and country residences have sprung up like mushrooms with a vigorous disregard for consistency of style, size and, I fear, taste. The result is you are likely to see an exact replica of King Ludwig’s Neushwansian bang up against plywood Frank Lloyd Wright knock-off. To be fair, more recently, a certain sophistication and snobbery has crept in and “cottage settlements” are being developed with names like “Sherwood Forest”, “Tivoli” or “Longchamps” and the kind of house on offer is limited to only a handful of pre-set styles. One of HRH’s less appealing buddies took him off to view a new gated community called (and spelled) “Green-vitch.” Greenvitch’s glossy brochure offered a choice between a.) The Swiss Chalet, b.) The Anne Hathaway thatched cottage, c.) The Spanish Hacienda or d.) The Florentine Villa. I offered The Contested Divorce as Option E.
My dachaphobia, much like my preference for uncluttered surfaces and ice in my drink, is a source of constant bafflement to my Russian acquaintances.
“So good for the children!” cooed Velvet’s nanny, who asked me to say I’m taking her to the USA one summer, so she didn’t have to be out at her dacha all of August with her grandchild.
“The fresh air!” enjoins my housekeeper – a sturdy 50-something woman, recently hospitalized for three weeks following a collapse, I suspect was not unconnected to a marathon potato planting at her dacha.
“Oi…” sighed my colleague, every Monday morning from May to September, as she sank gratefully into her office chair and surveyed her scratched, sun burnt and chapped hands. “I am beyond tired.”
The fact of the matter is, and no amount of Chekhov will convince me otherwise: this whole dacha thing is a well-oiled vehicle to keep female indentured servitude alive and well in the early 21st Century.
Dachniki (those who own and use dachas) adhere to an exacting annual schedule. Over the May Day weekend, the family car is loaded to the gills with everything from barbecue spears to economy-sized packets of nappies, and the man of the house ferries his wife and children out to the dacha for the opening of the season. Russian men, for it is only ever Russian men who do this, refer to this process by announcing, “I have sent my family out to the dacha.” Since a Vaudeville style waggle of the eyebrows, a mischievous grin, and the brisk rubbing of hands usually accompany it, it could be more accurately interpreted as “I finally got the old ball-and-chain, me mum, and the brats the hell out of town for the summer.”
And so sounds the opening bell for a season of unchecked hedonism in urban centers from Brest to Ulan Bator, kick-starting a mind-boggling transformation: bus drivers start to shave daily, cafes and bars extend their happy hours, restaurants offer asparagus, oyster and other aphrodisiac food festivals, and hotels advertise weeknight specials. Sales of condoms and nail polish reach annual spikes, and just you try to get a bikini wax on a Tuesday afternoon. I walk down the street, knocked for six by the scent of cheap cologne on beefy security guards and blinded by the metallic sheen of secretaries’ regularly highlighted hair from May 1st – September 1st.
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Dear Readers:
Thank you so much for stopping by and reading this post. It means a lot to me, as does the feedback you can leave for me by clicking the comment button below and telling me what you think. I'd be interested to know: have you ever been to a dacha? Have you seen Dr. Zhivago? Do you live in a community where half of a population leaves during a particular season? Does that departure lead to aberrant behavior? If so, what kind?
Today is May 1st, which is a big deal in a number of cultures and countries for various reasons.Foremost is the coming of Spring, as celebrated by the Romans at the Festival of Flora, the Celts at Beltane, and the good old Germans at Walpurgisnacht (I once went to a memorable Walpurgisnacht celebration in Bristol, England, and haven’t been able to face sweet dessert wine since).
In the “Former Socialist” or “New Capitalist” world, May Day is associated with solidarity of the working classes, and in the USSR, May 1st used to be known as "Day of Solidarity of the Workers." What the Russians won’t tell you, though Wikipedia and I will, is that this was actually dreamed up by…the Australians. Go and figure. Which is interesting, since May 1st for them doesn’t designate the coming of Spring at all, but nevertheless, in 1856, they came up with the idea of a universal holiday for the working classes.
On the other side of the world on May 1, 1886 in Chicago, at a three-day-strike at a factory got out of hand and police fired on the crowd of striking workers, resulting in twelve deaths and world-wide outrage and subsequent sympathy for the plight of the working people. May 1st became a day of solidarity with the cause of workers’ rights, and gained a solid foothold in Europe. Russian workers first held demonstrations in 1891 in St. Petersburg, and after the Russian Revolution of 1917, the holiday was firmly entrenched as the national day of celebration of the workers’ state, with massive parades through the streets of major cities.
Northampton celebrates the beginning of May too... in its own particular way, which also has to do with solidarity. This is known simply as "Pride" and it was getting going this evening on main street, under the benevolent protection of Noho's four cops. This is a regional celebration, it seems, which was brought home to me today when Velvet called from school to say she was sorry that she had not called me in the morning, but they were observing a morning of silence, "...you know in solidarity with people don't live in as understanding a community as ours."
I said I thought that was just great, and then suggested she might not want to go into a lot of detail about that to HRH.
Sadly, I will miss my opportunity to show solidarity with people who live in the most understanding of communities, in downtown Northampton, because, needless to say, I am going to a horse show.
In Russia, May 1st kicks off a series of holidays bundled up together as “The May Holidays,” which actually just include May 1st and May 9th (Victory Day), but the Russian Government in its infinite wisdom massages the calendar so that these two holidays run into one another and Russians end up with most of May off, although they usually have to work an eight day work week to compensate for it. You can read about it in my inaugural humor column. The one that got me in to so much trouble with Olga Quelque Chose
All this free time, combined with fairly reliably good weather, mean one thing for any Russian worth his salt pork: it’s time to head to the dacha! I hate dachas. I'll explain why tomorrow.
So off you go, Russia, to your shashlik and your dachas, Noho - enjoy Pride. I'm going to be in solidarity with the other Pony Moms.
Thank you for stopping by and reading this post. Although I know my Russian audience will be firing up the kostor and too busy, I'd love it if everyone else could let me know what you thought about this post by clicking on the comment button below. Tell me, how are you going to spend May 1st?
About the Author
Veteran American expatriate, calling Moscow home for the last 17 years, I’m also a photographer, historian, cook, and humor columnist: always trying to find the funnier side of life in Russia as I manage a family consisting of HRH, my “Horrible Russian Husband,” and Velvet, my 12 year old, who thinks she’s a horse. I’m finishing up my first book, and divide my time between Moscow, Russia and Northampton MA: and the only thing they have in common is a complete lack of parking spaces.
Contact Me: [email protected]
"Jennifer Eremeeva’s blog Dividing My Time is certainly not another English Russia. Instead Jennifer – who has been living in Moscow for 17 years – posts wry observations about day to day life in Moscow."
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Cool Cucumbers in a Pretty Pickle The sizzling hot spy scandal makes me wonder if I could pull of being a Russian...if only in the kitchen, where I attempt pickles!
Cool Cucumbers in a Pretty Pickle The sizzling hot spy scandal makes me wonder if I could pull of being a Russian...if only in the kitchen, where I attempt pickles!
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