Hat tip to Registan for finding this video. Just in case you have been living in a cave (and obviously recently had internet access installed), Sarah Palin was asked a few weeks back about her lack of foreign policy experience. Her answer basically seemed to revolve around the fact that she could see Russia from her home in Alaska, and oh, Putin flies over her head when he comes to visit. Nice answer Sarah, I’m guessing that wasn’t one of your much-rehearsed answers that your advisers make you repeat during training?
Anyway, here we have a message of (slightly creepy) love to Sarah.
Oct 27 2008
He’ll Be Watching You!
Oct 03 2008
The Truth Started Today!
Eighty years ago today (October 3, 1908), the Russian Language newspaper Pravda (?????? – this will probably appear as question marks until I try out the UTF converter for this site’s database) which means (the) Truth. It was founded by Trotsky (the one with the striking goatee who met his end via an ice pick) in Vienna, and then smuggled into Russia. After the revolution, the paper continued to be produced, and on March 3, almost ten years later, it became the established as an official publication of the Soviet Communist Party. A lot of politics was obviously involved in the power struggles for running the paper, and other newspapers (for example Izvestia covered foreign relations) also existed to represent other branches of the government. This led to the saying “v Pravde net izvestiy, v Izvestiyakh net pravdy” (In the Truth there is no news, and in the News there is no truth).
My thanks to Wikipedia for drawing this occurrence to my attention 🙂
Oct 01 2008
Russian Soldier Exiled For Video
I’ve just read an article over at the BBC news web site about a soldier who recorded a cover of the Eminem (featuring Dido) track Stan. In much the same way as the original features a disgruntled young man writing a letter, the soldier’s was supposed to be a letter to the minister of defence , regarding the unsavoury conditions fellow soldiers had to endure, despite previous assurances that living conditions would improve. It would appear that he became frustrated to the lack of a reply to a previous conventional letter, and so wrote (possibly in May 2008?) a new ? ?????? ?? ??? ???????? ??????? in the form of a video uploaded to RuTube.ru .
In case you want to watch the full video, here it is…
It looks as though relying on Google to translate ‘a letter to the minister of defense’ (or defence, depending on which variant of English you use 🙂 ) was a little inaccurate, as the video is simply titled ?????? ???????? ??????? .
Jun 23 2008
C Nomrazh Denya
OK, so that definitely is not the official way of transcribing the Russian for ‘Happy Birthday’ into Latin characters, but it is close enough. As Irina’s Dad (whose birthday it is today) does not use computers, and therefore won’t read this post, I doubt it matters too much 🙂
Feb 27 2008
WordPress In Kazakh !
I meant to post about this a while back, but as you may have already guessed from the title, the WordPress software that this blog is based on is now available in the Kazakh language. Whilst it is likely that 99.9%§ of people who will be installing WordPress on a server are already able to speak Russian, and therefore use that pre-existing version, the fact that the option is now there for those that want a Kazakh interface, is definitely a good thing. Check out the semi-official news release here.
§ – Did you know that 64.7% of statistics are made up?
Dec 19 2007
Putin Not Losing His Grip
Rather than spread this over several posts, I thought I’d just put all the article links in one place. They all concern Russian politics, and whilst you should obviously spread your research from different sources to try and attain a more complete picture, they certainly provoke some thoughts and comparisons with other country’s attempts to present an image of squeaky clean political processes, and elections specifically.
“It’s painful to imagine life without Putin”
“Mr Putin’s allegations “nonsense””
Election ‘neither free nor fair’
Successor for the next four year plan?
You support me, I support you…
“The British Council’s activities in Russia are compliant”
Still reading? Impressive, now I’m the first to admit that Yeltsin’s reign was not the best foundation for a Russia coming out of a political system that disintegrated into chaos, but I do wonder if this direction will be any better in the long term?
Dec 19 2007
Free Press?Always Best???
First off, we have an article over at the BBC web site (I should probably learn to broaden my horizons, or at least add a few new RSS feeds 🙂 ).
Anyway, a survey recently carried out revealed that 40% of some 11,000 people from 14 different countries believed that a press free from the shackles of governmental or military censorship was not as important for society, compared to social harmony and peace. Just as interesting, for me at least, was that news that Russians (as well as Egyptians and Germans) believed that state run media was more likely to give an unbiased account of events, compared to private owned media companies.
For a quick summary, see the BBC’s graph below…
Although it is sometimes difficult to discuss political matters in this country, especially as I am a relatively inexperienced foreigner in a different culture to that I grew up in, I have to admit I do not have a great deal of respect for the vast majority of local TV stations and newspapers, when it comes to reporting Kazakh-based news that has a political slant. Would I feel any differently if I had lived through the years of even heavier repression? Quite possibly, but in knowing what can be achieved by a free press, it can be frustrating to watch the personality-based ego feeding that often occurs on the news reports around here.
The world does not revolve around one man, no matter how great his achievements… if a balance is not achieved between respect and kowtowing, then disillusionment will eventually form.
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Dec 10 2007
It’s News To Them…
My thanks to David (I really need to confirm if he is a David or a Dave at some point), who is a nice man from Australia who has a Russian wife. He is moving to Astana, and has so far made it to Almaty, with his Astana arrival due this week. Hopefully more on him to come in the future, but for now, check out a site he passed on to me – The Daily Mash, which seems to take current news, and create a spoof story from it. The quality seems to be of a consistently higher level than the similarly themed The Onion site. Anyway, check out this “London Bomb ‘Not Scary Enough’, Brown Tells Mi5” article as an example.
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Dec 03 2007
Barrels Of Fun
To celebrate Dr Natalya’s birthday, we went to the ‘barrel’ restaurant yesterday. I have forgotten the official name of the place, but due to the use of huge barrels outside as dining areas (at least in the summer months), that barrel place is easier to remember 🙂
As well as Dr Natalya, her husband Sasha (when in doubt, if a guy is Russian, Sasha is normally a safe bet 😉 ), their daughter Sveta and Masha, we also had Balzhan and her son Ildar. We finally had a chance to pass on a couple of little presents for the kids (some toys and a British comic each) who seemed to enjoy them. Anyway, we had some salad (OK, I admit I just munched on the bread), a few plates of pork sashliq and I ordered some chips. Topped off with some ice cream, and a good time was had by all. Sadly Balzhan and Ildar can not make it this Christmas to Mum’s wedding, so it was good to see them again before New Year, which is a much bigger holiday/celebration over here, than Xmas.
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Nov 26 2007
A Month Of Random Contacts…
During the last month or so, I have been contacted by a number of people, all related to Kazakhstan strangely enough. First we had someone who has built a plane and called it Berkut (which is also the name of a vodka over here), an English guy moving to Astana who wanted some more information about satellite TV and supermarkets, an Australian guy who is moving here in December, with his Russian wife, and finally an Indian (apologies if incorrect, his surname sounds Hindu to me) architect, living in New York who designed the local Cinema City complex (he wanted some photos of it, as his current ones weren’t too good).
I’m hopefully passing the vodka on to an American friend, so the plane builder can celebrate the flight with a suitably named drink, we’re looking forward to meeting some new faces here in Astana at some point, and the architect has been put in touch with Tom, who has better camera skills than me, so should have some better shots than those captured last night at Tiflis.
Anyway, they all made contact through finding this blog, so a big thanks to the search engines out there who are spidering away 🙂
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