Where is Absurdistan? That will be the question everyone asks who reads Gary Shteyngart's new novel, reviewed here in the New York Times. I'm always interested to hear about new Russian novelists and their take on the post-Soviet world, particularly when they venture into the former Soviet republics (of which Absurdistan appears to be a composite ( Read more... )

Here's an interesting human interest story. Kakha Kaladze is a fine footballer, a Georgian defender who has been a great asset for AC Milan since he joined therossoneri from Dynamo Kiev in 2001. Unfortunately, it was also in that year that his brother Levan was kidnapped and held to ransom. A match report for Milan's 1-0 defeat of Cagliari Saturday ( Read more... )

(Pish! a long day. Up at 5am, caught 7am from Marylebone, sat UN exam in High Wycombe from 9am to 4pm, back home via SOAS at 7pm. Ate flatmate's pizza crusts and drank a glass or two of the delightful Houghtons HWB 2004.)

As a sign of my fealty, I present. for your delectation, the SOAS Central Asia and Caucasus Society's first event:

Revolution ( Read more... )

The TLS has a couple of articles well worth perusing: an analysis of the recent trial of Orhan Pamuk; and a review of a biography of Musa Sanib (Iurii Shanibov) a would-be Circassian nationalist.

The case against Pamuk may have been dropped (see here and here at Blogrel - thanks Katy & Hovakim - for good round ups) but now a whole new tranche of ( Read more... )

Anyhoo, I had a pretty interesting w/e. It all kicked off, as the kids like to say, on Friday night when Katy Blogrel and I attended a lecture at Armenian Hall, adjacent to the Armenian Embassy, just off Ken High St. The speaker was Onnik Krikorian, a wonderful photojournalist and old friend of Katy's. Onnik was very vivid in describing the current ( Read more... )

Last night I attended a documentary screening at SOAS, entitled "Karabakh: What Price Sovereignty?", in the company of Katy (of Blogrel fame) and Venichka. Katy has reported on the film and following Q&A discussion, which I can indeed confirm was pretty lively, but I thought the film was the most interesting aspect of the evening, lending credence ( Read more... )