Second paragraph of third section:

Мы еще там гибли, а нас уже здесь судили. Раненых привозили в Союз и разгружали на задворках аэропорта, чтобы народ не заметил. Не знал...Никто из вас не задумывался: почему после службы в армии в мирное время молодые парни возвращаются с орденом Красной звезды и медалями "За отвагу" и "За боевые заслуги". ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third chapter:

Поэт провел рукою по лицу, как человек, только что очнувшийся, и увидел, что на Патриарших вечер. Вода в пруде почернела, и легкая лодочка уже скользила по ней, и слышался плеск весла и смешки какой-то гражданки в лодочке. В аллеях на скамейках появилась публика, но опять-таки на всех трех сторонах квадрата, ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third chapter:Based on countless viewings of the movie Animal House, I decided that if I was going to go to a party school, I might as well do it right and join a fraternity. I pledged the Delta Upsilon fraternity and, after the requisite hazing, was accepted as a member. Everyone had a nickname there-Sparky, Whiff, Doorstop, ( Read more... )

See note on methodology

Despite the richness of the field, there is a surprising convergence not just on the best-known book set in Russia, but on the top three spots. In order, the most widely-owned books set in Russia on both LibraryThing and GoodReads (all nineteenth-century classics) are:

( probably the three books you would expect )

A pretty short history of the Russian Orthodox Church from 988 to 1988, written of course just before the world changed; it's fasinating to remember the context of the Cold War and of those who attempted what we would now call Track Two diplomacy across the Iron Curtain ( Read more... )

The European Council on Foreign Relations published this analysis of EU-Russia relations just before last year's Russian elections. I found it very informative on how Russia has managed to crash out of the BRIC category (the other three being the rising economies of Brazil, India and China) to the point where the Putin machine has become exhausted ( Read more... )

There cannot be many heads of state who would devote a video blog to the virtues of badminton. Watch through to the end for footage of presidential badminton-playing, and see if you can spot the name-check of Yuri Gagarin at about 2:17 (which is an ad-lib, not in the published scriptPS - There is a theory going round the internets that Medvedev's ( Read more... )

Some of the greatest lines of the former Russian prime minster who died today (alas, no translation can really capture the tortured syntax of the original; many more on Russian Wikiquote hereЧто говорить о Черномырдине и обо мне ( Read more... )

For the last couple of years I feel I have been rather neglecting the latest sf, so I decided to start catching up by getting through the shortlist for this year's BSFA award. Yellow Blue Tibia carries the subtitle Konstantin Skvorecky's memoir of the alien invasion of 1986, and is about a Soviet science fiction writer who becomes entangled in a ( Read more... )

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  Somaliland appeals to international community for urgent emergency livelihood assistance | SomalilandPress
  (tags: somaliland)
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  Slaves To The Story?
  If you are making a documentary about slavery in the Polisario camps, and inconveniently discover that there isn't any, then just make up the evidence and ( Read more... )