Memory Eternal!
Memory eternal to His Holiness, Patriarch Aleksii II of Moscow! I had the honor of receiving his blessing in 1999 and have heard him speak in person several times. A most impressive person who exuded spirituality, kindness, and humor. May God have mercy on his soul.
My name is Olga. I can’t say that I am a very experienced livejournal user, but here I go. I am writing to you at the request of Vladimir Gurbolikov. He is amongst your livejournal friends, and you commented on one of his recent post with photos from the Patriarch's funeral: http://gurbolikov.livejournal.com/180538.html
Unfortunately Vladimir doesn't speak English, but he just wanted to say “thank you” for the comment. And that it was nice to find out that you visit his blog from time to time.
Actually, that was just a short version of the photo-report from the Patriarch’s funeral. You can see the full version here, on the blog of our magazine: http://community.livejournal.com/foma_blogs/28871.html
Vladimir asked me to tell you a bit about him. He is the sub-editor in chief of a Russian Christian Orthodox magazine called “Foma” (I guess you can call it “Doubting Thomas” in English.) I work there too.
Some time ago we tried to translate some of the articles to English ( http://old.foma.ru/english/index.php?issue=5&from=0 ), but unfortunately they didn’t arouse the interest we hoped they would. And we stopped the translations.
On the same site you can see an interview of our editor in chief. It’s pretty old, but it gives a really good idea of how this all started and what it’s all about:
http://old.foma.ru/english/index.php?issue=5§ion=41&article=343
And here is an example of the texts we publish in our magazine:
http://old.foma.ru/english/index.php?issue=5§ion=48&article=1108
Time passed and we decided to try another way. Another project - “Territory of Happiness” (or it’s other name “The world through Doubting Thomas’s eyes”) appeared. We opened a blog, full of photo galleries with short texts underneath them that could be easily translated to other languages. And it’s not all simply photos of churches and priests, it’s the world through the eyes of people who believe in God.
You can take a look if you like. The texts are all in Russian, unfortunately we don’t have the resources to translate them yet into English, but the photos are really good and tell a story of their own. This is the blog in general: http://community.livejournal.com/glazami_fomy/
And here is an example of one of the galleries - one of the most expressive ones with the least text possible. The photos were made by Vladimir Kruchkin - a Russian documentary director and professional operator, who even shot a documentary film underwater in the Arctic once:
http://community.livejournal.com/glazami_fomy/11499.html#cutid1
Vladimir wanted to say - let’s be friends! Not just people who added each other to their friend list, but someone who actually communicates with each other and exchanges opinions. Could you write a bit about yourself? About your interest in Eastern Orthodox religion and in Russian culture? And how come you know Russian so well?
I took a just a brief look at your blog, but I know you have to know Russian pretty well to understand what “деловая колбаса” means, as well as to read Tsvetaeva in Russian. :)
We’d appreciate a letter or at least a short answer. You can send it to my e-mail olgak@foma.ru and I will translate it into Russian for Vladimir.
Also we would be grateful for any kind of opinion and criticism of our activity - of our magazine (the English version articles on the site) and/or our blog-projects.
Best regards,
Olga
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