No Pain, No Gain Pt. 2

There is an expression in Russian - Какая муха тебя укусила (ka-kaya moo-kha tib-ya oo-koo-seal-ah) - which literally translates as "What bug bit you?" but means something closer to "what's the matter with you? or "what bit you on the ass?".

I wish I knew what had sunk its fangs into me while I was walking around the Moscow Country Club's golf course one evening last summer, because it surely couldn't have been an insect, or букашка (bu-kash-ka). One potential suspect is the слепень (sleh-pen) or horsefly.

Go away

Getting bitten by a horsefly isn't pleasant. I last encountered these assholes back in Sarapul, my friend's Siberian home town, several years ago. Unlike a mosquito (комар - koh-marr), which just sort of stings a moment after it's long since buggered off, you can actually feel (well I certainly did) these arrogant bastards digging into your flesh. A victim's vengeance can be swift, however, as they don't fly very fast.

Nonetheless, it didn't seem as though a horsefly was the culprit, because I ended up feverish that night. A couple of days later I had to go to the doctor's for antibiotics (антибиотики anti-biotiki) as my right hand (правая рука - prah-va-ya roo-ka) ended up swollen to the point where my knuckles were no longer visible. So yeah, don't go anywhere near Russian nature.

Also contributing to last summer's countryside hijinx was a trip out to a place called Ruza. It's roughly a hundred kilometers west of Moscow, and you have to grab a train out to the small town of Tuchkova first before getting a taxi the rest of the way.

Once at Ruza, the local kids summer camp, or лагерь (lah-ger), was hosting a tango marathon called "El Huracan".

There some other bloodsuckers decided to feast solely on my feet, which is exactly what you want when you're dancing for three days straight. Regardless, the three days I spent there were marvelous and exactly the kind of weekend I needed. If it's not clear from the previous video, the dancing was all outdoors in a marquee at this summer camp.

But not content to limit my injuries to mere insect bites, I managed to screw up my left shoulder (левое плечо - leh-vo-ye pleh-cho) briefly. Way back in 2003, I did a magnificent job of yanking my left arm out of its socket (вывих плеча - vy-vikh pleh-cha) with the help of a cartwheeling pratfall on a dry ski slope. For those who live in countries with snow, this is what a dry ski slope looks like.

Yup

Dry ski slopes are a series of hard plastic spikes arranged in a diamond lattice with water sprayed on top, letting you (barely) slide over them. They are also the most miserable things you'll ever see and nothing like proper snow (снег - snyeg). 

Since that time, like Mr. Pringle said, once you pop, you can't stop, because dislocations don't work the same way as broken bones do. In most cases when a bone (кость - kost') is broken, it grows back stronger, but dislocations don't get that Wolverine luxury. The glenohumeral joint is not load-bearing, which makes it inherently unstable. Get yourself into the right position like, I dunno, tumbling face forward downhill after tripping over a slalom pole and breaking your fall with your left arm, and ta-dah! Your muscles in that arm are now screaming in agony and you're not allowed any morphine until the x-ray is done. To top it all off your muscles are now weaker, increasing the chances of it happening again next time you decide to windmill your arms about.

I did eventually get surgery, leaving me with an awesome scar, followed by months of physiotherapy not unlike in the previous post. Of course, in my idiocy I ended up popping my arm out again a few years later.

Since then there's been one or two close calls - at tango class of course - but nothing requiring a trip to the hospital with me screaming like a girl. As much fun as it is, I think I'll stop talking about my medical ailments for now.

I'm on instagram nowadays. I don't post anything artsy. Mostly posters for shitty bands who - as mentioned in the U2 concert post a while ago - can only make money nowadays by touring countries who for some baffling reason still have some misplaced nostalgia in them. 

Go on  - name ONE of their songs, and no googling

Failing that it's pictures of my neighbor's sweet ride.

Periodically I end up leaving my umbrella hanging on the handlebars while I unlock the front door and then forget to pick it up again. To date, the umbrella (зонтик - zon-tick) has still not been stolen away from me those nights I've forgotten about it, which only goes to show how bad ass his bike is.

Let's Dance

Not me, I'm afraid.

In light of International Tango Day, I was interviewed (again) over the phone by Voice of Russia about Moscow's tango scene. Click the following link to listen to me prattle on for about fifteen minutes.

http://english.ruvr.ru/radio_broadcast/35614392/97661017.html

And as is tradition, take a listen to Zum by Osvaldo Pugliese.

No Pain, No Gain Pt. 1

In a paradoxical twist of fate, or “ирония судьбы” (ee-roniya sood-bee lit. "irony of fate"), my physical problems that I made mention of last post have likely arisen from tango classes, but coincidentally the terminology used in tango is extremely useful for explaining your problems to Russian doctors. So how about another long overdue language lesson?

First up – although this took place last year and isn't all that exciting – I was having problems with my muscle (мышца – myshtsa) in my calf (голень – goh-len’) or икра  (i-kra). Officially, it should be икроножная мышца (ikronozhnaya myshtsa) - although to be even more accurate the calf muscle is actually made up of three different muscles, and therein lay the problem.

My technique in the way I was stepping – in tango one of the key elements is a толчковый шаг (tolch-kovy shag), a “pushing” or “thrusting” step (derived from толчок – tol-chok) – was slightly off. Ideally, you are meant to propel yourself forward using your thighs (бедро – bed-roh, which for some reason I keep getting mixed up with ведро – ved-roh – which is “bucket”).

For whatever reason I was using my heel muscles more than my thighs, stemming perhaps from not wanting to stand on my partner's feet (столкнуться - stawlk-noot-sya) as I moved forward. The proper technique involves making sure you stand on the inside part of your feet, which is referred to as внутренняя часть стопы (v-noo-trenyaya chast’ stop-iy), and that you have открытые стопы (otkrytiye stop-iy – open feet), and that your heels are together (пятки вместе – pyatki vmes-tye). If you’re lucky, after a few weeks you’ll have blisters (волдыры – vol-dyr-ee, though rarely used in speech) on your big toes (большие пальцы ног – bol-shiye paltsy nog) that will later become calluses (мозоли – maw-zawl-i).

As a result, muscles in my right calf were getting used more than they should and, if I understood the physiotherapist (физиотерапевт – fizio-terra-peft) correctly, the way those muscles met led to spasms (спазм) because of a build up of lactic acid or whatever. This manifested itself when I was suddenly struck by a painful cramp walking around the center of Moscow one summer day. Being a big girl, I instantly thought I had a torn muscle, or разорванная (razorvannaya) мышца.

Thankfully it turned out there was no injury and I was prescribed some stretches (вытягивание – vy-tyag-ivan-iye), that ointment stuff back in a previous post, and a few massage (массаж - massazh) sessions during which the physio poured paraffin wax over the affected area. 

Not pictured: my foot

The second thing to give me grief was my back (спина - spi-na) for similar reasons, although of course my instant conclusion was that I had slipped a disc and would be forever crippled. Ironically, probably much to the joy of my parents who had berated me for slouching, the MRI (магнитно-резонансная томография magnito-rezonansnaya tomografia, or just MRT) revealed that my back was, in fact, almost completely straight (прямая - pri-maya) as a result of a year's worth of constant dancing.

The issue lay in the fact that along the length of your spine (позвоночник - poh-zvo-noch-nik) there are a whole bunch of muscles connected to the vertebrae. Now ideally the muscles in the lumbar region before meeting the rib cage (грудная клетка - grood-naya klet-ka) should only flex back and forward, while the turning stuff is done further up. Somehow I was breaking that rule and twisting the muscles that should not. So, of course, back to the doctor to get a referral for the physio.

It only dawned on me later at the medical center I use that the reason their physiotherapy department has the slightly odd title of травматология (trav-ma-to-log-i-ya - traumatology) is because it's a warning. The main word in травматология is trauma. Mood music and soothing wax were no longer going to cut it.

Not quite there yet

The words "massage" and "therapy" in this context are misnomers; those two are meant to evoke the idea of relaxation. In my first stint at traumatology I was held face down while an unsympathetic small woman jammed her elbow (локоть - law-kawt) into my backside. My wails did nothing; "Yes, I know, just a little bit more," as she pressed harder down on the back of my thigh for another ten minutes. And then more stretches. 

This time round they involved me mostly lying on the floor thrusting my hips into the air while another small woman demanded I keep sticking my ass up higher and my head tilted forward. "Look at belly!" she commanded in broken English while making me hold an exercise ball with my arms and legs.

The Catch-22 here is that, while an hour's worth of such exercises every day might seem torturous and make you look like a prat, the thing is that, even though they hurt if you do them, your back or leg will still hurt if you don't. The upshot is that you keep up with the former in the hope that it will eventually not hurt any more.

Those three months of dry humping an exercise mat do eventually result in a happy ending - but unfortunately it's a slow one with no fanfare. The reward comes gradually, like when you sit back up after spending the past five minutes making your pelvis (таз - tazz) and chest point opposite directions for the umpteenth time to find that, hold on, that one thing in that bit there doesn't feel off any more. And then once you've fixed yourself all up, you go and do something stupid like crack one of your toes off a metal chair leg...

Next time: the dangers of the Russian countryside and the secret to seducing women. 

Flash (Food) Mob

So what’s Kitchen Party then? If you’re familiar with CouchSurfing (which you aren’t), it’s the same thing - sans the couch. Rather than sleeping on some stranger’s sofa, you’re dinner-partying at some stranger’s place, meeting other like-minded (and hungry) individuals. The theme of the parties can be anything you’d like.

In fact, it doesn’t even need to be held at some glamorous penthouse apartment. There have been picnics in the park in Buenos Aires, rooftop barbeques in Rome, and even simple potluck dinners in flats across the globe.

The reaction I’ve faced when attempting to explain this whole thing to folk is usually along the lines of “Benjamin, you’re insane. Why would you invite random, completely unknown people into your home?” But that’s a false assumption.

See, the thing is, these people aren’t random. The folk who attend these things are already predisposed to this sort of behaviour – especially among couchsurfers. The way the system is set up isn’t like some public social network where anyone can join within a few clicks and casually turn up without notice. It requires activity on their part (people on the Internet are rather lazy). This slightly left-field branch of society aren’t freaked out by the idea of unfamiliar encounters, because they’ve already gone out of their way in the past to take part in such things offline. Ultimately it’s less about how good the food is and more about gathering together.

Inevitably the next question I’m usually faced with is “Okay, but you’re feeding these people for free – what do you get out of it? Also, you’re still nuts.” Well, the proposal put to guests is that they should bring something, much like any other normal shindig. It could be something simple as BYOB, but you can request that folk tell you a story. The most incredible thing I’ve heard so far at one KP is that a couple of guests put on a short three-act play for everyone in attendance.

I’ve held several so far in Moscow, starting with a potato party (cuz I’m Irish, geddit? Hilarious, I know), wherein I just served a huge pot of mashed potato, and it was a roaring success – although a few bottles of wine did loosen things up somewhat.

Given that it was the winter, I turned my attention to making soup instead. Chicken Vegetable is piss easy to make in huge quantities, as all you’re doing is throwing things into one big pot (recipe available on request). The only issue was coming up with a vegetarian option, which I’m not very good at – but therein lies another facet to how wonderful this idea is. It has encouraged me (and could encourage you too) to cook more. As for my request to the guests, I asked them to “bring something warm”. One guest brought a traditional spicy paste called аджика (ad-zhi-ka), while another made us all mulled wine.

As to why I got involved with it, it ties into my tango trip to Buenos Aires. There I met my long-time friend Mike, who helped start up the venture with his Italian friends. “Oh, that’s a pretty cool idea,” I said. And then there was a slight pause and I just knew what would happen next.

“Hey Ben, why don’t you kick things off in Moscow? I’m certain that the Russians would love this.”

Mike has an extremely magnetic personality (and if you ever meet him, which is more likely than you think because he’s constantly travelling the world, he can regale you with fascinating stories) and is tremendously difficult to say no to. But I genuinely like the idea.

The whole thing has garnered a lot of press attention lately too, and we have groups and accounts on all the major social network sites. And yes, even Google+.

Unfortunately, I’ve had my soup parties on hiatus for a couple of months already because of various personal issues I’ve had to deal with. Also, I’m kind of stuck for ideas on what to make, because it is roasting hot now. Soup was good for the winter; not so appealing for blazing Moscow heat.

So maybe, dear reader, you might like to take part in this social revolution but still don't feel like inviting people you've never met before in your life round for a meal? Well, you're in luck. Across the rest of the globe, flash mobs are being planned for the end of this month on May 27th, wherein folk will bum-rush their town square to have a picnic.

I have to pass on organizing that myself; Moscow's administration doesn't tend to view unsanctioned gatherings in the city kindly.

United (Inter)Nations

So here's the two main announcements:

- You may notice something sitting in the top right corner of the page that wasn't there previously. It turns out that someone other than myself reads this thing and they liked it so much they have featured me on their site, which is called InterNations. It's a sort of social/business network between expats in different cities across the world and is really rather nifty. So, InterNations folk, if you've got any questions about Moscow life, I am more than happy to answer. Heck, I'll even take requests for topics.

- I mentioned in the previous post that I have been hosting dinner parties - the origins of which goes all the way back to, of all things, my trip to Buenos Aires...

...which we'll cover tomorrow soon!

Also, Game of Thrones trailer - because it's shot in Northern Ireland.

The Perfect Drug

Russians have, from the outset, a slightly bewildering obsession with the аптека (ap-tye-kah - pharmacy, drugstore; possibly Greek in origin). The set up involves a typically long queue (очередь oh-che-red) - the type seen everywhere else from the metro ticket booth (касса - kah-sa) to a toilet (туалет) at a nightclub (ночной клуб - noch-noi cloob). With the exception of the latter, such queues usually lead to a woman behind a small window with a wafer-thin gap to pass money through. They tend to look something like this.

Nowadays there are more Boots-esque style stores where you can wander about as you please and take stuff to the till. The old school variant has you in a mostly empty room with glass cases showing off the oddly-named and mysterious substances available for purchase - providing, of course, if you know exactly what you want.

The funny thing is - some of the time the patrons don't know what they want, and will grill the poor pharmacist for at least ten minutes detailing their exact condition - going as far in places as to go over the instructions packaged with whatever product they may or may not need. As you might expect, by the end of this, some might not even make a purchase. And yes, this has happened to me.

Now most of what I've said so far is bitchy and whiny but, in a roundabout way, I'm trying to highlight a rather unfortunate aspect about the healthcare industry in Russia. Along with teachers and lecturers, doctors and therapists are treated dreadfully here. Why? Along with a bunch of other reasons, there exists a belief that Russians know their own body better than anyone else, and they are the ones best qualified to deal with any ailment.

The mere idea of having to pay someone else (let alone asking them!) for medical assistance verges on blasphemy. Admitting you could be suffering from depression is rare to see among Russians, but it might just be a contributing factor to the staggering suicide rate among Russian males (setting aside the effects of post-Soviet poverty, alcoholism, general living standards etc.), not to mention the occasional instance of a police major going on a drunken rampage and shooting three people dead in a Moscow supermarket.

As a result, psychotherapists do not get the same respect (or money) as their Western counterparts, so it's not clear how widespread genetic mental disorders are in this country - especially those that may be as a result of alcohol abuse, and good grief this post has taken a dark turn.

Enough of that - let's look at some cool shit you can pick up in the pharmacies here! First up is this awesomeness called Nicoflex.


It comes in a tube and in Russian is called a мазь (mazz - ointment) If you're an idiot like me who has been dancing too much and ends up using muscles you didn't even know you had then Nicoflex is for you. It's basically Soviet strength Deep Heat and it works a charm. Stiff back? Nicoflex. Cramped calf muscle? Nicoflex. Eyes not watering enough? Forget to wash your hands after applying Nicoflex.

On a similar theme is... Ketonal!


Now that your ligaments feel as though they're on fire, it's time to pop some Ketonal for any leftover joint pain. Forget those shiny packets of neatly arranged Nurofen tablets; these bad boys come in a non-descript brown glass bottle. You just know that the dodgier it looks, the more effective it's going to be.

And what about something to keep your immune system going in the winter? I should note that, as of time of writing, it's currently -23 Celsius. Enter Аскорбинка (As-kor-bin-ka from ascorbic acid - y'know the vitamin C stuff).

Askorbinka are mostly aimed at kids and, naturally, completely laced with sugar. But it's okay because it's got vitamin C in it. They're fairly cheap as well, and make for a crappy treat at kids' birthday parties.

============

In other news I've been at milongas non-stop since returning from Argentina, and slowly working my way towards becoming a local legend in the Moscow tango community. Also, one of the instructors celebrated her birthday at the school. No prizes for guessing where I am in the video.



As a result of my trip to Buenos Aires, I've also started hosting dinner parties here, which I shall elaborate on in the next post (no really, because it's high time I shamelessly promoted this stuff).

Umm... what else? Oh yeah, it's cold.

Winter Is Coming

Did you know Game of Thrones (Игра пристолов - Ee-gra pri-stall-ov) is actually filmed in Belfast? Came as a surprise to me. Great show all the same. Like Lord of the Rings (Властелин колец - Vlah-stel-in koh-lets), but taking out the twaddle about magic and elves and replacing it with everyone constantly shagging each other or stabbing each other in the back. Sometimes both. What's this got to do with Russia? Not much. I just felt like putting Sean Bean's face up there, because the poor bloke gets an awful lot of flak.

The reason I have not posted in a while is due to various external factors and, while we are at it, why not blame the weather (погода - po-go-da) too for its sharp seasonal turn about? So far it has been mildly wavering above zero (нуль - knool), teasing the local population (население - nah-si-len-i-ye) before it decides to nosedive.

It might be worthwhile re-naming this blog Everything Tango. I have become so dedicated to both it and the school (школа - sh-kawl-ah) that I am now turning into some sort of teaching assistant. If there is a lack of leaders or followers - the politically-correct term for guys and girls - for the beginner classes, on more than one occasion I have been invited to stay behind to help out.

This is by no means a bad thing, because I am now getting an insight into what it's like to dance as a follower - or, more romantically in Russian, a партнерша (part-nyor-sha). The leader is known as партнер (part-nyor). That sha you see at the end is a common method of feminizing a Russian noun, and the end result is that it actually sounds much more romantic. "Leader and Follower" has a sense of imbalance. "Two partners" on the other hand touches upon the very heart of the dance.

So that is what has mostly been the focus in the past three months - outside of work and personal life, which I cannot post about because they have been so exciting that blogger alone would not be able to contain it.

What I can say, without causing the Internet to explode, is that I went back to Ireland (Ирландия Eer-lan-di-ya) in August (Август - ahv-goost) for my birthday. Upon my return I celebrated with another Leo (Лев - Lyev) in tango tradition at the school, wherein everybody takes turns to dance with the birthday boy or girl.



In defence of my then-terrible dancing, I had just gotten off the plane the day before and hadn't practised in a week.

And what's the end result of all this? I am heading to Buenos Aires next week on a sort of pilgrimage for a fortnight. Expect photos (фотки foht-ki) and videos (роллики - rawl-ee-ki) of me eating beef, drinking red wine, and dreadful attempts at speaking the Spanish language (испанский язык - Ee-span-ski yih-sikh).

Oh and maybe dancing.

All We Hear Is...

Instead of writing another entry, I decided to go on radio to talk for longer than I would spend jotting something down here. It was for Voice of Russia, which is kind of like the Motherland's version of the BBC World Service in that it broadcasts across the globe in many languages. I took part in the program "Home from Home", the host of which interviews English-speaking foreigners who now live and work in Moscow.

You can either follow the following link to the site to listen to it there, or download the 25-minute show by clicking here (or right-click and click "save as..."). Try to ignore the musical intermissions (unless, of course, you like samba), and the fact that I sound like a bit of a twerp in places.

Home from Home

Tags: World, Radio, Russia

Sam Gerrans

3.07.2011, 10:58

Benjamin Glover is from Northern Ireland. His school, unusual for Northern Ireland at that time, offered Russian, which he studied. He liked the language and went on to study Russian at university. After university he came out to Moscow three years ago and now works as a Style Editor at Russia Today. He has a range of interests and especially enjoys learning tango. Читать далее Source: Voice of Russia.

Fabulous Fantastic Fast Furious Facetious Five

It's been both slow and busy for the past couple of months. Slow because of various factors (it's becoming too damn hot/humid for one) and busy because I can barely stop myself from going to tango class nearly every day. Seriously, we're talking 2-3 hours here during school nights, and I haven't even been to a milonga yet.

Part of the reason for this is because an Argentine maestro called Daniel Tuero (who has about 30 years of experience under his belt) came to visit last month for a three day seminar, so I decided to get as many classes in as possible in order to learn as much as I could. There's a whole bunch of vids of him on YouTube you can find. This is from a Moscow trip back in 2009.

Unfortunately the seminar wasn't the greatest in the world, as the overall skill level of attendees wasn't particularly advanced (продвинутая pro-dvi-noo-ta-ya), meaning Tuero had to keep things relatively simple. What was great, though, is that I booked a private lesson (индивидуальный урок in-dee-vid-you-al-ni ooh-rock) with him.

Yet as with any person who has studied or performed some sort of activity for far too many years, it was more of a philosophy lecture than me learning how to do something stupid like a backflip (those don't occur during normal dances anyway). Even though this is a no-brainer, Daniel pretty much reiterated that "it takes two to tango."

In other words, after watching me dance for a while, he explained that I wasn't thinking about my partner. On paper doing this is pretty obvious; in practice it can be quite hard, because there's a great tendency to want to show off and flick your legs around like a pillock - all the while ignoring the fact that you may not be leading properly, or that you're holding her in an uncomfortable manner, or that your posture is off, or that you're not even paying attention to her at all. I am guilty on all of these points.

=======

In other news I flagrantly abused my connections with another one of my friends and invited myself along to the Fast Five (Форсаж 5 Fore-sazh Pyat) press premiere at Moscow's Oktyabr theatre, which is pretty much the major cinema in the center of Moscow, located on the Novy Arbat. Why would I do such a thing, you might ask? Two words: Vin. Diesel.

Excuse the lighting on this video, the cinema was a bit dark at the time, but the audio is fine.

Tagging along were first-timer Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson (of WWF fame) and regular co-star Paul Walker. As you can see in the video, it's kind of ironic that, despite The Rock's penchant for theatrics in his previous career, it was Vin Diesel who was hyping it up.

But what was even more bizarre was the fact that the person interpreting for the three was Dmitry Glukhovsky, who is the famous sci-fi author of the Metro 2033 series of books. In the video he introduces himself (in Russian) along the lines of "Well, yeah, I'm more known for writing those books - but I also like fast cars!" (In truth he's worked a bunch with Universal Pictures in the past helping out with localization).

As for the film itself, it's completely stupid. Totally and utterly utterly stupid. In a good way. I really haven't laughed so goddamn hard in the cinema in quite some time. Fast & Furious films are not high art by any means, and they don't pretend to be. It has also toppled 300 from the podium of "most homoerotic endeavor on the silver screen" too. I'm mildly concerned about Vin Diesel's physical condition, though, because in the film he looks terrible - and not as a result of his acting abilities.

And that "hint" Vin Diesel is referring to in the video? Yeah, they're shooting Fast 6 here.

What's In A Name?

As with most large cities, the origin behind the name of Russia's capital is rife with different theories. Most folk tend to point towards the principal feature of Moscow (Москва - Massk-va, the stress being on the first syllable edit: no it's not, it's on the second, whoops! If a vowel in Russian isn't stressed, then it's not pronounced the way it should. So, for example, an unstressed "o" sounds like "ah") - its river, which is called the Moskva River. Naming a city according to its proximity to a geographical feature isn't exactly inspired. Regardless, what's the root of Москва?

According to some ancient Baltic languages (possibly Mordovian or Finno-Ugric), Москва could have come - via a slight mutation - from their words for 'dark' or 'muddy'. Another simply points to 'bear-river'. However, I was told a far more entertaining tale the other day regarding the origin of Москва. But first a little preamble.

In 1147, Prince Yury Dolgoruky of Rostov founded what would be later known as Moscow and set up a wooden kremlin there (кремль krem-l). Nowadays when you say the word Kremlin, most folk will associate it as the center of Russian government. What it actually means is something close to the word 'fortress'. Even though it got burned down a couple of times, Moscow has always had its kremlin in the same place.

So, if we believe my friend's account, Dolgoruky for whatever reason allegedly had an obsession with the word мост (mawst) or 'bridge'. It's not exactly a complete stretch of the imagination, there's a great big river there, and the prince probably did want a bridge. Over time, Dolgoruky kept saying мост, eventually leading to him dropping the 't' from the word.

Then, one day, while he was standing by the river, a frog (лягушка - lya-goosh-ka) leapt up the bank and croaked. Seeing as this was a Slavic frog, he did not 'ribbit'. In Russian, the onomatopaeia for a frog's croak is квак (kvak). Dogs (собака - soh-bah-ka), incidentally, do not go woof, they go гаф-гаф (gaff-gaff); pigs (свиня - sveen-yah) go хрунь (khroon); horses (лошадь - low-shad) go огого (oh-go-go); but cats (кот - cot) still go miaow regardless of language.

Dolgoruky's "мос" and the frog's "квак" came together in that moment, and thus was born Москва.

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In other news, spring has decided to rear its slush-coloured head. Proof of this was demonstrated beautifully by a coworker, who suddenly noticed that his wristwatch actually had a glow-in-the-dark dial. It had been so gloomy over the past few months that it simply wasn't absorbing any light until now.

Tango continues unabated. There was a special concert a couple of weekends ago at the Central House of Artists, during which the instructors of the school I go to performed.



Also performing were two Argentine maestros, Omar Caceres and Vidala Barboza, who stole the show (sorry, Anton). The way they moved so fluidly on stage pretty much confirms that all they do in Buenos Aires is just drink and shag. Apologies for the autofocus on this one; my camera had a mind of its own for the first 20 seconds.



There are more videos from the event on youtube, which you can find by clicking this link.

Can’t Stop the Gop(nik)

Over the past two weeks I have probably gone to the cinema far more than I should. A new job schedule has (finally) allowed me to return home without feeling brain-dead and able to do something semi-intellectual. Conveniently, a film festival was in town. In fact, there’s a British film festival that just started as well, but I unfortunately missed a screening of Chris Morris’ Four Lions last night (it’s showing again on Sunday, so here’s hoping I can nab a seat).

The theme of the 2-in-1 film festival was fairly general – art movies here, comedies there, foreign flicks thrown in for good measure – and the three films I managed to catch were vastly different [Special thanks to Kseniya and Aleksey, by the way, for abusing their influence with the organizers and giving me free tickets].

Другое Небо/Another Sky (Dmitry Mamuliya, 2010)

Probably best to start with the crap and end on a high note. Другое Небо (Droo-goy-ye Nye-boh) is an enormously depressing piece about chain-smoking estranged husband & father Ali from Central Asia who comes to Moscow in search of his wife. His nine-year-old son tags along. Nothing good happens to any of them, put bluntly.

To those not aware of the problems “guest workers” (or “gastarbeiteri” as the Russians stole it from the Germans) face in Moscow, Another Sky highlights their plight and shows off the supposed monotony of their existence in the capital. Truth be told, it was just plain boring – mostly because shots lingered on the side of the father’s head walking down streets and corridors, and he barely utters a word throughout. The first five times are fine, we get the message: it’s shitty and that’s the life some of them have. Is it necessary that the whole film be an exposition-less snooze-a-thon? Can’t there at least be a semblance of a story?

The director held a Q&A afterwards. He was wearing a scarf indoors. Groan. Though if I understood what was said correctly afterwards, various guest-workers and typical locations were used in the film (rather than being shot in, say, Mosfilm Studios). Too bad the production didn’t bother to delve into the topic further, as I mentioned in previous posts that Slavic (or “White”) Russians don’t exactly have good attitudes towards the Southern Caucasians or their Asian neighbours.

Неглубокая могила/Shallow Grave (Danny Boyle, 1994)

Before Trainspotting, Danny Boyle shot Shallow Grave. I got slight waves of nostalgia, as it was filmed in Edinburgh, plus there was a cèilidh scene (Scottish line dancing, essentially, except fun).

One of the three protagonists, Kerry Fox (who plays a doctor), was in town to present the movie. Ewan McGregor (an obnoxious journo who never shuts up) and Christopher Eccleston (a straight-laced accountant who “always gets the job done”) have since gone on to bigger things.

It’s a well-paced flick, and Eccleston does a wonderful job of making the rest of the cast feel paranoid as he becomes more and more unstable after new flatmate Keith Allen’s unexpected death by overdose in their apartment. Well worth watching.

Гоп-стоп/Hold Up (Pavel Bardin, 2010)

Before Гоп-стоп (Gop-Stop), Pavel Bardin shot the film “Russia 88” (2009), which was a fake documentary about Russian neo-Nazi skinheads. I’ve not seen it myself, but it was both fairly well-received and banned from being screened in Russia.

Hold Up isn’t exactly a good translation of the title. The word “gopnik” in the blog title is Russia’s word for someone of the lower class i.e. ned, spide, steek, towny or scally depending on where you’re from in the UK. Essentially the stereotypical image of individuals dressed in garish tracksuits who hang around in playgrounds drinking Buckfast or White Lightning.

Ironically, while Gop-Stop features aforesaid scummy gopniks as the lead characters, the tone is the polar opposite to Bardin’s previous flick. Even though the film is loaded with obscure cultural references, most of which I could barely understand, I still found it hilarious. Needless to say, the locals who were in attendance howled with laughter.

Gop-Stop is the tale of down-and-out gopnik Vasya, played by Pyotr Fyodorov (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Colin Farrell) and his close friend who embark on an absurd Robin Hood-esque scheme against the oppressive local mayor, who has spent most of his term embezzling the money of the taxpayers. I wonder where they got that idea from?

Sometimes the Russian definition of comedy tends to be a guy on stage holding a clipboard, who announces “Two Russians go to Las Vegas” and then reads out a list of the hijinx they get up to. Gop-Stop completely quashes that image, proving that writers here are equally capable of dumb-but-fun screenplays that need not really on one nationality as its audience to be successful. Russian slapstick is not high art by any means, but it sure as hell was infinitely more entertaining than Another Sky.

Bizarrely, on the night, the film was being screened twice. After we came out of the hall, it turned out the second showing was for cast, crew and guests only. It was slightly bizarre seeing the same people that I had just watched for the past hour and a half standing in front of me. Pyotr Fyodorov remained in character and was dressed up in an ugly tracksuit for the premiere.

Социа́льная Сеть/The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010)

This wasn’t part of the festival, though it has just been released in Russia. It might be a bit of a stretch to define it as “the film of the decade” that some reviewers have already said, but the combination of Fincher’s direction, Aaron Sorkin’s writing, and the score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross made for a fantastic experience.

It should be noted that, while it’s been called “the Facebook movie”, it has very little to do with the website itself. Instead, the story (based on the mouthful of a book “The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal”) focuses on the actions of the main players – how the site was spawned from Mark Zuckerberg being dumped and drunkenly taking out his frustrations through his skills as a programmer – and the sacrifices they have made along the way in pursuit of fortune.

Regrettably I had the misfortune of only getting to see the Russian dub, but I still walked out of the cinema satisfied. Reznor’s style shines throughout, especially when the second major scene hits.

And who would have thought Justin Timberlake would nearly steal the show with his sleazy, narcissistic portrayal of Sean Parker, one of the founders of peer-to-peer file sharing service Napster?

The overall moral of the story is, while the facts might likely have been skewed and overdramatized on the way to the projector, we are all human and are equally fragile. It’s not exactly a feel-good movie, but in spite of the success of Zuckerberg et al., they all get their comeuppance one way or another, be it being sued for 500 million dollars, or simply being dumped by your girlfriend for being a jerk.

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Last night on the way back from work one man was walking around in the chilly autumn air topless very slowly, albeit with his coat hanging down around his elbows. Later, on the way to the local grocery store, there was a man sliding around on his arse for no apparent reason. He didn’t look crippled at all; something had just possessed him to propel himself across the asphalt with his hands. Seat of trousers be damned.

That’s it for now.

The Dethroning of Luzhkov

In the twelve or so years I spent studying Russian, as well as going to and from Moscow, there was always one constant: Yury Luzhkov. For the past eighteen years Luzhkov was the mayor of Moscow. But earlier this week, during Dmitry Medvedev's trip to China to rub shoulders with potential Hu Jintao replacements, the head of state held a press conference, during which he told the media that he had just signed a decree removing Luzhkov from office over "loss of confidence". He added that, as head of state, he cannot work with a regional head he does not trust. Michele Berdy has an interesting insight into the affair in her column on translating Russian over at the Moscow Times concerning Medvedev's choice of words.

Luzhkov is not a popular man, especially among the gay community, whom he has repeatedly condemned for their so-called satanic activities and happily dispatched the police to knock the shit out of them every time they tried to hold an "unsanctioned" demonstration anywhere in the city, though specifically on Triumfalnaya Square, where one can find the statue of renowned poet Mayakovsky...


...but it wasn't always this way with Luzhkov. He did do a lot for the capital. After the USSR went belly up in the 90s, Moscow was in chaos, and Luzhkov's indefatigable management skills came to the fore and managed to turn the place from potentially becoming a swamp to one of the most opulent capitals on the planet.

Urban regeneration was his forte, and for the first few years he pulled it off. In the vid up top you'll see the big gold Cathedral of Christ the Saviour (Храм Христа Спасителя Khram Khree-sta Spa-see-tell-ya). The colossal structure was reconstructed under his watch (it got torn down in the 1930s). He had restored the city, and then some.

...But then things started to go wrong (well, not really for Luzhkov). Luzhkov slowly shifted from being a manager to a political figure, not to mention the sums of money that were being accumulated from the massive construction projects.

Of course, people in office in Russia aren't permitted to have any financial interests, but it would have been a terrible shame to let all those business contacts go to waste. That's where Luzkhov's wife came in.

Unlike her spouse, Yelena Baturina has no such problem with trivial issues like political accountability. Although it's never been declared officially, it's fair to assume that her construction firm wouldn't have been behind so many of Moscow's many sky-scraping eyesores had it not been for her proximity to the highest executive power in Moscow.

Speaking of eyesores, Luzhkov is also partly responsible for the most obnoxious statue in Moscow.

This 90-meter-tall behemoth is meant to be in memory of Peter the Great, and was constructed by the equally obnoxious "artist" Zurab Tsereteli, who just happens to be (surprise surprise) a close friend of Luzhkov. I think we're a seeing a pattern emerging.

Regardless of the slightly undemocratic deposition, it was more than ample time for him to be booted out. His stay in the mayor's office was way past any acceptable term, though I suspect Michael Bloomberg may have been taking notes.

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In other news, I've been lax in visiting the gym, mostly due to laziness combined with the fact that I have achieved more or less what I set out to do. Honestly speaking, the place is pretty lame and the membership is running out soon. The fact that there are so many men doing those previously-mentioned thrusting motions in tight shorts (on more than one occasion I've even seen punters do some form of bizarre tapdance as a warm up) in front of me while I'm on the treadmill makes me feel I've wandered onto the set of a really crap gay softcore porno-comedy. The receptionist is cute, though.

I believe there's a nicer (read: more expensive) gym up the road.

[Husband & wife pic by Misha Japaridze/Associated Press, found in this Guardian article, the rest are mine :P]