A brief post about house spirits.

Russian House Spirits:

A Domovoi is a male house spirit in Russian Folklore. They are small, covered in hair, and they may have tails or horns. They live under the stove or in the threshold of the door. They are generally helpful, maintaining peace and order, but if they are unhappy (due to profane language or neglect of chores) they play nasty tricks, which become gradually worse until the problem is remedied. People will leave out food offerings at night to appease them.
The female equivalent, sometimes said to be married to the Domovoi, is Kikimora. She lives in the cellar, and when all is well, she looks after the chickens and helps with the housework. If all is not well, she becomes a nuisance, although not as malicious as her husband.

Note: want an adorable Domovoi or Kikimora doll? You can find some here:
http://www.stpetersburger.com/html/russian_toys_1.html

Госстрой

Adding to the general absurdity of the picture, the sign to the right there reads "Госстрой России", an abbreviation for Государственный комитет Российской Федерации по вопросам архитектуры и строительства, or "Governmental Commission of the Russian Federation for Questions about Architecture and Construction," which replaced the Soviet agency in 1992 and existed until 1994, when it was replaced by Минстрой.

So, draw your own conclusions about how Госстрой handled questions about architecture and building...

Our Favorite Store...

A colleague sent me a bunch of pictures from Russia under the title "Я другой такой страны не знаю, где так" (I don't know another country where it's like this...). I'll post some of them from time to time. Anyone who's spent some time in Russia understands how the same country could have produced both Dostoevsky and Gogol.


(The poster reads: This is our favorite store!)

Happy Anniversary!

In honor of the 50th anniversary of Sputnik's launch and the beginning of the Space Race, I give you...

Я тоже! Скороговорки

Okay, so I was only able to pull off two of them. My tongue isn't as athletic as Inna's, but here's my rendition of the tongue-twisters anyways:

Карл у Клары укpал кораллы, а Клара у Карла украла кларнет.
Karl stole corals from Klara, and Klara stole a clarinet from Karl.



Шла Саша по шоссе и сосала сушку
Sasha walked down the highway and sucked on a dry (ring-shaped) cracker.

Скороговорки

Inna Campbell recorded a couple of the tongue-twisters (скороговорки- "fast sayings").

Карл у Клары укpал кораллы, а Клара у Карла украла кларнет.
Karl stole corals from Klara, and Klara stole a clarinet from Karl.

How fast can you say it?
***

Шла Саша по шоссе и сосала сушку
Sasha walked down the highway and sucked on a dry (ring-shaped) cracker.

***
"Расскажите про покупки!"
"Про какие про покупки?"
"Про покупки, про покупки,
про покупочки свои!"
Tell me about your purchases! What purchases? About purchases, purchases, your little purchases!

***
Повар Пётр и повар Павел,
Пётр пёк, а Павел парил,
Парил Павел, Пётр пёк,
Повар Пётр и повар Павел.
Peter is a cook and Paul is a cook. Peter baked, and Paul cooked on steam. Paul cooked on steam and Peter baked. Peter is a cook and Paul is a cook.

***
Во лесу лозу вяжу.
На возу лозу везу.
Коза, лозу не лижи - Накажу!
In the woods I tie the vines. On the cart I bring the vines. Goat, do not lick the vines. I'll punish you!

Putinjugend...

A follow up to the Admiral's earlier post on Наши, the Russian youth movement... Quoting from the International Tribune's ever useful Russian Press Review:

KOMMERSANT

YOUTH LEADER JOINS BIG GOVERNMENT: The leader of Nashi, Russia's most prominent Kremlin-connected youth group, may soon have a job as head of a new federal agency on youth policies, the newspaper wrote citing an unnamed Kremlin source. If appointed to the position Vasily Yakemenko would be charged with formulating Russia's youth policies, forging relationships with youth-related nongovernmental organizations and overseeing "patriotic education." Mr. Yakemenko has long been considered the most likely candidate for the job. Under his watch, Nashi has become an important political instrument for agitating on behalf of key Kremlin policies through street protests and large demonstrations.

Starring Paul Radenhausen...

OK, this might be one of the funniest things I have seen in a long while:


We have an amazingly talented Russian Studies program. We can get Alesia to compose and play a stereotypical Russian folk melody... Paul to sing the lyrics. Claire to play the role of the ingenue. Maybe a solo piano spot with Caity and a violin interlude with Ishtar. Michelle to tape and edit. Me to bark out commands.

I say that we go one-up on this video...

Kapoot!

While strolling along the Russian bookshelves in the library - a favorite pastime of mine, I assure you - I happened across a title that I just couldn't pass up. Of course they always tell you that you can't judge a book by its cover, but they never said anything about the title, and with a book called Kapoot...well, you can understand my feelings.

As it turns out, Kapoot was written by a well known American explorer/author by the name of Carveth Wells. A dogged world traveller, Wells spent a good portion of his life exploring the dangers and discomforts of the Malaysian jungle, the African desert, and, yes, Soviet Russia. At the time that the book was written - 1933 - the communist party in the U.S. was at the height of its popularity. Apparently, Wells was not so sympathetic with the party and, from what I gain from reading the book, he held an irrational fear that Americans would be hoodwinked into buying communism.

Now we all know that Russia under Stalin was not a pretty picture, what with the 5 year plans and the liquidization of the kulaks and the severe famine and the Party purges and the gulags and the collectivization of farms and the general social and economic upheaval. But Mr. Wells goes to such lengths to prove it that the result is almost comical. It is clear that he intended at all costs to keep an eye on those sneaky communists; I was expecially gratified by his inclusion of several compelling alliterations, my favorite being "those burly Bolsheviks."

Despite the questionable authority of Wells's book, I can't deny that I enjoyed myself. He takes us up and down eastern Russian, from St. Petersburg to Echmiazin, on an ill-fated attempt to climb Mt. Ararat and find the remains of Noah's ark. Along the way, he demonstrates the godlessness of the Russians, gets arrested at least three times, subsists on black bread riddled with assorted items of garbage, experiences the Russian equivalent of the bed bug, half starves on a week long train ride to Vladikavkaz, listens to the screams of patients being treated in a Russian hospital, survives a harrowing horseback ride through the Khevsur region, and generally commentates on the poverty and downtroddenness of the land. Russia, he wants everyone to know, is Kapoot indeed.

While Wells's book is certainly not something I would recommend as a source for scholarly research, it nevertheless made for interesting bedtime reading. But perhaps you would rather take my word for it...

Third Empire...

For those who just can't get used to living in the post-Cold War world, there's always hope...

Crazy Russians. Why do they get Greenland???

The site (strange maps) is very cool if you're into the whole map thing.