Here is a cool video about the worlds greatest lake, LAKE BAIKAL!!!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pspwD9ueBQg

Blini Pancake Recipe

Russian blini are known as the thinnest ones, and for me, most tasteful. In a classic way, Russian blinis are yeast-leavened pancakes from buckwheat flour. Russian pancakes are served with different dressings - most popular are sour cream, jam, syrup, red caviar, salmon, cottage cheese and others.


Ingredients:
3 1/2 c All-purpose flour
3 tb Water warm 105F degrees
1 1/2 pk Yeast dry
3 3/4 c Milk warm 105-F degrees
1 tb Sugar
1/2 c Heavy cream
1 ea Egg white
2 ea Egg yolks
1 ts Salt
4 tb Butter unsalted melted &
- cooled until just warm

Method:
Take 1 tablespoon of the flour, the warm water, 1 teaspoon of the sugar, and the yeast and mix together in a small bowl. Cover and set in a warm place for 15 minutes. Mix in a large bowl the the 1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar, flour, milk, the yeast mixture and salt. Beat by hand for 4 minutes. Cover and set in a warm place for 1 hour. Mix the egg yolks and remaining sugar and add to the natter along with the butter and beat with an electric mixer for 3 minutes or by hand for 8 minutes. Whip the egg white separately and whip the cream as well until very stiff. Fold in the cream then the egg white making sure to mix well. Cover again and place in a warm place for 45 minutes. grease the skillet with butter, place 2 tablespoons of batter in the center of the skillet, (at this point you may add any of the flavor garnishes that you wish or none at all) cook for 1 minute, turn the blin over, and cook for 35 seconds, and serve smothered in sweet butter.

Prokofiev the Spoiled Brat (*hem*) Child Prodigy

Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev9 Сергей Сергеевич Прокофьев) was born on Wednesday 23-April in the year 1891 in the village of Sontsovka which was, at that time, part of the Russian Empire (now it is a village in the Ukraine). His father, Sergei Alekseevich Prokofiev, was an agricultural engineer and his mother, Maria Grigoryevna Zhitkova, was a well educated pianist. A typical only child, born to parents who desperately longed for children, Prokofiev was privileged and doted on throughout his childhood. He enjoyed a comfortable life of luxuries as he grew up in his cozy manor on a spacious farming estate. Although he was never forced into his musical studies, young Sergei fast adopted a passion for music and piano as the result of his mother's constant practicing. As soon as he could reach the keys he began to learn piano and by age five he had composed his first piece, “Indian Gallop”. Remarkably, this early composition and the many that soon followed demonstrated a mature understanding of already established musical forms as well as new harmonies and rhythms that would be used in his works later in life. Prokofiev also developed a passion for the game of chess, mastering its complicated rules and tricks by the ripe age of seven.
Recognizing their son's prodigious musical talent, the parents arranged a trip in 1901 to the great cultural center of Moscow An audition was arranged for ten year old Sergei to perform in front of the famous Moscow professor and composer Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev. Taneyev was so impressed that he fast recruited another music teacher from Moscow to travel to Sontskova in the summer of 1902 to hone Sergei's skills. The teacher was Reinhold Moritsevich Glierewas a young but accomplished composer and capable pianist. By the summer of 1903, twelve year old Sergei had composed two opera, a four-movement symphony with Gliere's help, and about 70 small piano pieces.
In 1904 Sergei and his mother relocated to St. Petersburg in order to give him a proper music education. Acting on the recommendations of the famous composer, Alexander Glazunov, Prokofiev took the entrance exam to the Conservatory and was admitted as the youngest student in the history of the music school. This sparked jealousy in the hearts of his classmates, many of whom were twice his age. By the same token, his early success encouraged an arrogance that infamously characterized the composer for the remainder of his life. He was self-confident, generally critical of his fellow students, and yet loathing of criticism he often received from his teachers for his unconventional music devices. He never allowed the criticism to stop him from drawing his own ideas, even at the expense of poor grades and later scathing reviews. Prokofiev entered his tenth and last term in the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1913 at age 22 with a domineering goal in mind, to win the coveted Anton Rubinstein Prize awarded to the best student pianist. Bravely using his own Piano Concerto No. 1 (previously poorly received by critics as far as the states), Prokofiev won that competition, proudly touting his ultimately grand successes at the conservatory.
As he dashed around France during the succeeding years chasing the fame of his contemporary impressionist, Igor Stravinsky, major changes were happening in the government of Prokofiev's homeland. Czar Nicholas II was overthrown in March 1917 ending Imperial Russian rule forever and St. Petersburg was renamed Petrograd, becoming a center location for the Bolshevik Revolution. Composers during this era suffered sever artistic restrictions and many choose to emigrate while they still could. In 1918, Prokofiev chose to move east towards Vladivostok, Japan, and eventually the United States. His time in the States were unkind to him, due to his Bolshevik labels, and his stay resulted in a bitter attitude toward American culture. On the bright side, it was in New York City where Prokofiev met the soprano, his future wife Carolina Codina, in the fall of 1918 (a complicated and ultimately terrible story that I can't touch in a short blog entry... look it up).
Prokofiev never forgot his beloved homeland behind the tight borders of the Soviet Union and towards the end of 1926 he began negotiations in with Soviet authorities for a return tour. Although weary of his similarities to the now troublesome Stravinsky they granted him permission in 1927, thus, beginning Stravinsky's permanent move homeward. Although he returned briefly during the rough year of 1929 (mostly due to Stalin and his random denunciations of all the great Russian composers of the time) Prokofiev enjoyed a much more successful tour in 1932 that convinced him to return to Russia for the duration of his lifetime (for better or more accurately for worse). With the outbreak of WW2 and the dangerous whims of the paranoid Stalin, the following decades brought danger (in the form of threatened execution for the crime of rejected works) and eventually complete isolation from the outside world. They also brought him is greatest success of all. In 1944 he wrote what is now considered the crowned jewel of his compositions, The Fifth Symphony, for which he was awarded the Stalin award in 1945.
Sergei Prokofiev died of a massive Brain hemorrhage, ironically on the same day as Stalin on March 5th 1903. After the long an epic journey of his life, his death was not published in the papers and was tragically unknown for a substantial time by most people outside his circle of exclusive friends. Prokofiev was eventually buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow alongside many of his contemporaries.

Unit 5 Blog

India, Russia sign deals on nuclear energy, defence


MOSCOW (AFP) – India and Russia signed deals on nuclear energy and arms sales on Monday as Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held talks in the Kremlin with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
"We welcome Russia's participation in the broadening of our nuclear energy programme," Singh told reporters after the talks, according to remarks translated into Russian.
"The successful end of the negotiations on the intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in the peaceful use of atomic energy is a major step forward," he added.
"We are both of the opinion that our relations have very much potential," Medvedev said.
Both Russia and India are members of the so-called "BRIC" club of emerging economic giants, and New Delhi has been keen to win Moscow's help in building up its civilian nuclear energy programme and arming its military.
Russia, meanwhile, wants to bring India on board in its efforts to promote a "multipolar" world order not dominated by the United States.
A deal on Russian-Indian atomic energy cooperation was one of seven agreements signed after Monday's talks, the Kremlin said.
It did not release details of the nuclear deal, but Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said ahead of the talks that India and Russia had been trying to put together an agreement that would broaden a nuclear fuel import pact.
The pact would guarantee unhindered supply of uranium for Indian reactors and the right to reprocess spent fuel, the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency quoted unnamed officials as saying.
Russia is already building two nuclear power units in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu and has agreed to install four more nuclear reactors there as part of an agreement signed during Medvedev's visit to India last year.
Russia's state-owned nuclear power firm Rosatom could build up to 20 nuclear power units in India in all, including four to six in the state of West Bengal, the ITAR-TASS state news agency reported, citing the company's chief.
"These are not just billions, these are tens of billions of dollars" worth of contracts, Rosatom chief Sergei Kiriyenko said, quoted by ITAR-TASS.
Russia and India also signed two agreements on arms, one on their bilateral arms trade in the years 2011-2020 and another on servicing Russian-made arms sold to India, the Kremlin said.
Details on the agreements were not released, but Russian news agencies said Moscow and New Delhi had settled a dispute over India's purchase of a retired Soviet aircraft carrier, citing a source close to the talks.
The 44,570-tonne warship, the "Admiral Gorshkov," has yet to be delivered amid delays and cost overruns in its refurbishment.
India's plans to acquire it have turned into a headache for New Delhi, with Moscow in 2007 demanding an additional 1.2 billion dollars to cover repairs of the 30-year-old ship.
"In matters relating to the contract, everything is settled, the parameters have been determined and a final decision has been made," a source close to Monday's talks told the Interfax and RIA-Novosti news agencies.
Singh also met Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who called India a "true strategic partner," according to a transcript of his remarks posted on the Russian government's website.
"It is very pleasant to see that India, our true strategic partner and one of our most important partners in the region and globally, maintains such intense contacts with us in practically all areas," Putin said.

Unit 4 Blog

Russian blini are known as the thinnest ones, and for me, most tasteful. In a classic way, Russian blinis are yeast-leavened pancakes from buckwheat flour. Russian pancakes are served with different dressings - most popular are sour cream, jam, syrup, red caviar, salmon, cottage cheese and others.

Ingredients:

3 1/2 c All-purpose flour

3 tb Water warm 105F degrees1

1/2 pk Yeast dry

3 3/4 c Milk warm 105-F degrees

1 tb Sugar

1/2 c Heavy cream

1 ea Egg white2 ea Egg yolks

1 ts Salt

4 tb Butter unsalted melted &- cooled until just warmmeasures conversion [+]

Method:Take 1 tablespoon of the flour, the warm water, 1 teaspoon of the sugar, and the yeast and mix together in a small bowl. Cover and set in a warm place for 15 minutes. Mix in a large bowl the the 1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar, flour, milk, the yeast mixture and salt. Beat by hand for 4 minutes. Cover and set in a warm place for 1 hour. Mix the egg yolks and remaining sugar and add to the natter along with the butter and beat with an electric mixer for 3 minutes or by hand for 8 minutes. Whip the egg white separately and whip the cream as well until very stiff. Fold in the cream then the egg white making sure to mix well. Cover again and place in a warm place for 45 minutes. grease the skillet with butter, place 2 tablespoons of batter in the center of the skillet, (at this point you may add any of the flavor garnishes that you wish or none at all) cook for 1 minute, turn the blin over, and cook for 35 seconds, and serve smothered in sweet butter.

Isaac Levitan- Russian Landscapes

The Lake (1900)

I decided to do my post about Russian art, specifically landscapes because that's what I'm interested in. I stumbled across Isaac Levitan on a website and thought his work was really nice. So now I share with you =)

Background:

He lived from 1860 to 1900 and grew up in the Kaunas region of Lithuania. When he was 10, his family moved to Moscow. He entered the Moscow School for Painting, Sculpture and Architecture when he was just 13 and began studying there. During his time, he specialized in mood landscapes and

played on the lyrical aspect of the areas he painted. He was featured in many big name art exhibits and was widely acclaimed throughout Russia for his work. Eventually he became head of the Landscape Studio at his former school.

My favorite thing about his work is how the paintings may seem simple but they express a lot

of emotion. They're absolutely gorgeous, in my opinion.

This painting to the left is titled Floodwaters. Spring and reminds me of the Everglades.

Right: This is titled March and as you can see he plays on details like the colors of the leaves and the reigns on the horse while keeping the painting simple.

Above: Twilight: Haystacks.

збитень!

Збитень, or sbiten if you are capitalist pig, is a "traditional honey-based beverage consumed during the winter months." The recipe I used called for honey, blackberry jam, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg:



Unfortunately, I have no pictures of the actual збитень-making process, but that is because there is nothing complicated about this drink. For the recipe I used, you boil 10¼ cups of water in a large pot, then add half a cup of honey, 16 ounces of blackberry jam, and then ¼ teaspoon each of cinnamon and nutmeg, and a whole teaspoon each of ground ginger and ground cloves. Turn down the heat and simmer for six minutes, stirring constantly. Then remove the pot from the heat and let cool for two minutes before ladling the hot deliciousness into mugs and enjoying one another's company. Here is what збитень looks like after it has been made:



It smells amazing, with the honey and blackberry flavors mixing in with the subtle bouquet of the spices and causing what may legitimately be called an olfactory foodgasm. Or drinkgasm, I guess. I want a збитень-scented candle now. In any case...how's it taste?



Mikey David likes it!

I found the recipe for збитень here, and used the first one. It turned out to be delicious. I believe later on I shall make the alternate recipes, and remember to take pictures of the process too.

The page where I got the recipe says that збитень can also be served cold. I am sorely tempted to make more, chill it, take the cold збитень to the Kiosk and have them make it a smoothie, because that would be delicious as well. I'd do it myself but I don't have a blender. Or ice.

Winter Extravaganza

good times, good times...

Winter

These pictures are from the Pacific coast of Russia where in the last few weeks thousands of starfish have washed up on the shore. Russian scientist are concerned and are looking into the problem with little success so far. The locals who live in the area see the fish in an entirely light: free food. People go to the overrun beaches every day, pick up the usually expensive seafood that's washed ashore, and take it home with them to eat. Personally, the thought of eating anything that's died and washed up on the beach for an unknown reason kind of grosses me out but to each their own.

i don't know about you...

But the song’s been going through my head all day. This is the "real" video, though I think I preferred the fan vid...

You can watch more videos here. And here are the lyrics from В клубе. Sing along with the karaoke... You know you want to! Чиксы танцуют! Пусть город знает с кем тусует!