Metro 2033

The year is 2033, the setting is the metro system of Moscow, Russia, and you are the 20 year old soldier, Artyom. You live underground with your station now, because this is not the civilised world anymore: this is a world filled with Soviets, Nazis, and aliens.

2033 is a newly released first-person shooter/survival horror game based on the book of the same title. My boyfriend got it a couple months ago and I've been translating the Cyrillic signs over his shoulder and watching the progress of the game. It has great historical context, and the setting is extremely interesting; as a player, you navigate through the tunnel systems and fight aliens known as the Dark Ones, all while attempting to avoid aforementioned Nazis and Soviets, who are warring above ground. It's an EXTREMELY unsettling game, for when you're in the tunnels, it is literally pitch black, and you have to depend on nothing but a flashlight, while above ground, the air is entirely toxic, and you have to cycle through gas masks to make it out alive.

The game's purpose is to set off a missile silo that will destroy the Dark Ones, basically, but by the end, it can take two routes: the Dark Ones will send you a "hallucination". You may now either choose to detonate the missile silo, and kill them all, or abort the mission (this is technically the good ending, because it turns out that the aliens were only trying to peacefully communicate).

What I found really interesting about it, apart from the whole Nazi/Soviet dynamic and plethora of Russian weaponry, was the fact that it took place in the Metro system. Alina mentioned in class how Russia's subway system is absolutely beautiful and pristine, while above ground it was pretty trashy and had a bunch of homeless people -- so it was really bizarre and unreal seeing how decrepit it was underground, and how there was suddenly a society of Russians living there.

For comparison:

RUSSIAN WEATHER THIS WEEK

This week the weather in Russia is kinda terrible.

Tonight Feb 13

Tue 14

Wed 15

Thu 16

Fri 17

 

Wind: SSE at 5 mph	SE at 9 mph	ESE at 11 mph	SE at 6 mph	ESE at 6 mph
Humidity: 76%	71%	79%	79%	76%
UV Index: -	1 - Low	0 - Low	1 - Low	1 - Low
Sunrise: 8:00 am	7:58 am	7:56 am	7:54 am	7:51 am
Sunset: 5:28 pm	5:31 pm	5:33 pm	5:35 pm	5:37 pm
Moonrise: 12:15 am	1:40 am	2:58 am	4:07 am	5:02 am
Moonset: 9:25 am	9:55 am	10:34 am	11:26 am	12:29 pm
Moonphase: Waning Gibbous	Last Quarter	Waning Crescent	Waning Crescent	Waning Crescent

Ezri Unit 4 :D

Банк Империал

You're in Russia. The year is 1995. After being late to work because the gangster driving in front of you was gunned down at point blank while at a stop light, you go to get lunch. You arrive at McDonald's and pay 50 Million rubles for a Big Mac. On the way back to work you see babushkas selling playboys to survive and men in tracksuits smoking Беломорканал cigarettes.

Later, you go home and watch on your new TV this commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_oTsEcGZxk

This epic commercial advertises a bank. In the chaos of post Soviet Russia many weird things happened and these commercials are one of them. Using a dramatically filmed episode from history, they illustrate majesty, power, or humor in order to sell Bank Imperial. Note how they never reference it's services though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_History._Bank_Imperial

They were all directed by the same director (Timur Bekmambetov)

and won numerous awards throughout Europe. Sadly though, they did not keep Bank Imperial afloat and the bank disappeared.

Babi Yar

Babi Yar is a ravine in Kiev that was the site of a series of massacres against the Jewish people during the 1940's. Though the majority of the people killed were Jewish, other nationalities such as Ukranian, Romanian as well as political Soviet POWS and communist were killed as well. An estimated 100,000 people were killed. In 1961 the Russian Poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko wrote one of his most famous poems entitled "Babi Yar". Yevtushenko, speaks of not only the atrocities committed by the Nazis but also those committed by the Soviet Union against the Jewish People. Russian composer Dimitri Shostakovich, included the text of Babi Yar as well as several other poems of Yevtushenko, in his 13th Symphony also entitled "Babi Yar".

the following is an audio recording of Yvevgeny Yevtushenko reciting Babi Yar in a combination of Russian and English with excerpts of Shostakovch's Babi Yar.

Brittany O blog post-portfolio 6

Vladislav Nekliaev (Vlanes) was born 9/28/1969, in Astrakhan, Russia. In 1986 He became a student of the Department of journalism of the Urals State University. He then pursued his education to get his masters at the Philological Department of the St. Petersburg State University. He is currently not only a poet and an author, but a translator of poetry, and currently working on completely translating “The House of Life,” by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, into Russian of the sonnet sequence.

Run and Won by Vlanes

When you entered the workshop, I was already here.
How many statues, and torsos, and heads!
Like remains of the battle that never ends.
I am giggling into my beard. Wind's fluffy plume
is struggling with the curtain. I know you can hear
both, not becoming distinct, no matter for whom.

I wanted something glamorous, significant
for my tomb. But now I'm not sure any more.
Maybe, a small chamber with a wooden door
would be best. Plant around it something nice,
bring my hour-glass, my favourite rolls in it.
Keep around a couple of cats, for the mice.

Or rather let us order an alabaster
vase, with my name carved on the outside of the rim.
And something brief, impressive, like "I adored him.
Gone, but never forgotten." Of course, in Greek.
I am at last my own judge, my own master.
So much freedom it makes me sick.

Eros is shooting at me, the boy pink and tender.
For the first time his puny arrows cause me pain.
Here, here he's aiming at me again,
while you are standing in the doors, with your forced smile,
talking politely to the sculptor, so warm and slender
that I'm bleeding all over, fuming like a torch. No, I'll

never, never, never leave you. I'll never leave you.
Let them all come after me, let them all drag me away.
I'll come back as a breeze, I'll come back as the smell of hay,
as anything with legs to crawl, wings to push down the stubborn wind.
I'll tear up the mouldy roll of my fate, I'll start it all anew.
I'll not go anywhere. I'll not leave you behind.

I think you have paid him too much. It is only an advance.
You'll see, he will ask for more when the work is done.
I approve of your choice. "His life's race is run and won."
In plain Latin, accessible. Me as a young athlete,
with a huge laurel wreath, looking a bit askance
at the other runners. Yes, there is something in it.

To be honest I really had no clue what I was going to put a blog entry about, but I was looking up poets because I know a lot of people including myself enjoy a little poetry here and there. When reading this poem my initial thought was that he was portreying the little things in life are the most valuable, however, I could be wrong. Vladislav is a famous Russian poet that has taken his work abroad and is now in Australia. Not only does he write poetry but he writes books and translates poetry from English to Russian.

Баста - Райские Яблоки

A really interesting video, sort of a poem that wants to become a song (albeit a rap song, but a song nonetheless). Just thought I might it share with you guys!

Unit 6 Bolg Post--My Favorite Christmas Song!

В лесу родилась ёлочка,    
    В лесу она росла,          
    Зимой и летом стройная,    
    Зелёная была.
    Метель ей пела песенку:         "Спи, ёлочка, бай-бай!"      Мороз снежком укутывал:         "Смотри, не замерзай!"         Трусишка зайка серенький        Под ёлочкой скакал.             Порою волк, сердитый волк      Рысцою пробегал.                 Чу! Снег по лесу частому        Под полозом скрипит;            Лошадка мохноногая              Торопится, бежит.                Везет лошадка дровенки,         А в дровнях старичок,           Срубил он нашу ёлочку           Под самый корешок.               Теперь она, нарядная,           На праздник к нам пришла        И много, много радости          Детишкам принесла
In the forest a Christmas tree was born,
In the forest, there she grew up,
In the winter and in the summer she was skinny,
She was green

The (blizzard) sang her a song,
Sleep, Christmas Tree, Bye Bye!
Frost and snow wrapped her up,
Look, don't be (really) cold!

A gray rabbit hid under the Christmas Tree,
And from time to time a wolf
was running past

The snow around the big woods
Is shaking under the sled
A hairy horse runs up,
In a rush, indeed!

Lucky little horse, 
a man in the wooden sleigh
he cut down our Christmas Tree
At the very bottom

Now she is covered up
On the big dinner she came to us
And the kids were brough great joys


Sounds much prettier in Russian!

It's all about Russia!

http://video.online.ua/281040/amerikatse-v-rossii/

Я вас любил - Пушкин

Я вас любил: любовь ещё, быть можетВ душе моей угасла не совсем;
Но пусть она вас больше не тревожит;
Я не хочу печалить вас ничем.
Я вас любил безмолвно, безнадежно,
То робостью, то ревностью томим;
Я вас любил рак искренно, так нежно,
Как дай вам бог любимой быть другим.


The translation reads:

I loved you once: perhaps that love has yet
To die down thoroughly within my soul;
But let it not dismay you any longer;
I have no wish to cause you any sorrow.
I have loved you wordlessly, without a hope,
By shyness tortured, or by jealousy.
I loved you with such tenderness and candor
And pray God grants you to be loved that way again.

Personally, I like it better in Russian. it just feels so much better than when you translate it to English.

I think that all of us have experienced what Pushkin is saying in this poem.

Мой перевод на английский стихотворения Пушкина, под названием "Виноград"

ВИНОГРАД

Не стану я жалеть о розах,
Увядших с легкою весной;
Мне мил и виноград на лозах,
В кистях созревший под горой,
Краса моей долины злачной,
Отрада осени златой,
Продолговатый и прозрачный,
Как персты девы молодой.

Grape

I shall not regret the roses,
Wilted by a mild spring;
Grapes on the vine are dear to me,
In my hands and ripened under the mountain's shadow.
The beauty of my lush valley,
And the delight of a golden autumn,
Oblong and transparent,
Are like the fingers of a young maiden.