Red Corner: Borat’s New Movie

by Neil Woodburn on

We’re all big fans of Borat here at Gadling.

The bumbling Kazakh reporter, played by comedian Sasha Baron Cohen, mercilessly ridicules the people of Kazakhstan with an over-the-top impersonation frothing with bad English, anti-Semitism, misogyny, sexism, and uber-crassness.

While the government of Kazhakstan has actually threatened to sue Cohen for such a portrayal, the real targets of Borat’s humor are the ignorant Americans he interviews for his HBO show.

Fortunately, for those of us who can’t get enough of his HBO show, there is now a full length feature film.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan was recently screened at the Toronto International Film Festival to a raucous crowd who cheered wildly for Borat’s red carpet arrival on an ox cart pulled by 6 Kazakh peasant women. Borat entertained the crowd (asking female reporters, “How much?”) before disappearing into the theater where the projector broke 20 minutes into the film. No one, including director Michael Moore who used to be a projectionist, was able to fix the machine and the crowd had to leave disappointed.

So, no review yet on this landmark film which opens in the States November 3.

In the meantime, you can check out Jason Chow’s entertaining account of the screening in Toronto.

Red Corner: Going to the Salt Mines

by Neil Woodburn on

As a youngster growing up during the Cold War in America, I naturally assumed that any Warsaw Pact communist who did not toe the party line received a one-way ticket to either Siberia or the salt mines. Having now visited both locales, I’m inclined to think that dissidents had it rather nice during communism.

The Wieliczka Salt Mine, just 13 kilometers outside of Krakow, Poland, was not at all the horrific, underground chamber of brackish hell I had imagined it to be. Instead, the mine is a protected UNESCO site. Since the 14th century, Polish miners have carved enormous churches and chapels directly into the shaft. Artists have also decorated the mine with alters, pulpits, bass-reliefs, statuary, busts, gnomes, and even a replication of the Last Supper-all hewn magnificently out of salt. Unbelievable.

I had no idea what to expect when first visiting the mine. I imagined an underground world made out of Morton’s Salt where everything was stark, blinding white. This was not the case at all. Instead, the tunnels, caverns and artwork of the Wieliczka Salt Mine are all black and green and sparkly. The mine’s official website offers a nice virtual tour but fails to capture the eerie feeling of descending 600 feet into the salty air of one of the strangest and most unique art galleries I have ever visited.

Red Corner: Moscow’s Most Extravagant Restaurant

by Neil Woodburn on

The Soviets were always gung-ho over building the very biggest of things.

Their predecessors, the Capitalist Russians, share the same passion.

Consider for a moment, Turandot. This Moscow restaurant, which opened earlier this year, spreads across 65,000 square feet, seats 500 people, and cost over $50 million to build.

If it weren’t serving food, it could double as a museum.

According to wine writer Jancis Robinson, over 100 artists toiled on the mammoth construction, marvelously recreating an 18th century aristocratic residence bathed in resplendent opulence and gilded gold.

The New York Times also wrote about this extravagance last May. Having not yet visited myself, I’ll quote briefly from just one of the Times’ many descriptive passages.

“A marble Venetian courtyard – with statues of Neptune and other ancient gods and live mandarin trees, and bookended by two Gianmaria Buccellati boutiques – opens onto the palace, which is crowned by a sky-blue dome and a 1.5-ton crystal chandelier.”

The food seems almost secondary to every article I’ve run across. But once diners get over the striking interior and finally settle down to eat, the reviews of the “imperial Asian” cuisine have been pretty decent, and very pricey.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to visit my next time in Moscow.

Red Corner: Toilet Summit in Moscow

by Neil Woodburn on

I thought this was a joke, or modern art exhibit, but apparently it’s not.

Today is the third day of a four-day toilet festival in Moscow. Technically, it’s the 6th annual World Toilet Summit sponsored by the WTO, or World Toilet Organization. The event “highlights topics concerning city toilets, toilets for children, toilets for social integration, and non-plumbing technologies.” And yes, I reiterate, they’re serious.

Apparently the event, which was first held in Singapore, was moved to Russia to take advantage of a toilet infrastructure still hurting from communist times. The Moscow Times reports that the toilet legacy of communism means a “wide open market with huge growth potential.”

More than 60 companies from around the world have gathered to share their expertise and display products that will be showcased in a handful of different exhibitions. I’ve highlighted just a few of the more interesting from the Toilet Summit Website:

• External and internal engineering network: construction, exploitation
• Toilet paper
• Air cleansing. Ventilators, air-conditioners
• Devices for invalids, pots and pampers
• Toilet lighting
• Architecture and design of toilets
• Special literature, normative acts
• Toilet accessories for domestic animals

Oh man, they really could have used some of this western technology on my first visit to the Soviet Union in 1991 when the toilet paper holder in my hotel bathroom held nothing but torn pages from a student’s textbook, when I was lucky.

Red Corner: A Slice of the Time-Frozen Carpathians

by Neil Woodburn on

Here’s a wonderful little photo essay about a tiny, obscure corner of the Ukrainian Carpathians called Dzembronya.

Slovak photographer Lucia Nimcova describes the location of this small farming town as “in the Chornohora range not far from the Romanian border, in the Carpathian National Nature Park, near the town of Verchovyna, under the highest peak in Ukraine, Hoverla.”

Thanks, Lucia, I’m sure we all know exactly where you’re talking about now!

For those of you unfamiliar with the lay of the land in this part of the world, Dzembronya, simply put, sits in the southeast corner of the Ukrainian Carpathians.

The small town is populated by Hutsuls–a unique ethnographic group of highlanders who live in the Carpathian range and speak a slowly dying dialect that combines elements of Ukrainian, Polish and Russian.

After looking at the photographs, I was surprised to learn that the remote, isolated town is actually somewhat accessible and locals will put visitors up in their houses and feed them. There are fears, however, that the Ukrainian government might develop the area, perhaps as a ski resort, and further endanger this unique slice of culture that won’t survive in its originality if busloads of Western tourists arrive toting skis and snowboards.

Thanks go out to Lucia Nimcova for exposing us to this little slice of the world where time has frozen and the 21st century seems decades away.