Red Corner: Alco-Checkers Championship

by Neil Woodburn on

Warning: rash generalization to follow.

There is nothing Russians are more passionate about than vodka and chess. So, why not combine them?

This was the perfect, ugly stereotyping lead I was aiming for, but have decided to be a more responsible blogger and stick with the truth instead.

First off, there are plenty of other things that Russians are more passionate about, and if you give me a moment, I’m sure I’ll come up with them. Secondly, the brilliant marketer who decided to combine the best of both worlds deviated slightly from the task. Instead of a chess tournament in which players down shots of vodka for every piece they capture, the Moscow Open Alco-Checkers Championship was a checkers tournament in which players downed shots of tequila for every piece they captured. Slight difference, but one which completely destroyed my tongue-in-cheek lead for this post.

Hmm. Now that I look more closely at the photographs, however, I can make out little chess pieces painted on the sides of the shot glasses. Perhaps the Russian journalist who penned the story played a few games himself and mistranslated the word chess into checkers.

Whatever the case, it appears that a bunch of Russians engaged in a board game tournament in which lots of alcohol was consumed every time an opponent’s piece was captured. Oh, and a woman won. Which makes me think that it probably wasn’t even alcohol, for that matter.

Word for the Travel Wise (04/06/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

Russian is the kind of language that
when looking at it even in the comfort of my own desk chair, in my room here in America, makes me feel a long way from
home. Just when you think you’ve recognized or made sense of a word or two a mutant-alienish letter like the backwards
‘n‘, upside down ‘g‘ or ‘y‘ with an underline underneath works their magic in keeping you
completely confused. It’s okay. We will both work through this together.

Today’s word is a Russian word used in Russia:

pronounced shak-zah-chniy  – means
fairy-tale; fabulous, incredible

Just say it okay! If you want to see what the word looks like
you’ll have to visit the archives here. If you can pull using this
word in a complete Russian sentence off, I’ll gladly pay for your RT airfare to Moscow. Okay, I lie. Any English as a
first language speaker talking fluidly and fluently in Russian is fabulous and incredible indeed, but me paying for the
round-trip airfare is an absolute fairy-tale folks. My apologies for teasing.

Ready to learn Russian? Check
out Master Russian first. They have numerous excellent sound files and the text
is clear and easy to read. Learning also goes beyond your Russian A, B, C’s at their site as they have crosswords,
literature, proverbs, folk music, and homework help. Other good sites include Learning Russian and this Ectaco
Translation Dictionary. Click here for two language book
rec’s on Amazon. BBC has the basics to
download and hear audio, while Wiki provies the in depth
Russian lang back history.

Past Russian words:

Red Corner: Adventurer Karl Bushby Arrested in Russia

by Neil Woodburn on

Crossing the Bering Strait on foot turned out to be the easy part. Adventurer Karl Bushby, a British paratrooper who is 7 ½ years into a 12-year odyssey to walk around the world, is currently being held by authorities in Lavrenty, Russia.

Since there was no border officials to greet him when stepping off the Bering Strait ice and onto Russian soil, Bushby and a travel partner were on their way to the nearest town to process their arrival papers when they were picked up by authorities. Naturally, their paperwork was not in order and the Russian police weren’t buying into their, “we walked here from Alaska” excuse. Especially considering they were carrying satellite phones, a gun, and sophisticated GPS equipment.

The British government is currently working to negotiate Bushby’s release so that the adventurer can continue on his journey. I might be wrong, but I don’t think this will be the end of Bushby’s challenges in Russia’s Far East.

Red Corner: Another Space Tourist, Another $20 Million

by Neil Woodburn on

On the heels of last week’s post about space travel becoming more affordable by the year 2019, comes the news that the world’s fifth “space tourist” will soon be vacationing in outer space. Microsoft engineer Charles Simonyi, who developed the Microsoft Word program I’m typing this post with right now, is using some of the money I paid for this privilege to fulfill one of his lifelong dreams. Considering the trip is costing him $20 million, I sort of feel he doesn’t owe me too much gratitude for contributing to his vacation funds. A postcard might be nice, though.

Something interesting to point out here: Simonyi is a Hungarian born American who booked his flight through an American company doing business with the Russian Space Agency. He will fly out of Kazakhstan, on a Russian rocket and will be staying at the International Space Station constructed by a consortium of countries. Such a thing would have been impossible 20 years ago. We sure have come a long way since the Cold War

Red Corner: Lenin Museum Reborn

by Neil Woodburn on

Shortly after the fall of communism, countless specialty museums from Warsaw to Vladivostok gutted their collections and closed up shop. The controversial subject of these doomed museums was none other than Vladimir Lenin himself.

Lenin museums were like churches. During communism they were sacred halls of veneration that honored Lenin as though he were a religious icon. Every item he came in contact with was preserved and exhibited like a holy relic. Visitors could gaze upon his writing desk, cloak, hats, pens, books, cars, paintings, busts, gifts he received, and innumerable other objects. When I visited Moscow’s Central Lenin Museum in 1991, the sheer number of mundane artifacts carefully exhibited and spread across 34 rooms was simply overwhelming. The museum was officially closed down in 1993 and its collection of 100,000 items mothballed.

For those of you disappointed to have missed this audacious display of personality cult, you now have a second chance. Moscow’s Historical Museum has hauled a small part of the collection out of storage and is now exhibiting it as, “Symbols of the Soviet Epoch.” The exhibition, which will run until May 22nd, is conveniently located in a massive red-colored building adjacent to Red Square. You can’t miss it.