Word for the Travel Wise (01/20/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

My plan to welcome our newest blogger Neil to the team pretty much blew up in my face. Since he’s going to be doing some really cool blogging on Russia and in celebration of his first few posts here I figured I would learn a little Russian online to stay in the theme of things. I only wished to find a simple “hello” or “welcome” to greet him and to pass onto you potential travelers. Things didn’t go as smoothly as I had imagined. Russia has that crazy Cyrillic alphabet, which is fine, however I couldn’t find any sites that provided the phonetic spelling of the word in an alphabet I’m familiar with. Even when I played with the translation dictionaries I was given a set of characters that made no sense to me. For these reasons today’s lesson will work a little different than the last.

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

Groceries

The picture above is a sign found in the country somewhere that says ‘groceries.’ It looks awfully long and I have no clue how to pronounce this one. Sorry guys. There seem to be several great methods for learning this challenging language online, especially if your interest goes as far as reading and writing the alphabet. 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.

Red Corner: Moscow Ice

by Neil Woodburn on

There is something legendary about Russian winters. They are brutal, cold, and unforgiving. Indeed, with the possible exception of Moses returning the Red Sea to its unparted state, no single natural phenomenon has wiped out more soldiers than the Russian winter.

Three years ago, I went to experience this killer winter myself by celebrating New Year’s Eve in Red Square . It was indeed, the coldest I’ve ever been. Hitler was crazy to march his troops here.

The funny thing about Moscow , however, is that Stalin decided to build most of it out of marble in order to impress the world. Marble and cold weather, however, is a very bad combination. The result is killer ice. During winter, the entire city becomes one giant ice rink as pedestrians slip, fall and crack limbs on an apocalyptic scale. In my short week in Moscow , I managed to fall several times and injure not only myself in the process but others as well. One time in Red Square , I started to slip and threw my arms up in the air to regain my balance. Unfortunately, I was holding on to the strap of my camera. The camera swung up in a big loop and came crashing down on some poor girl’s head where it immediately splintered into a handful of pieces. Another time I lost it going down some stairs. I fell on my ass and bumped down 20-30 stairs before plowing into two very old women near the bottom.

I didn’t realize I was one of the lucky ones to escape more serious injury-although I’m not sure about my victims. Nonetheless, I was intrigued to come across the following amusing, yet very dark, article in my favorite expat newspaper, the Exile. If you’re planning on visiting Moscow in the winter, you definitely want to read this first.