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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Feb 8, 2014 8:22:08 GMT -7
We watched the opening ceremonies last night and I thought they did a spectacular job. Must admit I really enjoyed Borodin's music from Prince Igor.
Eric, your mother country did very well and you can be proud.
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Post by Jaga on Feb 8, 2014 11:34:45 GMT -7
I love Russian folk art and classical music. Russia ballet is the best in the world. In spite of the fact I hated communism, I was not happy how petty and negative Americans anchors were in trying to point out everything negative about Russia. They also tie these Olympic games to Putin. Even if Putin role in these games was important, he is not the only man who could do these games.
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Post by karl on Feb 8, 2014 13:40:54 GMT -7
I love Russian folk art and classical music. Russia ballet is the best in the world. In spite of the fact I hated communism, I was not happy how petty and negative Americans anchors were in trying to point out everything negative about Russia. They also tie these Olympic games to Putin. Even if Putin role in these games was important, he is not the only man who could do these games. Jaga Also do I agree with you, Russian folk art is wonderful and inspirational with their classical music. Their folk customs appear as most in both of our various regians and with slavic respective. I am not sure what the American commentators are up to at present, but what ever, for why to change? I remember a few years back whilst in Seattle, it was comical of their ignorance of foreign affairs they would report on, with out knowledge of the content. But, as children, we must forgive them for their confusion, and this is confusing stupidy as a virtue. But then, a pupet is only as good as the strings that control them. Karl |
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Post by kaima on Feb 8, 2014 15:34:26 GMT -7
I love Russian folk art and classical music. Russia ballet is the best in the world. In spite of the fact I hated communism, I was not happy how petty and negative Americans anchors were in trying to point out everything negative about Russia. They also tie these Olympic games to Putin. Even if Putin role in these games was important, he is not the only man who could do these games. Yes, I must agree with both Jaga and Karl. The American coverage and attitude is and has been very bad throughout my lifetime. Some of it comes from American Exceptionalism translating to "we are better than they are", in this case "they" being the Russians. Another part of it stems from the 70 years of communism in Russia and the Soviet Union, and all of the propaganda that came since WW II and the rivalry of the two systems. The last part that I can identify comes from simple racism and prejudice against Slavic people and culture, despite so many Slavic immigrants coming and integrating into American society. We have to look no further than this forum for a pretty strong and petty stream of anti-Russian feelings and propaganda to be passed onto the forum. Yes, a part of that we can ascribe to the older generation this Forum represents, people with experience during the communist time and Soviet hegemony over the Central European slavic states, Poland and Slovakia specifically. I do not see this attitude changing any time soon. Then we can get into the ignorance and limited perspective of the young Americans sent to observe the Olympics. Even the Alaska newscasters are subject to this, as their experience does not even extend into the Alaska Bush, an area and lifestyle they find as foreign as Russia. |
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Post by Eric on Feb 8, 2014 19:10:02 GMT -7
At least it's being acknowledged and called for what it is. At least in the United States, knowledge about Russian and especially Soviet culture is extremely lacking. When I tell people that I watch almost exclusively Soviet movies, they think I watch an endless monologue about the lives of Lenin and Stalin. Same about music and literature. In my opinion, the culture of the USSR was the highest reach of culture in the world, because it was literally art for the sake of art instead of for the purpose of trying to sell as much as possible. When I actually introduce people to these things, they're completely shocked because it wasn't at all what they were expecting. I like being able to surprise people like that.  |
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Post by Jaga on Feb 8, 2014 23:01:15 GMT -7
Russian ballet is the best in the world. As for the highest culture..... there is probably not one highest culture.
I am glad that regular people, not only our friends in this forum, react to the Olympic games much more positively than the official propaganda.
I agree with Kai, that there will be still a long time to change the attitude.
Eric, Russia had many talented people, composer, writers, but there is probably no one nation in the world which is the best.... many would like to be called this way, including Israel, the US, France, Germany........ etc....
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Post by Jaga on Feb 8, 2014 23:03:38 GMT -7
During parade of the nations anchor was almost scared showing that Iranian sportsmen were marching just after Israel. Russian alphabet offered some surprises... like Finland and France almost at the very end |
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Post by Jaga on Feb 8, 2014 23:08:30 GMT -7
Karl, glad to have you and other folks here in the forum you who know Russia and our part in the world much better, than these people who give their opinions in TV about sth they do not know.
My father loved Russian music and tradition very much also, even during communism times. But his memories reached times before WW II!
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Post by pieter on Feb 9, 2014 10:13:22 GMT -7
I love Russian folk art and classical music. Russia ballet is the best in the world. In spite of the fact I hated communism, I was not happy how petty and negative Americans anchors were in trying to point out everything negative about Russia. They also tie these Olympic games to Putin. Even if Putin role in these games was important, he is not the only man who could do these games. My father and ofcourse mother were very anti-communist and despite that fact they didn't hate Russians, Russian music, Russian art and ballet. By the way not every Russian was communist. You had dissidents in Russian and Monarchist (Pro-Czar) and Nationalist Russians who lived in France in Paris and Nice, the USA, Germany, Great Britain and elsewhere. They were called White Russian emigre's, White meaning the color of the White Armies or White Forces that fought agains the red forces during the Russian civil war between the Bolsjewist and Czar loyalists. A pictorial look at the White Russians, the members of the counterrevolutionary movement in Russia following the Bolshevik takeover and during the Civil War. They were a varied lot and were not often well united, some members had very different ideas than others, but nonetheless they were all at the same side in sofar as opposing the takeover of the Bolsheviks.Aleksander Wertyński -- Ach, duszo moja (Oh You, The Soul Of Mine!) Romans rosyjski (Russian romance) Odeon c. 1929 (Poland)Aleksander Wertyński (Alexandre Vertinsky) - bard of the white Russian emigration society in Paris of the 1920s. A lot of his recordings had been presented and many notes with details about his complicated life can be found in You Tube. Let us only remember a few facts: shortly before the bolshevik revolution of 1917, Wertyński was already well known in Russia as the young poet, who beautifully sings his own texts to a piano or a guitar. His songs -- the lovely mini-scetches wery strongly adapted into an old tradition of the Russian romance, but also enriched by a touch of a decadent and cosmopolitan chic, as well as his handsome, melancholic powdered face of Pierrot - quickly won the audiences among the artistic as well as the upper middle class circles of Moscow and St. Petersburg. However, in 1920 via Odessa and Constantinople he loyally accompanied his clientele to Warsaw, to Bucharest, Berlin, Zurich or Paris in their escape from the bolshevik terror. In Paris -- again, as a " Russian pierrot" -- he was very busy with his artistical performances, yet also -- sorry to say - his very effective cooperation with the Soviet embassy... The reason, why they were successful in enlisting him as their agent was, as it seems, his addiction to cocaine.  Aleksander Wertyński in 1930Vertinsky's hayday were the middle and the late 1920s, when he made hundreds of successfull shows solo or with a literary Russian cabaret " Sinaya Ptica" ( A Blue Bird) throughout Europe, the Middle East and, in the beginning of the 1930s, also in the USA and Asia ( Shanghai). In 1923 he gave series of concerts in Poland ( Warsaw) where -- inspired by a unsuccessfull love to uncredited Polish lady - he wrote one of his most beautiful songs, " Madame Irene". However, the Polish press was not so enthusiastic about his performances like were the West European audiences. In one of reviews commenting his concert in Bialystok, local columnist wrote about that " artistic zero" who was " pale like death, trying with his voice - weak and trembling from neurosis - to sing out his hymns to the feminine crowd of degenerates and nymphomaniacs, hungry for the carnal excitement and vocal cocaine, he provides them with". Wertyński succesfully continued his career in almost all continents until the end of the 1930s, when suddenly - as soon as German-Russian war broke out in June 1942 - he returned ( had been called back?) t o Russia (then named: the Soviet Union) where he was enthusiastically welcomed by the Soviet press as well as the Soviet audiences. And again - he kept singing to the crowds, till the very end of his days, in 1957. The slideshow consist of the rare photographs of Russian actresses who, born in Russia and sometimes, already well known to their pre-revolutionary audience, had to leave Russia in 1917 or shortly after and continued their artistic career with or without success - in various places of the world. Mostly, these ladies were very talented and successfull ( Tschechowa, Nazimova, Olga Baclanova, Eugenia Leontovich), others alas, fell into oblivion (von Annenikoff, Poplavska, Malinovska). But all of them were unbelievably classy and beautiful. The lost diamonds, the wasted pearls of the high culture of pre-bolshevik Russia.  Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova withAnton Pavlovich Chekhov on their honeymoon in 1901. Alla Nazimova (1879 – 1945) Ólga Vladímirovna Baclanova (1896 – 1974) Eugenie Leontovich (Russian: Евге́ния Леонто́вич; March 21, 1900 Moscow, Tsarist Russia – April 3, 1993, New York City) |
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Post by Nictoshek on Feb 9, 2014 11:39:34 GMT -7
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Post by karl on Feb 9, 2014 18:39:46 GMT -7
Nictoe
Yes, perhaps as noted, a hick up or two. For the complexitie of all things is simply mind bogle to any other then the technitions. With such a wonderful event that is so international and such compititieve spirit, it is with great hope and trust all will go well for all.
Karl
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Post by kaima on Feb 11, 2014 16:03:29 GMT -7
Sochi Schadenfreude: 'Ha Ha, The Russians Screwed It Up Again!'
A Commentary by Benjamin Bidder
from Der Spiegel
I had only myself to blame. After waiting too long to finally book a hotel in Sochi, here's what I got: A bathroom that smelled like a sewer. The cold air traveled right through the window. The furniture was straight out of the 1970s. If you had tried to sell all of it at a flea market, it is unlikely anyone would have paid more than the $200 a night I paid each night to stay there. The place looked like it was bug-ridden -- and by that I do not mean eavesdropping efforts by the FSB intelligence service.
Even though Sochi has been booked out for weeks now, I still managed to change hotels. An acquaintance had a pal who called a friend who happens to work in another hotel. What would Russia be without these Russians, their relationships and their inimitable spontaneity? I'm now staying at the Marins Park Hotel for $140 a night, with a view of the sea from my window, gorgeous weather and no twin toilet of the sort that has been the subject of social media mockery in recent weeks. The hotel I'm now staying in has even hired a pianist to play during breakfast. The trains to Sochi are free. Indeed, this city is making a real effort for its visitors and you'd pretty much have to close both eyes not to see that the Russians here are doing their best to welcome the world.
Unfortunately, the world is too busy posting its images of dread from Russia. Indeed, the criticism has lost any measure of proportionality. It is true that the Olympics are Vladimir Putin's pet project. This modern day czar wanted the games, and he ordered a massive, $50 billion effort to make sure they happened in Sochi. Corruption and poor planning drove costs to dizzying heights. Considerable environmental damage has been caused and construction workers have been exploited. Putin has also done his best to stir up sentiment against gays.
'There Are No Gays Here'
But Russia has not earned the schadenfreude that bubbles up each time another broken door knob or damaged park bench is discovered. Whatever doesn't fit into the narrative is forced in nonetheless.
My sympathies for guys like the mayor of Sochi are generally pretty limited. Anatoly Pakhomov is a member of the United Russia party that dominates the Kremlin -- the same political grouping that is ill-reputed among the general public as the "party of crooks and thieves." Shortly before the Olympics, Pakhomov gave an interview. "There are no gays here," is the quote that was quoted in the media around the world.
If Pakhomov did indeed say that, then he needs help, because it would be clear that he is suffering from an undiagnosed dementia that strikes only sporadically. How else could the mayor forget that he himself had spoken with the operator of a gay bar shortly before the interview took place? He had asked for the briefing as part of his preparations for an interview with a BBC journalist.
At city hall in Sochi, few believe there's a medical explanation for what happened. They claim Pakhomov's statements were taken out of context. The actual words used by Pakhomov were, "We don't have them in our city." The mayor now claims that what he actually meant were gay activists. Without trying to play down the extremely difficult situation for gays and lesbians in Russia, there is a significant difference.
Social Media Debate
Journalist Simon Rosner writes for Vienna's Wiener Zeitung newspaper. On his Twitter profile, he states that he uses the service "primarily to annoy myself." It would be fair to say that interest in his annoyance hasn't been that great. He has 636 followers, any retweet is likely more than welcome.
Yet without ever even leaving Vienna, Rosner managed to land himself right in the middle of a heated social media debate. He took photos of streets in disrepair in the Austrian capital and posted them together with the hashtag #SochiProblems. A webeditor at CNN got in touch with him, saying they would like to use the image for a photo gallery of things gone wrong in Sochi.
Rosner's photo has been retweeted 505 times. Subsequent postings he made noting that he had intended the image as irony were hardly retweeted at all. Rosner also made another important point. If the Russians had dared to use buses as old as some of those used to transport people at the last Winter Olympics in Vancouver, people probably would have dismissed them as "relics from the Soviet Union."
An Affront to All Russians
Even if most Sochi bashing is directed at Putin, it still hits all Russians. Olympic fever is rampant in Russia and 69 percent of those surveyed are pleased about the games, with two out of three following the events on television. Even Russians who protested two years ago against Putin's return to the Kremlin feel the criticism is excessive. They are very aware of corruption and environmental damage. What they are sensitive about right now, though, is the constant and unfair barrage of ridicule from the West.
The Russians are perplexed by the world, and it's not their fault. They're celebrating a party in Sochi. But we're the party poopers waiting for any chance we can find to say: "Haha, the Russians have screwed up again!"
Marat Gelman, Moscow's best known art gallery owner, once claimed that things are only right in the world for the West if bad news is coming out of Russia.
I hope Gelman is wrong.
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Post by Jaga on Feb 11, 2014 17:59:32 GMT -7
Pieter,
thanks for reminding some great Russian names.
Kai,
I liked your post. I still see so much schadenfreude in posts from Sochi that it is almost sickening.
Nictoe, olympic games which would not have any glitches will be just boring.
I wonder which continent did not open up?
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Post by Nictoshek on Feb 21, 2014 4:59:35 GMT -7
Yet another Sochi FAIL
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Post by kaima on Feb 22, 2014 10:48:05 GMT -7
Fun with language.
Especially true when you send people ignorant of the host language!
* * * *
Behind These Olympic Doors Is Anyone’s Guess
By SARAH LYALL and SAM DOLNICKFEB. 21, 2014
SOCHI, Russia — Deep in the back alleyways of the Ice Cube Curling Center in the Olympic Park stands a door marked “TER Secondary.” It is not clear exactly what goes on in there or why it is so close to doors labeled “Language Services” and “Venue Technology Operations,” but it is further evidence, if any was needed, that the Olympics occupy an exotic alternative world that makes sense only on its own terms.
Every four years, wildly disparate winter sports come together to form an instant civilization that lasts for a few weeks and then dissolves peacefully back into its constituent parts. Like any world, it has its own secret language, a shorthand that can mystify the uninitiated. Take the V.M. Office door at the curling arena. “Venue management,” explained a woman who turned out to be behind that very door. It had just opened unexpectedly, revealing the on-duty V.M. Office staff — her and a colleague — to be eating lunch and watching the biathlon on television. “We’re ruling all the stuff at the venue.”
Launch media viewer
It is fair to bet that only the figure skating venue has a place called Costume Repair Room. Josh Haner/The New York Times
At the curling arena, some doors were easier to fathom than others. The Sport Manager Room was simple: The sport manager manages sport. Timing and Scoring Storage? Also self-explanatory, since timing and scoring devices surely have to be stored somewhere. And there was the Mascot Dressing Room, where perhaps a lucky visitor might happen upon a half-dressed bear.
But what was the C & W Dressing Room? Many of the doors said “Staff Only” in English, yet were rendered at least three ways in Cyrillic. A succession of hand-lettered signs pointed down four corridors and stairwells — through storage areas for chocolate power bars, for drywall shelves and for empty refrigerators marked “beer” — to a final destination, far above the ice, known by the mysterious designation “Eng Platform C.”
One door, alarmingly, appeared to scream “Danger!” in about five ways in Russian, but in English said only, “In case of black out or lack of voltage in a socket.”
What was the difference between the Ice Technicians Room and the Ice Technicians Working Area Room?
A worker who came out of the Ice Technicians Room looked to be in a prime position to explain. Alas, no. “Probably you can ask Hans — he’s the main ice maker,” he said. But Hans was not there, nor was he in the nearby Ice Technicians Working Area office, which maintained its mystique by virtue of being locked.
A lot of the other doors were locked, too. And while it would have been exciting to see what was going on in the Water Purification/Preparation/Treatment Room, it was probably just as well that all was quiet in the Russian Federal Guards Services Unit.
Some Olympic signs are odd to outsiders but not to people who have been to an Olympics or two. The Mixed Zone, with its connotations of coed bathrooms, might not be the best name for a place where reporters interview athletes (how about Interview Zone?), but that is what the place is called. Every venue has one.
Here in Sochi, every venue also has its Access Control Points, its Interpretation Booths, its Athletes’ Dressing Rooms and its Doping Control Station, cheerily designated with cartoons of two urine sample containers that resemble baby bottles and are labeled A and B. Every venue has Broadcast Commentary Positions, a Jury Appeal Room and a Logistics Office. And each also seems to have something related to CER and sometimes to TER, either in a primary or a secondary capacity.
Launch media viewer
Skate Sharpening Room? You're not at the curling venue. Josh Haner/The New York Times
“I’m sorry, but this is secret information,” said an official who suddenly popped out from behind the CER & TER Primary door at the biathlon station and who quickly popped back inside again, groundhog-style.
Some venues have Wax Cabins; others do not. But it is fair to bet that only the figure skating arena has a place called Entertainment Dressing Room or a place called Costume Repair Room. And only the biathlon stadium has a Rifles and Ammunition Storage Room.
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“Unfortunately, we can’t show you,” said an official stationed outside that room, which was protected by a steel gate, like a bank vault.
Then there was the Dry Shooting Room, which looked like nothing special, maybe a high school rec room in a school district with a limited rec room budget. “They practice here without ammunition,” said Evgenia Karbusheva, a volunteer.
Some of the oddness can be attributed to language confusion, which is nobody’s fault. And while most of the English renditions of Russian signs are admirably clear, others look as if they were written by rogue translators who sneaked into the office when the official translators were at lunch.
How else would you explain the blameless regular garbage can in the Olympic Park that reads “Food Waste Accumulation Area”? Or the sign by the concession stand at the ice hockey arena reading, “Please Take Your Drinks Before Paying”?
Perhaps the best signs are near spectators’ entrances to the biathlon competition, which you reach after walking some way up a hill. They appear to have sprung from nothing more than the friendly imagination of some Olympic sign producer who has been reading a motivational manual for the armchair athlete.
“Just Several Meters More — and You’ll Reach the Goal!” one reads.
Before you know it, you are more or less being awarded your own gold medal, for the arduous sport of successfully making your way nearly to your seat.
“We Know the Journey Was Difficult,” the sign reads, “and We Are So Proud of You!”
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