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Tag Archives: russia
Priest Alexander Shumsky on Mark Zuckerberg’s Visit to Russia
Priest Alexander Shumsky is an influential priest and writer residing in Moscow. His views are endorsed by the Russian Orthodox Church. I found this article as fascinating as it was repulsive.
Translated from http://ruskline.ru/news_rl/2012/10/03/lomonosov_ili_cukerberg
A few days ago a young American millionaire with the characteristic name of Mark Zuckerberg showed up in our country. He is the creator of so-called Facebook. Zuckerberg arrived as a big boss who cares not in the slightest for the aborigines. He even demonstrated it in the way he dressed – he wore a grey T-shirt. I wear this clothing under my shirt after I go to sauna. American Mark Zuckerberg strolled around in this underwear while meeting the representatives of our scientific and political establishment.
He came here like a thief, a TV anchorwoman Tatiana Mitkova told us. Apparently Mark Zuckerberg came for our bright people. He wanted good software and IT engineers, naturally young ones. Somebody would say, “Oh, he is not forcing them to go, he is buying them. Why do you call him a thief?” Formally speaking, Zuckerberg is not a thief; he follows the law, otherwise he wouldn’t be a Zuckerberg. But, as Vladimir Lenin used to say, “It follows the letter of the law but it mocks its spirit.” I think it’s a thieves’ law that allows some Zuckerberg to visit us and buy whatever he wants at his pleasure. It was impossible in the Soviet times and we created great science, stepped first into the space, and built the best weapons in the world. What’s better for Russia – to ban Zuckerbergs from robbing my Motherland or this liberal one-sided system where we lose everything and gain nothing back, except Zuckerberg’s dirty T-shirt as memorabilia?
The Security of Bread
I am looking at a picture my girlfriend just took. I didn’t even know that I could look so serene and happy at the same time. Something in my facial expression is reminiscent of a mother looking at her sleeping baby. Cannibalistically.
It’s 10pm on a Wednesday night. It’s dark outside the window, a cold November drizzle smears the lights coming from the Castle Village buildings. I am sitting at a wooden table in my tiny Manhattan kitchen come dining room. My left hand is soaking in a blender – cold water is unsuccessfully trying to soothe the pain radiating from a large burn across my palm. I don’t care. I am happy. I achieved a dream that I hadn’t even have the guts to dream about. The dream is sitting right here, on the wooden table, on a black wire tray a foot and a half away from me. The dream looks like a misshapen slightly burnt brownish lump still covered in a thin coat of whitish powder. It’s about the same size and shape as a human brain but it’s slightly less symmetrical. I gingerly caress it with my fingertips; I run them along the rough folds, grooves and ridges of the surface. Something crackles faintly underneath. I bring my head close to it and almost touch the surface with my ear. Heat irradiates towards my head and I can feel faint noises coming from under thick crust. It’s talking to me. It says, “Hi.”
Russian Wine in the 1860s
This is a story about the Russian wine industry in the 1860’s told by Saltykov-Schedrin:
Apparently, no grapes grow in Kashino and wine is produced in wine-makers’ basements. The technology is amazingly simple. For every type of wine, the makers pick up genuine barrels from genuine wines. They fill a genuine barrel with Astrakhan Chikhir (a cheap red wine from the Astrakhan region) and mix it with water in a certain ratio. The Kashino river provides good water; recently they also found out that river Kotorosl in Yaroslavl region also possessed numerous Jerez and Lafite properties.
When the diluted Chikhir absorbs enough stink from the barrels, the wine-makers start beefing it up. Firstly, they add a bucket of alcohol per barrel. Then, based on the type of produced wine, they add some flavors. For Madeira, they add molasses; for Malaga, they add tar; for Rheinwein they add lead sugar (lead acetate). They mix the mixture till it gets uniform and reseal the barrel. After the wine sediments, the owner or his chief manager comes in and sorts the wine. If he spits once, the wine becomes a simple Madeira – 40 kopecks; if he spits twice, the wine becomes zwei-Madeira – 40 kopecks or 1 ruble; if he spits three times, the wine becomes drei-Madeira – 1.50 ruble or more (it could be a 100-years-aged Madeira). The makers bottle, cork and label the wine when it is ready.
Following the rules of hierarchy, the wine-makers bring the wine first to health department officials, then to the governor. Once everybody confirms that they’ve never drunk anything better, the wine goes to district judges and municipal officials. Then, the whole wine harvest takes the river and travels to Nizhnii Novgorod Fair from where it spreads instantly all over Russia. Cops drink it, local judges drink it, land owners drink it, merchants drink it and nobody knows what they’re drinking.
“Of course,” the writer adds in his notes, “I only describe how Kashino wine was made based on the stories and I can’t vouch for them. There is one thing I can vouch for though. No grapes grow in either Kashino or Yaroslavl. At the same time, many types of many wines are produced.”
Boiled Beets 