A few weeks ago I got a book by a Dutch photographer Robert Knoth called Certicaat nr 000358. It's a photographic record of nuclear disasters' effects on people's lives in Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan.





The pictures are really striking – and not only because they show the human aspect of tragedy. His photographs also somehow transcend photography. Normal people in everyday circumstances, but the things they have to deal with – and you can see it in their eyes – are from a different world. It's possible to analyze what happened, but it's impossible to understand it or to come in terms with it. The radiation did not only cause deformations in nature and humans, it is also causing deformation of psyche. The everyday reality cannot be comprehended and there's void in between.

Perhaps as a way to fill in this void I looked for eyewitness accounts from people who experienced nuclear disasters. They just describe what they've felt, seen, smelled and heard.

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Several newspapers today announced that Obama posted his first internet video address on YouTube, thus heralding the era of the new "digital" government.

Surprisingly enough, the Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has started doing exactly same thing already a month ago. If you go to the Kremlin site you can see all three addresses translated in English.



However, does it really mean that the government worldwide is becoming more "transparent"?

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For today's football game between Russia and Spain we prepared a useful phrasebook, which will allow you to express yourself to the full extent.

User's Manual:
Spanish (Russian transliteration) - Russian (English transliteration) - English

Hijo de puta (ихо де пута) - сукин сын (sukin syn) - son of a bitch

Cabron (каброн) - козел (kozel) - asshole

Maricon (марикон) - пидарас (pidaras) - faggot

Mierda (мьерда) - гавно (gavno) - shit

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Sports results are important for our vulnerable national feeling. You see, being Russian is tough: in order to be happy, you have to feel better than the others all the time, it is simply in our nature. Commonly we use great national sports results to feel satisfied with ourselves instead of focusing on personal achievements. However, we've never been proud of our soccer results: even though this sport is perhaps the most popular in Russia, we never succeeded in any significant tournament.


2008 © photo by The Pioneer (Detkov) @ FlickR

That's why when everybody noticed that Russia had chances at the tournament, people went crazy: over 500 000 went on the streets in Moscow alone. They'd celebrate the victory until 8am in the morning, hug and kiss each other on the street. The atmosphere was pervaded with the feeling of total love and unity: something Russia needs really badly right now.


2008 © photo by The Pioneer (Detkov) @ FlickR

It was not about the victory itself but more about an excuse to shed off all the problems and aggression and start smiling to strangers and just feel happy.

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Have you ever wondered what catches people's attention first, when they see a map of the world, election bulletin, your family photograph, or the Google website?

Well, now there's a tool called Feng GUI, which allows you to do exactly that: upload any picture and create a "heatmap" of it. The points on the heatmap show the main focal points and areas of attention on the picture.

While the tool can be very interesting for web designers, who can test prototypes of their websites, as well as photographers, and video makers (yes, they've got a video version of it as well – see a trailer at the end of the post – exciting!), we at Way to Russia were really concerned about the impact of Feng GUI on our motherland, that is Russia.

The first thing that came in mind, was to scan the recent 2008 President Election Bulletin, and look what we found:

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See a recent Guardian article

Dmitry Medvedev became the new president of Russia, winning with over 70% of votes. Yesterday he and Putin went to the Red Square where the Russian band Lube (quite awful but patriotic music) were having a concert, and addressed the people.

Watch the video from the Russia Today channel (which is a disgrace to TV industry):

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Since a few days you can see this advert made by Russian Tourism Office in Berlin U-bahn (metro):



Aside from the fact that this ad looks incredibly tacky, what else is wrong about it?

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From The Guardian, 6th June 2007:

"Mr Putin has delivered several attacks on the US administration and on the missile shield plan in recent weeks, warning at the weekend that Russia could target European cities with nuclear missiles for the first time since the end of the 45-year cold war."
Full text at http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2096433,00.html

From what I saw in his pre G8 interview that Putin gave on the 1st of June, he just said that the missiles might be pointed back to the anti-missile systems positioned in Europe. He didn't say they'd target the cities. Which makes me wonder: why even Guardian is trying to worsen the image of Russia, do they truly believe that Putin is evil and Russia is a hell?
Or did Putin really say that they'll specifically target some European cities in any other interview and I just don't know about it? Any links?

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Friday February 23rd is a public holiday - Defenders of the Fatherland Day. The holiday is supposed to be geared towards those who served in the armed forces, though it serves more as a day to celebrate men in general – a counterpart to March 8th's Women’s Day in the interests of gender equality. Of course, a celebration of men and a celebration of those who served in the armed forces should technically be synonymous in Russia. But with many parents doing everything from doctoring medical records from when their sons are toddlers to paying large sums of money to save their children the rigors of conscription, this is not the case. And, in fact, it's even acceptable for foreigners to get in on the act and reap the benefits of the day.

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