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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Litvinenko's death, a recent confrontation with Georgia, racist outburst in North Russia, scandalous acquisition of Yukos by RosNeft and its IPO, arms trade with Middle East states, the strengthening authoritarian regime of Putin... All these events seemed to affect Russia's image in the West quite negatively, not without help from the western media.

However, as a special New Year feature the Russian weekly Exile newspaper chose to look at the whole situation from a different angle. They see Russia at the forefront of the world's anti-globalist and anti-capitalism movements and all these events listed above are presented as achievements in Russia's "war" with the West. Quite an entertaining read and if you want to make sure that the article in not sponsored by Kremlin, you'll even find a small disclaimer at the bottom asking the Kremlin guys to send Exile staff some funds to their Jersey accounts.

Read at Exile's website: Exile - 29 Dec 2006 - 2006: The Year Russia Schooled The West

Ah, the Festive Season! People everywhere go a little crazy. Russia, of course, is no exception. Russians don't really celebrate Christmas, except for those who keep the Orthodox faith closely. Here it is acknowledged on 7th January, a hangover from the Julian Calendar (13 days behind the Gregorian), but for most people the really important festival is New Year's Day.

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