Coolness or craziness?

Yesterday I talked with my friend, who has a 3 year-old daughter. This autumn she wanted to send her daughter to kinder garden. At first we were talking about problems that could happen and then we started to speak about future school years and how difficult it is to defend your child during this period of time.

Marina and I had different positions at school. If I was some kind of a class representative, the person who created all events, Marina was a geek and people didn’t like her. She thought that her main problem was her very strict parents. They didn’t allow her to wear make up, go to school events and till last year at school took her from school after the lessons. She didn’t want the same destiny for her child and asked me how to avoid these problems but not to make new ones.

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Frankly speaking, I didn’t know what to answer. I remember that when I was at school it was very important to have a cool cell phone and expensive clothes. My parents didn’t want to waste money in this way and preferred to take my sister and me to some foreign countries and show new places instead. I thought the same as my parents and believed that two days in Stockholm was much better than outfits from NafNaf, Motivi and others (at that time these shops were very expensive in Russia).

I understood that my class mates would make jokes of me if they knew that I bought clothes in the local market. So it was sometimes difficult to avoid such inquiries as where you bought these boots or jeans, if it is classy and costly enough but because everyone wanted to listen to my stories about Germany or France, they preferred not to bother me with such questions.

I think it’s very important to balance between ridiculous school rules and your wishes. Maybe sometimes it’s better to buy something similar to others, but next time to lie about buying something. I think there can be no precise guidelines on how to act at school and as it’s our first society it’s important to remember all the problems that you have had and try to avoid them in future societies such as university, work and so on.

By the way, my friend decided to buy the most expensive handy for her daughter.

Self-confidence

They say self-assurance is two-thirds of success. But so many people are deprived of this precious quality. Do they realise how much in life depends on it?

I believe it begins from the very childhood. Look at kids playing at the same play-ground and you'll notice that inevitably some of them swing on the swings and laugh happily whereas others observe them with silent envy from some far away corner.

Those kids grow up, start to go to school. Some of them are pride of their school, popular with classmates, objects of envy of their own sex and of admiration of the opposite sex.

Others still watch their more successful peers, only this time it's too late to run to their parents for consolation, and they look for alternative ways to fight the feelings of inadequacy and insecurity.

words4mind.blogspot.com

The sources of comfort can be different. Good enough if feelings of hurt, rejection and "social unacceptability" find their way into music, poems, art, boosting creativity and thus helping to make lemonade out of the lemons of negative emotions. But not everybody finds inner strength and sources of inspiration to do it. So quite often adolescents resort to drinking, drugs and violence to hide their lack of self-confidence.

It's not easy to leave it behind

The next stage - insecure children as a rule turn into insecure adults. We can argue that people outgrow childhood complexes and completely forget about them in the mature age. I still think it's more of a wishful thinking. In most cases issues that tortured us in the young age are just disguised to make our lives easier, at least on the superficial level.

Many people would argue that it is not about lack of self-confidence. It's more about being self-critical, self-demanding, craving for the perfection. But is it really necessary to aspire to some lofty ideal image of ourselves that we created in our mind and for some reason believe absolutely vital to attain?

In most cases, a recipe for success consists of a huge inner drive, creativity, persistence, charisma and ability to sell yourself. The idea of "striving for pure perfection" leads you into the dead-end whereas "creating your chances" is constructive and can help you in making a career or self-development.

I like this quote by Allen H. Neuharth: "I quit being afraid when my first venture failed and the sky didn't fall down". Since that's exactly what the problem of not believing in oneself is about - our fear of failure holds us back from being successful, whether it's love, career, our social life, whatever. It sure takes time learn to feel good about yourself even after your hopes and aspirations have collapsed dramatically (or so it seems to us). But nevertheless it's definitely worth learning, you'll be surprised at how much you actually can achieve and what fun life can be when you cut the ropes holding you back to the ground and let your dreams soar high in the sky.

And remember: success comes in can's not cant's!

quangkhoi.net

International Christmas

Yesterday was the eve of the Russian Orthodox Christmas. Usually I am in a festive mood on this day, and we celebrate it as a big family holiday. But this time I was feeling sad and depressed, my family in Russia, me in the UK, thousands of kilometers separating us and everybody I know has celebrated Christmas on 25 December.

But my forecast of a lonely evening in front of my laptop proved to be completely wrong! I started getting Facebook messages from my UK friends inquiring when we are meeting for the Christmas dinner. Feeling pleasantly surprised that people remember about it, I decided to give it a try. I gave the basic guidelines such as how many dishes we should have for Christmas dinner and what we can or can't have... And I must admit the result surpassed even my most optimistic expectations!

We were a mixed group representing Dominican Republic, Brasil, USA and Russia. So I tried to be flexible and suggested bending some rules to make our menu more democratic and suitable for everyone at the Christmas table. According to the traditions of Russian Orthodox Christmas, the festive dinner should be not even vegetarian but actually vegan. Meat is a no-no but so is cheese, eggs, milk - in a word, all dairy products and all dishes containing them.

So without realising it I presented a real challenge to my guests and offered that we shouldn't give up on cheese or eggs. However, my friends stood up to the challenge and prepared such a great variety of vegan dishes that we don't normally have even back home. Honestly, in theory there should be twelve dishes. In practice we usually have five or six "real dishes" like potatoes, fish etc. And other "dishes" include tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, olives (all counted separately) just put around the table to make it look nice, no-brainer!

I felt a pang of guilt of giving my friends so much work to do especially considering the fact that as a dreadful cook I didn't risk cooking anything on my own and mostly volunteered in peeling potatoes, washing fruit or doing anything else that fell within my "cooking" capacities. But watching the enthusiasm and energy everyone put into the preparation process (albeit making a few jokes and complaints on the rigidity of the rules and absence of the traditional turkey or chicken), I felt we had taken the correct path by choosing to stick to the traditions.

Finally, we had a luxurious Christmas (vegan but still luxurious!) menu consisting of such delicious food as garlics and carrots heated in the oven in an olive oil, pasta, mashed potatoes, different kinds of fish, rice and of course tempting, burning your tongue and awakening all your senses - pickle!

Having eaten until we could hardly stand up from the table and having enjoyed the ambience of a real family dinner, we promised each other to stick to our new tradition and celebrate the forthcoming (or if there are none maybe invent) holidays in a proper fulfilling way like this!

Customer is always... wrong!

This customer-friendly slogan coined by Harry Gordon Selfridge often is miles away from the harsh reality. Today I've had one more chance to prove it.

This morning my younger sister had to send some documents by the regular mail. Like the majority of young people nowadays (including myself) she does not actually visit the post-office every day which appears to be a pretty logical thing to do with e-mails, faxes, scanners and other great achievements of humanity.

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Knowing the particularities of the Russian postal system, it's even more understandable why people would use its services as seldom as possible. Letters delivered a month later than expected or not delivered at all, packages lost somewhere on the way between the cities, postal workers whose behaviour with customers I would euphemistically prefer to call not so amiable... All this scares potential clients away from the Russian postal service in a much more efficient way than any Royal Mail strikes would ever do.

So my sibling was unlucky enough not to have any alternative to visiting the grim and unfriendly post-office. While she was filling in the blanc she realised that there were new requirements. Being a not so frequent post-office visitor she politely asked a postal worker to help her. Since it was not a New Year postcard but important papers it was crucial that she do everything very accurately.

There were several postal workers: one of them just shrugged away her request and all the others explained the requirements in a different way. Finally the senior worker who she addressed as the last resort displayed open hostility to her. She said that people who have no idea how the postal system works shouldn't be using its services, and that her colleagues had already wasted their time explaining to her the simplest things several times.

To make this long story shorter, my sister had to rely solely on her idea of how the things should be done in this ever changing bureaucratic system, and filled in the form according to her understanding. Now the best thing to do would be to hope for the best! Logically, she did everything in a proper way but in some matters logic is just not applicable...

Moscow metro prices

When I come back home I always find some unpleasant surprises. And this time wasn’t different. I was going to my friend and thought that it’s easier to go by underground. Everything seemed the same: crowds, beggars, dogs and rude cashier. I wanted to buy a two-ways ticket and as I was in Moscow last time in September I remembered that this ticket was 44 roubles, but now angry lady shouted that it became more than 50 now.

When I met my friend she listened to my angry speech about increase of prices and fall of salaries. She smiled and said that it’s Russian New Year tradition to change prices in underground. “Soon it will be cheaper to buy a car”.

It was very true I just forgot that when I was a student we were joking on how they changed prices in winter. My sister, who is now a last year student in Russia, thinks that it’s easy to check inflation with help of student underground ticket. “Just look, five years ago student ticket was 75 roubles and now it’s 350! So it became 5 times higher! Same with prices”.

I know that it’s Russian tradition to find advantages in bad situations, but I prefer to check inflation with Bloomberg help. And what’s about underground, I wish it would stay with its main duty – be the cheapest transport for citizens.

Increasing speed of life

"There's more to life than increasing its speed", Makhatma Gandi said once. And I can't agree with him more.

What is our life now other than a caleidoscope of events that are changing one another with speed rival to speed of light? We are moving faster, eating faster, even speaking so fast that we can't understand each other?
http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=articles&sub=Speed%20of%20Life%20-%20Part%20One

Are you afraid of being alone?

I have so often felt a sudden and strong urge to spend some time alone that I've almost got used to this feeling. It happened not only when I was feeling miserable. It could happen also when I felt happy with myself and those around me. I just needed to get away.

These situations were usually not beneficial for my relationships. My friends felt abandoned and offended, and complained of my lack of interest in them. I felt guilty and scared about this strange desire to have more space but I just couldn't help it. And everytime the most irritating thing was that I could find no plausible excuse for it.

One day when I was feeling particularly unhappy about it I decided to investigate this phenomenon. I had always been intrigued by the fact that there are two words in English frequently used for describing the state of being alone: loneliness and solitude. In Russian we have only one word for this notion, and its connotation is negative. I was pleased to discover that psychologically there can be two different states of being alone. Aloneness by itself is not necessarily a negative thing. It is all about our emotions about it that can turn it into either loneliness or solitude.

Loneliness and solitude - two words for the same thing?
Generally speaking, loneliness is unhappiness about being alone whereas solitude is happiness about being alone http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200308/what-is-solitude

If we go into details we can add that solitude is a voluntary seclusion and loneliness is a state of having to be alone. Solitude often enriches us spiritually and can help us to keep our creative juices flowing. It can be a refuge from daily pressures, a way of relaxation and even a source of inspiration. Solitude often helps to restore peace of mind and harmony after a troublesome or simply too eventful period.

Loneliness is a state in which one prefer to be given a choice. In contrast to solitude it is not pleasant and refreshing, it's disagreeable and depressing. Loneliness takes its toll on people who are prone to it. It lowers one's self-esteem and gives one a feeling of being unwanted, of not fitting in.

This classification helped me if not to explain to others but at least to understand the undercurrent reasons for needing space and to realise that it's not a vice but sometimes a vital necessity.

Most expensive cities in the world

http://www.overseaspropertymall.com/buying-property/10-most-expensive-cities-to-own-a-home/

Eternal Flame to burn elsewhere

The Eternal Flame at the Tob of the Unknown Soldier near the Kremlin Wall, in the Alexander Garden, is a symbol of Moscow and Russia to the same degree that the Saint Basil's Cathedral or the Spaskaya Tower at Red Square. Which is more, it is a symbol of strength of spirit, belief and patriotism that helped the Soviet soldiers fight the Nazi Germany. It reminds us of the suffering they had to go through, and it's impossible to imagine the heart of our capital wihtout it. But we'll have to do sofor the next two m=months during which time due to repair works the Eternal Fire will be relocated to the Poklonnaya Gora.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90777/90853/6853298.html

Old films for New Year

It's been almost twenty years since Russian television proudly proclaimed its independence from the Soviet heritage. And it's not tired to emphasize the fact on every suitable occasion. But still every New Year's eve Russian television waves a white flag of surrender to the Soviet by broadcasting old and much loved Soviet films, songs - and TV viewers are taken back to 1960-70-s just by switching the TV button on.

It's not hard to make a detailed forecast of what would be on during New Year's night and a couple of following days. I've made bets on the contents of the TV programme just for the laughs of it. "Ironia sudby", "Charodei", "Kavkazskaya plennitsa", "Ivan Vasilievich menyaet professiu" -are the films no New Year passes by without. Even cartoons broadcast in this period of time as a rule were made a couple of decades earlier. A large number of singers popular in the Soviet times are invited to participate in New Year TV programmes and sing their 20-year old or older songs, and even young performers instead of singing their own songs often prefer to make remakes of the famous hits of previous decades for New Year's concerts.

That said, I don't mean to criticise Soviet film and music industry. On the contrary, just as the majority of the population of the country, I enjoy watching these films and listening to these songs for the millionth time. I just wonder how long is our television going to shamelessly exploit people's feelings of nostalgia and repose on its laurels? The funny thing is that with the rapid development of new filming technologies, with the government's and independent sponsors' financial support and an increasing number of young people willing to pursue careers in TV and film industry, one would normally expect a surge in creativity and an abundance of new concepts for programmes and films.

However, judging by its contents Russian television still prefers to cling to its glorious past. TV bosses realise that by making changes they could risk losing a considerable amount of their audience. But they don't see or just prefer to close their eyes to the inevitable. Time passes, and generations change. And teenagers nowadays simply don't understand the values of the old days, they have different needs. And they definitely are not going to be sold nostalgia for someone's youth. And if those in the TV industry don't tackle this problem soon they will risk losing it big time to the internet which already now poses a threat by giving its users the right to choose.

Social networks are newsmakers!

World is becoming more virtual with every passing day. I'm starting to wonder where the border between "the real world" and "the virtual one" lies.

Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter are no longer just a means of passing the news. Quite frequently, they ARE the news. In 2009 alone so many funny or frankly weird events which had something to do with social networking took place.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE5BS17B20091229

Police reforms

Law enforcement agencies constantly give food for thought or discussion. There are so many issues on the agenda of police forces in every country. However, the problems bothering citizens of different countries concerned with their police forces are different.

According to the statistics, British police is considered to be the best in Europe and one of the best in the world. But there is still room for improvement for any police force. It was interesting for me to compare the changes the British police need to those that ideally the Russian police would have to undergo. Remarkably, improvements due to be implemented next year for British Bobbies include reduction of helicopters, upbranding of software used by police forces etc.

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20091228/157402922.html

However, a new ethical code for the Russian "grey-uniformed men" is targeted primarily at fighting brutality, corruption and general inefficiency of the Russian police forces. Enforcing this new code, Oleg Yelnikov, an Interior Ministry spokesman, thinks that “it is very helpful to draw this ideal picture as a way of showing the officer what he should strive for in his conduct". The difference between the two systems is palpable.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5983401.ece

Alan Alda - "Never have your dog stuffed"

Today I've finished reading Alan Alda's biography "Never have your dog stuffed" and felt sorry about it. Michael Parkinson characterised it "a fascinated read about a fascinated life". And I can't but agree with him.

Usually biographies are interesting in themselves just because of the scale of personality or the events described in the book. This is not an exception. Alan Alda is a perfect person for a biography. Actor in numerous plays and movies, among them the superpopular TV-series M*A*S*H*, playwright, director, writer, the host of the TV programme on science, and all this judging by the book he did with vivid interest, ingenuity and passion for the job - it's enough for the most fascinating life.

Add to this the style in which the book is written. Wry humour, colourful descriptions that help the reader create in his imagination any picture Mr. Alda draws, merciless scrutiny of his own thoughts, opinions, actions - in an amazing way Mr. Alda's autobiography is so subjective as in sharing the innate emotions of the writer, revealing so much of himself in this razor-sharp, smart, very emotional writing of his but at the same time as objective as humanly possible because every idea is thoroughly analysed before acknowledging its right to exist, every mistake is harshly criticised, every dellusion mocked.

As I read on, Alan Alda's biography gradually stopped just being a biography for me and melted into a philosophical novel based on real events. It's the kind of writing that forces you to forget daily trifles and relish the pleasure of pure thinking or pure feeling. It's the kind of writing that connects you with the writer, makes you feel everything he writes about is relevant to you and to an awful lot of other people. It's fascinating, profound and inspirational, in other words, a must read.

From prime minister to vampire

Recently I watched New Moon in cinema. Frankly speaking I didn’t like this saga at all, and the only reason I went there was Michael Sheen, who played vampire Aro in this film.

I think that Sheen is a wonderful actor and I enjoy all his works. First time I saw him in the film “Wilde”. I was so impressed by his acting that I decided to find out more about this gifted actor. I watched “Queen”, “Underworld” and “Music within” and got addicted to his acting.

The thing I like about this actor most is that he can play absolutely different characters from vampire and werewolf to prime minister and man with cerebral palsy. There are billions of actors who became famous for some role and can’t move from it. They always portray similar characters and even if they try to play someone else you can clearly see where they are from. I’ll never underestimate such actors, but I think that those who can play different roles are definitely geniuses.

For example, when I watched New Moon with my friend, it took me half an hour to assure her that Tony Blaire in Queen and Aro are the same actor. She didn’t believe me and kept saying that they are absolutely different.

As to his role in Music within I don’t have enough vocabulary to express my emotions. He portrayed a person with cerebral palsy. I was amazed by his performance. I didn’t see an actor, who portrayed a person with such a disease, I saw a man with cerebral palsy living his life. At some moments I forgot that Sheen didn’t have cerebral palsy.

So I told myself, don’t relax! There are many films with Michael Sheen that you haven’t seen yet: Unthinkable, Frost/Nixon, Bright young things, Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa and many others.

Cafew

This Monday I arranged to meet my friends before leaving for Moscow. We thought a nice dinner in a cosy cafe would do just fine. However, the evening turned out to be more adventurous than we had expected it to be.

We chose a cafe in Harrow-on-the-Hill where we could have different kinds of food at reasonable prices. Having placed ourselves comfortably at the corner table, we headed to the cashier's to make an order. The cashier greeted us with enthusiasm and with a pleasant smile asked us... to show her our IDs.

My friend at first didn't even understand what we were required to do since we were not ordering an ounce of alcohol, and had to ask her to repeat her words. "You should show me your IDs otherwise you will have to leave this place", she said in an unconcerned voice. We asked for an explanation. She said that according to the rules if anyone stays at their cafe after 8 p.m. they have to show their IDs.

We were persistent and decided to try all the means to stay there. We insisted that we were Master course students and had our student cards on us. No result. OK, we were not having any alcohol, just a bowl of soup or chicken or anything else equally innocent. No way. The cashier was polite, understanding but she rejected our pleas to let us stay.

We left the cafe boiling just like the soup that we didn't have. It was only upon coming home and giving a second thought to this irritating situation I realised that it's silly to blame the staff at the cafe. They were just doing their job and doing it well. It's just the system designed, as I understand, to prevent adolescents from alcohol abuse by forbidding them to buy it at all. Which would be a great idea if it worked.

Unfortunately, the statistics of the increasing alcohol consumption among the young in the UK say the opposite. The number of teenagers and young people suffering from alcohol abuse is not diminishing drastically, as it would be expected, but is still disturbingly high. So unfortunately, age constraints and ID control work only to a certain degree. Most frequently, it results in chasing away potential mature and self-controlled customers (just like us *smiling self-complacently*) who just come to have a meal and even if they do have alcohol drinks it's mostly social drinking, for the sake of company, and not binge drinking, for the sake of drinking.

This is a complicated problem that can't be solved by simple measures. Probably, more
education on alcohol consumption at schools and first of all in families would be a good initiative, although of course it's difficult if not impossible to control the implementation of these ideas. But I still do believe that by forbidding alone no earth-shattering results would be achieved. People can be very ingenuous when they really crave for something, and therefore teenagers can find ways to get alcohol without actually buying it themselves.

Probably, a better idea of fighting this vice of heavy drinking would be promoting a healthier lifestyle, making it fashionable to look and feel healthy. Until dead-drunk celebrities rolling out of bars and doing crazy things remain role models for adolescents, unhealthy alcohol-consuming culture will blossom. And no strict regulations are likely to change this.

So who is the president?

I decided to take a good look at the Berlusconi’s scandal, when some mad man broke his nose. I looked through different papers, when the Daily Mail attracted my attention.

Strangely enough, it wasn’t about Silvio Berlusconi’s trauma.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/12/14/berlusconi.milan/index.html

It was about journalistic accuracy. In the middle of the article I read that French and Russian presidents support Berlusconi and I was shocked to find out that Russian president was Putin.

Wait a minute, I wasn’t in Russia only three months but somehow the president became Putin?The responsible Daily Mail editor even didn’t want to google the name of Russia’s president…

It’s clear that some people think that the real Russian president is Putin. Believe me, as a Russian living in the UK I’m tired to hear this question: “So who is the real president of Russia?”

However, it’s not an excuse for a journalist and editor to make such a mistake. As a Russian I feel bad, when I read such things. It looks as though we live in Stone Age and it’s impossible to check the information you write!

Frankly speaking, I don’t understand what this situation actually means. The Daily Mail is a middle market newspaper, but I can’t believe that unqualified people can work there. Somehow I think that maybe they just want to show their attitude to Russia? I feel some kind of disrespect in this action.

I really hope that it was due to some technical problem and they will edit this article as soon as possible.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1235514/Italian-PM-Silvio-Berlusconi-punched-assaulted-Milan.html

Chaos at airports

Living in the UK I got used to speaking weather to people. As a rule, everybody is of the same opinion: they keep complaining about it. 20 minutes at the platform waiting for a train under never-ending drizzle, and strangers become friends.

Yesterday, passengers at Heathrow, Gatwick and other airports had even more reasons to be unhappy about the weather. Unexpectedly large amount of snow had caused delays and cancellations of flights. Because of the unpredictability of the weather passengers were informed about cancellation of their flights at an extremely short notice, often after they had already completed the registration process, sometimes even after they had boarded their planes.

During an hour that we spent queuing at the registration (yes, I was lucky enough to spend only one hour in the queue!), an Italian lady standing next to me shared with me her sad story. "This is my fifth attempt to fly to Milan", she said with a sigh. "I've been trying since Sunday. On one of the flights we had even boarded the plane and had waited there for four hours when they announced that we're not flying anywhere". A young guy standing ahead of us turned and nodded sympathetically. "I undestand you so well! I've only spent 20 hours at the airport trying to leave this country. I hate planes, airports, snow. Hell, I hate everything by now!" he exclaims. A German girl joined in the heated discussion on such a (seemingly!) neutral subject as weather. "My flight wasn't cancelled but I still wasn't able to board the plane", she said in a resigned way. Quizzical expressions on our faces prompt her to elaborate. "Well, the registration queue took so long that I actually was late for my own plane although I was on time - precisely two hours before the flight. Just as they recommend us", she explained.

After hearing all this, I experienced a slight panic attack. I looked around. The queue ahead of me seemed endless, passengers from all the cancelled flights accumulated, and it took a long time to deal with each passenger's query since most of them had already rebooked at least once. People were understandably nervous and angry, the airport staff did their best to help but there was little they could do. I felt that the British weather that we so often complain of had decided to take its cruel revenge on us, and, just as the BA strikers, had chosen the least appropriate moment for its display of character. Right before Christmas when so many people can't wait to join their loved ones - what could be worse?

I was really fortunate to be able to make it on time: with lots of running and rushing, and sweating, and being dangerously close to a nervous break-down. But I finally got on my plane and arrived in the cold snowy Moscow. And for the first time I thought just how lucky we Russians are to have our snowstorms and snowdrifts as an everyday phenomenon in winter. Being used to this kind of weather, Moscow airports worked in their usual regime, and I even didn't mind gloomy faces of the airport staff and was almost happy to see too insistent cabbies outside the Domodedovo airport.

Teaching

I have always felt that teaching is more of a vocation than a job. It may sound funny but I believe it is an in-born quality, a gift.

Yet so many people who are not in the profession and unfortunately some who are in it stick to the view that teaching is all about forcing into the heads of lazy, dumb individuals things they do not care about, using stick-and-carrot method. Good marks are carrots and a possible failure in the exams can be used as sticks. It's amazing how some people don't accept the very idea that their pupils may actually be intelligent, have their own way of learning and may think in the patterns slightly different from the teachers'.

I love this quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson on teaching: "Be an opener of doors for such as come after thee". For what indeed is a teacher who does not open doors for his pupils? I would like to add not only open the doors but hold them open long enough for them to enter.

For there will always be some who will walk in smoothly and confidently, whereas for others every step takes an effort, still others may stop hesitantly at the porch and get pushed away by a hurrying crowd of their more decisive peers. And a good teacher is the one who manages this crowd, the one who is able to listen through the cacophony of voices, discern each and every one of them and tune in to it.

Street racing a la russe

Russia has been long known to foreigners as a land of cold and communism.
However, at the moment a new stereotype is forming in the minds of Western observers.




https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuW94lNoPnAC37t9KkMmHXLEML7wouTwgqMVpoHhuQkAM_ZXKBkPKk8Kf9ru-uWqV8Tzbi-NbQawbaw9hj70kNd8CFeu72P22TAyOvXcr9IhhoFyYhY3pJ00p_iGdRoQPPz3jV4QTmeI3y/s1600-h/800px-Lamborghini_Murci%C3%A9lago_Roadster_2005%5B1%5D.jpg

Money, money, money

"Russians are so rich!", exclaims my English friend emphatically. My raised eyebrows vividly witness my disagreement. With one-fifth of the population according to the official statistics (and one-third as per independent sources) living below the poverty line, my friend's point of view is nothing short of ludicrous. Although he probably has his reasons to think so.

Oligarchs make their generous contribution to the image of a Russian person in the eyes of a foreigner. There are quite a few things they are notorious for to the Western public - buying famous football clubs, enjoying luxurious villas on the Cote d'Azure, having fun in Courchevel

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/europe/article1292023.ece

Oddly enough, no charity activities or environment protection concerns are on top of their list of priorities.

But tycoons apparently feel it's important to give a good education to their children. "Golden" kids are often sent to study to obscure but posh sounding places where they appear when they are free from buying posh cars or breaking 1,000 dollar champagne bottles (believed to be a good omen in Russia although one would normally break just a couple of glasses at a marriage or a similar event). Obviously, such intense studies take their toll and kids have to unwind, no doubt about that. Street racing along the banks of Lake Geneva seems to have been one of those activities.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20091123/156951219.html

Once in Geneva

Quiet Swiss roads apparently are not used to youngsters speeding by in their Lamborghinis.

So it must have come as a bit of a surprise for a German senior citizen carefully driving his Volkswagen at 60 mph when his car was hit by a luxurious vehicle going at 124 mph according to the official version.
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The funny thing was that after a bit of contemplating the court ruled that the 22-year-old student who had violated the speed limitations (there were repair works on this part of the road) and who had alcohol detected in his blood was not guilty. The German was obviously in the wrong because he had followed the traffic regulations. It happens.

To be continued...

If this story is not nauseating enough there is a development to it. Journalists who covered the situation were faced with the strict censorship. The interviewees became edgy and nervous and insisted on taking away their most expressive quotes, most likely after the conversation with the protective Dads of the naughty kids. Editors pressured by "the omnipotent" of the Russian society had their writers soften the tone of their articles to avoid the risk of hurting feelings of the sensitive tycoons.

I had a chance to read the draft versions of some articles and to compare them with what readers saw in the papers soon afterwards, and didn't know how to react. Using Russian poet Mikhail Lermontov's quote, "all of this would have been funny had it not been so sad".

We're all in the same train

More than a week has passed since the Nevsky Express wreckage claiming thirty

people dead and over a hundred injured. Not to mention an immeasurable number
losing the scarce remains of their trust in the government's ability to provide safety

for its people.

What exactly has happened? Who is to blame for it? And most importantly, how to ensure that

nothing of the kind will ever happen again?

Media coverage

Journalists presented completely different versions of the crash. If one compares an angle, tone

and even wording of various articles and news bulletins on the subject, one probably wouldn't

believe that they all cover the same event. The government TV channel "Vesti" for instance

hailed the accident as terrorist attack based on the evidence by the train driver who claimed to

have heard the sound of explosion exactly before the accident. The opposition radio station

"Svoboda" sticks to the version of an accident caused by the lamentable condition of the Russian

railway.

Opinions of experts

The evidence found at the place of the crash is contradictory. On the one hand, seven

kilogrammes of trotyl and a two-metre-deep funnel make a terrorist attack a likely version.

Vladimir Yakunin, the head of the Russian Railways Company (RZD), compared this Nevsky

Express accident to the one that had taken place in August 2007 and immediately declared it a

terrorist attack. However, Evgeny Kulikov, the leader of the Trade Union of Russian Railway

workers, doesn't agree. According to him, the wreckage of the 60-tonne-train would inevitably

cause a deep funnel in the ground near the railway. He is also wondering why it should be three

rear carriages that derailed if according to the driver explosion occurred at the front of the train.

People's reactions

But the most heated discussions take place in the Russian blogosphere. Relatively free from the

government control or censorship, users express a multitude of opinions. You can come across

any point of view here. From a passionate attack on restless Islamist terrorists to a bitter critique

of the Russian Railways management to heart-felt condolences to the families of the victims to

hateful comments about the government's involvement in organising the explosion to scare

people and to force them into supporting the "stable and secure" current regime.

Whatever happened to the Nevsky Express, we can only guess and pray. Accidents as well as

terrorist attacks occur in many countries, it is no longer a flat-earth news. But what is sad and

frightening is the fact that in a similar situation citizens of other states would pounce upon

Al-Qaeda or another terrorist organisation and Russians wouldn't even know who to blame. An

increasing number of people would turn an accusing finger to their own government.

But hush! They would do it very-very cautiously. Who knows how many fast trains will never

reach their destination...