To begin today’s festivities, a couple of entertaining but true factoids about Russia.
1. In Russia, anybody who mentions ISIS in a public context is obligated by law to follow the word “ISIS” with “a terrorist organization that is banned on the territory of the Russian Federation.” In Russian, this sounds even more clunky than in English. Imagine what poor TV journalists and commentators have to go through when they do news segments on ISIS. The endless repetition of this formula has a hypnotic effect and, at this point, nobody hears anything but the formula.
2. The Russian Parliament (called “The Duma”) has a committee dedicated to the defense of Christian values. Yes, seriously. But wait. It gets better. The committee is chaired by an MP who belongs to the Communist Party. Yes, seriously. But wait. It gets better. This Communist / defender of Christian values suggested that Russia take Hagia Sophia away from Turkey. Since Hagia Sophia is located in Istanbul, this must mean an invasion of Turkey by Russia, but hey, when Christian-Communist values demand an invasion, an honest MP cannot resist.
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But this is the ancient Russian dream (was it fulfilled by the Prince of Kyev or not, my history is rusty?) – to nail the shield to the gates of Constantinople…
As for the “ISIS forbidden note “- the most hilarious thing (or disturbing) is that Russian language newspapers everywhere feel the need to include that cumbersome sentence. No one is sure if they just do not bother to remove it when copy-pasting news form Russian media in Russia, or if this is what the readers actually like.
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“As for the “ISIS forbidden note “- the most hilarious thing (or disturbing) is that Russian language newspapers everywhere feel the need to include that cumbersome sentence.”
I wonder, do people do this in private conversations, too??
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It would make for very tedious listening after a very short time. What do Russians in Russia think about such weirdness? Does it come across as weird as it would here in the west? or does it come across as some on steroids form of political correctness? I can’t imagine every Russian just accepts it as normal it must sound like a Monty Python sketch.
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Newscasters all giggle when they repeat the mantra and try to make it sound entertaining with a variety of funny voices and intonations. Russian-speaking people are rarely earnest. This is a highly sarcastic culture, so nobody takes this kind of things seriously. But the law is the law.
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Food fight.
Turkey’s embassy in Moscow was pelted with eggs from patriotic Russian Federation chickens yesterday. In response to French President Hollande’s statement of full support for Russian efforts to destroy ISIS, Russian internal security will turn its attention from French cheese mafia arrests by the state food inspection force established after the EU Ukraine sanctions to Turkish apricot bandits flooding the country with unsafe produce.
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Hilarious. 🙂 Jokes aside, there is a weird fixation on food going on with Putinoids.
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Funny but true.
Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s consumer oversight agency, announced it had seized 800 kilograms of “high-risk Turkish products,” including meat, candies, and nuts.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/russia-targets-turkish-economy-in-retaliation-for-downing-of-warplane/2015/11/26/b0fb7fac-9433-11e5-a2d6-f57908580b1f_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_turkeysyria945am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
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“Constantinople was Istanbul
Now it’s Constantinople not Istanbul
Been a long time gone
Old Istanbul has Turkish delight
On a moonlit night …
Every gal in Istanbul
Is a Miss Constantinople
So if you’ve a date in Istanbul
She’ll be waiting in Constantinople …”
(for those who don’t get the joke, find the video for the They Might Be Giants song “Istanbul” …)
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