It’s been a quiet week this week – I wonder if everyone was out getting drunk on Russia Day? Anyway, on with the best of this week’s posts:
Katie introduces us to Polittechno. “The name, ‘Polittechno’, comes from a compound of the words ‘political’ and ‘techno’ and consists of putting politicians’ words to techno beats.”
Kyle and Svet head out to their village hideaway for a nice quiet weekend – then get caught up in a tornado.
Josefina celebrates Russia day in typical linguist style – she tackles the most difficult part of Russian grammar – Aspects. “Well, it is time for a confession: the aspect system of Russian verbs is so complex that a foreigner cannot comprehend it fully and wholly EVER. Now don’t let that get you down because you can learn the basics of it almost painlessly.”
100 years after the event, no-one is quite sure what caused the massive Tunguska explosion. Consensus is that the explosion, which was so powerful it smashed windows hundreds of miles away, was caused by a large metor or comet breaking up a few miles above. But there are plenty of other theories out there – some sensible, some utterly bonkers – that have refused to die over the past century.
In an attempt to find out what really happened, film-makers George Carey and Teresa Cherfas packed up their cameras and headed out to Siberia.
On their journey they talk to everyone with a theory, from mystics and reindeer herders, to amateur sleuths and serious scientists. Every one has a theory, ranging from the mundane and probably true (metorite explosion) to the wacky and probably not true (alien spacecraft and anti-matter explosions).
Close Encounters in Siberia, the resulting documentary, will be aired for the first time on UK channel More 4 tonight, and I assume it will make it to more far-flung parts of the world not long after.
Every week I think, oh, it’s been a quiet week, there won’t be all that much to include in the weekly blog roundup. I’ll rattle through this in 10 minutes, and go out for a drink.
Then you lot all keep writing lots of interesting posts, like these, and my drinking plans go out the window…
This week, it was also Pushkin’s Birthday. Or, at least, it would have been, had he lived to the ripe old age of 210. Josefina has all you need to know to brag to your Russian friends about your knowledge of Russian literature.
Izo translates part of an intriguing, if slightly cryptic, interview with Yuri Milner, who has just bought a 2% stake in Facebook for around $200 million.
Mikhail Lennikov is a former KGB spy who has “taken refuge inside a church in Vancouver in a desperate move to avoid deportation” back to Russia. Robert Amsterdam has the story.
Putin shows one of his Oligarchs just who is boss:“Why has your factory been so neglected?” he demanded, as Mr Deripaska hung his head in apparent shame. “They’ve turned it into a rubbish dump.Why was everyone running around like cockroaches before my arrival? Why was no one capable of taking decisions?”
And finally, via Russia! magazine’s blog, a classic Soviet arcade game for you to play – Morskoi Boi. Please feel free to boast about your high scores in the comments…
About the Author: CJ Chambers is editor of Russian Watch Guide, the leading consumer guide to Russian-made watches.
The N1 rocket. The Arktika nuclear-powered icebreaker. The Energia space launcher. The Ekranoplan KM ground effect vehicle. The TU-144 supersonic passenger plane.
These are just a few examples of significant Soviet military or scientific achievements that have become the inspiration for modern Russian wristwatches.
The company behind these history-inspired watches is Vostok-Europe. Based in Vilnius, Lithuania, Vostok-Europe has been making watches for the international market since 2004 using self-winding, mechanical movements supplied by the Vostok factory in Chistopl, Russia.
“Every one of our watches has a link to an industrial or scientific breakthrough during the Soviet era which made a significant influence to human history,” explained Igor Zubovskij, the company’s Managing Director. “This is in accordance with our philosophy and slogan ‘Soviet Techno Design’”.
And these modern watches don’t just use historic achievements as a crass marketing gimmick. They genuinely attempt to incorporate the spirit of the achievement in the watch’s design and function.
Take for example the newest watch in Vostok-Europe’s catalog, the Ekranoplan KM, also known as the “Caspian Sea Monster”. The Ekranoplan KM holds the distinction of being the largest ground effect vehicle ever built.
If you’ve never heard of a ground effect vehicle before, think of it as a cross between a hovercraft and an airplane. It flies near the surface of the Earth on a cushion of high-pressure air. This cushion of air is the so-called “ground effect”.
Ekranoplans were originally developed by the Soviet Union as high-speed military transports, and were based mostly on the shores of the Caspian Sea and Black Sea. The massive Ekranoplan KM measured 100 meters long, weighed 544 tons and was powered by ten Dobrynin VD-7 turbojet engines.
Like its namesake, the Ekranoplan KM watch is huge with a 47 mm case — much bigger than your average men’s wristwatch.
One interesting design element of the watch, the trigalight microtubes on the dial and hands provided for night time visibility, posed an unexpected hurdle to American export sales. Because the microtubes produce illumination from tritium gas and yield a minute amount of radiation, the watches must be laboratory tested, certified, packed and shipped according to special US regulations before being allowed into the country.
Another watch in the Vostok-Europe collection is the TU-144, named after the world’s first supersonic passenger plane. The plane’s maiden flight took place on December 31, 1968. The fleet remained in service until 1978. The TU-144 is still part of NASA’s high speed research program.
As you might expect, the TU-144 watch has classic aviator styling with a dual time function and rotating bezel with a 24 hour scale. Here’s a video about the TU-144 by the Watch Komrade.
More than twenty years ago the USSR built the most powerful space launcher in history. The Energia, built between 1976 and 1987, had a payload capacity of 100 tons. The Energia watch takes its design cues from the space launcher. It’s a big, powerful watch with asymmetrical positioning of the dial and subdial reminiscent of the space launcher and its side boosters.
Other noteworthy Vostok-Europe watches include the Gaz-14, a luxury-style watch named after a luxury government limousine; the Arktika, which was the first surface ship to reach the North Pole back in August 1977; and the Maxim Gorky, which was the biggest airplane in the world in the 1930’s.
It was being hyped as one of the oddest RTS (Real Time Strategy) games ever, and came with a ludicrous orange video of Stalin throwing some moves on the dancefloor at the same time as beating the cr*p out of Martian baddies.
Well, it was finally released a couple of weeks ago to some pretty impressive reviews. Impressive in the sense that it was universally acclaimed as the worst RTS game in history. I think Gamespot UK said it best:
Don’t be offended by Stalin vs. Martians’ subject matter. The genocidal communist leader may figure heavily in this budget-priced real-time strategy game, but it’s hard to be outraged when he’s gyrating his hips to the beat of Russian dance pop, or signing off his written missives with “xxooxx.” No, be offended because Stalin vs. Martians is an abysmal game that represents the dregs of game design. It isn’t strategic, it isn’t fun, and as hard as it tries, it isn’t even remotely funny. This is perhaps the worst RTS game ever created, worth neither the 1s and 0s that were used to program it nor the mental exertions expended on this creatively bankrupt waste of hard-drive space.
Stalin vs Martians. Available at today all gamestores without quality control.
Oh well. To cheer you all up a bit, here’s that video of Stalin dancing again.
Nikolai Vavilov was a globe-trotting Soviet botanist and geneticist. And now, thanks to the work of biologist Jeremy Cherfas, Vavilov’s journal is being gradually republished on the innovative and beautifully designed Vaviblog.
Now here’s an interesting rumour circulating around the Russian language blogs – 26 year old Russian Olympic gymnast turned Duma Deputy Alina Kabaeva has just given birth to Vladimir Putin’s son.
Moscow Tory is a new blog by Carl Thomson, a Scot who has worked in both British politics (he was a Parliamentary candidate for the Conservative Party in the last British General Election) and has lived and worked in Russia.
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Like its namesake, the Ekranoplan KM watch is huge with a 47 mm case — much bigger than your average men’s wristwatch. 
Another watch in the Vostok-Europe collection is the TU-144, named after the world’s first supersonic passenger plane. The plane’s maiden flight took place on December 31, 1968. The fleet remained in service until 1978. The TU-144 is still part of NASA’s high speed research program. 
More than twenty years ago the USSR built the most powerful space launcher in history. The Energia, built between 1976 and 1987, had a payload capacity of 100 tons. The Energia watch takes its design cues from the space launcher. It’s a big, powerful watch with asymmetrical positioning of the dial and subdial reminiscent of the space launcher and its side boosters.
