GREMLIN FROM THE KREMLIN

Здравствуйте! Welcome to my blog! This is a side blog where I send posts about Russia, past or present, that I find interesting. Gremlins Lurking

[sovietpostcards]

“On the Way” (Едут) by Aleksandr Labas (1935)

[sovietpostcards]

Muscovites celebrating Yuri Gagarin’s space flight (1961)

Older generation recalls that there were massive spontaneous celebrations on April 12. After hearing Levitan’s announcement, people immediately got out on the streets needing to share the happy news. What a day to live!

[sovietpostcards]

Volha and Mikula postcard by Ivan Bilibin (1961)

[sovietpostcards]

Vineyards in the south of Russia (1964)

[sovietpostcards]

Olympic Mishka porcelain figurine made at Leningrad Porcelain Factory (LFZ) in 1980. 

[picsfromsiberiangirl]

An Isolated District of Panel Houses.

[sovietpostcards]

Moscow metro map, 1956 edition

(For reference, this is how it is today.)

[sovietpostcards]

NO - peace enamel pin

[18kgold]

#this makes perfect sense in russian but in english it’s a little odd at best  (via @ehonauta)

It is *amazing* in English! Nonsensical, but amazing. 

But I don’t get why there’s a Roman ‘N’. To indicate that the nuke would come from a country using the Roman alphabet (presumably the U.S.)? 

[ehonauta]

I think I had a dyslexic moment and didn’t even realize it was a latin ‘N’ and not an ‘И’ 

Huh, weird. @sovietpostcards can you shed any light on what the “N” stands for?

[sovietpostcards]

You know, I thought long and hard about the N, the best I could come up with is that it symbolizes No in English. @luckynumberpreciousmetal might be on to something.

[unexplained-events]

The photo above is the closest humanity has ever come to creating Medusa. If you were to look at this, you would die instantly. 

The image is of a reactor core lava formation in the basement of the Chernobyl nuclear plant. It’s called the Elephant’s Foot and weighs hundreds of tons, but is only a couple meters across.

Oh, and regarding the Medusa thing, this picture was taken through a mirror around the corner of the hallway. Because the wheeled camera they sent up to take pictures of it was destroyed by the radiation. The Elephant’s Foot is almost as if it is a living creature.

[madmaudlingoes]

Friendly reminder that this blob of core material was so hot and dense, it melted/burned through three floors of the building before coming to rest in the lowest basement.

And there’s now a unique species of black mold that feeds off the gamma radiation it produces.

[zubenpics]

Is no one else seriously freaked out by that mold? No? Just me, then?

[clarabosswald]

wiki article about the mold

[grubsludge]

LOVE that mold!

[bowelflies]

okay but

wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwhy was someone shooting it with a kalashnikov

[unexplained-events]

I can sleep again knowing that The Elephant’s foot is weak to Kalashnikovs

[thepieshops]

Soviet Matchbox Labels

Famous Operas

[sovietpostcards]

Tynda to Moscow train and its crew (1984)

Tynda is a town in the Far East of Russia, the “Capital of BAM” (Baikal-Amur Mainstream).

[haxyr3]

Word of the Day: никакой

никакой /nʲɪkɐˈkoɪ̯/  - 1) (indefinite pronoun) not any of possible variants, no, none; 2) (slang) (about person’s state) inactive, senseless, e.g. very drunken or exhausted

[sovietpostcards]

Soviet hand lettered film titles

[sovietpostcards]

Design sketches for various Moscow Metro stations (1930s)

[malteseboy]

Peppa Pig in Different Languages

I’m pretty sure everyone knows who or what Peppa Pig is. If you do, you probably have watched it one time or another when you were little. I used to like it because of the simple vocabulary it has and it gave me great joy when I understood a whole episode in English.

If you’re a language learner you know how difficult it is to listen to shows or movies in your target language because they’re so fast. Peppa Pig is obviously a children’s show, but it has been translated into a lot of different languages that may help out any beginner in a language or anyone who wants to give a watch and see if they understand it! Peppa Pig - being a children’s show - uses slow speech and simple vocabulary that small children can understand, here’s a list of Peppa Pig in different languages you can watch on YouTube:

Albanian - Derkucja Pepa

Arabic - Peppa Pig

Belarusian - Свінка Пэпа

Cantonese - Peppa zhū (粉红猪小妹) 

Catalan - Pepa la Porqueta

Croatian - Pepa Prase

Czech - Prasátko Peppa

Danish - Gurli Gris

Dutch - Peppa Big

Finnish - Pipsa Possu

French - Peppa Pig

German - Peppa Wutz

Greek - Πέππα το Γουρουνάκι

Hungarian - Peppa Malac

Italian - Peppa Pig

Korean - Peppa Pig

Latvian - Cūciņa Pepa

Lithuanian - Kiaulyte Pepa

Macedonian - Прасенцето Пепа

Mandarin - 粉红猪小妹

Norwegian -  Peppa Gris

Polish - Świnka Peppa

Portuguese - A Porquinha Peppa

(Brazilian) Portuguese  - Peppa Pig

Romanian - Purcelusa Peppa

Russian - Свинка Пеппа

Scottish Gaelic - Peppa

Serbian - Pepa Prase

Spanish - Peppa Pig

Spanish (Latin America) - Peppa Pig

Swedish - Greta Gris

Ukrainian - Свинка Пеппа

These are the ones that can be found on YouTube. Unfortunately, there are some languages missing but if anyone knows where one can watch them please feel free to add!

[sovietpostcards]

Russian labels of Pepsi Cola and Fanta from the 80s

[letsstudybuddy]

Russian music recommendations:

I’ve only recently started listening to Russian music, but it’s definitely helped me to listen more carefully and singing along is good for pronunciation. Here are some of my favourite songs that I’ve come across so far!

Classics:

These songs and artists are all classics, almost everyone in Russia knows and loves them 

Утренняя гимнастика - Владимир Высоцкий 

Моё сердце - Сплин (please listen to this i love it so much

Этот город - Браво

Рюмка водки на столе - Григорий Лепс

Ой снег снежок - this is a famous folk song, performed here by Марина Девятова

Я шагаю по Москве - Никита Михалков - originally from the 1964 movie of the same name, this song is just so beautiful and the speed makes it easier to understand 

Newer songs:

Чай - ДДТ - ДДТ formed in 1980 and their older stuff is great, but this song is from their latest album, released in 2018

Цой - Ленинград - Leningrad are famous for catchy, sweary songs, but this one is clean! Most of their songs are available on youtube with Russian and English subtitles which is great, but they are often rude!

Что, если - Саша Алмазова & Non Cadenza  Fairly new band, jazzy

Always open to more suggestions and recommendations! Let me know if you give any of these songs a listen :)