Chornobyl

When reading Olaf's story about a rock concert where the Soviet Hymn was put to a brand new arrangement, I came across this sick movie on YouTube. Someone who thinks he's funny put the National Anthem of the Soviet Union to the 1986 Chornobyl disaster footage.

There was more news about the power plant this week. Earlier this week Nestor Shufrych, Minister for Management of Emergencies, denied rumours that one of the sarcophagus' walls had collapsed. And two men were arrested on Tuesday for stealing radiators (what's in a name?) from the exlusion zone.

Ievan Polkka

2006 brought another succesful Finnish-Japanese co-production. It seems the Leekspin followed the path paved by Muumi in Japan in the 1990s.

The music is a 1930s Finnish song called Ievan Polkka, performed by the Finnish band Loituma. It is completed by a popular manga anime featuring Orihime Inoue from the Bleach series.

And of course there's a lot on YouTube: Ievan Polkka unplugged, Loituma dance, a cheap fake, an accelerating version, the commercial Jamba ringtone version, a home video and finally the real thing.

UPDATE: Check out Pippi Långstrump med purjolöken.

JB is dead...

OK, I am still lagging behind on this blog. A bit of sad news over X-mas. The Godfather of Soul who was born on the same day of the year I was, passed away on Christmas Day.

I am expecting a re-release of the 1991 hit single by L.A. Style - James Brown is Dead shortly.

A 'new' camera

Last week I bought a 30-year-old 'new' Zenit-E.

I had been looking for one already since summer, but I had no clue what would be a suitable price. Before my trip, I had asked friend Oleg in Moscow. According to him in Kyiv $40 ought to be enough for a functioning camera. Having no time to contact Oleg's friend in Kyiv, I almost forgot about the whole thing.

When one of the team members decided to buy an old grey (East?) German dial phone, I suddenly remembered. I asked one of the Ukrainian counterparts. He had a friend who revives old Soviet cameras. 30 minutes later he could meet us. The man offered a working 1970s Zenit-E with two working objectives: one Industar 50-2 and one Helios 44-2. When the man told me the price (UAH 150 = $30) for the camera and the two objectives, I had no incentive to bargain for a better price.

The Zenit-E was produced by the S.A. Zverev Krasnogorsky Zavod, the former Krasnogorsk mechanical plant (KMZ) between 1965 and 1980. It was the single most produced type, with an estimated 8,000,000 produced.

The first results of my photography are expected by next week :) Not sure when I'll have time to scan them and share them with you here!

Old Saint Nicholas traditions

Last week in Romny, Sumy oblast, Ukraine we celebrated St. Nicholas - 19 December according to the Julian calendar that is in use in the Slavonic Orthodox churches.

St. Nicholas is celebrated with dances, sketches, poetry, food, music, jokes, drinks - in any possible order.

The municipality of Romny had invited the foreign guests, the pensioners from the school and school children to the town's vocational school for celebration. The typical food consisted of typical autumn and winter stuff like roasted pumpkin, new wine, and Guelder-rose berries (Kalina). The latter was not as much enjoyed by most guest as by the hosts.


After the performances and fortune telling were over, a rich dinner was served, consisting of delicious Ukrainian food, and nice drinks. And as the tradition has it, the partying, singing, drinking and dancing continued until late at night...


... some of the foreign guests were even tempted into joining the music and other local habits...

Merry x-mas!

Dear friends,

On this day of joy, I wish you warmth, happiness and success!

I'll be away until X-mas

I am flying to Ukraine towards the end of this week. As I am not sure about connectivity in Romny, I am not sure when the next update will appear here!

Dead Poets Society (3) - Fryslân boppe (2)

Laatst een wat onverwacht antwoord op mijn zoektocht naar vertalingen van Oekraïense dichters. Maar ook het antwoord op de vraag van Bootsma: Bij Tresoar hebben ze van Freark Dam niets in het Oekraïens kunnen vinden. Wel van Rink van der Velde, namelijk 'De Fûke'.

De Fûke ('de Fuik') gaat over een Fries vissersgezin tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog. In de kwartierstaat van auteur Rink van der Velde (die in 2001 overleed) lees ik: De koarteoarlochsroman De Fûke út 1966 is fuortkommen út fraachpetearen dy't er as sjoernalist mei âldere minsken út de feanterijen hân hie yn kombinasje mei werklik barde foarfallen út de oarloch en in lokaasje oan 'e Tsjûkemar dy't him ynspirearre. De Fûke wie it earste boek fan Van der Velde, dat him yn Fryslân ôfspilet.

Wordt vervolgd...

Jeszcze Polska nie zginęła...

Also called tentatively "Radium F", polonium was discovered by Marie Curie and her husband Pierre Curie in 1898 and was later named after Marie's native land of Poland (Latin: Polonia). Poland at the time was under Russian, Prussian, and Austrian partition, and did not exist as an independent country. It was Marie's hope that naming the element after her native land would publicize its lack of independence. Polonium may be the first element named to highlight a political controversy. Poland became an independent country again in 1918, following WWI.

(History of Polonium - from Wikipedia)

Congratulations to Dutchbat III

Bosnian student radio eFM.ba started an internet appeal to congratulate the veterans of Dutchbat III who received a medal for serving in the enclave that fell to the Serbs in July 1995.

I am somewhat undecided on this issue. The poor lads simply had no mandate that would enable them to truly protect the Bosnian civilians. Furthermore they never received air support form the higher NATO echelons. But giving them an isignia for bravery is still something else I'd say. In a way this diplomatic riot diverts from what the international community should really do: force the ones truly responsible for the massacre - Mladic and Karadzic - to stand trial at the ICTY in The Hague. Only justice would eventually lead to reconciliation over this issue.

Spies like us?

Het Algemeen Dagblad haalt vandaag een oud verhaal uit de mottenballen. Ook de Volkskrant besteedde er al aandacht aan vanwege liquidatie van Litvinenko. En uiteraard ontbreekt het verhaal niet in het overzicht dat oud-hoofdcommissaris Jan Blaauw schreef over de meest opzienbarende Rotterdamse moorden in de laatste 100 jaar.

Op 23 mei 1938 werd in Rotterdam de Oekraïense nationalist Jevhen Konovalets omgebracht. Hij had in Hotel Atlanta in Rotterdam een afspraak met wat hij dacht dat een vertrouwde Oekraïener was uit de door de Sovjets overheerste linkeroever van de Dnjepr. Hij nam van de vertrouwde persoon een doos chocolade aan. De persoon verliet het hotel. Even later gevolgd door Konovalets. Op de Coolsingel aangekomen ontplofte de doos. Zijn lichaam werd uiteengereten.

Na enige tijd sloot de Rotterdamse politie de zaak onopgelost. Men vermoedde dat Konovalets het slachtoffer was geworden van een Sovjet-agent die Waluck heette.

Pas in 1994 krijgt dit verhaal een vervolg bij het verschijnen van de autobiografie van Pavel Soedoplatov. De agent van de NKVD (later KGB) - en vertrouweling van het hoofd van de geheime dienst Lavrentii Beria - bekende in opdracht van Stalin Konovalets te hebben vermoord en de roemruchte moord op Trotski in Mexico stad te hebben voorbereid. Na de dood van Stalin in 1953 ging Soedoplatov uiteindelijk ten onder met zijn beschermheer Beria.

Het verhaal is ook in 2006 nog niet afgelopen. Konovalets is destijds begraven op begraafplaats Crooswijk in Rotterdam. Sinds de onafhankelijkheid van Oekraïne in 1991 gaan er stemmen op om de overblijfselen van de nationalistenleider over te brengen naar zijn vaderland, waar hij verenigd zou worden met Stepan Bandera, Andriy Melnyk en andere leiders uit het begin van de twintigste eeuw. Een maand geleden kondigde de gemeenteraad van L'viv aan dat er eind 2006 op de Lytsjakivski begraafplaats in de stad een laan met eregraven wordt ingericht waarnaar de graven zullen worden overgebracht.

Maar wat zijn nu de parallellen tussen Konovalets en Litvinenko? Ze waren natuurlijk beiden de leider van het land onwelgevallig. En in beide zaken werd vrijwel meteen naar de Russische geheime dienst gewezen als verdachte. Maar een plot waarin Poetin zelf een decreet zou hebben uitgevaardigd om Litvinenko uit de weg te ruimen, gaat zelfs de meest cynische Kremlincriticasters te ver. En dat was precies wat met Konovalets wel is gebeurd.

UPDATE: zie ook het herdenkingsboek uit 1938.

χιϛ

Today an ancient mystery. Who dunnit? Who could have been so mean that John would refer to him in the Book of Revelations?

The Scripture seems clear:
And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. (Rev. 13:17-18)

But is it? The number 666 is thought to refer to Nero according to ancient numerology. But more than 100 years ago other indications were found: here you can see a fragment papyrus 4499 from Oxyrhynchus fragment. It seems clear that the number is χιϛ (616) and not χξς (666).

But if it's not 666 it cannot be Nero. And if it's thought to be 616 it could be Caligula. Too bad for all those RFID critics, Metal bands, George W. critics, etc.

Litvinenko case

The Litvinenko case that was all over London last week, is now also being investigated by my two friends sharing an office near the Great Communist Street in Moscow.

Apparently Remco had an interview this morning, while Coen is investigating the connection between the persons who allegedly murdered Litvinenko and the ones who freed the Dutch MSF aid worker Arjen Erkel in 2004. He has reason to believe they are the same KGB veterans. Coen is supposed to know: he wrote a book on the Erkel case and talked to the KGB-veterans.

UPDATE: Klimov is tired of life too...

Boratology

Jagshemash!

It appears that a university in US and A has scientific interest to make benefit of the glorious nation of Kazakhstan:

Few recent works of literature or film have made Eurasia as central and, perhaps, as flagrantly irrelevant to the American experience as Sacha Baron Cohen's hit film, Borat. In many respects this movie touches on key aspects of our discipline and expertise, and it also marks the distance that "Eurasia" has traveled in the American mentality since the appearance of other epoch-defining films (From Russia With Love, Doctor Zhivago, The Manchurian Candidate). Slavic Review invites its readers to submit contributions for a cluster of scholarly essays on Borat. Contributions may use the methodologies of any discipline so long as they relate in some substantial way to Borat and to interaction between Eurasia and the West.
Length should not exceed 5000 words. Contributions will be peer reviewed and must be received by the end of March 2007. If you have questions, please contact the editor, Mark Steinberg, at slavrev@uiuc.edu.

(Slavic Review: Call for Papers: Borat: Eurasia, American Culture, and Slavic Studies)

Orange Lebanon

Much surprise to see Orange protest again on TV after two years. Protesters in the streets of Lebanon have embraced the colour Orange for their protest, in honour of the Free Patriotic Movement led by general Michel Aoun. The Hezbollah-led protests are meant to persuade Prime Minister Siniora to resign.

With such friends, who needs enemies?

Fading orange

Little over a week after they celebrated the second anniversary of the 2004 Orange Revolution, the Ukrainian Parliament (the Verkhovna Rada) sacked two of the revolution's figureheads: MFA Borys Tarasyuk and Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko.

The President and Parliament are still quarreling over the legitimacy of this last move. This will lead to case in front of the Constitutional Court when the President challenges this decision. During the Orange Revolution a compromise was reached were key Ministers in the government are appointed by the President and approved of by the Parliament.

Meanwhile the Revolution's Jeanne d'Arc, Yuliya Tymoshenko, MP, tries to initiate a referendum on the dissolution of parliament.

Куди йдеш, Україно?

Cyber terrorism

For a long time I believed that Cyber Terrorsim was something that existed only in books like Dan Brown's Digital Fortress. As a matter of fact Wiki writes this: September 11, 2001 lead to further media coverage of the potential threats of cyberterrorism in the years following. Mainstream media coverage often discusses the possibility of a large attack making use of computer networks to sabotage critical infrastructures with the aim of putting human lives in jeopardy or causing disruption on a national scale either directly or by disruption of the national economy.

That corresponds with my narrow view on the subject. Of course I remember 1999, when I could witness the defacing of some Nato websites and later the retaliation of the Chinese for the 'accidental' bombing of their embassy during the Kosovo crisis. But cyber terrorism is different league.

Some hours ago the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) supposedly warned financial institutions for an upcoming attack on their systems. Al-Qaida would carry out cyber attacks on the U.S. financial industry to retaliate for abuses at the Guantanamo Bay prison facility.

Would there finally be an attack this winter?