I read a book recently called Farewell: The Greatest Spy Story of the Twentieth Century by Sergei Kostin and Eric Raynaud. It was really, really good, as is the excellent film that is loosely based on it (L’affaire Farewell). The book was translated from French and unfortunately, the translation leaves a bit to be desired in certain sections, but overall it is very interesting.

One of the main things I remember from this book was the KGB slang I learned. (Yes, there is such a thing as KGB slang.) The term I learned was мокрое дело (mokroe delo), which translates to “wet affair” – i.e. an assassination. (If I’m not mistaken, this term exists in English, too.) I’m not sure what this says about me as a person that one of my favorite aspects of the book was learning this slang. It probably just means that I am way too obsessed with spies and Russia, but we already knew that, right?

Oh, and if you haven’t seen it, you definitely should watch L’affaire Farewell. It’s available on DVD with English subtitles and is amazing because Emir Kusturica is in it. Emir Kusturica is one of my favorite filmmakers and actors ever. And now that I’m thinking of him, I am reminded of the fact that he speaks Serbian and I want to speak Serbian so badly and so I’m going to publish this blog entry and go study random Serbian words.

One of my favorite spy novels

Dear authors,

I love a good spy novel. In my mind, spy novels are a sub-genre (or at a related genre) of thrillers, another type of book I love. I also love Russia and anything Russia-related. So, as you can imagine, a spy/thriller involving Russia just about makes me swoon with delight. What makes it even more amazing is the occasional Russian word or phrase inserted here and there, but don’t worry, this certainly isn’t required.

However, one thing that really, really cuts into my enjoyment of a good solid spy novel is factual inaccuracies. I specifically speak of those relating to Russia. One factual inaccuracy I often encounter is reference to the KGB in a modern (that is, post 1990s) context.

Look, I get it. The KGB was big and bad, and you think the modern Russian intelligence services are also big and bad. I don’t dispute that fact. However, it is inaccurate to make reference to a character currently serving in the KGB. The successors to the KGB are the FSB and SVR, so all those dreaded Russian spies roaming around now are either FSB or SVR employees. (The FSB handles internal affairs and the SVR external affairs.) Just for reference, there is also an agency called the GRU that handles military intelligence, too (and it, unlike the aforementioned FSB and SVR, has retained its name from the days of the Soviet Union).

I know that it’s hard to do research and have each and every fact be correct. Nevertheless, I feel that such an important issue as this really needs to be resolved once and for all.

If you have any questions about Russia, I would be happy to help.

Sincerely,
Natalie, your friendly neighborhood Russia expert

First, the United States.

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Who are all these people still using Internet Explorer? Internet Explorer is probably the worst browser ever created!

Here’s Russia.

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That’s better. I’m glad to see all the Chrome and Firefox users. Though I do wonder what browsers people in the “other” category are using.

And finally, the United Kingdom.

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Wow, I didn’t realize how popular Chrome is over there! Unfortunately, Internet Explorer also remains popular in the UK.

For reference, here is the worldwide chart. Chrome dominates, surprisingly. Too bad that Internet Explorer is in second place.

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Happy Victory Day!

Happy Victory Day! I hope everyone will take a moment today to remember those who died in World War II.

If you’re interested, there’s a video below of the parade at Red Square. As usual, Russia’s leadership wanted to show off its military might. I think my favorite part of the parade was at the end, when the airplanes with colored contrails flew. I have no idea how they color those contrails, but it looks so cool.

The most famous photo of World War II. Aleksei Yeremenko in 1942. He was killed in action in 1942, right after this photo was taken.

Victory Day will be celebrated tomorrow in Russia, as it is every May 9. Even in this era, World War II is a really, really big deal in Russia and many former Soviet countries. I’m not really sure why that is – perhaps it’s because of many years of Soviet propaganda, which was necessary because the Soviet Union really didn’t have many other accomplishments (aside from oppressing people, if you know what I mean).

The fact remains that World War II – or, as the Russians call it, the Great Patriotic War – is still well-remembered and really important. (As a historian, I obviously think it’s important and should be remembered, but the United States doesn’t retain the same respect for it as Russia does, unfortunately.) As Vicki aptly pointed out, so, so many movies made in Russia somehow involve World War II. In all honesty though, the Russians have made some really good films about the war (they’ve certainly had enough practice!).

Every year, the Russians have a massive Victory Day parade in Moscow. It’s awesome and I really, really want to go. (I’ve watched it on TV for the past four years and I plan to continue the tradition this year.)

Thinking about World War II always makes me sad because of the sheer number of people who died. The soldier in the photo at the beginning of this post died right after the photo was taken. His name was Aleksei Yeremenko and he was a political officer in the 220th Rifle Regiment, 4th Rifle Division. He never knew that he would become famous due to a serendipitous picture taken a moment before he died. That just said, and what’s even more sad are the millions of soldiers who died like Yeremenko, but who are not remembered because they didn’t have a famous photo taken of them fighting.

Happy Victory Day, everyone. Let us never forget World War II.

If you’re interested, you can read more about that iconic photo here in English, or here and here in Russian.

I think Puccini would have fit in well in Russia – those are some seriously depressing lyrics. Click here to read in literal English and poetically translated English.

Want to spend the rest of your life on Mars? In about ten years, you might be able to.

Here’s a piece about that plan to put people (permanently) on Mars. It could be a fun idea for a science fiction story, but it’s really freaky in real life.

How about that: “America’s tech talent shortage is a myth”. Looks like big tech companies propagated this myth of a “programmer shortage” in America in order to justify passing an immigration bill that would allow them to legally hire foreigners and pay them lower salaries.

A piece that isn’t anti-MBA. How refreshing.

Foreign Policy magazine has two epic articles about Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. I’m posting this for my mom, who I know really likes Lavrov.

Lastly, I finally signed up for Goodreads, so if you’re on there, add me as a friend.

Enjoy your weekend, everyone!

I found this semi-obnoxious image in honor of 1 May, a holiday in Russia. Click on it to see it larger and in all its ridiculous glory.

I can’t believe I haven’t written in a week! I was really busy last weekend studying for economics (I ended up getting an A in the class) and for most of this week, I’ve been writing. This week, I have written over 8,000 words of my novel. I feel like it’s finally shaping up and turning into something halfway decent. I have been very impatient about my writing recently since I discovered author Russell Blake. He’s written almost twenty books in fewer than two years.

In writing, there’s no substitute for lots and lots of practice, so I am trying to get that practice in and actually finish a novel. This current one I’m working on has been in the works for almost five years now. That’s a bit ridiculous and it’s time I finished it.

This is what I found when I searched ‘economics’ on Google images.

I had my last real economics class last Monday. (This upcoming Monday doesn’t count since that’s the exam.) I honestly can’t say I’ll miss the class, which is paradoxical. After all, I liked the teacher and absolutely loved the material. I learned a lot and I am more informed when I read the business section of the newspaper.

What I didn’t like about the class were two things. First off, the textbook was absolutely dreadful. It was so bad that I’m not even going to link to it on Amazon. (For those curious, we used Krugman’s Economics in Modules.) Most of the time, I ended up reading other sources. I even downloaded a few free textbooks (legally, of course) that were a lot more useful than the dreadful tome we used. Luckily, I only paid thirteen dollars for my copy (thank goodness for Amazon marketplace!), so that makes me feel a bit better.

The other aspect of the class that bothered me were the people. We did not cover nearly as much material as planned – I would estimate that we shaved off about one-third of the material because people could not keep up. I’ve said this before: I don’t mind it when people ask questions. What is annoying is when one person monopolizes an entire thirty minutes of class time talking about a basic algebra issue. This person was the worst combination: she was both outspoken and stupid, which made for some frustrating questions asked.

This isn’t the last economics class I’ll take. In fact, I know that this fall, I will be enrolled in an intensive macroeconomics and microeconomics course. I hope my experience will be better than my recent one.

And I sincerely hope that we will not use any textbooks written by Paul Krugman.