218:Des the Dvornik

Well, here's a turn-up for the books*. I'm in UK, and here in Cambridgeshire, and in many parts of the UK, there seems to be more snow than there was in Moscow. The difference being that this will all be gone by the end of the week, (he says hopefully), whereas in Moscow I'm going to have to wait until April. In UK we can't cope with snow - thousands of schools have been closed and the country almost paralysed. 

*a turn-up for the books

a surprising event

So we're both going to New York! There's a turn-up for thebooks!

217: M&M

The year took a long time to get started. I had two lessons all week last week. Hardly enough to pay for a bus and tube ticket, never mind a plane ticket.Thank goodness it has picked up a bit this week, although there is still a bit of spare capacity left at the moment if anybody is interested?
Inter-Bridge availability

I am spending my time marching from McDonalds to the metro. 
Talking about fast food, in the UK news this week we heard that horse meat has been found in some Tesco burgers. Shock, horror! In UK we don't, as a rule, eat horse - at least not knowingly. 
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Talking about shopping in general, a friend of mine has unearthed an old, 1985, sketch of the two Ronnies where one of them is dressed as a sheikh and struggling with English pronunciation. It is from an era before political correctness so don't watch if you are easily offended and don't like to read references to golliwogs.


On 16th January in 1547, Ivan IV, aka Иван Грозный or Ivan the Terrible, was crowned Tsar - the first ruler, but not the last, to hold this appointment  or to carry on as if he did.

216:Culture vulture*

Back in Moscow after spending New Year in UK, I thought I might visit/re-visit a few of Moscow's museums. I had read that all the museums, apart from the zoo (!, yes, I know), would be free to the general public during the long holiday, 31 Dec - 08 Jan). Of course there can be only two outcomes from such an announcement: firstly it's not quite true and perhaps not all the museums will be free. Secondly the queues for the more popular museums will stretch twice around Moscow. 
This is what I found at the Museum of Contemporary History, just North of Tverskaya metro station.

A dearth of visitors	This says that entrance is payable during the holidays

After that little setback I thought I might try the Borodino panorama, having never been there before. This is what I came across on the way there

If this is Grandfather Frost then he should surely be heading away from Moscow, having delivered all his presents.

And then, when I got to the panorama, ужас!
Not being blessed with Russian patience and single-mindedness I decided to abandon the search for cultural enrichment and went instead to the cinema at afimoll to see The Hobbit. Enjoyable but not the easiest film to understand in Russian. On the way there I managed to spend a few minutes admiring the art exhibition at Vistavochnaya metro station which reminded me how vast Russia really is. I managed some culture after all.
Reminded me of the word оленовод = a reindeer breeder
* Culture vulture = noun, informal, a person who is interested in the arts
N.B. Don't forget - you can click on any of these pictures to enlarge them.

215:What a pen and ink!

We've had a major thaw; within 24 hours the temperature rose from -18°C to zero and the snow has melted and turned into slush and yuck. Nice! I think I preferred the cold weather.
Here in Russia it's work as usual on the days between Christmas and New Year (because according to the Russian religious calendar these aren't the days between Christmas and New Year). 
The metro this week has been even more crowded than usual as people come into town for their last minute New Year's presents. This afternoon I spied an empty seat at the far end of the carriage and made for it. It soon became obvious why it was an empty seat. The gentleman (of the road?) sitting opposite, gently snoozing, had obviously decided he would be more comfortable with his shoes off. He probably was but the rest of us weren't. I don't know where he'd been with those plates of meat but the smell was obnoxious. I'm normally able to withstand fairly malodorous pongs but not this time. I stopped only long enough to take the picture and then had to move to the other end of the carriage for some fresher air.

A glossary for my students today as there a few words you may be unfamiliar with:

pen and ink (cockney rhyming slang) = stink,pong	запах, вонь
yuck [mass noun] something messy or disgusting:	гадость ?
gentleman of the road = tramp	бомж
plates of meat (cockney rhyming slang) = feet	ноги
malodorous = foul smelling	вонючий, зловонный

Just to finish off, here is a short video clip of a parody of the Queen's Speech, spoken in Cockney rhyming slang! Enjoy

214:Lavrenti Beria

On this day, in 1953, Lavrenti Beria, one of Stalin's henchmen, was shot for treason. 
"And as you sow, so shall you reap" springs to mind.

Today's photo is another "leaning-out-of-the-window" shot. It is -21 degrees Celsius outside (and due to fall to -28 tomorrow) and I am lucky enough not to have to go out today. Did you know that the two temperature scales, Centigrade (Celsius) and Fahrenheit, converge at -40 before diverging again?
So here is a photo that looks like the sun trying to shine through what looks like some low cloud but I think it is some of the smoke that belches non-stop from chimneys here in Moscow.

213:The KGB

As many people know, the KGB did not go away after the fall of Communism - and why would they. Every State needs a Secret or Security Service to help look after the internal and external security interests of the State, and the people. As for how much power each Secret Service should have, that is a matter for individual governments to decide. Anyway, as I said, the KGB didn't go away, they just re-branded themselves as the FSB (The Federal Security Service). 
What I'm leading up to is that on this day (20th December) in 1917, Felix Dzerzhinsky, aka* Iron Felix, founded the Cheka, which was the forerunner to the KGB. The square in front of the Lyubyanka (KGB/FSB headquarters), was named after him until 1990. There was a statue of him there but it was removed in 1991. 

To change the tone completely, and before I'm arrested, here is a photo I took the other day of some fur hats (shapkas) on sale just outside Red Square. The colours of some of the hats are very fetching**, don't you think?

*aka = also known as
** fetching, here, is an adjective that means attractive. Sometimes, as in this instance, it can be used sarcastically.

212:English verb tenses

Sorry for the lack of a recent blog - I have been on holiday. It finishes in about an hour's time so back to the grindstone. I will fly back to Moscow tonight. 
Many thanks to Sasha for this helpful chart of English verb tenses. Hope you enjoy(ed) the pizza - whether you have already eaten it or will soon be eating it.

Couldn't resist this one - you can fool some of the people some of the time!