Personally, I really enjoyed it. Just like at the real-world Meetups, it’s good to have a time where you tell yourself, okay, for right now, it’s Russian only. I’ve gotten a lot of practice speaking lately, but writing is another story. You can’t fudge those case endings!! And it’s good spelling practice, too!

So I want to thank everyone who participated. I’ve already gotten some feedback, and it seems that everyone would be interested in doing it again, so I’m thinking this could be a monthly thing. So if you missed it this time around, stay tuned – you’ll get your chance!

Thanks, also to the tweeps who filled out the survey. If you participated in the tweetup, and haven’t filled out the survey yet, here’s the link.

And finally another big thank you to my fellow bloggers who helped me spread the word: Vicki Boykis, Russia Without Borders, and Russian Sphinx.

I was a little surprised, so I immediately googled, “What’s Ashton Kutcher doing in Russia?”

Photo by @aplusk (via twitpic)

As it turns out, he, along with other American Technology gurus, was participating in a State Department Delegation to Russia. To put it very briefly, the goal of the trip was to meet with Russian technology and community leaders to discuss how technology and social media can save the world.

For more information, see:

***And finally, see Ashton talk about the trip live on USTREAM on February 25, 2010 at 10:00AM PST!!

So here’s my question: Ashton, now that you’ve been to Russia and all, will you be participating in the Tweetup this Sunday??? (Hope to see you all there!!)

Now I don’t want to offend the other athletes. You can get the low-down on all the Russian sports here. But Russia is expected to take the gold in men’s hockey – in part because of the Washington Capitals’ own Alex “Ovie” Ovechkin (not to mention Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin and Atlanta’s Ilya Kovalchuk).

Photo by clydeorama

As someone who has lived in the DC area for a few years now, I am ashamed to admit that I have never seen this scary Russian in action. He was the NHL MVP for the last 2 seasons and was recently chosen as the new captain of the Capitals, whom he has lead to victory in their past 14 games!! (Game stats here.) He has already won too many awards and honors to mention in this blog, but you get all the info here.

So if you want to check out Ovie and the other Russian hockey players in the Olympics, here is the schedule. And don’t forget to check back in 4 years, when the 2014 winter Olympics will be held in Sochi!!

So it’s settled, I’m hosting my first Russian Tweetup on February 28th at 1:00pm EST/GMT-5 (1:00pm = 21:00 Moscow time) and you’re invited! (Click here if you need help with time zones.)

This is the first time I’m doing this, so it’s going to be a little experimental, but this is how it should work:

• Everyone will log onto Twitter on the day and time specified above.
• Simply tweet as you normally would, but follow each post with this hashtag: #rltu (Russian language Tweetup)
• You will need to run a search for this hashtag to follow all the tweets. You can do this simply through Twitter, but it’s best to use an application like TweetDeck, or HootSuite.
• The point is to practice Russian, so tweets should be in Russian.
• It’s a good idea to have a Russian/English dictionary open at the same time in case you need help. Multitran.ru is a good one.
• The Tweetup will last an hour.

Well, I think that’s about it! Let me know if you have any questions, and I’ll be tweetin’ with you soon!

On a side note, the word блин is also used in slang to mean dang or darn.

So, as some of my twitter followers already know, I had the pleasure attending my very first blini party this past weekend. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures of the event, but basically there was a stack of blintzes that reminded me of this picture from Shel Silverstein’s “Where the Sidewalk Ends”.

Here is the accompanying poem, if you’re interested:

PANCAKE?

Who wants a pancake, Sweet and piping hot? Good little Grace looks up and says, “I’ll take the one on top.” Who else wants a pancake, Fresh off the griddle? Terrible Teresa smiles and says, “I’ll take the one in the middle.”
—Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends

So we started with the stack of blintzes. Two stacks, actually – one sweet and one not-so-sweet. The not-so-sweet blintzes were accompanied by a choice of a mushroom sauce or a chicken and egg dish. Oh, and of course сметана – or sour cream! For the sweet blintzes, there was variety of fruit-related toppings. I have to admit, I filled up mostly on the sweet blintzes, topped with Nutella and bananas. What do you like with your блины?

All of this deliciousness, was accompanied by an endless supply of mimosas – all in all, the perfect blini party!!

A big shout out and thank you to my buddy, Alex, for inviting us!! Can’t wait for the next one!

Recently I tried something a little different: Animated Soviet Propaganda. There are four discs in all: 1. American Imperialists 2. Fascist Barbarians 3. Capitalist Sharks and 4. Onward to the Shining Future: Communism. Each disc has 10 or so animated shorts, followed by a “making of” documentary. So far I’m halfway through the series. (I’m on the cheap Netflix plan; two movies per month.)

I watched “American Imperialists” a while ago and really enjoyed it. It’s interesting to see what the stereotypes of your own culture are – or were – even if it was just propaganda. If you’re not a Netflix subscriber, you can find a lot of the shorts online. Here is one of my favorites from that disc:

Two more of my favorites from disc 1 were Someone Else’s Voice and Mister Twister.

The other night, I finally got around to watching the second disc in the series, “Fascist Barbarians”. I’m sorry to say, I just didn’t enjoy this disc as much as the first one. There was one short, however, that is a must watch if you are interested in Russian culture and history. It’s called “To You Moscow” and was made to commemorate the 800th anniversary of Moscow. It depicts the history of Moscow up to that point. Here is part 1:

I am going to take a break from animated propaganda for now, but I’ll check in when I’ve watched the rest of the series. Has anyone seen any of these films? What did you think?

(Note: This is a small, almost pocket-sized book.)

Don’t worry – it’s not all dirty words, and body part euphemisms. While much of the book does make me blush, there are still sections like ”Friendly Russian” and “Poppy Russian”. It even provides some basic language instruction at the beginning, including an alphabet pronunciation guide.

Here are some other things I like about the book:

• They give you full phrases and sentences, not just one-word translations.
• They tell you the feel of a word – whether it’s “kind of formal” or “cutesy”.
•  They relate it to specific English slang. They don’t just give you five ways to say you’re not feeling well – they tell you how to say “lousy as hell”, “pretty crappy”, or “really shitty”.
• Quick reference charts, like a guide to name-calling.
• Bits of info on Russian culture, for example, what their toilets are like.
• And of course, cute illustrations!

My one criticism of the book is how the stresses are represented. As you might be able to make out in the photo above, the phrase is given in English, then transliterated, then in Russian. But the stress is only indicated on the transliteration. So for those of us who can read the Cyrillic alphabet, you still may need to look at the transliteration to find the stress – just a tad inconvenient. Oh, and there’s no index, which would’ve been helpful.

Published by Ulysses Press, you can find the book anywhere online, but here’s a link to Amazon.com, where you can get it brand new for about $5.

This photo has nothing to do with Russian other than it’s what I got to enjoy while I wrote this post – Thanks, Danny!

Photo by quinn.anya

And I’m so excited. If you’ve read my about me page, you’ve seen that I already spent 4 months there in 2003. This will be my first time back since then. But I’m only going for 2 or 3 weeks, and who knows when I’ll be back, so I need to make it count. Researching for this trip is going to be my big project for the next few months and I’ll need your help. When should I go? Where should I stay? And what should I DO?

So many decisions! So please, send me your tips, your success stories, or even better – your horror stories about your travels to Russia. I’m also looking for helpful books, websites, travel agencies, anything that can help me have a better trip. I’ll return the favor and report back as I figure things out.

I do have a couple things figured out already. We (my husband and I) are going sometime in the summer – probably July or August. Part of me will miss the charm of the beautiful Russian winter, but the rest of me wants to be able to spend a lot of time doing my favorite travel activity: walking around outside in between sitting in cafes drinking coffee.

The other thing we know is our main destinations – we’ll spend some time in both Moscow and St. Petersburg. I’ve been to Moscow, but this will be my first time in St. Petersburg, so any advice will be much appreciated!! I’m really looking forward to sharing my “passion for Russian” culture with my husband, who’s never been there. I want to be a great tour guide – and interpreter (which makes me a little nervous, but mostly excited) so help me out if you can!

Anyway, here are the best 3 Russian language learning blogs I’ve found (so far):

#1. Transparent Language Russian Blog

And yes, these are presented in a particular order: this one’s my favorite. It is written by Josefina, a Swedish woman who moved to Russia 6 years ago to study Russian literature. (This post provides more info about Josefina.) Each post covers a cultural topic and gives examples of Russian words and phrases. What I really like about the blog, is how the author’s personality really shines through. It’s like you’ve made a new friend that can help you with your Russian. The material is also very useful and she provides stress marks on Russian words.

#2. Russificate

Well, the main reason I like this blog is that it’s actually written in Russian. So it may not be the best blog for beginners, but for me it’s perfect. It’s written as if the author is the teacher and we are the students. Sometimes she even gives homework assignments (which I have to admit, I don’t usually do).

#3. Russian Word of the Day

As you might guess from the title, this blog gives the reader one new word each day. It also provides other interesting tidbits about the word, and its usage. One thing I love about this blog is that it always provides the declensions of the nouns and conjugations of the verbs. And the info is always presented in nicely organized charts! Stress on the Russian words is indicated by red print.

If you are studying Russian, I recommend that you check out these three blogs. Feel free to let me know what you think. And I’ll try to do a better job of keeping up with them myself!

Are there any Russian language study blogs that I’ve missed? Let me know!

Since it’s the holiday season, I thought I’d start us off with a few holiday movies.

First, one of my favorite movies of all time: “It’s a Wonderful Life”. The Russian version is pretty much a direct translation from English: “Эта замечательная жизнь”.

The next one is also pretty straightforward: “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” is translated as “Гринч – похититель Рождества”. This (loosely) translates back into English as “The Grinch – Thief of Christmas”. I’d never seen the word похититель before. The online dictionary I mentioned in a previous post gives the definition, thief; kidnapper; abductor; hijacker.

“Shrek the Halls” poses one of the translation problems I mentioned early. But I love how they handle it.

If you’re familiar with Russian culture, you know that Дед Мороз (Father Frost) brings the gifts, not Santa. So they’ve combined Дед Мороз with Shrek to come up with Шрек Мороз, then added Зеленый Нос (green nose) for a little rhyming action: “Шрек Мороз Зеленый Нос” – I love it!

What’s your favorite holiday movie??