The last station

By Karyn Dubravetz on March 26th, 2010

Okay, the title of this post has a double meaning, so I hope everyone can follow along:

Meaning #1:
A few weeks ago, I saw, “The Last Station”, a movie about the final years of Lev Tolstoy’s life.

The Last Station
Photo by Design Haus

I don’t think it’s showing in theaters anymore, but you can eventually get it on Netflix. I enjoyed it, but honestly, it’s probably more of a renter, anyway, even though both leads were nominated for Academy Awards. And of course, к сожалению, it’s in English, not Russian.

Meaning #2:
Heading home from the film, my husband and I couldn’t help but notice that we live at “the last station”. Take a look this map of the Washington subway system:

Washington DC Metro Map
Photo by dbking

See the stop on the end of the red line in the upper left-hand corner? That’s where we live. And see that cluster of stops in the center where all the lines intersect? That’s downtown, also known as, where I work. So, if you couldn’t guess by looking, I have quite a hefty commute to my office, not to mention most social outings we attend.

BUT…..thanks to our current landlord for raising our rent, we decided we can afford to move in to “the city”!

So that’s my breaking news: We’re moving!!! (And I just used the movie as an excuse to blog about how excited I am.)

So have a great weekend, everyone, and let me know if you want to help us move! ;)

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And the Oscar does NOT go to…Russia

By Karyn Dubravetz on March 16th, 2010

I recently had and missed the opportunity to see the film, Ward No. 6 (Палата № 6) at the National Gallery of Art as part of a mini film festival honoring Anton Chekhov and his 150th birthday. I later found out that Ward No. 6 was Russia’s Oscar submission for Best Foreign Language Film.

If you watched the Oscars (another one I missed) you know that “Ward 6″ did not even receive the “honor of just being nominated”. It got me thinking about what Russian films have been nominated, or even won Oscars in the past.

Oscar
Photo by shaun wong

So here is a list of Russian films that have been nominated for academy awards. If the title is a web link it will take you to Netflix where you can and should rent it! Most of these that I have seen are really great – especially Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears and Burnt by the Sun – I own both of them!

Which ones are your favorites??

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We tweeted up!

By Karyn Dubravetz on March 1st, 2010

Yesterday I organized my first Russian language tweetup. Overall, I’d say it went pretty well! We had a handful of participants, most of whom were native speakers, which is great for those of us who are still learning! It got off to a little bit of a slow start, but after a while it was almost hard to keep up with all the tweets!

We tweeted up
Photo by netzkobold

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.

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What’s Ashton Kutcher doing in Russia?

By Karyn Dubravetz on February 24th, 2010

So the other day, I was running my usual twitter search to see what people were saying about Russian language. And much to my surprise, I saw a few tweets to @aplusk, who I happen to know is the unofficial king of Twitter, himself, Ashton Kutcher. So I click on his twitter page, and sure enough, he’s in Russia.

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

Ashton Kutcher, Red Square
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:

  • My google search
  • Ashton’s tweets from the trip (Search for #rustechdel on twitter to see all tweets about the delegation.)
  • Venture capitalist and fellow delegate, Esther Dyson’s flickr page for pics
  • A report on the outcome of the delegation in English or Russian

    • ***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!!)

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    The Olympics Hockey

    By Karyn Dubravetz on February 10th, 2010

    The 2010 Winter Olympics begin this Friday, February 12th. So I wanted to talk about which events Russia is expected to dominate in. But with the exception of a few figure skaters here and there, there is really only one sport to talk about when it comes to these games: Hockey!

    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).

    Alex Ovechkin
    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!!

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