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.

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!

Mumiy Troll was great – I’m glad they decided to add some US locations to their concert tour. Unfortunately, if you’re in the U.S. and you haven’t seen them by now, you’ll have to wait till their next tour. They’re in Seattle tonight, then back to Russia for a few more shows. (See their site for the schedule.)

Lead singer, Ilya Lagutenko, was quite the entertainer. This was the best picture I could get of him because he was all over the place! The pic doesn’t really show it, but he was making weird bug-eyed faces the whole time, too.

As you might be able to make out here, the band came out in Russian sailor costumes. The drummer, Oleg Pungin, just wore the black and white striped shirt that they wear underneath – anyone know what those are called? Reminds me of one of my favorite Russian experiences – train rides. (Just because young men on the train would often wear those navy undershirts.) Also, check out the number of heads in front of me! This was a small venue and I was able to weasel my way up pretty close to the stage!

The opening band was local Russian band, Ru Pasaran. They were a nice warm-up to Mumiy Troll.

The lead singer kinda reminded me of a young Vince Vaughn.

Were any of you lucky/smart enough to make it to one of their shows? What did you think?

Now I am not quite as passionate about Russian history and politics as I am the language, but I was thrilled to finally get in that embassy! I must say, considering how “fortress-like” it is from the outside, I was surprised at how beautiful it was on the inside! Here are my photos from the day…

We were welcomed by Russian Ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak.

Remarks were given by Henry Kissinger.

A couple pics from inside the embassy!

Bonus pic: A rose from the embassy rose garden.

I’ve seen them a couple times in the past and was surprised to see that they had changed their name from “Red Elivses” to “Igor and Red Elvises” (no, no “the”). My first thought was that lead singer, Igor Yuzov, was getting a bit greedy and wanted to take the band in his own direction. So I was skeptical, but happy to see that the band still included gifted drummer, Adam Gust, plus two new members, Kefir Melamed and Milka Ramos. 

There was no sign of the trademark giant balalaika, but, as usual, most of the band wore animal print pajamas. I looked them up after the show to find that the name change was not a result of any prima donna issues (from what I could tell), but rather of former band mate, Oleg Bernov, running off to join the circus! www.slavasnowshow.com

As usual, it was a fun show. I must say that the addition of Milka Ramos was a great choice. Her gravelly voice and punk-rock style add a lot of charisma.

“You don’t need to be able to read Cyrillic to understand this Russian band—a fluency in groovy post-punk and edgy guitar rock is all that’s required. The foursome, based in Vladivostok and Moscow, fires off sparkling pop songs that keep its young chainsmoking fans dancing.” – The New Yorker, January 26, 2009