Questions Thread for Russian topics

There has been an item of "news", that has recently been making the rounds here, about an advertisement in Moscow with breast shots that have caused 500 traffic accidents.

Can somebody from Russia tell us if this is true or not?

Morpheus Eberhardt wrote:There has been an item of "news", that has recently been making the rounds here, about an advertisement in Moscow with breast shots that have caused 500 traffic accidents.

Can somebody from Russia tell us if this is true or not?

No doubt that they caused a couple accidents, but 500+? - They probably counted general accidents in the surrounding area of the truck-side advertisements (30 trucks!), which would explain the unreal number suggested by the media. Having 30 of those inaccurate reports and that number becomes realistic, in a false way...

500+? Maybe through whole day in Moscow district  Sounds like bad journalism. 
When they put massive led commercial screen in main street next to my house we got 7 accidents through same day. And 1 was fatal. It was new thing there. Next to busy junction. When it got dark it was uncalibrated and too bright.. I can see boobs having similar effect

Dear Russian members - could you share your experiences about what was life like in Russia in years 1992-1999? the time universally considered the worst period in history of Russian Federation.

Walther von Oldenburg wrote:Dear Russian members - could you share your experiences about what was life like in Russia in years 1992-1999? the time universally considered the worst period in history of Russian Federation.

Not exactly qualified to post here but I do have some input.

Well, given the short timeframe the RF it should be considered the darkest time period.

Some of my earliest memories were back in those times. Didn't understand things like I do now but I can say things were not good, I knew that much. Still hear horrible stories of some of the things that occurred to people during those times from my parents and relatives. I would love to hear more from others here too.

Small question: what is NGO Officers of Russia ?

https://rbth.com/news/2016/09/25/russian-ngo-blocks-entrance-to-jock-sturges-exhibition-in-moscow_633043

The Officers of Russia non-governmental organization has blocked entrance to the exhibition of the U.S. photographer Jock Sturges in Moscow in a protest against promoting his works, the organization’s head, and chair of the Public Chamber’s defense commission, Anton Tsvetkov said on Sep. 25.

Social networks and the media wrote Sturges’ works picturing nude adolescents are pornographic. Russia’s high-ranking legislator Elena Mizulina said the exhibition should be closed at once.

f considered in Russia, the works by Jock Sturges could be qualified as crime.

"Right, he could have become famous by good pictures, but remember, this man used to participate in crimes. And he likewise was brought to responsibility also in the United States, though later on was justified. But that is under their legislation, and under our legislation taking pictures of nude children and exposing them is not allowed," he said.

https://www.rt.com/news/360588-sturges-exhibition-moscow-controversy/?utm_source=browser&utm_medium=aplication_chrome&utm_campaign=chrome

An exhibition by US photographer Jock Sturges, best known for his works featuring teenage nudity, has been shut down in Moscow after some protesters blocked the venue and accused the artist of shooting child pornography.

Camouflaged men, representing the NGO Officers of Russia, turned up at the Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography on Sunday afternoon. They blocked the entrance to the building, saying they were going to evaluate the contents of the exhibition for “pedophilic” contents.

After negotiations with the activists, the Lumiere Brothers Center decided to close the controversial exhibition.

nomadski wrote:
I have a question for Russian film industry . Why Russia not make films for export market ? Just look at RT . How well it is doing . Like a breath of fresh air . Someone once said Russia lost big time to Hollywood . The only Russian film I saw was the one about that space planet brain . The one about good versus evil. And another about love story in Baku fishermen pick up a sailor . Chinese made film about flying daggers . India made films about love story singing . And Hollywood made gangster films . Even Iran made film with universal appeal to world market . Don't Russians know there is money to be made in film ? They are in good position to make film for international market . With universal appeal . The language problem is easy . Just for every scene . Two takes . One English . One Russian . One for export . One domestic . Or make it easy for dubbing . I am tired of Hollywood . State joint venture with private sector to start up . Make Moscowood film . Make Russia known to world also .

Some Russian movies had important international display, many from Timur Bekmambetov (his Night Watch/Day Watch series. He also worked out of Russia, with his Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter). He is not exactly my style, but then just to show that some Russian movies are shown abroad.
Also, here in Argentina (which is not exactly a country close to Russia, be geographically or culturally) I could watch on cable TV "22 Minuty", the film about the rescue of the kidnapped ship "Moskovski Universitet" by Somalian pirates. Once in a while I find Russian movies in cable here.
Then, Russia and the former Soviet countries is a big market, and most Russian movies are thought for it. If you look around, you can find Russian movies with subtitles. This is what I do. And I find much more interesting then expecting Russians to make movies for export, which then would most likely be copies of Hollywood movies: as Bekmambetov do.

Mosfilm (Russia's biggest studio) has its own channel in Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/user/mosfilm
Many complete films (mostly from the Soviet era) can be watched for free. Many with subtitles. Better than nothing. Some are classics still widely watched in Russia today, like "The White Sun of the Desert", highly recommeded:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPOwblHNOnQ&list=PL4dWJMOQ_a1TPLZbU-K3ic_HODgNTppT9&index=17

They also have a quite recent (from 2012) and excellent war movie (I already watched it) in Youtube, "White Tiger":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiGDJ5-dXaI&list=PL4dWJMOQ_a1TPLZbU-K3ic_HODgNTppT9&index=25

nomadski wrote:
I have a question for Russian film industry . Why Russia not make films for export market ? Just look at RT . How well it is doing . Like a breath of fresh air . Someone once said Russia lost big time to Hollywood . The only Russian film I saw was the one about that space planet brain . The one about good versus evil. And another about love story in Baku fishermen pick up a sailor . Chinese made film about flying daggers . India made films about love story singing . And Hollywood made gangster films . Even Iran made film with universal appeal to world market . Don't Russians know there is money to be made in film ? They are in good position to make film for international market . With universal appeal . The language problem is easy . Just for every scene . Two takes . One English . One Russian . One for export . One domestic . Or make it easy for dubbing . I am tired of Hollywood . State joint venture with private sector to start up . Make Moscowood film . Make Russia known to world also .

Thats a really good post. I'm British born, but of Russian descent on one half of my family. So Ru-English productions would really interest me, and I'm sure vast numbers of others.

If a programme is REALLY good, it can work with subtitles. I'm thinking KIngdom, the German series. And Gomorrah, the Italian mafia one. Also Matrioshki, the Belgian one. All appeared on British TV.

But yes, dual takes would be terrific.

I'd tried to find Londongrad, the Russian series filmed in... (duh!) London. But I can't find it on the Net. Perhaps VKontakte will have it.

I'm really bored of Hollywood. They might speak English, but the culture is just alien. We watch US films only because we're "forced" to. The British film industry (outside of hideous Victorian dramas etc) is really small, much like the TV industry in some areas.

Over the next couple of years, I'm considering scaling back the business I'm currently in.
My idea is to write film/TV scripts (I've already got some stuff part  finished). Russia has so many interesting places to film, and its history would really work well. And also, Russia and Europe DO have links, so it would work, plotwise and in terms of getting people interested.

The last big budget US film I watched had British actors but after 20mins I thought "why the fuck am I watching all this again, America is an alien world, I can't identify with it in this film". So I switched over channels.

Have no idea what you are talking about, never heard of any problem with tail section of Sukhoi SuperJet. Anyway, selling this aircraft to Iran would be complicated, as it has a lot of Western (US, European) components, which would be subject to sanctions. But soon perhaps Russia could offer the MS-21, which will have a 100% Made in Russia version since the start.

I know the Russian empire had Alaska but I think the long distance away from the rest of the country means they couldn't protect it military. What if Russia kept Alaska do you guys think the USSR or Russian Empire could have protected it from the US during the Russian Revolution in 1917 or during or after World War II? I think it would have been difficult. These two articles do a good job of explaining the situation.

https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/why-didnt-russia-sell-alaska-to-canada.htm

https://brainly.com/question/8492629

https://sputniknews.com/politics/201507311025262334/

My family has experienced disruption in sending money to relatives in Russia living on pensions. This is a new thing as Western Union
and MoneyGram worked before without problems. Now there is a systematic screwup in the name or some other excuse. Multiple
attempts fail to go through. Has anyone else experienced this?

There is already drivel being spewed inside Russia that this is some Russian government attempt to muscle in on the action.
I call BS on this, since this sort of tactic was never used before. If the Russian government wanted to deploy its own
money transfer outlets it would do that first before messing up existing transfers. It looks a lot like another dirty trick
by the west to sow discontent inside Russia.

kvs wrote:My family has experienced disruption in sending money to relatives in Russia living on pensions.   This is a new thing as Western Union
and MoneyGram worked before without problems.   Now there is a systematic screwup in the name or some other excuse.   Multiple
attempts fail to go through.  Has anyone else experienced this?

There is already drivel being spewed inside Russia that this is some Russian government attempt to muscle in on the action.
I call BS on this, since this sort of tactic was never used before.   If the Russian government wanted to deploy its own
money transfer outlets it would do that first before messing up existing transfers.   It looks a lot like another dirty trick
by the west to sow discontent inside Russia.

yeah, that notion always made me laugh "The government is doing it". OK, so first would be "prove it" and then second would be "So uh, why would they if they have no other alternative?"

You never get an answer from such morons.

I guarantee it is due to sanctions and many banks being sanctioned that these money transfer companies cannot work around.

It is something new and neither of the western money transfer outfits I mentioned stopped taking money for transfers.
If it was official sanctions pressure, then they would stop the service. Instead it looks like we have dirty tricks "sanctions".
America and its pals are getting desperate and will be trying to throw everything they can to bring Russia down.

kvs wrote:It is something new and neither of the western money transfer outfits I mentioned stopped taking money for transfers.
If it was official sanctions pressure, then they would stop the service.   Instead it looks like we have dirty tricks "sanctions".
America and its pals are getting desperate and will be trying to throw everything they can to bring Russia down.

Well, Russia is on the bottom of hte totem poll when it comes to money coming from outside of the country.

This could be just various issues in contact between the banks and these companies. Stuff like this happens. I had issues when sending money to India so I wouldn't think too much into this.

They didn't blame Russian hackers?

How inconsistent... bad propaganda....

Walther von Oldenburg wrote:Dear Russian members - could you share your experiences about what was life like in Russia in years 1992-1999? the time universally considered the worst period in history of Russian Federation.

After so many years, but I can answer: it was totally fucked up. Total unemployment and poverty, tens of millions of people were on the verge of survival. We will never know the real statistics, but Russia's losses from supermortality during this period are estimated at about 15 million citizens. Add to that the drop in the birth rate. Add to this hunger and the lack of proper medical care for a long period of time. Imagine that you can only get to the nearest dentist twice a week by walking about 10 kilometers - but you don't have the money to pay him. Bread from the store appears on your table every few months. You only eat what you've grown yourself. Potatoes and cabbage form the basis of the diet all year round. Once a month or so, you can afford to cook one of the rabbits you raise. You can kill a pig once a year or so. Only people who are well-off by the standards of the village can afford to have a cow - its maintenance is too expensive. Any money you have comes after you sell part of the crop in the fall. Have you ever worked 6,000 square meters of land by hand? You need to dig it up, loosen it, plant vegetables in it, then water them, weed them, treat them from pests, then, if you are lucky, dig up the kubni in the fall, collect the fruits. Sort them out, dry them, and prepare them for storage (you don't want all the food available to you to rot in the middle of winter, do you?). Divide them into three parts: for food, for seeds, and for sale (if you have any surplus left). Then you have to sell what you can sell - and do it as well as possible. Then you will have the money to buy a f of sunflower oil, a couple of bags of flour and a bag of sugar. Okay, in the summer, you can also stock up on more food-collecting nuts, berries and mushrooms and making them canned food for the winter. In the fall, you need to buy firewood or coal in order to heat your house, this also goes to what you received from the sale of the crop. And that's basically all the money was enough for. But you need money - you can't survive without money, because you need clothes, tools, and a lot of little things like shampoos, soap, toothpaste, and other hygiene products that don't grow on trees. So you start making moonshine. Moonshine is a universal currency. For a couple of bottles, you can arrange with a local forester to prepare a couple of cubic meters of firewood in the forest. Or exchange moonshine for a few bags of grain, which you will feed chickens, pigs, rabbits. Or just sell moonshine, getting for this sale some insignificant money that you will spend on buying something you need. But that's never enough to get you over the poverty line. And all this is true for a rural area of residence. In the city, you need even more money, which you can only get through criminal means - after all, in a legal job, you do not receive a salary for six months, and the salary itself is only enough to buy a couple of blocks of cigarettes.
Accordingly - in the country it turns out the wildest rampant crime. If you were beaten and robbed in the city, and then you had to walk 50-60 kilometers in the winter to your home-consider yourself just lucky (this is a real case that happened to my father in 1996). In a village with a population of about 2,000 people, I remember at least a few cases of murder. One of the most horrifying cases was when a woman was strangled in order to take from her purse about 150 rubles (somewhere 20 or 30 dollars at that rate). Thefts, beatings during a robbery - this was not considered anything serious at all.
The contrast was especially monstrous because the USSR was a fairly developed state. And in just under 5 years, it has turned into something resembling Somalia.
At this time, Western countries were shouting with delight that democracy had finally come to the Russians.

To be clear I do not like that Russia went through this... the end of the cold war was supposed to be a good thing for Russia, they were supposed to be welcomed into the international community and treated with respect... none of which happened of course... surprise surprise...

Garry can you unlock the Navalny thread please?

The Daily Mail reports

Alexei Navalny, 44, was last reported to be in penal colony number 2 east of Moscow. But his lawyers don't know where the Kremlin critic is now after he was transported today.