Category

Proshu Slova

• 12.28.09
  Guns
  Proshu Slova (1)

  When I first started watching Russian movies from the Soviet days, I was surprised by the prevalence of guns in civilian hands. Like in this 1970s movie, where some kids get a handgun, albeit with tragic results. Kids also get their hands on a gun in Balkon, but I've barely started watching that one, so I don't know how it turns out. I got to thinking of it because of a recent fuss over guns on the bicycle touring list. Every once in a while someone brings up the topic of packing ...
  
  
• 12.07.09
  Back to the earthy life, forward to danger
  Proshu Slova, Semnadcat' mgnovenij vesny (2)

  I still don't know what to call the 2nd category into which I'd put this scene. Up to this point Inna Churikova's character has always been dressed in 1970s business atire. She has a family life as well as a public life as town mayor, but she has never before put on a housedress. But in this scene she does, puts some stirring traditional music on the turntable and goes to work washing floors. I take it as a sort of getting herself back to the peasant roots of Mother Russia, to inspire some ...
  
  
• 12.05.09
  Floor washing
  Komissar, Nonna Mordyukova, Proshu Slova, Semnadcat' mgnovenij vesny, Vor (0)

  Last week I tried washing our kitchen floor the way I've seen it done in Russian movies. It's a way to do a good job of it, but it's not that easy. I haven't done enough of it to decide whether the method should help Russian women stay young and agile, or if it would age them prematurely. Last fall I took a one-night-a-week class in conversational Russian at MSU. In a session when our teacher, a young woman from Ukraine, was teaching us how to describe some household activities, I asked her if Russian woman really ...
  
  

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