Francophone films, Saratov flight, IT, Under pressure

Hello :)
Was going to speak about pretty great films I saw last week thanks to the Francophone Film Festival. That`s an every spring event in Moscow. Not really an event with the capital "E", but still - able to gather together quite an audience - all sorts of local francophils and cine-mans.

There was a really good selection this year, and I (sort of) promise to write about it. That`s actually part of my self-discipline program - writing about stuff I see or read, but often wrong timing...

Like for example today. Not only we have switched to summer time, which took a whole hour from my sleep. But arriving at work today, with still quite a sleepy head - thanks to late films and early wake-ups - was interesting to find out that tomorrow I am actually supposed to go to Saratov. That is a town further south from Moscow, on the river Volga. To think geographically, Saratov region has borders with Volgograd region (everybody knows former Stalingrad, I presume) and Kazakhstan... Well, briefly, it needs a flight to go there, and I still don`t have a ticket and bla-bla-bla...

What happened is that my colleague who was actually planned to go there - had appendicitis. She is fine now, the operation was quick (emergency style), and she sounds pretty energetic on phone already and asking for the laptop. The funny (yes, still) thing about this was that she actually made her own diagnosis herself. Once she felt a pain on Sunday at home, she went to Internet to compare what she felt with what that could be... Okay, three hours later, after a quick decision about calling emergency, the operation was over... The funny thing is - if that is not obvious still - that we actually work in the IT education program, so advertising IT skills pretty often :) And impressive, how things can be changed all the time (and now speaking about me going to Saratov). There will be the seminar for new tutors of southern regions.

Have you ever heard the Queen`s song "Under pressure"? It shows pretty well the rhythm I am in today. Several arrangements, including one meeting out of the office in some Academy... I like the middle part (of the song, when about love), but the whole harmony of the song is really good. Having it in my mind now, and quickly finding some small video on YouTube (right click please) - so everybody would listen and enjoy :)

Can't we give ourselves one more chance,
Why can't we give love that one more chance,
Why can't we give love give love give love give love...

Cos love's such an old fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the light
And love dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves
This is our last dance
This is ourselves
Under pressure
(c) Queen

PS: Love, and wish me luck :)

PPS: the last statistics I read - about IT - tells that Russia is on the 74th (!) place speaking about information/communication technologies. The Networked Readiness Index (NRI) includes three main components: (1) environment for developing IT, (2) public, business and government intention to use IT, (3) the actuall use. If interested, Denmark is the first, followed by Sweden and USA. Latvia is 48th. But the 74th place... The following article (need to be clicked) is in Russian, but puting it here as a proof.

Schooling, if that`s a word

Thanks to my work I have visited the special school recently. Special in the sense of just not the most typical. Jewish school and quite progressive (no, I was not suggesting that those were antonyms).

Anyway, the whole idea of such schools is international now. Originally they were created to give education – and more practical than theoretical, meaning useful in life – for Jewish kids, basically from low-income families.

Nowadays they are well equipped with IT tools, they have lovely (and playful) recreation halls and nice classrooms. There are lockers for pupils! (so easy and convenient, and so rare in other schools in Russia.)

All the signs are three-lingual, which looks just great. For some reason I made photos of only the doors, and not the general view.


The exhibition of Hebrew language manuals – retro and modern. Funny, but even knowing about the special letters and system (perhaps it can`t be even called "alphabet", because there are no alphas nor betas in Semitic languages), anyway I have never visualized the actual book in Hebrew, which in reality should be read from the other side, from the end to my sight of a person with the Indo-European languages family background.

Patch of spring sunlight on the glass



The smiling star on the photo congratulates everybody with the Teachers Day, which is actually celebrated in the beginning of October, but the star managed to survive till spring and is still giving us a smile.


Once there, I saw three under-teenage boys playing with the big toy-cars, you know, those with the controllers. That was pretty noisy, and though it was Friday afternoon and the boys were already free from their lessons, but it was still learning time for others. And as they were “racing’ with their cars in the large recreation hall close to classrooms, one of the teachers came to them and started to speak. I was not at any school for already many years of my life, but deep memories about my specialized grammar school in a provincial town are obviously still with me. And in my mind the possible conversation with such boys would be quick and resolved in a certain way from the beginning. I mean, the teacher would say pretty sharply something like “Stop it now!”, and the other side would obey with the deep feeling of guilt.

But here… I was watching it from my corner and totally enjoying the situation. They – both the teacher and the boys – started to speak! The teacher was explaining them about the others lessons, the boys were apparently complaining that there is no other place for these cars to be fully enjoyed. Then the teacher had to suggest them where to go, offering the keys from some bigger but free space, and they were just discussing the whole thing… She was also suggesting to stay with them them, so they definitely could use this opportunity. And that`s it, they made an agreement. I was sort of glad to see those boys, who were ready to protect their right to use the school space for some fun, and also to see this teacher speaking – and discussing! – things with the boys of like twelve years old… I never though I was so traumatized by my school experience, and I mean it in a positive way now.

Okay, here is about the whole ORT thing (you may click on the pink-ish words). As far as I understood, the name is based on the Russian abbreviation of the “Organization of Manual Labour (or handwork)” (remembering the original idea of such schools), and in Russian the actual words making this phrase are started with O, R and T, pronounced as “Organizatsyya Rutchnogo Truda”, for those who accepted the challenge to pronounce it in Russian :)

And here is the school. Situated in a typical old-school building, and numbered as 1299 (Moscow is really huge, there are like three thousand schools here). By the way I always determine the size of the town by finding out how many schools the town has. For example, my native Vladimir has approximately 40 schools (can be 41 now), and it is for the population of almost 350 thousand.

And now am finishing here, because actually am at work now (yes, sunny spring Sunday) - facilitating on the seminar organized in the office during the weekend. Some teachers from around the town, advancing thier IT skills for further tutoring work. My job today is simple, just organizing room, food and equipment for them, and doing whatever I want in between. Lunch soon and all is fine :)

One discovery a day. A glimpse of Paris in Moscow

I was sure that won`t be here for some time, as the conference is at its climax now, so not enough free time and not enough routine work (starting to miss old boring routine :)

Anyway am here today to show what I`ve discovered just yesterday. The photos are made in quite the center of Moscow, still within the central city line (so-called “the cirle line” or “koltsevaya” if in the local lingo).



Close to one of the railway stations – a huge one named after Kiev, as it uses south-western direction, the “Kievsky railway station” – there is an underground station entrance which imitates Paris! Which of course was just nice to notice among all those dirty spring puddles in Moscow.



Today I was not resizing the pictures much, so by clicking on them you can see them in quite a big size and (if possible) enjoy all those nice (less or more) Moscow details. Such as: a back of a relaxingly promenading policeman, a tramp eating from the ground, a crowd waiting for a city bus, a huge and tasteless shopping center, a classical building of the actual railway station, an advert using some classical plot. And also: a real Moscow metro map and a metro map advert “made” with flowers (watch the colors of the lines), buses, a trolleybus and boring weather. Besides there is an electrical poll carrying clocks, bus schedule, advert of speed medical analysis (speaks for something) and also stars shining for holidays, and also “fancy” electrics… I love Moscow! It`s crazy and sometimes ugly, but it is fantastic.



I also love Paris, and as I know it now, all that metro mimicking is because the train to Paris (two-days-way for one way) starts from the Moscow Kievsky railway station.


PS, just in case: it`s not me going to France by train, but the conference just happened close to the place.

PS, in case anybody is interested: "Paris" is pronounced like "Parizh" in Russian :) The flower-like letter in the end of the word "Париж" is pronounced like "zh" sound.

Faisons un rêve, let`s dream...

Long-long time ago inspired by the previous post...

So hello, glad to be here again. Had some busy time - finishing the February conference and now starting several March ones, and going to Cyprus in between. By the way, what a short month February was! A week in Paphos (Cyprus) allowed to manage all the stress involved - if flying away from Moscow might be considered as management... The week in Cyprus was devoted to - lets` say - my growth as a person being in a relationship (balancing right now between being open and keeping it secret).

Well, the inspiration part now... I mentioned "Faisons un rêve" the other day. That is a theatrical play, in French, devoted to one simple story happening in one room during less than one whole day: since afternoon till the next morning. There are three characters in the play: a husband, a wife and a host, to whose apartment the family couple came, and who originally is an advocat and the rich husband`s sort of friend, and who within a couple of hours becomes the wife`s lover. Such an obvious resume sounds so obvious to be absolutely obvious, that it can`t be just that obvious. I mean - for me to write about it now... Anyway, in reality, it is simple as that, but the whole play is a fantastic piece of art. Brief, laconic and elegant. Funny and intuitive. No serious morality, but just lovely and lively.

The author and the actor, Sasha Guitry –


In English the title might sound as "Let`s dream" or "Making the dream" or something like that as far as I understand.

The author, Sasha Guitry, wrote it in 1916. He was also playing in the first versions of the play (he was the "lover" character). Later, in 1937, there was the film, again with Guitry and one of his wives (one at the time).

Film poster, antique –


There also was a version with Danielle Darrieux and Louis de Funès, the star of the Fantomas epic, who here was the husband, as you can imagine (1957 in Théâtre des Variétés, Paris) and some other later versions. I won`t be surprised if that is an everpresent classic for many smaller and provincial theatres, though my only conclusion is : to be successful this play strongly requires really classy actors, otherwise it might become an obvious and banal adultery.

In 2007 there was a thought on French TV, on France2 channel actually, to make theatre closer to common public, so they decided to restart an old idea with transmitting theatrical plays on TV, and even more - to transmit theatre on-air. Not sure the project still exists, but the idea was to make several issues, and « Faisons un reve » was the first one.

On-air –


Bernard Murat, quite a serious French theatre personality and director of Théâtre Edouard VII, situated close to the legendary Olympia concert hall in Paris (just turn the corner) was invited to make a play. Actually I have no idea who was invited to invite others, but anyway. The acting team was presented by Pierre Arditi (fantastically energetic), Michele Laroque (intelligently elegant) and François Berléand (sympathetically blunt acording to the script). There were only 3 presentations – with the audience - before the on-airing. Finally that was a big success, including me going to France to see it.

The team, to say it shortly (Berleand and Murat standing, Arditi and Laroque sitting)


After some editing and using shots from several days, the play was released on DVD


Now the same play is being presented in the same theatre since last autumn. Should be a succes as far as tickets are still being sold, and there are still several shows a week (attention, no Mondays). For the same reason of popularity, not everybody from the old (good old 2007) times can afford to be there (in Paris) almost every evening. So now Pierre Arditi is facing Clotilde Courau and Martin Lamotte.



Everyone from the cast is worth mentioning about. Pierre Arditi – in Russian I would use the word “fireworks” to describe him, but doubt it is an adequate equivalent in English. He is so full of life, laughs and irony! Once in the theatre, before the first show, there were exchanging remarks among the public (which I managed to pick up with my level of French), discussing something really special to follow soon as “the Arditi`s monologue in the beginning of the second act”. That sounded very promissing and expert-wise. Michele Laroque - I definitely can speak hours and hours about her. Briefly, she is a great person :) And there are all prooves that she is a strong actress. I saw a lot of Berleand in films, Lamotte looks like a more theatre person...

At some point I was so interested in everything around the play and its participants, that my investigation was pretty serious and quite detailed, including finding rare biographies, printing staff with broken French accents from internet etc. Interestingly, Arditi`s parents were French and Belge, if that makes a real difference (his father was a painter). Berleand`s father was of Russian origin, but actually of Armenian, and that makes a difference. Lamotte`s acting coach was Tania Balachova, French actress from Saint-Petersburg. As for Michele Laroque, her story looks one of the most amazing ones, with her mother running from Chaushesku Roumania in late fifties (and hers - still not twenties). I`d love to speak a lot about all of them, but trying to keep it short now.

Clotilde Courau is a real princess by the way with all the status involved. Once I saw her picture in the magazine (hello, the Moscow French Center), somewhere in the celebrities` lives section, which I admit reading, and there was a man standing with her on the photo with a “husband-like” look and quite a remarkable name - Emanuele Filiberto, which was my clue. His last name was also - « di Savoia », and as it turned out - he is the grandson of the last king of Italy, Umberto II.

It is quite exciting for me to start from a play, searching for its text and then finishing with conversations about communist Roumania or abolition of monarchy in Italy.



As for me, I can say that I have finally succedeed in implementing my innormous desire to translate the play into Russian (still unpublished though ahah). Not long ago I managed to find the magazine in the French library in Moscow, with the original text. But even before that happened, I have already done my translating exercise using the subtitles of the DVD :) That might be an example of my enthusiasm. That was fun anyway – the remarks in the play are lively enough not to be dull, so I was rewatching and rewatching... So now, if you have an intense wish for using the Russain text of the play, for a good purpose, just let me know :)

The magazine. With the real text :)


By the way, there is some nuance in French theatres I never heard about before: besides of the ticket you pay some extra for being sat. Private theatres in France have this thing – on the basis that they are private and, apparently, have auditorium staff as volunteers. Well, that was a news for me with my background which includes – among the rest – common and open "soviet" theatres (still for money though). So my first time there, enjoying my new knowledge, trying to be polite at maximum, armed with only a credit card and with just a minimum amount of coins available after buying a croissant earlier – I can only hope that the lady specially trained to accompany me to my seat finally forgave me... Defending their right to get this extra money, I would say - that makes some sense. The seats` order - does not.

Hope the French accents pressented here today looked correct, otherwise your computer should be responsible for not showing them properly.

Not sure why I have started all that nostalgia about the theatre. Perhaps I want to go to France again... Bye now, all the best !