Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, almost in Moscow

Meaning – his plays in Moscow...
Somehow unexpectedly I became interested in the work of Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt. And what I`ve discovered: almost everything is already translated into Russian, published in several (!) editions, his plays are in the repertoire of many (!) theaters all over the country already... Well, okay, now I also now :)

His “philosophical” plays are interesting – in the sense that otherwise, without that “easy” manner, I perhaps wouldn`t read anything about French philosophers of the past. We all are too busy for that... (*bad joke).

I liked his stories more. Or are they novels? Three of them are written as by a child or a teenager, so we see the story as the young main character saw it. “Oscar and Lady in Pink” , “Monsieur Ibrahim and the flowers of the Koran” , “L`Enfant de Noe” . Briefly, these are the stories of young people in complicated or just terrible circumstances, and how they search for truth, how they learn about life, about people and about themselves. They are not sentimental but they are true. They are worth reading.

Several Moscow theaters have his plays adapted to Russian. “Oscar and Lady in Pink” (14 letters to God) was interpreted by a very reputable Russian actress Alice Friendlich (from St-Petersburg). My web search investigation showed that those plays were played in many towns, in professional and amateur theaters, and always got approving feedbacks and enthusiastic reviews.

As for me I saw “Libertin” last Friday in Moscow and it was good :) Interpreted by the troupe of the Satire theatre . I definitely liked the scene décor – an imitation of the French park, and the dialogues were also distinct and meaningful, not lost anything from the original Schmitt`s idea, so the final applause were merited.

Funny thing – once you are interested in something – you start to see it all around you. Now there are many Schmitt`s books in the shops I see, the French center has his books in Russian and French, they even have a DVD with one of his plays and the film based on his story... He is quite a productive author and well-known in the theater world. The point is - am a bit surprised anyway :)

By the way, Mr.Schmitt was in Moscow, in 2005, for his one more new book.

Moscow - Budapest - Larnaka - Paphos

So in Cyprus now, solving "personal" issues :)
The flight here was through Budapest - managed to save half the price of usual Russian Aeroflot price. So was enjoying Hungarian Airlines and the whole night in Europe :)

Also managed to "visit" the actual Budapest because still have my "French" Shengen visa. So that was sort of exciting, though need to be continued. The funny moment appeared during the passport control and customs when I had to deal with the citizenship thing. The question by the officer: "So how many days do you plan to stay in Hungary?". My answer: "Well, like four hours" :) (thinking in my head that 9pm still may be considered to be a late hour for the sightseeing tour" :)

Planning to visit more Hungary on the flight back - like whole five hours :) BTW what surprised me a bit: they still have fohrints (whatever), no euro. Ciao now.

PS: have returned the rented car today and bought a scooter, cool.

BBC

One topic + one article + two pictures = some difference.
Regular BBC and Russian speaking BBC.
The text also differs a bit but I saw the pictures first.

PS: the links (if automatically) are opened in the same window, sorry for the inconvenience)

Two facts from my side

Still trying (unsuccesfully) to keep myself aside from talks about “politics” but found the following two details to be quite demonstrative... though still not going to make any analysis, anyway:

1) The radio weather forecast – typically giving weather forecast for the largest Russian towns. Now includes Tskhinvali (the capital of Southern Ossetia). Heard that recently and a bit unexpectedly - while having my cup of tea on my rented kitchen. Felt weird because always considered weather forecast to be absolutely politics-free, but it is obviously not...

2) The Moscow B-Day (861 years now). Once a year, the first weekend of September - to celebrate something like a city holiday. Something the city authorities invented for spending stupid money and stopping the traffic on the main central roads (fine with me). Several lines of security. A crowd walking along the roads and watching shows here and there. One of the main concert stages is specially (temporarily) build on Tverskaya street facing the Moscow City Hall. A group of “Georgian” dancers. Very recognizable Georgian melodies. Female scream from the audience – sort of “hurray” but in a crazy hysterical way. Silence from all others. Nobody cares actually as people just want living their lives – weekend, promenade, some music.



It`s true that enjoying life is my favorite philosophy, and I am with those people enjoying the music, but I am honestly puzzled by such “sweet” facts... like nothing happened... and like people won`t see and won`t understand... so why all that? The weather, the concert - with not a lot of text. "Just enjoy it" sort of thing...

PS: The monument in the center is to Yury Dolgorouky, the founder of Moscow. All other enormous stuff is constructed just for these two days.

A bit of linguistic investigation :)

Nothing to advertise here (on the photo). Me personally don`t visit it – have enough of junk food already, so that`s just samples of Georgian letters making the famous name.

And as you see there are eleven letters here, which is one more than ten needed to pronounce it in a typical version. As far as I know in Georgian you always add a vowel when the name ends with consonant. For example, no David but “Davidy”, no McDonald but “McDonaldy”. That definitely works for names, but perhaps not only. Anyway I was told that :)
And speaking about vowels: there are only five of them in Georgian alphabet (in Russain we have ten ), though the total number of letters is the same - 33 :)

Another fact: There are no capital letters in Georgian alphabet. There is a full stop, but all the writing is one size.

Interesting... And looks lovely :)


Tbilisi underground. "M" is for "Metro" (like in Moscow and perhaps everywhere :))

Ciao now.

Having some hectic time at work now - and actually that`s ending soon, contract`s termination and no more job in a week, hahahah - but still have this desire to show Georgia, though all talks and conversations look a bit postponed now. First I had this depression based on politics, mass media and attempts to influence (me), now I just have a hard time in general, so actually speak soon and see you later :)

Tbilisi: signs, flags etc

Flags and fountains everywhere. People are quite happy with the fountains because they are lovely in hot climate (and actually really helpful). But I`ve heard complains that all that is too expensive for the economy, especially thinking about extremely low social pensions.

Just a sewer manhole in the old town.

The old-fashioned military tailoring shop - in the Old Tbilisi.

City graffiti, no comments

The diplomatic relations with Russia has been stopped today. The Russian embassy in Tbilisi (and the Georgian consulate in Moscow) put their flags down. (quite a bad picture done during the brisk walk in Tbilisi, cuz the guards usually don`t encourage making pictures of such buildings; end of July 2008, still with the flag).

Tbilisi airport

Looks like Tbilisi airport is working now again, the flights are scheduled, but no more flights to and from Russia. The "Russian" flights were renewed this March after almost two years of stoppage. No idea when they will back now.

The airport is a modern building, not really large comparing to the biggest ones, but okay, clean and comfortable. I felt safe there even with my early morning flights.

Georgia, July

So it is near Gori. The view from the mountain where the so-called Cave city - a group of buildings made in the rocks - was created, and that was in the Bronze age.

The town Gori is actually famous because Joseph Stalin was born there. The town is not really large, but it was well taken care of during the Soviet times - big roads were built, and modern (for their time) buildings were constructed. Right now (in July) the town and the neighbourhood looked like a mixture of good roads (not typical for other towns) and old buildings needed to be reconstructed. The outskirts looked especially poor, but as a part of local authenticity - not so bad, just real.

As the Wikipedia tells right now - the town was invaded by Russian troops during 2008 South Ossetian War (this August). I have no idea how does it look right now, but I had a chance to see Georgia like this - sunny and peaceful.

So after returning...

I definitely meant to appear here after my Georgian trip... Which was absolutely great and fantastic, and made me to fall in love with this country and everything, but after all what happened after my flight back to Moscow... Which is so terrible I can`t find the words...

I spent the last week comparing Russian and western news, listening to some radio (as no TV where I live), reading BBC and others - web sites in Russian, English and French which made me feel quite terrified about the news and also about the difference in the news. But generally I was just thinking about those who stayed in Georgia - in Tbilisi, in Gori - as I have visited both of the towns and perhaps saw those people on the streets... Perhaps some others who were flying with me to Tbilisi but stayed there a bit longer - they can`t return to Moscow now as all flights (and boats) to Russia stopped... Tbilisi is quite an international town now, with people from all over the world (mostly from US and EU), sure there are a lot of Russians there as well... I am really quite far away from any politics, they are doing thier ugly things and my position was always - just don`t think about them. The implemented scenario made me being involved in the story, but right now - I really don`t have anything to tell yet, still getting pieces of information and thinking.

Am thinking about those who has become involuntary and innocent participants of all that.

Georgia was just great for me...