What makes the FSU so interesting?

[mendeleyev]

If we sink the idea of floating nuclear plants we'll lose a great source of jokes:

A neutron walked into the floating nuclear plant bar and asked, "How much for a drink?" The bartender replied, "For you, no charge." 

[mendeleyev]

Since the sacking of Constantinople (modern day Istanbul), Moscow has been considered the "Third Rome" of Orthodox Christianity and this naturally means that Russia generally views the mistreatment of Orthodox Christians elsewhere with concern. The US war in Iraq pretty much destroyed the minority Orthodox Church there with few left that weren't killed or relocated to the West.

In Syria the Russian government has proclaimed it's interest in the large minority Orthodox Church there which has been protected by President Assad from being killed off by Islamic rebels. In 2012-2013 several thousand of Syrian Christians have been relocated to Russia. Russia will back Assad for several reasons, including his role as protector of the Syrian Orthodox community from Islamic persecution.

Fast-forward to Egypt where Egyptian President Morsi, thankfully ousted, had allowed the Muslim Brotherhood to create a new reign of terror on the Coptic (Egyptian) Orthodox community. The Coptic Orthodox is a minority faith, but the second in size after Islam and the oldest continuing minority community in Egypt.

The USA had turned a blind eye to the destruction of Egyptian churches and killing of Christians for fear of upsetting the Muslim Brotherhood but with Morsi out, things may return to some sort of normalcy for Orthodox Christians in Egypt, especially as water wars are heating up in Africa. Next door neighbor Ethiopia, a friend of Russia and an Orthodox nation, is building the largest dam in Africa, sparking concerns from other nations which share water from the Nile.

Maybe those Egyptian Orthodox Christians might be best left alive after all. Ethiopia, a Christian Orthodox nation surrounded mostly by Muslim neighbor countries, is building a large "grand" dam on the Nile. Egypt is asking the Coptic Christian Orthodox Church, the largest and oldest minority Christian body in Egypt, to help negotiate water issues with Ethiopia.



Ethiopia: the Nile River (above).

In the map below the smaller blue line close to the centre is the Nile (Нил) river running from the bottom in Ethiopia (Эфиопия) thru Sudan (Судан) and Egypt (Египет). The larger body of water you see in blue to the centre/right is the Red Sea (Красное море). The Nile empties into the Mediterranean Sea (Средиземное море) at the ancient city of Alexandria (Александрия).

The map is correct; the Nile flows northward.


 
Egypt gets 95% of its drinking water from the Nile, and being a desert country with almost no rain, depends on water from the Nile for drinking, agriculture and industry.



The Nile runs through most of Egypt's major cities. Above is the capital, Cairo.

Under 1960s agreements Egypt is entitled to 66% of the Nile's water but other neighboring countries are thirsty, and want to renegotiate. There is talk of war over water as eleven countries get most of their drinking and agricultural water from the Nile.


Dam construction has begun in Ethiopia. (Photo: rushydro.ru blog.)

At times the river splits into two before coming back together. They are called the Blue Nile and the While Nile. When separated the Blue Nile is the larger river.

[Gator]

I am missing the relevance of the Nile to Russia; nevertheless, I read because part of my education was in water resources and I have long been interested in the Nile.  Plus I have traveled through Egypt and Ethiopia.
 
Egypt constructed a huge dam on the Nile at Aswan, a project financed by the Soviets and completed in 1970.  Sudan has dams.  So why not Ethiopia?   The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will be a huge boost to the Ethiopian economy. 
 
The Blue Nile originates in Ethiopia, and together with a second Nile tributary to the north   (the Atbara River), Ethiopia is the source for a majority of the Nile annual water flow, mostly as runoff in a  3-month rainy season (see graph http://www.mbarron.net/Nile/fctfl_nf.html)
 
Downstream countries of Egypt and Sudan could be affected.   "Morsi said Egypt would not tolerate losing 'one drop' of Nile water and made thinly veiled threats of military action by saying 'all options are open.' "  OTOH, Sudan has endorsed the project. 
 
The water resource experts believe the Ethiopian dam will have a net positive impact.  Its primary purpose is hydroelectricity not irrigation, so not that much water will be diverted.  Evaporation is a major loss of water in the region, and the evaporation rates in Ethiopia are much less than at the Aswan impoundment.  Thus, annually regulating flow to store more water in Ethiopia  and less in the Aswan, will increase the amount of water available from the Nile in Egypt.   
 
The sensitive period will be filling the huge reservoir created by the Ethiopian dam.     The issue of how many years to take to fill the reservoir has not been resolved.  The issue is being addressed by the Nile Basin Initiative, an organization of water ministries of the countries bordering the Nile (population of 300 million).   In the long term, one would think that Ethiopia may be interested in irrigation as well, and such would reduce water flow to the Nile.
 
 
 

At times the river splits into two before coming back together. They are called the Blue Nile and the While Nile. When separated the Blue Nile is the larger river.

The Nile never splits except at its Mediterranean delta.  The Blue and White are the two largest upstream tributaries.
 
 

[mendeleyev]

Gator, thanks so much for your contribution!

The interest to Russia lies in ties to Orthodox Ethiopia and Egypt's relation to Russia in terms of wheat/grains. Egypt is the world's largest importer of wheat and as ties have begun to improve, Russia will likely step in with aid now that Morsi is gone. There is naturally a desire on the part of Russia to develop a relationship with Egypt in terms of Russian wheat sales.

Mrs. Mendeleyeva (ethnic Russian) was born in Ethiopia, her family lived in Egypt for a time, and as a result this story is of importance to her also. Addis Ababa the capital is also headquarters of the African Union.

Yes, the net result should be positive for Egypt in the long term however there is the issue of whether or not they will retain the 66% share of the Nile's water. What are your thoughts on that issue?

[SANDRO43]

Mrs. Mendeleyeva (ethnic Russian) was born in Ethiopia

Another famous Ethiopian-born woman, albeit somewhat earlier (3,4 million years ago) :

"Lucy" (Australopithecus afarensis) and partner

[OlgaH]

Russian journalists' team "Correspondent" (Reporter) conducted an interesting experiment at the Wine - Vodka competition in Sochi.

Their mix consisted of fermented apple juice, pure ethyl alcohol, cheap import wine, baking soda, citric acid, and glycerin.

They filled the wine bottles with the mix,  put fancy labels on the bottles and displayed the wine under a fictitious and also fancy company's name "Melange Infernal" along with the famous Russian wine and liquor companies.

Russians who tasted the mix were very pleased with the mix giving their compliments and raving about the "wine" bouquet  and...  "Melange Infernal", the "Correspondent" team,   won a silver medal for the excellent quality of their experimental mix 



 

[mendeleyev]

Oh my, you'd have thought the name would give it away. 

[mendeleyev]

17 July marks the anniversary of the murder of Tsar Nikolas II and his family after the Bolshevik revolution.

Held under house arrest in the Siberian city of Yekaterinburg, Russia, Tsar Nikolas II and his family are executed by the Bolsheviks. The brutal murder brought an end to the three-century-old Romanov dynasty.

Billboards around the country call attention to the Romanov family's impact on the Russian nation.



In July of 1918 the White Army was advancing on the city of Ekateringburg and so the local "Soviet" (committee) ordered guards to kill the Tsar and his family.



On the night of 17 July the family was awoken from sleep and told that because of trouble in the town, the family would be safer in the basement of the house they were living, the Ipatiev House. The entire family including Doctor Botkin the family physician and three servants were led down to the basement.



In the basement they were lined up for a group photograph. Suddenly A group of four Bolshevik officers and seven Hungarian soldiers appeared in the basement and begin firing.



The seven soldiers were Hungarian prisoners-of-war who didn't speak Russian but had joined the Red Army as Communists. The Hungarian soldiers were chosen out of fear that ethnic Russian soldiers would not shoot at Nikolas and his wife and daughters.

After the firing stopped the princesses had to be finished off with bayonets as they had stuffed jewels in their blouses which had deflected the bullets.



Celebrating the 400th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty in St. Petersburg was marked by a solemn Divine Liturgy observed on 12 July in Saint Peterburg's Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in the Peter and Paul Fortress​.



The liturgical observance of the 400 year anniversary since the beginning of Romanov rule was celebrated by Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church.



In 2000 the Russian Church canonized the family as passion bearers: people who face death with resignation and in a Christ-like manner, but as distinguished from martyrs who are killed explicitly for their faith.

[Larry1]

Mendy,
Nice writeup about the killing of the Tsar and his family.  A number of articles have been published because it's the anniversary of the killings.  Here is one:

The tsar files: Who killed the Romanovs

In the night between the 16th and 17th of July 1918 the family of Russia's last Emperor, Nicolas II, was killed in Ekaterinburg. RBTH investigates the identities and lives of the killers of the tsar.

Even now, 95 years after the murder of Russia's last czar, Nicholas II, we do not know precisely how many people took part in the deed. One account of the event claims there were eight, and yet another insists there were 11—one for each murdered member of the Russian royal family.
It is clear, however, that the killing squad was led by two men named Yurovsky and Medvedev-Kudrin. Both later penned memoirs in which they described in great detail the night that Nicholas II was killed: both were proud of their role in Russian history; both held important jobs until their death, and remained respected members of Soviet society.

Yakov Mikhaylovich Yurovsky (1878–1938) served as the superintendant of Ipatyev House in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), where the royal family was held by the Soviet government. He also led the shooting squad. He claims that he personally fired the bullet that killed the czar. The participation of Yurovsky, who was Jewish, in the killing of the last Russian monarch later gave nationalists reason to complain that “our father the Czar was murdered by foreigners.”
There were, in fact, only two “foreigners” in the killing squad: Yurovsky and Tselms; the latter was of Latvian extraction, and his participation in the killing is questioned by many.

Yurovsky was a jeweller by profession, and, on the night of the killing, he was determined to find the czar’s diamonds. In this he succeeded; after the bodies of the czarinas were searched, about 17 pounds of jewellery was found sewn in their clothes. Yurovsky later handed it all over to the superintendant of the Kremlin. For the most part, the first Bolsheviks were not interested in money—but they undoubtedly were extremely ruthless.

Yurovsky later served as chairman of the Urals Regional Emergency Committee (the forerunner of the Soviet NKVD and later KGB), head of the gold directorate at the State Reserve, and head of the Polytechnic Museum in Moscow. These were all very senior positions in the strategically important first years of Soviet government. Yurovsky died in the Kremlin hospital, which was completely off limits to all but the most senior government officials. The cause of death was perforation of the duodenal ulcer. According to eyewitnesses, he died in great pain.

Some of the czar killers remained friends for the rest of their lives and would often invite each other for dinner. Yurovsky, Goloshchekin and Medvedev (who were also part of the shooting squad) sometimes chatted about their shared crime over a cup of tea. They especially liked to argue over who fired the first shot that night. On one occasion, Yurovsky arrived at the party in a triumphant mood. He had just received a book published in the West, which said in no uncertain terms that he was the one who had killed Nicholas II. He was extremely delighted.

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Medvedev-Kudrin (1891–1964) also held senior jobs after the Bolshevik Revolution. He served for a time as assistant to the head of the First Directorate of the NKVD. In the 1930s, he toured provincial universities and colleges, regaling students with his account of the czar-killing. In the late 1950s, he was awarded a personal pension of 4,500 rubles, which was a vast sum of money at the time. During his meetings with law students at Moscow State University, he fondly reminisced about 1918, when he and his fellow Bolsheviks had to save ammo and use bayonets to finish the enemies of the working class.

Medvedev eventually achieved the military rank of colonel. Before his death, he wrote detailed memoirs about the murder of the Russian royal family. The manuscript, entitled "Hostile Winds,” was addressed to then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev—but it was never published. In those memoirs, Medvedev disputes the leading role of Yurovsky in the killing of the royal family, insisting that credit for the murder should have gone to himself.

Medvedev was buried with military honors at the Novodevichye Cemetery in Moscow—the most prestigious graveyard in the country. In his will, Medvedev left the Browning pistol with which Nicholas II was shot to Nikita Khrushchev.

After Medvedev’s death, his son persuaded the son of one Nikulin to testify about the events of the night the royal family was killed, in an oral statement recorded at a radio studio. It is believed that Nikulin was merely a witness of the post-mortem identification of the bodies. Nevertheless, his son had this to say on the matter: "I remember that in 1936, when I was little, Yakov Mikhaylovich Yurovsky would visit us and write something... I remember him discussing something with my father, sometimes arguing… over who was the first to shoot Nicholas… My father said he fired the first shot, but Yurovsky insisted otherwise…"

Another member of the shooting squad, Radzinskiy, recorded his memoirs on audio tape. “One man went into the water with ropes and dragged the bodies from the water. The first body to be dragged out was that of Nicholas. The water was so cold that the faces of the bodies turned red-cheeked, as if they were still alive… The truck got stuck in the mud, we barely got it out… And then a thought came to us, and we acted upon it... We decided that this was the perfect place... So we dug up that mud, poured sulphuric acid on the bodies... defaced them... There was a railway branch nearby... So we brought some rotten railway sleepers to hide the grave. We buried only some of the bodies in the pit, the others we burned… We burned Nicholas's body, that I remember well... And Botkin's body also... and Aleksey’s as well, I think..."

In the early 1980s, KGB chief Andropov liked to listen to the testimonies of the czar-killers in the evening. Rumor has it that those audio recordings are still being held in the archives of the Russian security agencies.

http://rbth.ru/society/2013/07/16/the_tsar_files_who_killed_the_romanovs_28121.html

[mendeleyev]

Thanks, Larry.

[Gator]

Yes, the net result should be positive for Egypt in the long term however there is the issue of whether or not they will retain the 66% share of the Nile's water. What are your thoughts on that issue?

Law of conservation of mass. 
 
If Ethiopia uses the dam just for hydropower, the total annual volume of water flowing in the Nile below the Aswan would be about the same, maybe more because there would be less evaporation from an Ethiopian reservoir than from the Aswan. 
 
With the Ethiopian dam the total reservoir capacity along the Nile will be increased significantly, thus the amount of water in storage in the Aswan reservoir during historic peak flow months may be less because not all reservoirs can be filled simultaneously to capacity.   However, the same annual flow of water will reach the Aswan but at a later time than before the Ethiopian dam were constructed.   I mentioned in an earlier post that a critical decision will be the initial filling of the Ethiopian reservoir, whether done in a few years or over a much longer period. 
 
I assume that  Ethiopian's current agricultural base is small in comparison with Egypt's.  However, over the long term Ethiopia could boost its agricultural output via irrigation, which would result in water losses via evapotranspiration.     Maybe some water could be diverted to dryer parts of Ethiopia (the same as California water is diverted from the north to the south).   How long would it take for Ethiopian agricultural industry to change such that this is an issue?  Maybe a couple of generations?  So there is time to settle this peacefully.  Egypt does not need to bomb the dam now.   
 
Water is a finite resource.  Competitive uses of water resources has historically been an issue in many societies.   During the future negotiations along the Nile, critical will be whether the water is divided based on riparian rights (as practiced in eastern US)  or rights of prior appropriation (as practiced in western US).

[SANDRO43]

During the future negotiations along the Nile, critical will be whether the water is divided based on riparian rights

Ah, a nice Latin etymology: from Latin riparius (riverside), adjective from ripa, ripae (bank, shore). It became riva in Italian, and tonight I had dinner at a nice Sardinian-owned fish restaurant on the Alzaia Naviglio Pavese, facing the canal flowing south of Milan towards Pavia and eventually into the Ticino river just south of Pavia:

Our Navigli (navigable) canals (legend has it that Leonardo da Vinci was involved in designing some of their locks) were built from the XII century onwards and were used to convey goods to Milan, including the marble from Lake Maggiore used for the construction of our Duomo (cathedral) which was prominently marked AUF (Ad Usum Fabricae: for use at the cathedral construction site) and were therefore exempt from duties/levies - in Milanese and then Italian a ufo became a term used to designate freeloaders, similar to the Romans' alla portoghese (in the Portuguese fashion) because in the XVIII century the Portuguese ambassador to the Holy See invited his compatriots to attend freely a theatrical performance.

One side of the canals was/is called Alzaia (rise) because that is where horse/mule teams would ride to draw the barges against the current. The last canal barge docked at Milan's darsena (port, harbour) in 1979.

Milan's darsena in the 1960s

[mendeleyev]

She may be Ukrainian but little Anastasia sure knows how to belt out this country rock hit! Wow!

Cool name: Anastasia. As Sandro or someone mentioned some time ago, the Western way of saying it is deeply ingrained but if you'd like to hear how it is spoken in her world, "ah-nah-sta-sea-yah" then you'll hear it when the song ends at 3:40 into the video.

[mendeleyev]

It's all part of the summer tradition in a land were summer is short and winter is long; tasks like repairing streets and the painting of public fences, street and parking lot markers. For many years that tradition has included the colours of green and yellow.

The best answer we received for the choice of colours was safety related. We were told that green and yellow was good for everyone from distracted drivers to drunks to those suffering from colour-blindness.



Green and yellow outside the Mendeleyev Journal parking lot.

Okay, in the absence of logical information we'll accept the safety related answers--for the time being. This is Russia, after all. Besides, Moscow is busy putting on her cosmetics as the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi will be here before you know it and the primary destination for those traveling to Sochi is via Moscow.

This may be the last of the traditional yellow-green borders as Central Administrative District director Viktor Fuer has decreed that after this year neighborhoods can elect to paint borders gray, and fences black.



This year crews are busy sprucing up Moscow. (photo: The Village)

However, changes in colour must wait until after 2014. For now, we must make ready for the Olympics and so the bright green and yellow will continue until then.

[Anotherkiwi]

She may be Ukrainian but little Anastasia sure knows how to belt out this country rock hit! Wow!

Me too!  She has a big sister, Viktoriya, who is five years older and also a fabulous singer.  They sing as a duo as well as solo.

[SANDRO43]

She may be Ukrainian but little Anastasia sure knows how to belt out this country rock hit!

Country rock ? Her Majesty's Ambassador and the Louisiana Governor will notify you a joint formal protest .

Influences
"Oh! Darling" appears to have drawn heavily on the New Orleans rhythm and blues sound popularised during the 1950s and early 1960s by African-American musicians like Fats Domino; it also seems to have drawn on the Louisiana swamp blues sound found in songs like Slim Harpo's "Raining In My Heart" and Charles Brown's "Please Come Home for Christmas". Furthermore, it may have drawn on the related Louisiana genre known today as swamp pop, whose distinctive sound bears an uncanny resemblance to the basic structure of "Oh! Darling" — so much so that some in Louisiana originally thought the song had been recorded by a local musician. (When swamp pop musician John Fred met the Beatles in London in the 1960s, he was shocked to learn that "they were very familiar with Louisiana music.")

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh!_Darling

[mendeleyev]

Ah, Anapa (Ана́па), the quiet town of just over 50,000 in Russia's Krasnodar region along the Black Sea. The water is moderate and comfortable this time of year and a great place to relax, sunbathe, swim and enjoy the water.



 

Anapa is a Greek city dating back to the 6th Century like so many other towns along the water in nearby Ukraine.  Anapa is serviced by a small local airport, rail service and bus service to other Russian destinations.

Anapa does have one thing the other more popular spots don't: sandy beaches. Anapa is one of those rare beach areas along the Black Sea that has sand on the beaches instead of small pebbles.





As you can see from the map however, getting there is an issue. Thousands of tourists visit the nearby Ukrainian Crimea area and Anapa would be in high demand were it more easily accessible. There is a ferry with daily service from Kerch but the schedule seems to change daily and any hint of bad weather means you are stranded until skies are clear. Once on the roads, they aren't the modern highways tourists enjoy in the West and foreign tourists traveling from Crimea to Anapa need a Russian visa.


Prices here are modest because accommodations are modest. I suppose that someday the world will discover Anapa and when it does, the modest prices for the admittedly modest hotels will skyrocket with development. Local cafes are decent but this is decidedly a Russian vacation spot, lacking amenities commonly desired by Western tourists.





Local apartments are often available during the summer for short stays and hotels seem to vacancies if you do some reasonable planning. Judging from swimsuit sizes in the photos there must be a McDonald's nearby.

[mendeleyev]

I used to laugh at Vladimir Putin's insinuations that the USA was preparing to invade Russia. Look, if you can't defeat Afghanistan where the fighters are untrained third-world Poppy seed growers, then anyone with a brain knows better than to challenge Russia.

But, guess I was wrong. Yesterday the USA invaded St. Petersburg. They came rolling in on pink bicycles. Correction: He came rolling in on a pink bicycle.

A car with one of those popular dash cams caught the invasion maneuver across the street from the former Palace of the Soviets in St. Petersburg.




There has been no word yet of any declaration of martial law so perhaps he came for some blini or to see the local girls. The pink bike is a pretty clever disguise--no one would see the invading troops until it was too late.

[mendeleyev]

And you thought that this post would be about the raccoon that bit off a Russian man's penis, didn't you? Nope, that was back in 2009 but if you really want to know how the guy, drunk of course, thought it would be fun to rape a raccoon, well let's just thank God for plastic surgery and here is the link: http://blogs.app.com/saywhat/2009/01/26/raccoon-bites-off-mans-manhood-in-rape-attack/

But we do plan to show you two raccoon videos. Oddly enough the first one is popular on Russian social media. For some reason Russians find American hillbilly characters to be fascinating and if a raccoon is part of the story, even better.





The second video is also a raccoon video. In Russia. This time the fire department is called out to rescue the raccoon that has escaped a local zoo and was terrorizing city neighborhoods. Enjoy!

[mendeleyev]

Man who created own credit card sues bank for not sticking to terms:

When Dmitry Argarkov was sent a letter offering him a credit card, he found the rates not to his liking. But he didn't throw the contract away or shred it. Instead, the 42-year-old from Voronezh, Russia, scanned it into his computer, altered the terms and sent it back to Tinkoff Credit Systems. 

Mr Argarkov's version of the contract contained a 0 percent interest rate, no fees and no credit limit. Every time the bank failed to comply with the rules, he would fine them 3m rubles (£58,716). If Tinkoff tried to cancel the contract, it would have to pay him 6m rubles.   Tinkoff apparently failed to read the amendments, signed the contract and sent Mr Argakov a credit card.   

"The Bank confirmed its agreement to the client's terms and sent him a credit card and a copy of the approved application form," his lawyer Dmitry Mikhalevich told Kommersant. "The opened credit line was unlimited. He could afford to buy an island somewhere in Malaysia, and the bank would have to pay for it by law."   

However, Tinkoff attempted to close the account due to overdue payments. It sued Mr Argakov for 45,000 rubles for fees and charges that were not in his altered version of the contract.
 
Earlier this week a Russian judge ruled in Mr Argakov's favour. Tinkoff had signed the contract and was legally bound to it. Mr Argakov was only ordered to pay an outstanding balance of 19,000 rubles (£371).

 "They signed the documents without looking. They said what usually their borrowers say in court: 'We have not read it',” said Mr Mikhalevich.

 But now Mr Argakov has taken matters one step further. He is suing Tinkoff for 24m rubles for not honouring the contract and breaking the agreement.

 Tinkoff has launched its own legal action, accusing Mr Argakov of fraud.  Oleg Tinkov, founder of the bank, tweeted: "Our lawyers think he is going to get not 24m, but really 4 years in prison for fraud. Now it's a matter of principle for @tcsbanktwitter."

 The court will review Mr Argakov's case next month.



Source: Telegraph (UK)

 

[Hammer2722]

I tend to agree with the bank since he fraudulently modified the original documents.

[Faux Pas]

I tend to agree with the bank since he fraudulently modified the original documents.

Not really fraudulent, the bank has as much responsibility to read before signing as does the consumer. They agreed to the terms with the signature. It wasn't his responsibility to point out the changed document was it? How is that fraud? Deceptive but, banks are deceptive all the time

[mendeleyev]

The Moscow Times:

The Russian government advised its citizens not to travel to the Middle Eastern nation, one of the most popular holiday spots for middle-class Russians. But despite the sudden upheaval in the country, with Egyptian authorities having declared a nationwide state of emergency, the Federal Tourism Agency decided at a meeting Thursday not yet to evacuate any of the 40,000-60,000 Russian tourists estimated to be vacationing there currently, Interfax reported. The Federal Consumer Protection Agency said Russian tourists could ask to be evacuated from violent areas free of charge.

Given the significant number of Russians who visit Egypt on holiday, many of them staying at all-inclusive resorts on the Red Sea, both Russian and Egyptian tour companies and hotels stand to lose up to millions of dollars in canceled bookings, another blow to an already fragile Egyptian economy.

"The clashes and riots that began in the [Egyptian] capital are quickly spreading to other cities and areas of Egypt, including to those visited by tourists," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in a statement Thursday afternoon. "Given these conditions, the Russian Foreign Ministry recommends that Russian citizens refrain from trips to Egypt."

At least a handful of Russians were caught up in the mayhem that took hold in parts of Cairo. A television crew from state news channel Rossia 24 was stopped in their car by armed men who threatened them with knives and took their computers, passports and about $6,000 in cash, one of the channel's reporters told news agencies.

But no one was injured as a result of the incident, and the Russian Embassy in Cairo said no Russian citizens had sustained injuries in clashes in the city. The embassy's consular section has been closed for two days due to the upheaval.

Read more at the Moscow Times.

[mendeleyev]

What do Mexico, Portugal, Brazil, Russia, India, Egypt and Turkey all have in common?

Soaps. Novelas. Novellas.

From the Mendeleyev Journal:

Oh the drama. Literally. The violence is not over but sometimes you get a glimpse of the oddest things in a crisis, soap operas being one of them. So here is the news: Egyptian TV networks are cancelling soap operas.



Mind you, it's not a part of the emergency declaration, but most soap operas in the Middle East are produced in Turkey. The government of Turkey these days is run by an increasingly radical government that is of late very friendly with the Muslim Brotherhood and on 14 August the two countries recalled their ambassadors which is a diplomatic way of spitting in the other guy's eye and telling him to stuff it.

In the past, Turkey and the Brotherhood were often at odds, but lately they've kissed and made up. It happens. The most recent straw was when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Egyptian military leaders should stand trial for removing his radical pal Morsi. Turkish soap operas are produced in Arabic and generate a lot of money for Turkish television companies. So, pulling all the soaps, and we mean all of the soaps, is a financial blow.

Look, we understand all about soap operas coming from another country: until recent most soaps in Russia were from MEXICO. Which is why the cognate (borrowed word) "Novela" is a pretty well understood term in Russia. Now before you go running off with the idea that Russians were speaking the same dialect of Spanish spoken along the southern USA border, we should let you know that the scenes were over-dubbed in Russian.

Today most Russian soap operas are produced in Russia and India. Around the world soap operas are the same. The story lines apparently are inspired by families from Alabama with some rich farmer or businessman having sex with his granddaughter who gets pregnant with twin boys who then grow up to divide the family asunder as each wants to control the family business. Naturally, all the while the boys are carrying on affairs with their cousins girlfriends.

Add in the discover of oil with a storyline that includes a doctor or two and damn, you can keep the folks glued to the set for months. In any country! Wait! Rich and doctors... Forget what we said about Alabama. Maybe the inspiration comes from Texas.

We just can't imagine the content of a Arab soap opera. How in the heck does one write a decent story line for soap operas targeted primarily at audiences who walk around all day while wrapped up in over-sized bathrobes?

They have oil, plenty of it, and women are property so there must be something to get a good Novela going. The Turkish authorities have slowly injected politics into their soap operas along with other themes, like learning to kiss. “You have to understand that there are people still living even in (Istanbul) who say they only learned how to kiss or learned there is kissing involved in lovemaking by watching ‘Noor,’ ”according to Istanbul University professor of Television, Sengul Ozerkan.


The set for the soap opera "Noor" is this waterfront mansion.

We should point out that the popular show "Noor" is distributed in no less than 56 countries. Okay, now make that 55 other countries.

Well there isn't much kissing going on between the Turkish government and the Egyptian military these days, and frankly both countries have problems making it impossible to sit down and watch a Novela anyway. For Egyptians the soaps may be going away but at this stage in the crisis their absence could just go unnoticed.

[lordtiberius]

I read this post and am reminded of RTs reporting which portrays  a juandiced presentation of how bad the world's problems are that you forget to ask questions internal to Russia.

A popular Syrian soap moved to the gulf states which has affected the creativity and aesthetic of the franchise.

I hope this new tone in your reporting is temporary M.  It is important to point short comings in others without glorying in them.