Writer admits to three pseudonyms
Boris Akunin, who is best-known for creating the fictional nineteenth-century sleuth Erast Fandorin, recently admitted to having two additional pseudonyms (the writer’s real name is Grigory Chkhartishvili).
Writing in his Livejournal blog, borisakunin.livejournal.com, the bestselling author expressed the idea that “dull is the male writer who has never wanted to be a female writer, to try to imagine what it would be like to be a woman, to look at the world through a woman’s eyes.”
This impulse led Akunin to create Anna Borisova. He even created a photograph of this nonexistent woman for book jackets, morphing of his own portrait with that of his wife.
“Borisova” wrote three novels, close to the “boundary beyond which serious literature begins,” Akunin explained. She represents his attempt to put himself in the shoes of an intelligent, middle-aged woman who writes out of boredom and a desire to share her thoughts with a wider audience.
The second author Akunin created was Anatoly Brusnikin (A.O. Brusnikin is an anagram of Boris Akunin), whose mission was to write a historical novel without his trademark detective. Furthermore, Brusnikin writes from the perspective of a “slavophile,” a departure from Akunin’s cosmopolitan leaning. Brusnikin’s novels sold very well, thanks to extremely aggressive advertising.
[There is a long tradition of pen names in Russian literature. Chekhov published as Chekhonte, Gogol as V. Alov, Belinsky as Pyotr Buldogov, and Tolstoy fooled an editor by submitting works under the name Natalya Okhotnitskaya.]
New envoy or old revolutionary?
The new year started off with a new office for Michael McFaul, who assumed the post of U.S. ambassador in Moscow and immediately made his presence known on the internet and beyond, suggesting he will not be keeping a low profile.
Kicking off his bilingual Livejournal blog [m-mcfaul.livejournal.com] on his first day of work, McFaul said he hopes to “strengthen the reset” (see Russian Life, Jan/Feb 2012 issue) despite the challenges of recent months. He also frequently tweets on his Twitter blog @McFaul.
Soon after his highly anticipated arrival in Moscow, a storm erupted around the envoy when state media, including Channel One, pointed to his academic c.v. and his publications about democratization and alleged that the ambassador intends to stoke revolution in Russia. McFaul, speaking to the New York Times, called the idea “crazy.” “Just because you write about cancer doesn’t mean you advocate cancer. I’m a social scientist. I’ve written about democratization, but that’s my previous life.”
King of theater to return to opera
Moscow’s venerable theater director, Yury Lyubimov, will direct a new version of the opera Prince Igor, to premier at the Bolshoi Theater in December.
Lyubimov, the patriarch of the Taganka, quit this theater last summer after a nasty public conflict with the actors (see Russian Life Sep/Oct 2011). He turns 95 this year, and put on a number of operas in the 1980s, including at La Scala, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and other world stages, when he was banished from the USSR. He has promised a completely new interpretation of the Borodin classic.
Moscow may get a Central Park
Moscow’s biggest eyesore, the vast empty lot on the site of the former Rossiya Hotel, will be turned into a park. This news came in the form of a surprise promise by Vladimir Putin while inspecting the site with the capital’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin (above).
The hotel, once the biggest in Europe, was torn down by previous Mayor Yury Luzhkov, to make way for a modern hotel, office and concert hall development. But the project never materialized, as developers and the city sued each other in a never-ending feud. The current claim to fame for this prize lot adjoining the Kremlin? The massive barrier that surrounds it now displays Europe’s biggest advertising banner.
Sobyanin’s own lackluster proposal for the location was a “parliamentary center” to put both houses of the Russian parliament under one roof. The idea was rejected by Muscovites and city planners as unnecessary and sure to exacerbate gridlock in the city center. “Lets bring back a park,” Putin offered as an alternative. If put into effect, the plan would create the biggest park in central Moscow, where currently there are very few public areas.
Agency unable to explain failure
The inglorious end of Russia’s Mars research mission – the first attempt since the Soviet era to launch an interplanetary probe – has yet to be explained, yet theories range from solar radiation to American radar.
The probe, Phobos Grunt (grunt means “soil” in Russian), was launched in November with practically no publicity, despite its ambitious goal of sending back soil from the surface of Mars (a first). Soon after launch, ground control lost control of the probe and Grunt never left lower Earth orbit, eventually crashing into the ocean in January.
At least one official hypothesized that the probe was exposed to radiation from U.S. radar when passing over the Western hemisphere. “I don’t want to blame anyone, but there are some powerful countermeasures that can be used against spacecraft, a possibility we cannot exclude,” space chief Vladimir Popovkin told Izvestia. Other theories included the use of counterfeit parts and a computer glitch.
Bekmambetov to adapt novel
Timur Bekmambetov, whose film about a vampire-hunting Abraham Lincoln will hit theaters this summer (the film was co-produced by Tim Burton), has, through his company Bazelevs, acquired the rights to One Hundred Percent Lunar Boy, a 2010 fantasy novel by Stephen Tunney. The book is about a 16-year boy who lives on the (terraformed) Moon 2000 years in the future. Moon boy (who has special powers) meets Earth girl. You know the rest...
[The book One Hundred Percent Lunar Boy was published in 2010 by Macadam Cage Pub and was out of print at this issue’s time of publication, but available on the Kindle.]
Russian theater on the internet
The Moscow city government has created a YouTube channel showing plays recorded at the capital’s theaters. Called the “Golden Collection of Theaters,” the project to create televised versions of the best Russian plays is intended to help Moscow’s theater culture reach a wider audience. Unfortunately the project is expanding very slowly; at press time, only three plays were available, from the Mayakovsky, Stanislavsky, and Sovremennik theaters. bit.ly/mostheaters
Activist to host RT show
Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, will host a show on Russia Today, the glitzy channel funded out of state coffers that broadcasts outside Russia in several languages. Assange’s talk show, called “The World Tomorrow,” will be filmed in the UK, where the internet whistle-blower is currently under house arrest and awaiting trial on charges of sexual assault. The show will consist of ten episodes in 2012, in which the host will interview “iconoclasts, visionaries, and power insiders,” RT said.
New magazine explores history
Leading journalists have launched a new history magazine called Diletant, claiming it is the country’s first and only popular history magazine. Founders include veteran Echo Moskvy radio editor Alexei Venediktov, and authors include Dmitry Bykov and Leonid Mlechin. The first issue is focused on the oprichnina, Ivan the Terrible’s system of state terror, examining its evolution through history to the present. The project includes the website diletant.ru, with blogs and smaller articles that don’t make it to print.
Cold snap shakes coastal region
While much of the United States has been experiencing a far milder than normal winter, Eastern Europe and Russia were being buffeted by record lows and heavy snows.
Russia’s Black Sea coast was gripped by an abnormal cold snap, including at its resort town Sochi (site of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, two years from now). Icy winds froze the strait of Kerch, which separates Russia from Ukraine, and many boats were stranded in the ice for days, only helped by the arrival of icebreakers.
Passenger transit between Ukraine’s Kerch and Russia’s Novorossiysk was suspended until further notice and hurricanes left thousands of homes without electricity after sweeping over the northern part of Krasnodar region.
According to media reports, the last time the Black Sea froze was in 1977.
In February last year, President Dmitry Medvedev pushed through an initiative to end Daylight Savings Time in Russia. 73% of Russians approved, according to state-run pollster VTsIOM. Yet since then public opinion has shifted.
According to HeadHunter recruitment (as reported by the Moscow Times):
52% see the reform as illogical.
46% of employees believe that the long hours of darkness in the morning have had a negative effect on their work.
15% started being late to work more often.
18% cannot make themselves work at all.
Youth Olympic Games
Russia finished fifth in the overall medal count (5 gold, 4 silver and 7 bronze) at the first ever Winter Youth Olympic Games (14-18 year olds), held in Innsbruck January 13-22, 2012. The ultimate upset, however, was in the ice hockey finals, as goalie Kaapo Kahkonen twice snuffed two Russian sudden-death shootout attempts to help Finland to a 2-1 victory over Russia.
The five Russian gold medals were earned by Uliana Kaysheva (biathlon, pursuit race), skier Anastasia Sedova (5 km race), skier Alexandr Selianinov (who also won a silver and a bronze), figure skater Yelizaveta Tuktamysheva, and ice dancers Sergey Mozgov and Anna Yanovskaya. A total 63 medal sets were up for grabs in 15 disciplines.
Plyuschenko still on top
Defying an aching left knee and his advancing age (29), Yevgeny Plyuschenko won his seventh European figure skating title in Sheffield (England) and scored a career-best 176.52 points in the free skate, to total 261.23 – his highest overall mark ever.
After the short program, Plyuschenko was in second place, trailing his 18-year-old compatriot Artur Gachinsky. Plyuschenko had not offered any quad jumps in his short program, sparing his knee, but then did an unexpected quadruple jump in his free program, skating to “Tango de Roxanne,” from the soundtrack to Moulin Rouge.
“I made a little bit of history in figure skating today,” Pluschenko said. “I felt like I did eight years ago out there.” Plushenko is the only living male skater with three Olympic medals. In addition to his gold from Turin (in 2006), Pluschenko has silvers from Salt Lake City (2002) and Vancouver (2010). He says he wants to compete at Sochi in 2014. From Sheffield he headed to Germany where he will undergo surgery on his left knee, which will keep him out of the world championships this March.
Russia left the European meet with seven medals out of a possible 12. In pairs Russia pulled off a medal sweep. Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov captured their first major title, while Vera Bazarova and Yuri Larionov claimed silver and Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov won the bronze. In ice dancing Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat of France defended their European title beating the Russians Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitry Soloviev. Another Russian pair, Elena Ilinykh and Nikita Katsalapov, claimed the bronze.
Tennis round-up
It might have been an all-Soviet affair if there still was a Soviet Union.
The 2012 Australian Open women’s singles finals featured Belorussian Victoria Azarenka facing off against Russian Maria Sharapova. Azarenka routed Sharapova 6/3, 6/0 to become the first Belorussian ever to win a Grand Slam singles event (for which Belorussian President Alexandr Lukashenko awarded her the Fatherland Order, Third Degree).
It was Sharapova’s sixth major final and the 22-year-old Azarenka’s first. And it was also one of the most lopsided women’s Grand Slam finals ever. “She did everything better than I did. I had a good first couple of games, and that was about it,” Sharapova admitted after the match. “She was the one that was taking the first ball and hitting it deep and aggressive. I was always the one running around like a rabbit, trying to play catch-up all the time.”
From Australia, Sharapova traveled to Moscow to help the Russian women’s Fed Cup team defeat Spain in the quarterfinals tie. Sharapova defeated Silvia Soler-Espinosa 6-1, 6-2, and Svetlana Kuznetsova roundly defeated both Carla Suarez Navarro and Soler-Espinosa. Russia will host Serbia in April’s semifinal tie.
Точка невозврата уже пройдена.
“The point of no return has already passed. When it was 3,000-5,000 people, it could be broken up [by police]. But what can you do with 50,000-100,000 people? If you try to disperse that many people, what sort of reaction would there be in the country, in the world? This is not Libya.”
Opposition politician Vladimir Ryzhkov (Ogonyok magazine)
«У нас если начнут честно воровать, это будет колоссальный прогресс. У нас, к сожалению, воруют-то нечестно — вот что неприятно».
“If people begin to steal honestly in Russia, this will be colossal progress. But unfortunately, people steal dishonestly here, that’s what’s so unpleasant.”
Duma deputy Andrei Makarov (Itogi)
“This is going to be fun.”
Michael McFaul, to NPR regarding his new post as U.S. ambassador to Russia.
Страна имеет гигантский потенциал. Гигантский! ...У нас же энергия зажата вся.
“The country has gigantic potential. Gigantic! In a way, we haven’t accomplished practically anything. Our people are educated. 142 million people. But in comparison with Africa, which is now developing at a crazy pace, we are on a whole different level. If we free up people’s initiative, our GDP should grow by 10 percent or more. But our energy is all suppressed [punches his palm twice]...“
Billionaire and Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov on why he was running for the Russian presidency. (Forbes magazine)
Как только разозлите, вам конец!
“The whole country hates you! So you’d better keep your mouths shut while Zyuganov and I are still at least somewhat well disposed toward you. If we get angry, you are finished! If we lead our supporters out [onto the streets] – that’s tens of millions, that’s it! It won’t be some ‘orange’ revolution, it’ll be a second October!”
Head of the liberal-democratic party Vladimir Zhirinovsky in a passionate speech delivered before the Duma and targeted at United Russia, the ruling party.
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