December 16, 2020

Shrek Lives in Kirov Oblast


Shrek Lives in Kirov Oblast
We can hear Smash Mouth in the background. YouTube user Андрей Вдовенко

Shrek is universally liked, it seems. Even in Russia.

Russian DIYers at an arboretum in Russia's Kirov Oblast have been hard at work recreating the house of the main character from the 2001 film Shrek. The ogre's abode, constructed largely of wood and mud, was built by Andrei Vdovenko, along with help from students from a local forestry school.

Alas, due to the geography of Kirov Oblast, there's no swamp nearby, although there are lots of trees. The site is already open for tours.

In 2018, Vdovenko and his associates built a recreation of a hobbit home from the Lord of the Rings films, so it seems like Kirov is the place to go for movie-earth-home-replica tours.

You can watch a mesmerizing time-lapse of the build, along with a short tour, here.

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The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

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Turgenev Bilingual

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93 Untranslatable Russian Words

Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.
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