Being critical

  All those pointless megabytes of "Me and some stuff" photos in social networks!
  All those "who the f**k cares" details of one's own life!
  What a perfect way to create a virtual temple for worshiping yourself.

  For lots of people it IS already a Matrix - you can't encounter as many lies elsewhere but networks.
  

Women of the 50s

  Having seen 'Mona Lisa's Smile' which is on TV tonight several times before I keep thinking about enormous difference between Western and Soviet women in the 1950s.
  The story told in the film is about a college art teacher who challenges 'traditional values' of 1950-s women - marriage and family above all and everything. No career pursuit whatsoever, no job, just home life and housework - that was these middle-class young women's destiny, even though they were getting education good enough to become lawyers or corporate executives.
  One of the most remarkable scenes in this film (in my opinion) is Nancy Abbey's class in - I really don't know what to call this subject they were studying... Domestic Life? Being a Good Wife? Mastering the Art of Running a House? - when girls are supposed to roleplay solving the issue of a dinner party for their potential husband's boss and his colleague rivals.
  Lots and lots have been written on the subject of women's role in society after World War II - it was undoubtedly strongly associated with dinner parties, serving supper at 5 pm sharp, greeting a husband with a smile and a Martini - being home goddesses, whatever this slightly offensive phrase might mean.
  After the war - and this idea is neither fresh nor challenging - the world was striving to see women being as much feminine as possible.

    That's where this luxurious and submissive Dior's New Look came from - this 'highly feminine' fashion of high heels, corset-type dresses, red lipstick and girly curls.
  Women as home elves, fragile but hard working creatures, stunning at dinner parties and restless at housework.
  Women as expensive but totally dependent toys. Men's toys, of course. Men's possessions.
  One of the characters of the greatest 19th century Russian playwright Ostrovsky, Larisa Ogudalova, an outstandingly beautiful and charming young girl from a noble but impoverished family, claims that if she is supposed to be some man's possession the only way is to be an expensive one. Very cynical and tragic line reflecting on what women's destiny was (and is and will be) in a men powered world.
  And those college girls in the film were putting a lot of effort in making themselves very expensive assets for their future husbands - assets as valuable as possible, possessions to be proud of.
  Was it or was it not the only women's choice in 1950s Western world - being a perfect wife and mother - is another matter.
  The fact is women in the Soviet Union in the same decade were as far from this destiny of 'domestic goddesses' as never before.
  Total deficit was the main feature of the era - Soviet women couldn't even dream of luxurious clothes in Dior's New Look style. A pair of new stockings - that was a dream come true. Genuine perfume - a heavenly gift. 'Girly' little luxuries were so rare in those days and any attempts to look pretty were seen as inappropriate fussiness.
  Soviet women of the 50s had neither resources nor time to long for divine femininity of 'home goddesses' because they had to face the most fatal and devastating deficit - the lack of men, millions of which were killed at war.
  Most Soviet households in the 1950s were widowed women's desperate homes filled with despair, tears and struggle to get bread on the table.
  It was Soviet women who were rebuilding the country and the society in the 1950s. It was women who were raising kids, fixing railways and growing crops. Millions of desperate women whose feet were too 'worn out' for New Look high heels. Millions of widows who had their late husbands' photos hidden behind icons - in the last hope they might come back one day.
  They were absolutely free from being just someone's other half at home.
  They didn't have any chance to enjoy this luxury of just being a wife.
  Given this chance, would they choose New Look dresses and dinners at 5? 

"We were very lucky. They hardly ever sold us against our will!"

  Not so many Western people know that serfdom (which is basically slavery) existed in Russia up to 1861 when serfs (most of them peasants) were all freed thanks to Tsar Alexander II reform.

  Just for the sake of comparison: serfdom stopped existing in Britain in the XVth century.

  Slavery was abolished in the USA by 1865.

  So in terms of time there isn't considerable difference between Russia and the USA.

  When it comes to serfs' and slaves' rights I have to say both categories (in America as well as in Russia) were absolutely dependent on their owners' will. Russian serfs couldn't move against their owners' will, couldn't marry whoever they wanted, were seriously abused by their owners', had to rely completely on their owners' good will. 

  They were easily traded and their desire was never taken into account.

  It was a common thing among nobility to sell several serfs - or 'souls' as they were used to be called - for a couple of good hunting dogs (Russian nobility in the XIXth century were passionate hunters).

  My ancestors on my Mother's side were serfs. Slaves. Without any rights whatsoever - they could be sold, whipped to death, robbed or raped by their owners.

  However, our family history says the nobility owning us were quite liberal. As my great-grandmother used to say, "They were kind and merciful and never sold us against our will!"

  Serfdom (slavery) didn't stop people from being talented artists, composers, poets and actors.

  One of the most famous and most romantic love stories is the one of Parasha Kovaleva-Zhemchugova, a serf actress, who secretly got married to her owner, Count Sheremetyev - marriage almost impossible in the early XIXth century. 

  

'First they came for....'

  I have just been pointed out that one very famous quote could be applied to the current situation in Russia.
  It's the one by Martin Niemoeller:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Catholic.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

Anybody who is different. Anybody who stands out. 

Notorious Russian blogger's answer to Stephen Fry's letter

I have translated this post for my English-speaking readers.

I have put some of the bits of it in bold just to stress them - they are not in bold in the original.

One can easily see how much twisting with the words and meanings is involved here, how hypocritical these statements are, how eloquent the blogger is to support her ideas.

Dear Mr. President! Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich!

Dear Mr. Rogge, Mr. Alexander Zhukov and all the other Members of the International Olympic Committee!

I am not Stephen Fry, I'm just a modest scriptwriter, a novel writer and a fitness loving girl, so I guess my letter might never reach you. But I'm writing in hope to be heard, while probably not by you, but at least by all the sensible people, who consider the traditional sexual orientation and love for sports to be their solid and unquestionable values.

I hate all forms and kinds of fascism, I hate wars, including the Second World War, which the Nazi Germany started against the whole world thanks to criminal condonation and even instigation of Great Britain. My best friend is Jewish and her family's tragic story as well as millions of other families' stories has made me believe that you can't grade people dividing them into classes and treating them as either the first or the second class and that you can't just use people as 'cannon fodder' in wars for your own criminal interests.

Unfortunately some British citizens longing for the past imperial ambitions (sic!) are itching for those gone ambitions now. They seem to believe that in our country homosexual people should be graded higher and treated better than heterosexual people. They can't understand why gay people in Russia are not favoured over straight people and why the latter's rights and freedom are not being limited or violated.

It's fascism, in my humble opinion. Great Britain has already made a costly mistake in the past by acknowledging and accepting Nazi Germany on the international level and by arranging the Olympics in Berlin in 1936. At first they allowed Hitler to get armed turning their blind eye to Jewish massacres and concentration camps for Jews and then they stopped isolation of the criminal Nazi regime by sending British sportsmen to the Olympics in Berlin.

Now we are all under similar threat. Unhappy with their rights which are equal to the rights of heterosexual people gays are campaigning their government and the IOC for staging the Olympiad not in Russia but somewhere else, in a country where their 'sort' of people are favoured over straight people.

'All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing', so wrote Edmund Burke. Are you going to be those who allow evil to triumph?

Dear Mr. President! Dear Members of the IOC!

I'm begging you to ban countries that create hostility, evil and mutual hatred from taking part in the Olympics. I'm begging you to ban countries that grade people favouring and praising one 'sort' and humiliating the others. We all remember too well what this kind of 'grading' could lead to. We can't just keep quiet, we have to and must stress the equal rights of all the people regardless of their skin colour, ethnicity and sexual orientation. Who else if not us? When if not now?

In pursuit for peace and equal rights, with passion for sports,

Lena Miro.

I would also like to make something very clear - although I support Stephen Fry's ideas I have to say that in my opinion it's not just homosexual people who are under threat in modern Russian. It more or less concerns every minority or simply everybody who is different - in one way or another. 

Putin's supporters reaction to the open letter by Steven Fry

  Stephen Fry's famous letter concerning banning on the Russian Winter Olympics in 2014 because of severe violation of LGBT people's rights in Russia is one of the 'hottest' points for discussion in Russian blogs and media now. Here is the link http://www.stephenfry.com/2013/08/07/an-open-letter-to-david-cameron-and-the-ioc/

  While lots of Russians agree with the letter and share thoughts expressed in it, Putin's supporters are expressing the opposite view on the subject. 

  Like this, for instance, http://miss-tramell.livejournal.com/394926.html. An open letter to President Putin written by an infamous blogger Lena Miro, a member of the ruling party in Russia and the author of a few homophobic posts. Translation of the letter will be available in my blog in 10 minutes.

Lavender fields forever!

Amazing lavender fields not far from Broadway

  Lots of butterflies, bumble bees and other insects not paying any attention to tourists

  

  Some people are having a photo session

  Beautiful lavender fields, pleasing all your senses
   

  If you want to see them, hurry up - they started harvesting on the 1st of August and are about to finish by 15th. Lavender farms near Broadway, photos by Tim Colville ©, www.timcolville.co.uk