Out of the way

жарко дома? да, sure is...

Friday, June 27, 2008 10:22:21 AM

, , , ,

I'm in Madrid and it's in the high 30's (about 100º in the old money - or for Americans and Englishmen), so I am glad I have a fan. I am trying to teach myself Russian, because I am going to Kyrgyzstan for ...

Bar Camp Central Asia

So I will be there for a few days. And I have always wanted to learn Russian. I have a book, so I will probably end up speaking it as if "I learned it from a book". But I know people who have done that and speak english, so there is some hope for me.

Unfortunately, last night Spain followed up its opening thrashing of Russia in the Eurocup with a 3-0 drubbing of them to advance to the finals. Well, in many ways this is not bad, but it means I am a bit nervous about approaching my Russian friends today and asking for help smile Maybe tomorrow...

Kyrgyzstan sounds fantastic. Eva is coming, to see what we can see, when we are not buried in geekdom. I was worried about getting us visas (and she was more worried since we had to buy the ticket before getting it). There are only a handful of embassies of the Kyrgyz Republic scattered around. Fortunately one of them is in Berlin, a place I went to a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately they didn't answer the phone when Uliana and I tried calling, nor did they reply to my email asking in english if tey spoke english there and if it was possible to get a very very rapid visa service.

When I got to the embassy it also seemed a little deserted - but I had collected a bunch of documents, had paperwork signed but not filled out, and had walked across berlin on an amazingly hot day, so I appreciated the calm, the shadow, and the cool. (Maybe in midwinter it isn't so inviting...)

But what I really appreciated was the efficiency with which they actually produced the visas, and the helpfulness. In record time I had everything in our passports, had gone to the bank, paid, and was walking back into the bright Berlin summer with a pair of visas...

If everything goes that smoothly I will be a little surprised. But it was a great start ... now I just have to learn more русске - back to моя книга... (I suppose I should really have tried learning Kyrgyz, but I haven't ever even seen a book for it. Next time...)

Back to the booksGoing green with Opera 9.5

Comments

tisme Friday, June 27, 2008 3:52:12 PM

make sure to stroll somewhere around the Chuisky road. there are wonderful flowers and (what's more important ;-) weeds. and you'll be there at the peak of their season.

Kostia RomanovKildor Friday, June 27, 2008 6:14:56 PM

Удачи в освоении языка :-)

Good luck.

Илья ШпаньковIlyaShpankov Friday, June 27, 2008 7:33:21 PM

Ha-ha wink

Nice, and you already can organize the "opera study group" for learning russian language. You, Johan, anybody else... Well, at the next time in Oslo I can do a few lessons, really wink

tisme Saturday, June 28, 2008 4:08:36 PM

in either case it would make sense to read something of Chinghiz Aitmatov; perhaps, "The Scaffold" might be a good starter.

Charles McCathieNevilechaals Sunday, June 29, 2008 2:37:03 PM

@tisme, thanks for the tips. I normally buy books in bookshops so the selection is pretty random, but I have a couple of specific books I have been meaning to buy so maybe it's time I ordered a handful of things on purpose...

@Kildor, спасиба (/me goes to check... ...seems to be what I meant to say smile )

@Ilya, when is the next time you are at Opera? It would be nice to be there... alternatively maybe I will get to go back to Russia. I am passing through on the way to Bishkek, and have a few hours to spare on the way back so may go look at something in Moscow, but that's not quite enough time to see the whole country wink

Hopefully Alexey will help out a bit with the Russian Study Group, too...

Илья ШпаньковIlyaShpankov Sunday, June 29, 2008 5:31:28 PM

@chaals, actually I don't know, when I will be next time in Oslo. But now I prepare a few big Opera events in Russia and I hope, what you will participate too. In any case, idea about Russian Study Group not so bad and Alexey can be a very good teacher wink

Also, I think, you understand, what Russia is not a language only. If you want not only speaking russian, but understand russians and magic "russian soul", I can recommend this web-site:
http://www.englishrussia.com/
This web-site will help you and others, who are interested about Russia (Johan, etc.), in understanding our traditions, mentality and psychology. Really, it's a very good and true library of real Russia. wink

P.S. Not "спасиба", but "спасибо" is right wink

Charles McCathieNevilechaals Sunday, June 29, 2008 10:29:45 PM

@Ilya, well hope to catch up with you somewhere sometime soon. Yeah, it seems like learning the Russian language is just a start - but there is a limit to how much you can understand people if you don't speak their language...

(PS: Oops. Спасибо...)

Илья ШпаньковIlyaShpankov Monday, June 30, 2008 5:46:01 AM

@chaals, yes, you right. And I hope for soon meetings too. wink

P.S. And information for My Opera developers. In RSS message I see this wrong encoding:
"Opera Community Watch notifier:
You are watching жаÑко дома? да, sure is.... There has been 1 entry since your last visit."

Or it's the Opera 9.5 bug?

tisme Monday, June 30, 2008 2:54:00 PM

chaals, you are very welcome!

lib.ru may be helpful in learning Russian as well since it contains many of the best literature samples. it also have some translations (in English). this library is best viewed in the Opera Mini ;-)

and finally may I just recommend yet another daily encyclopedia of Russian life: http://exile.ru

Alexey Feldgendlerfeldgendler Thursday, July 10, 2008 10:02:11 AM

Chaals: there's a broken image URL in your post.

Ilya: please navigate to the RSS URL, so that Opera displays it as plain XML, and check the encoding in the Info panel. Can you see Cyrillic in the XML?

tisme Thursday, July 10, 2008 10:46:26 AM

feed seems to be OK, UTF-8. almost:
<item>
      <title>Удачи в освоении язык� ...</title>
      <link>http://my.opera.com/chaals/blog/show.dml/2271268?cid=5562738</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">urn:myopera-chaals-blog-5562738</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 27 Jun 2008 18:14:56 GMT</pubDate>
      <description>Удачи в освоении языка :-)&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;Good luck.</description>
    </item>


mail 'watch notification' is not:
Subject: [Opera Community] Watch notification for "аЖаАбаКаО аДаОаМаА? аДаА, sure is..."
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
To: me@example.com
From: noreply@opera.com

Opera Community Watch notifier:
You are watching У�ТЖУ�ТАУ�Т�У�ТКУ�ТО У�ТДУ�ТОУ�ТМУ�ТА? У�ТДУ�ТА, sure is....

Alexey Feldgendlerfeldgendler Saturday, July 12, 2008 5:35:18 PM

The email issue is filed as a defect and will be fixed. I'll investigate the RSS issue.

Chaals, sorry for the offtopic. Good luck learning Russian!

sadohov Friday, January 9, 2009 1:06:16 AM

Предлагаю обмен ссылками.

Здравствуйте!
Поздравляю вас с наступившим новым годом и рождеством!

Хочу предложить вам обмен ссылками с моим сайтом:
http://www.stroki.org - Строки нашего сердца.
Обмен ссылками - каталог - http://www.stroki.org/links.php

admin@stroki.ru

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