"I want to go in". Félicitations!

So, you have let your hair grow? Stylish, as You always are. Congrats, Atiq!

* * * * *

"Soon they'll socialise the car industry," Mr HP commented this morning. He was puzzled, and slightly amused, too, I must admit. It is his birthday today, so into our bed he received coffee, newspaper and buns (proudly baked by me) with whipped cream.

While enjoying the warmest congratulations from Miss Funnybunny and me, with self-made cards and a poem (mine!) he was digging into the deep and crushing crisis of car industry in USA. (But good for the environment? Well, perhaps, if they build any alternative means of transportation. But that's what the big country is lacking at the moment.)

Then, just to make him laugh and forget the recession for a sec – an entrepreneur as he is (but in the hard business of literature, so he's not a car salesman!) – I told him the joke M.U. e-mailed me yesterday (THANKS again, dearest M!):

"One sunny day in 2009,

an old man sitting on a park bench opposite the White House, got up, crossed Pennsylvania Avenue and said to the U.S. Marine standing guard, 'I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.' The Marine replied, 'Sir, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here.''Okay,' said the old man and walked away.

The following day, the same man walked over to the White House and said to the same Marine, 'I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.' The Marine replied, 'Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here.' 'Okay,' said the old man again and walked away.

The third day, the same man walked over to the White House and said to the very same Marine, 'I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.'

The Marine, understandably annoyed, looked at the man and replied, 'Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here asking to speak to Mr. Bush. I've told you already that Mr. Bush is no longer the president and no longer resides here. Don't you understand?'

The old man said, 'Oh, I understand. I just love hearing it.'

The Marine snapped to attention, saluted, and said, 'See you tomorrow.'"

* * *

And last but not least, I would like to congratulate the newest winner of the most valuable literature prize in France, Prix Goncourt: Atiq Rahimi!

Your books on Afganistan and the wars the nation has suffered from have made me a huge impression. I can hardly wait for the next one!

It was lovely to work with You years ago. The war fabricated by the CIA or George W. or whoever, against "the axis of evil" – one strong member of which was supposingly Afganistan – had just started and everywhere You had to comment on the desperate situation of the Afgans.

But yet, we did have a good time in Central Finland, partying until dawn with a bunch of literature maniacs. It was a literature happening in Urjala, in the nostalgic landscapes of the most important Finnish classics.

Félicitations, cher Atiq!

In an interview Rahimi comments on his book Earth and Ashes: "I wrote the novel in 1996, when the Taliban had just come to power. I thought, "Why? Why this violence? Why so much destruction?" During the Soviet war, there was a lot of vengeance, much catastrophe. The Taliban came from this catastrophe. It is important to know where this came from. Also, I wanted to show the three generations of Afghanistan. Dastaguir, the old man, represents Afghanistan's past, its traditions, its customs, its honor. This is the older generation. His son is the present, my generation. He works in a mine; he is the mujahideen generation, the chaos. Yassin, the grandson, is the future. He is deaf, handicapped by war. It is always true that communication between generations does not exist. My generation, the generation of Mujahideen and Communist, has no communication with the past or future."

* * * * *

Happy Birthday to those of You who celebrate this very day: the twins Ode and Hannu, Antti V, and especially Petteri = 40 years!!!! Congrats for the degree to Ira!

Finncon 2008

M. John Harrison. Farah Mendlesohn. Charles Vess. And Cheryl Morgan, in Finland again! She has written an excellent report on the con, please see this entry in her blog. (And THANKS, Cheryl, for you beautiful words!)

Lots of splendid presentations, 7000 participants, anime fans in strange costumes, discussions, signings, scifi fandom dressed in black as usual, cat ears, meeting friends – old and new ones – in beer sessions in bars or in the countryside with or without sauna...

And the sunny city of Tampere. What more could you ask for in a literary get-together?


M. John Harrison in the Lenin Museum, Tampere. The only Lenin museum in the world.


Petri Hiltunen analyzing War. Definitely.


M. John Harrison, Edward James and Charles Vess waiting for their turn to go to sauna. Ladies went first.


Mr and Mrs Guest of Honor. And guess what it is behind them, a small hut down the hill? Sauna, of course.

London Book Fair 2008. Photo report.

So, here is the report I promised. Knowing there is a number of colleagues waiting for this, it's about time.

Should you like to see a bigger photo, please doubleclick the pic. (Or that's what you shoud do with Mac; I'm not sure if it works likewise with PC.)

But, before looking at these, you should read the short written report, which is just before this post under the title "Signs of an acceleration".

Landing soon. On an early morning flight from Helsinki.


Queensway tube station, the entrance just on my left hand side. Bayswater Road on the right, Queensway crossing. Kensington Park on the right on the other side of the Bayswater Road. Our hotel was a block away from this meeting point. Good neighbourhood with silent streets full of little hotels and some lively main streets, like Queensway, with shops, cafes, pubs, and reasonably cheap ethnic restaurants. My favourites: Lebanese, Persian and Thai kitchen. All those can be experiensed on Queensway. I am usually staying in Bayswater and have never regretted. (Two years before we were in Bloomsbury, a bit north from the Russell Square, and that was not a nice area late in the evening. Or at night, really.)


Earls Court. The fever pitch of book industry for these three days.


PEN Cafe. Take a look at the walls with important quotes. (Doubleclick, doubleclick, doubleclick.) I was so proud to be a PEN active.


... and I was not the only one interested in Freedom Of Speech.


* * * * *

Stinkies? How funny. I like the window decoration of this children's toy shop.


Apples being on their way – or cherries? Having spring around, aren't we.


A nice street in South Kensington, or "Ken". That's what I learned from a London-based Rankin novel.


Residence of the Finnish Ambassador. One of the most expensive addresses in the world, Kensington Palace Gardens. (After the collapse of the West European banking we predicted with M.U. it might not be that high-priced any longer.)


Eros on Piccadilly Circus. Managed to get downtown, too!


* * * * *

Last year I was very angry with Boris Berezovsky. And as usual, took some photos of very warm London. Go though this link to the short update on LBF 2007.

"Signs of an acceleration"?

I mean quite simply that I have begun to crack all over like an old jug – that my poor body, singular, unlovely, buffeted by too much history, subjected to drainage above and drainage below, mutilated by doors, brained by spittoons, has started coming apart at the seams. In short, I am literally disintegrating, slowly for the moment, although there are signs of an acceleration.

No, I'm not that bad. This was written by Salman Rushdie in his 1980's Booker Prize-winning Midnight's Children.

* * * * *


After arriving in London we immediately left for the biggest store belonging to the Waterstone's chain, but didn't take the quickest route. Walked from the Oxford Circus tube station instead. That gave us both an excuse and opportunity for some window-shopping on Regent Street. (And not just "window", sorry.)

There we bought some books – we are not supposed to buy any. Especially not me. But I just did not have anything to read, like I often tell Mr HP.

And then we admired some stationery. Sounds strange? Oh, business is business is business.

Mr HP noticed soon there is another book shop we should visit. "Kind of a small one". Hatchard's.

Founded in 1797. An official supplier of the Royal Family. Yeah right.

How the books were piled in very central positions, and they were signed, this made a great impression. Big names like Donna Leon, Jeffrey Archer... Not necessarily my cup of tea, but hey: signed.

I saw there was someone signing in the back and told Mr HP we must go and see an author in action. Besides me, no other audience around, by the way. Absolutely no-one around besides an agent, a PR woman, the shopkeeper, or some rep of very high level, and seemingly, a grandchild of the author.


After taking two steps towards the author's direction I came back, took a book, ran back and kindly asked Mr Salman Rushdie to sign one for me as well. So he did. As a result of this encounter I bought his newest, The Enchantress of Florence.

* * * * *

Now I regret I left my camera at work, so I can't download the photos I took. But the rest in brief:

I had breakfast with Tony Wood who works at the New Left Review. Invited him to Helsinki. I hope he'll come.

At the fair I saw friends and/or business acquaintances from Nigeria, Norway, France, Sweden, England, Scotland, Estonia, Turkey, USA, Canada and – well, Finland. Including some Finns who live in the UK now.

EDIT: At the fair Mr HP and I did some real work. Involving book trade and industry. Arts and crafts. Rights and agreements. But I won't bore you with the details now.

In the evening we visited the Finnish embassy, or actually, the Ambassador's residence and attended the reception for the literary community from the Nordic countries. The Residence is in Kensington Palace gardens. Nice neighbourhood, I dare to admit.

Afterwards I needed to catch up with a friend who works for Söderstöm's, a Finnish company publishing in Swedish.

I managed to listen to some discussions organised by the English PEN. There was even a "PEN Literary Cafe" for discussions on Freedom of Speech. Always full but with some luck and patience there was room.

That's enough for a three-day visit.

* * * * *

... Calling To The Faraway Towns..."

I'm going here.

And here, as it was recommended by him.

And I am already thinking about visiting some sites worth seeing, belonging to this, too.

And will be meeting people in here, too, hopefully from other Nordic Countries as well – a Nordic Reception as it is.

In my iPod I have this, too. As usual.

An update en route, look forward to that.

Run On By. With Tennessee Stud.

Is there any such thing as "Burt Bacharach Appreciation Society"? If I find one, I will be close to joining. BB is a bright guiding star for every runner (with iPod). I don't walk, I run on by.

But a huge surprise for me has been how really very very good, how BRILLIANT an artist Johnny Cash was! Have never really thought so, until now.

Remember Tennessee Stud? Was on Jackie Brown, the Best Film of Tarantino's, I think.

A sample of Tennessee Stud, by Jimmy Driftwood. (Sing along, with the link above.)

Me and a gambler we couldn't agree
We got in a fight over Tennessee
We jerked our guns, he fell with a thud
And I got away on the Tennessee stud

Well, I got as lonesome as a man can be
Dreamin' of my girl in Tennessee
The Tennessee stud's green eyes turned blue
'Cause he was a-dreamin' of a sweetheart too

We loped on back across Arkansas
I whipped her brother and I whipped her pa
I found that girl with the golden hair
And she was ridin' on a Tennessee mare...



As for Jackie B., refresh your memories and take a look at "AK-47".

Jackie Brown is based on a novel Rum Punch of Elmore Leonard's. "He loves sports and guns", thus spoke Wikipeadia. But he has quite recently wrotten a guide book, Ten Rules Of Writing. Very interesting.

You can also learn a great deal from his website; there's an FAQ section. How about this:

Q: How do I gen an agent?
A: My advice is to learn how to write and an agent will find you.

There nothing more to add.

Beach, Shakespeare and Paris

Books. My favourite medium of interior design. I live and work surrounded by books.

Paris. My favourite town.

The place where I wish I were. Right now.

Sylvia Beach was an American lady, only twenty-something in 1919, when she sent from Paris her mother a message asking for money. Mummy was in the USA.

Beach wanted to found a bookshop in Paris, and start selling American (and British and Irish) literature for the French. Literature she adored, and in a stimulating, lively, vivid town she had started to see as home.

This was not her original idea: at first she had wanted to run a bookshop in NY, but the rents were much higher there, and living costs in Paris were inexpensive.

She had lived in France and Switzerland, knew the language, so the decision was not that far-fetched.

Soon Shakespeare and Company was opened on the left bank, by Rue Dupyutren. And she started having guests. Boy, did she have some visitors! James Joyce. Among her closest friends. (Beach even published Ulusseus, the first print run being 1 000 copies, but Joyce suggested 12! Luckily Beach knew better.) Ezra Pound. There, too, of course. Ernest Hemingway. Well, sure. F. Scott Fitzgerald. How to avoid him, Hemingway and Pound being there, too? Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. The eccentric lesbians, the Dynamic Duo of the Literary Life of Paris.

And many, many others.

*******
(Picture: Beach with Joyce.)

Shakespeare and Company is probably the most comfortable, stylish, respected, well-known and attractive bookshop in the world.

I have been even dreaming of it lately. It's because I am reading the autobiography Sylvia Beach wrote in the 1950's. It is so interesting.



I am reading in Finnish, for a change.

*******

I am thinking about that book all the time.

And I am leaving for Warsaw tomorrow.

*******

Well, some history of WW II and the ghetto & highly artistic Polish posters will invade my mind.

The Answer is 42? The Scary Mouse.

I have always found animal testing quite scary, probably because of all the pain they cause, for the benefit of the mankind. If the mankind gains any benefit out of new mascaras or shampoos, that's another story. But the really MOST scary tests are carried out by the gene technology guys. Check this out:

The mouse that shook the world

By Steve Connor, Science Editor
The Independent, 02 November 2007

The mouse can run up to six kilometres (3.7 miles) at a speed of 20 metres per minute for five hours or more without stopping. Scientists said that this was equivalent of a man cycling at speed up an Alpine mountain without a break.
Although it eats up to 60 per cent more food than an ordinary mouse, the modified mouse does not put on weight. It also lives longer and enjoys an active sex life well into old age – being capable of breeding at three times the normal maximum age.

American scientists who created the mice – they now have a breeding colony of 500 – said that they were stunned by their abilities, especially given that the animals came about as a result of a standard genetic modification to a single metabolism gene shared with humans.

*****

Please read the story as a whole in here.

And why would the answer be 42? If you need to ask me this, you have not read the Douglas Adams books, and that's a pity. Come on, go get them. Mice had an important role in the future – or the destruction – of the Earth.

Books, Wine and Food? Or Books and Sauna (+ Beer).

According to the press release of the Helsinki Book Fair,

Books, wine and food draw visitors to the Helsinki Fair Centre

Booklovers and wine & food buffs were pampered with a twin event at the Helsinki Fair Centre over the weekend. The seventh Helsinki Book Fair was accompanied by the new Wine, Food & Good Living event, which was organised by the wine magazine Viini. The two events attracted a total of 68,500 visitors...

*****

We, a group of six women, enjoyed the Fair and the Sauna, like last year.

Swimming in candle light, can you imagine? But a good, hothot sauna first, with good company, afterwards beer, or cider, like some (others) preferred.

This sauna belongs to some trade union hot-shots, in the book fair area, Pasila. Perhaps this has already become our tradition?



*****

Something reminded me of the first Helsinki Book Fair which took place in 2001. Then Ian Rankin, my idol, visited. (I met Rankin in Reykjavik, in 2006!!!! Take a look at this and this.)

But I happened to come by a very funny Rankin interview in the net. I quote just a few bites here, enjoy:

Are you a practical joker?

– Now and then. When some friends were away once, I stole a 'For Sale' sign and put it up next to their house as a homecoming gift. But practical jokes take effort, and these days I try to keep all effort to a minimum....

What would be a perfect weekend for you?

Perfect weekend: out on the bevvy (alcohol) with some pals, maybe hit some record shops, go see a football match, then sober up in the evening, a bath and a shave, and out for a meal with my wife. That's the Saturday. Sunday, I'd stay in bed late, then assassinate the royal family.

Are there any movies you have seen that have left a real lasting impression on you?

I don't know. Instead, here are some films I love: The Godfather, Goodfellas, The Big Chill, Toy Story, Singles, Terminator, Apocalypse Now, Blade Runner....

*****


The Big Chill, where did that come from? Well, nonetheless, it is an extremely good film. I have loved it for decades. Haven't thought about it for years. A Lawrence Kasdan film, directed in 1983, with the Kasdan gang, like William Hurt, Jeff Goldblum, Kevin Kline + Meg Tilly, sweet...

Women from... allovertheworld.

The women writers' convention last week was a success. It was organised by the Finnish PEN.

Thank you so much for visiting us! It was lovely to hear your thoughts, see the films and have fun in Helsinki.

I'd like to send you my greetings with the words of one of the greatest female writers ever, Marina Tsvetaeva.

My Poems...

My poems, written early, when I doubted
that I could ever play the poet's part,
erupting, as though water from a fountain
or sparks from a petard,

and rushing as though little demons, senseless,
into a sanctuary, where incense spreads,
my poems about death and adolescence,
--that still remain unread! --

collecting dust in bookstores all this time,
where no one comes to carry them away,
my poems, like exquisite, precious wines,
will have their day!

Marina Tsvetaeva, 1913
Translated by Andrey Kneller

But dear guests from all over the world: your poems (and articles, novel and films) are not dusty at all!











Please see more photos in Kristiina Koivunen's blog. In the first photo there is a little Uyghur girl, Miss Funnybunny's "kompis" (friend).

Midsummer Paradise. "Songs of ancient wit and wisdom".

This is our place in Western Finland, Northern Satakunta. Or Mr HP's. We spent our Midsummer there, and this has already become a tradition.

Later we will go to other parts of Finland. My family has datchas in Southern part, the main one in Asikkala. We are quite busy in Summer trying to find some leasure time for all our summer places (4).

But we love to spend summer in Finland. Need to guess why?

I have just washed the dishes. And the fire is burning the food trash.


The backyard. Full of mushrooms, lingonberries and blackberries in autumn (late August – early October). Behind the forest (of Mr HP's) there are strawberry fields. Industrial ones. But nonetheless, they are beautiful, too.




And the front side. The grass has been cut... but not here.


My favourite place. A smallest hall. But cutest.



...and the same at night.


*****

Want some good reading for summer? Try Kalevala, the most important book of ours. If you ever read it from the begining to the end, I shall reward you somehow.

(not from the beginning:)

WAINAMOINEN, ancient minstrel,
Passed his years in full contentment,
On the meadows of Wainola,
On the plains of Kalevala,
Singing ever wondrous legends,
Songs of ancient wit and wisdom,
Chanting one day, then a second,
Singing in the dusk of evening,
Singing till the dawn of morning,
Now the tales of old-time heroes,
Tales of ages long forgotten,
Now the legends of creation,
Once familiar to the children,
By our children sung no longer,
Sung in part by many heroes,
In these mournful days of evil,
Evil days our race befallen.
Far and wide the story travelled,
Far away men spread the knowledge
Of the chanting of the hero,
Of the song of Wainamoinen;
To the South were heard the echoes,
All of Northland heard the story.

Far away in dismal Northland,
Lived the singer, Youkahainen,
Lapland's young and reckless minstrel,
Once upon a time when feasting,
Dining with his friends and fellows,
Came upon his ears the story
That there lived a sweeter singer,
On the meadows of Wainola,
On the plains of Kalevala,
Better skilled in chanting legends,
Better skilled than Youkahainen,
Better than the one that taught him.

Straightway then the bard grew angry,
Envy rose within his bosom,
Envy of this Wainamoinen,
Famed to be a sweeter singer;
Hastes he angry to his mother,
To his mother, full of wisdom,
Vows that he will southward hasten,
Hie him southward and betake him
To the dwellings of Wainola,
To the cabins of the Northland,
There as bard to vie in battle,
With the famous Wainamoinen.

"Nay," replies the anxious father,
"Do not go to Kalevala."

...and then Youkahainen starts to mess things up!

Miss Funnybunny has her childrens' Kalevala literature. She even listens to it on CD.

Summer Highlights. Pasolini and Midnight Sun. Mukkula Writers' Union.

Cinema is identical to life, because each one of us has a virtual and invisible camera which follows us from when we're born to when we die. In reality cinema is an infinite film sequence-shot. Each individual film interrupts and rearranges this infinite sequence-shot and thus creates meaning, which is what happens to us when we die. It is only at our moment of death that our life, to that point undecipherable, ambiguous, suspended, acquires a meaning. Montage thus plays the same role in cinema as death does in life.

– Pier Paolo Pasolini



One of the highlights of every summer is over, Midnight Sun Film Festival, in Sodankylä, Lapland. 160 kilometres north from the Arctic Circle. We were there, Miss Funnybunny and Mr HP, with several friends. And met with other bloggers, like Vaiheinen and Sedis.

And my highlights there? Firstly, a very good and touching Pasolini documentary, directed and cut (in 2006!!!!!) by Giuseppe Bertolucci who was there. He and his brother Bernardo knew Pasolini personally. The documentary was like a "Making of Salò". But it was good. It showed how intelligent and – believe it or not – nice a person Pasolini was. With a good sense of humor. And kindness.

The second most important thing (for me) was the film karaoke starting between Friday and Saturday at 3 am in the big film theater tent. (This time the film was a Finnish "SF Parade", 1939. But I will spare you and NOT analyse the film now.)




The party in Porttikoski rapids (20 km from Sodankylä) was as nice as ever. The foreign guests of honour seemed to enjoy, too.


And then, on Sunday night we drove back. Took a bit more than 11 hours. These beautiful windmills are on the sea shore in Ii. (No kidding. The place is called "Ii". Pronounced: "Ee-e" – a long vowel.) While having coffee and ice cream we four adults – the passengers and co-drivers in Mr HP's car – were talking about reducing nuclear power. Windmills are cool, but in using them, Finland is doing only some minimal efforts. That's pathetic.


And finally, we are almost home! Not yet, in Central Finland, Viitasaari.



....and we did not go home, but to Lahti International Writers' Union, to Mukkula, instead. There is Miss Funnybunny in her purple Momin shirt, listening to the Closing Session. In which language, I am not sure.


And this was the beautiful view from our little Mukkula cottage, at Mukkula Camping. Behind the trees there is the Lake Vesijärvi. ( = "Waterlake". How well thought. Who ever said people in Lahti lack imagination?)



Summer in Finland is so short every warm and sunny moment is highly valued by us Finns.

And if it rains? Well, "we are not made out of sugar," as we tend to say.

Europe's leading writers' call to action. Don't celebrate "the impotent nullities". Stop massacres and don't betray our civilisation.

In today's Independent there is a very touching and exceptionally clever appeal for preventing the massacres in Darfur. (See the end of this post.)

Not only do I find this so brilliant because of the signing writers - the books of whom I have read with adoration and respect - but also because they have so definite and real suggestions: Forbid them (the reps of the Sudanese regime) our shores, our health service and our luxury goods. Freeze their assets in our banks and move immediately to involve other concerned countries.

But does the Europe want to stop the massacre? The literary masters won't let the European leaders escape by letting them hide behind the economical facts or bureaucracy. They are demanding Europe to become a civilised cultural area again, respecting the values on which the European Community was originally established: It (the European tradition) is an inherited culture which sustains our shared belief in the value and dignity of the human being.

Dear Umberto Eco,

IStori has been a great fan of yours for years. For decades. Unlike most people, who seem to like "The Name Of the Rose" best, the book that made me hold my breath was "Foucault's Pendulum": a brilliant story about crimes in the past and (even) in the future, about crimes which may not have happened after all, and also about how people can do amazingly cruel and merciless things, only because they believe in dangerous systems build up, eventually, by themselves.

And thinking the destructive theories invented by themselves are somehow divine truths.

Please Mr Eco, keep up the good fighting! (And, add Chechnya and Russia on your list.)

I will send the following to our President, Ms Tarja Halonen, and Prime Minister, Mr Matti Vanhanen. (Not that I doubt they wouldn't already have been sent the letter.)

Hopefully some Estonian brothers and sisters will send this to President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, and the Swedes to Victoria, or whoever is the biggest leader there, and so on...

*******

Darfur: a letter from Europe's leading writers
On the fiftieth anniversary of the EU, a call to action
Published: 24 March 2007

To the leaders of the 27 nations of the EU

How dare we Europeans celebrate this weekend while on a continent some few miles south of us the most defenceless, dispossessed and weak are murdered in Sudan?

Has the European Union - born of atrocity to unite against further atrocity - no word to utter, no principle to act on, no action to take, in order to prevent these massacres in Darfur? Is the cowardliness over Srebrenica to be repeated? If so, what do we celebrate?

The thin skin of our political join?

The futile posturings of our political class?

The impotent nullities of our bureaucracies?

The Europe which allowed Auschwitz and failed in Bosnia must not tolerate the murder in Darfur. Europe is more than a network of the political classes, more than a first world economic club and a bureaucratic excrescence. It is an inherited culture which sustains our shared belief in the value and dignity of the human being. In the name of that common culture and those shared values, we call upon the 27 leaders to impose immediately the most stringent sanctions upon the leaders of the Sudanese regime.

Forbid them our shores, our health service and our luxury goods. Freeze their assets in our banks and move immediately to involve other concerned countries.

We must not once again betray our European civilization by watching and waiting while another civilization in Africa is destroyed.

Let this action be our gift to ourselves and our proof of ourselves. And when it is done, then let us celebrate together with pride.

Umberto Eco
Dario Fo
Günter Grass
Jürgen Habermas
Václav Havel
Seamus Heaney
Bernard Henri-Levy
Harold Pinter
Franca Rame
Tom Stoppard

Solzhenitsyn: Russia dogged by problems similar to those that led to 1917 revolution

Alexander Solzhenitsyn has been a fan of Putin's. Until recently? Nonetheless, the following is quite a phenomenal statement.

(By Vladimir Isachenkov, Associated Press Writer, 27 February 2007)

Nobel laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn warns in the preface to a newly republished article that Russia is still struggling with challenges similar to those of the revolutionary turmoil of 1917 that led to the demise of the czarist empire.

The article - which will appear tomorrow in the influential government daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta - analyzes the roots of the February revolution 90 years ago that forced the abdication of the last czar, Nicholas II, and helped pave the way for the Bolsheviks.

"It's all the more bitter that a quarter of a century later, some of these conclusions are still applicable to the alarming disorder of today," Solzhenitsyn wrote in a preface to the article first written in the early 1980s.

Solzhenitsyn's wife, Natalya, said it should serve as a reminder to Russia's political class about the dangers stemming from the huge gap between the rich and the poor, and the stark contrast in lifestyle and moral attitudes in the glitzy Russian capital compared to the far less prosperous provinces.

"Alexander Isayevich is deeply worried by this gap," Natalya Solzhenitsyn told a news conference Monday. "It's necessary to pay attention to that. If the government fails to do that, consequences would be grave."

In addition to being printed in the widely read, half-million-circulation newspaper, the article - first published in Russian in a magazine in 1993 - will be also republished as a separate pamphlet under the title "Thoughts On The February Revolution" and sent to officials across Russia, Rossiyskaya Gazeta's editor Vladislav Fronin said.

"People from the (Ear Eastern) Chukotka region to the Kremlin would be able to read it," he said.

... Read the whole story here.

(© 2007 Independent News and Media Limited)

Russia, my love!

Some people get confused when others like me pay so much attention to the undemocratic developments in Russia, critisizing the lack of human rights. Has been assumed that we, the watch dogs, are Russophobics, hostile people hating Russia.


But it is NOT so. I love Russia. (As do many of my politically demanding friends, too.) The best trips ever I have done to that bizarre, enigmatic and huge superpower. Some of my best foreign friends are of course Russians. And even in Estonia I love to dig into the visible and lively Russian culture, too.

This is my list of some of the best things in Russia:

5) The amazing history. It can been seen and felt everywhere, even in ultra-modern Moscow, when you scratch the surface. Old ruins and kremlins, like in Nizhnyi-Novgorod, old churches, palaces, stupendous Stalinka blocks of flats, monstrous but eye-catching Soviet-style monuments...

4) The food. When it is good, it's really good! (Be aware: lots of bad food available!)
Blinys. Borsch soup. Shchi soup. Cabbage pies. Pickeld cucumber. Pelmeniy. Mustard (Dijon-like). Ketchup. You did know, didn't you, that in Russia ketchup is the best in the world? My favourite restaurant in Helsinki is Russian, too. It's Restoran Kazak.

3) The people. The good, nice people. Guys who like to sing until early morning. With whom to enjoy the bridges being lifted. Discussing the meaning of life and drinking sparkling Ukranian wine in a cosy bar. In the kind of bar, where everybody claims she is an artist. Everybody. Old ladies taking care of the museums (and taking care of me). Grannies cleaning public toilets, day by day. Selling hand-made goods at market places. Cleaning tables at cafes, run by girls looking like super models. Witty Russians, never running out of captivating jokes and anecdotes:

An inspecting commission came to a lunatics asylum. To greet them, a choir of the patients sang a song from a popular movie that says "Oh, how good it is to live in the Soviet land!"
The commission noticed that one of the men did not sing.
"Why are you not singing?"
"I'm not crazy, I'm a nurse here."

A frightened man came to the KGB, saying "My talking parrot disappeared."
"This is not our case. Go to the criminal police."
"Excuse me. Of course I know that I have to go to them. I am here just to tell you officially that I disagree with that parrot."

2) The Russian music. My favourites: Rakhmaninov, Mussorgsky, at times even Shostakovich. Tchaikovsky; especially the violin concert and some operas, like Eugene Onegin, the opera I find the best opera in the world! The second best is the Queen of Spades.

1) More culture. Arts. The wonderful paintings in the Russian museum or Tretyakov gallery. Or Hermitage. Films, like the ones of Tarkovskiy. Literature. Master i Margarita, Doctor Zhivago (= my favourite), anything written by Dostoyevsky, poems of Akhmatova. Solzhenitsyn. Wonderful.
And Krokodil Gena , the best children's character ever, enjoy!