br23 blog - minsk, belarus

Species: fresh-water catfish (also known as silurus or wels catfish)
Length: 212 cm
Weight: 60 kg.
The lucky fisherman is Eduard Žukoŭski, a dentist from Minsk.

This Czech journalist was shot dead 200 yards away from where we live. We pass by Karlovo park virtually every day. And you know why the man was shot? Because he wanted to protect a woman from an armed attacker. The journalist from TV Nova Michal Velíšek was just walking in a park with his […]

Barbara Oertel brings to light a few critical remarks about Deutsche Welle’s choice of language (Russian over Belarusan) in an article that was published today in a popular German newspaper “die tageszeitung”, I quote:
…Dennoch stößt das Brüsseler Projekt auf Kritik - besonders bei EU-Parlamentariern aus den neuen Mitgliedstaaten. Die Kommission riskiere, sich zu Russlands Komplizen […]

Isn’t it cute? I think that some of my earlier pointless discussions with certain pro-Lukashenka, pro-Soviet bloggers (some of them totally idiotic, others just pitiful) should definetely be classified as “incessant barking”.
But now I don’t bark anymore. And I do have this blog, so I guess I’m a bit more optimistic than the guy […]

In October, Harvard University is hosting a symposium on Belarus and a theater from Vitebsk (according to NAABS newsletter, this is “the first North American appearance by any professional Belarusan theater”). Besides, professor Curt Woolhiser from Harvard is going to teach a course in Belarusian at Harvard for graduate students. Great news, professor Woolhiser! Bravo, […]

To wrap up with the UN topic, here’s a photo from NYC:

By the way, Lukashenka was in USA less than 24 hours, and met only with two other presidents. Guess whom did he meet? Presidents of Iraq and Iran. What a terrific choice.
And Iranian president just had his speech in front of the UN General […]

President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenka, today, at the United Nations, in New York, delivered a rather shocking speech (in Russian, of course, and here’s English translation [PDF]). Here are the three excerpts which I found most interesting:
Quote #1, about “his country” USSR and current unipolar world:
“15 years have passed since the break-up of my country, […]

A well-known Belarusian poetess Danuta Bichel (Данута Бічэль) from Western Belarus writes in her diary:
“In the morning I listened to Radio Liberty. Our writer Svetlana Alexievitch declares her love for Belarus in Russian. That must be some love, to have become a writer and not learn the language. There is no Belarus without Belarusian language… […]

Worker error kills power to half of L.A.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) — About 700,000 electric customers in Los Angeles lost power Monday afternoon after a worker mistakenly cut a wrong line, triggering a cascade of problems in the city’s power grid.
One of my websites is hosted by a web-hosting company in LA, so as you […]

Last night I played cubeoban, a cute variation of the legenedary Japanese Sokoban (倉庫番). I’ve passed all the thirty levels (on two levels my wife’s given me a hand), and it was fun (but too easy)! There are several other interesting Flash-based games on oos.moxiecode.com, but I liked this one best. Lately, I also have […]