18 April 2014. WTF! It HAS to be Russia…

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It’s just a typical April spring day in Krasnoyarsk (that’s in Siberia, for them not in the know). Yevgeni Kheisin, 50, a member of the Cryophil “walrus” club, sunbathes as he sits on an ice floe on the Yenisei River. Most of the stuff told about Siberia is bullshit, but some of its RIGHTEOUS… this pic proves it! There be plenty of “walruses” in the world… not only Russkies do it… Finns just out of the sauna do it! Polacks do it! Chinks in Manchuria do it! Scandihoovians do it! Balts do it! Even Yanks in Coney Island and Brits at Tooting Bec Lido in South London do it! WTF! It HAS to be Russia… you can’t understand it with your mind, you can only accept it for what it is…

BMD

15 April2014. The Art of the Pisanka in Moscow… A True Holy Rus Tradition

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We’ve all heard “Ukrainian” caterwauling about  pisanki. Well, it’s not true. All the Slavs do them… Poles do them (including Hutsuls and Gorali)… Czechs and Slovaks do them… Russians, Carpatho-Russians, and Belarusians do them… Slovenes, Serbs, Bulgarians, and Croats do them, as do the Sorbs and Kaszubs (the most westernmost Slavic peoples, who live in Eastern Germany and Northwestern Poland, respectively). Not only do Slavs do them, most Northern Europeans do them… Magyars do… Romanians do… Germans do… Lithuanians do… and the patterns used are very similar, considering the distances involved. That’s not all, kids! It cuts across confessional lines… Orthodox do them… Catholics do them… Evangelical Lutherans do them.

In short, pisanki are a treasured part of Easter for MANY peoples, spread out over a large part of Europe. Ergo, for any one group to “claim” them isn’t only ridiculous, it’s downright nasty. Pisanki are all-Slavic (and more)… that’s that.

BMD

5 January 2014. From the Russian Web… Snowmen Throughout the World

Kung-fu Panda

Manchuria PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

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Laughing Buddha

Arosa (Bezirk Plessur. Canton Grisons/Graubünden) SWITZERLAND

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Snow Cat

Spain

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Snow Dragon

Norway

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Tiger

USA

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Snow Dog

Parts Unknown (Central or Eastern Europe?)

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Snow Cop

The DPS is the Road Patrol Service of the GIBDD (Russian traffic cops under the MVD). They ticket speeders and most people consider them the most corrupt cops of the lot.

Russian Federation

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“(Such a) short summer!”

Russian Federation

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As for the image labelled “parts unknown”… it does look VERY Eastern European, but it could be Poland or Slovakia as much as it could be Russia. Hey, once you put religion aside, the peoples of Eastern Europe have cultures that are very similar, moulded by the climate and the resources available to them (even the Jews from our parts are a lot like us… what else would you expect?). What’s the difference between pierogi, vareniki, pelmeni, and piroggen? Not much… some are bigger, some are smaller, but they’re all recognisable as filled dumplings. From the Rhine to the Urals, Pork is the fave meat, hands down; everybody stuffs cabbage (and scarfs ’em all down… give me seconds, please), there’s not a teetotaler amongst us, and all of us party hearty (and carry “stars” when we go about singing Christmas songs).

Yes, Virginia, Central and Eastern Europe DO differ from Western Europe…

BMD

RIA-Novosti Presents… Photos of the Week, 21-27 December 2013: Olympic Fire, Ded Moroz, Kobzon the Terrible, and Others…

A cop on duty during the Olympic torch relay in Ufa.

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Policeman salutes a driver dressed as Ded Moroz, who brought the New Year’s tree to the Moscow Kremlin.

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Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former CEO of YUKOS, at a press conference at the Museum of the Berlin Wall {the place is a crapitalist rip-off, the admission is 12.50 Euros (564 Roubles. 17 USD. 18 CAD. 19 AUD. 10.40 UK Pounds) per person! An appropriate venue for a scammer, isn’t it?: editor}.

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Demonstrator at pro-EU rally on the Maidan in Kiev from the Narodnoye Veche  group.

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Dynamo-Kazan goalkeeper Anders Svensson with Yevgeni Ivanushkin (Dynamo-Moscow) and Aleksei Bushuev (Dynamo Kazan) (left to right) in the Russian Super Cup for Bandy.

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Iosif Kobzon, First Deputy Chairman of the RF Gosduma Committee on Culture, and Valentina Tereshkova, Deputy Chairman of the RF Gosduma Committee for International Affairs, at a plenary meeting.

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Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova leaving the correctional colony after her amnesty.

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President Vladimir Putin, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev (right to left) before the beginning of the session of the Supreme Council of the Eurasian Economic Community in the Kremlin.

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Yevgeni Plyushchenko competing in men’s single figure skating short programme at the Russian Cup figure skating championship in Sochi.

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The view from the top of the main New Year’s tree in Cathedral Square in the Moscow Kremlin.

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Opera singer Yelena Obraztsova and Vladimir Urin, the Director of the Bolshoi Theatre, at a press conference devoted to the 50th anniversary of Obraztsova’s début on the stage.

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A scene from Tchaikovsky‘s ballet The Nutcracker staged by Igor Zelensky on the stage of the Novosibirsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre.

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Ded Moroz made a lap around the Garden Ring.

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Actors wearing deer antlers play with children at the Moscow Zoopark during a presentation featuring Ded Moroz.

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Lying in state of the coffin of small arms designer Lieutenant General Mikhail Kalashnikov at the Cathedral of the Holy Archangel Michael in Izhevsk.

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27 December 2013

RIA-Novosti

http://ria.ru/photolents/20131227/986810952_986799180.html