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moderndayruth

~ Tarot inspired essays and more

moderndayruth

Monthly Archives: November 2012

The Streets of Moscow: Tverskaya

24 Saturday Nov 2012

Posted by moderndayruth in Photography, Poetry

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

Eugene Onegin, Liv Tyler, Moscow, Ralph Fiennes, Ritz-Carlton, Russia, Russian Literature, Saint Petersburg, Tverskaya, Tverskaya Street

festive decorations in Tverskaya

a detail from Tverskaya Street (formerly Gorky Street), Moscow, Russia

Stalin era architecture on Tverskaya

What’s Fifth Avenue to NYC – that’s Tverskaya to Moscow, the street starts at Kremlin and runs north to the direction of Saint Petersburg; Tverskaya was there as early as the 12th century, back then it connected medieval Moscow with the historical capital – city of Tver.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, inhabited by aristocracy, it was the heart of Moscow’s social life; even the tsars (emperors) were arriving from the Northern capital – via Tverskaya – to the Kremlin and several triumphal arches were raised to commemorate the coronations.

Pushkin‘s Tatyana, in her chariot, was taken down the Tverskaya, street  towards her future husband and a new life…

The columns of the city gate

Gleam white; the sleigh, more swift than steady

Bumps down Tverskaya Street already.

Past sentry-boxes now they dash,

Past shops and lamp-posts, serfs who lash

Their nags, huts, mansions, monasteries,

Parks, pharmacies, Bukharans, guards,

Fat merchants, Cossacks, boulevards,

Old women, boys with cheeks like cherries,

Lions on gates with great stone jaws,

And crosses black with flocks of daws.

(stanza from “Eugene Onegin“)

winter at Tverskaya street (the illustration is all over internet, i presume it’s in public domain)

Tatiana Larina, the heroine of Pushkin’s novel-in-verse, by M.Klodt 1886

Eugene Onegin, Saint Petersburg’s dandy by E.P. Samokish-Sudkovskaya (1863–1924)

Ralph Fiennes and Liv Tyler as Onegin and Tatiana in 1999 remake of the movie revived what’s probably one of the saddest scenes ever:

Pushikin is the poetry master of Russian Literature -“Eugene Onegin”  consists of 389 stanzas of iambic tetrameter with the rhyme scheme “AbAbCCddEffEgg”, where the uppercase letters represent feminine rhymes (with an additional unstressed syllable), while the lowercase letters represent masculine rhymes (stressed on the final syllable) – it became known as the “Onegin stanza” or the “Pushkin sonnet”; the classic of Russian literature in Lieut.-Col. Henry Spalding translation can be downloaded from gutenberg.org

XXXIX

…Her house he enters, ghastly white,
The vestibule finds empty quite—
He enters the saloon. ‘Tis blank!
A door he opens. But why shrank
He back as from a sudden blow?—
Alone the princess sitteth there,
Pallid and with dishevelled hair,
Gazing upon a note below.
Her tears flow plentifully and
Her cheek reclines upon her hand.

XLV

“Oneguine, all this sumptuousness,
The gilding of life’s vanities,
In the world’s vortex my success,
My splendid house and gaieties—
What are they? Gladly would I yield
This life in masquerade concealed,
This glitter, riot, emptiness,
For my wild garden and bookcase,—
Yes! for our unpretending home,
Oneguine—the beloved place
Where the first time I saw your face,—
Or for the solitary tomb
Wherein my poor old nurse doth lie
Beneath a cross and shrubbery.

XLVI

“‘Twas possible then, happiness—
Nay, near—but destiny decreed—
My lot is fixed—with thoughtlessness
It may be that I did proceed—
With bitter tears my mother prayed,
And for Tattiana, mournful maid,
Indifferent was her future fate.
I married—now, I supplicate—
For ever your Tattiana leave.
Your heart possesses, I know well,
Honour and pride inflexible.
I love you—to what end deceive?—
But I am now another’s bride—
For ever faithful will abide.”

The thing is that it’s close to impossible to translate Pushkin’s verses properly; either the rhythm will be lost – or the vocabulary changed beyond recognition; even the great Nabokov was nearly ridiculed and had lost a life-long friend over his endeavor of a kind (see: The Strange Case of Pushkin and Nabokov. )

Thus, while Onegin remains one of the most popular reads in Russia – sadly, for the West it’s mostly lost; Tverskaya street too is nowadays mostly known not for the praises sung to her by Russian classical poets – but for being among the world’s top ten most expensive streets; at the Ritz-Carlton tenants like  Carrera y Carrera are said to be paying as much as $650 per square foot. (Source: CNN Money)

As Cicero would put it: O tempora o mores 😉

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He Who Kisses The Joy…

19 Monday Nov 2012

Posted by moderndayruth in Photography

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

Государственный институт русского языка им. А.С.Пушкина, Kitsch, Moscow, nouveau riche, Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, Pushkin Language Institute - Moscow, RUDN, William Blake Tarot, William Blake's Eternity, |РУДН - Росcийский университет дружбы народов

atrociously kitsch chair at the entrance of one of the numerous restaurants in Moscow built& equipped for the new rich

my furbaby “talking” to mummy on skyp

a detail from William Blake Tarot’s 9 of Pentacles

the sky above Moscow

yet another view from my window on Belyaevo area on a cloudy day

 

on campus

ceiling in a nearby club – couldn’t take pics of the belly dancers, hence the focus 😉

 

with Lea at RUDN’s Indian restaurant, digging into the best vegetarian curry in the city

my minimalistic book shelf – Kerouac, Rushdie, Saramago, Chabon, Llosa etc.

goodies from Moscow’s publishing house &online store Pryahi – William Blake Tarot, Gothic Lenormand and the new book by Halina Bednenko

 

Eternity

He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sun rise. 

William Blake

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Just For Fun

15 Thursday Nov 2012

Posted by moderndayruth in Tarot, Zen

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

Failure, Fun (band), Hiking, Leo Babauta, Osho, Religion and Spirituality, Zen, Zen Habits

Post written by Leo Babauta of zenhabits.net

Just about everything I do is just for fun.

While some people like to focus on being disciplined and achieving goals and sticking to their plans, I find this to be meaningless. What’s the point? You’ll fail about a third to half the time, and then feel like a failure for not being disciplined or sticking to a plan or goal.

In contrast, if you do the exact same thing, but let go of the expectation you’ve set for yourself and just have fun doing it, it’s a complete success.

Let’s repeat that for emphasis: if you do the exact same thing, it’s a failure if you have expectations, but a complete and absolute success if you let go of the expectations and do it for fun.

Let’s take a few examples:

  • If you set out on a really tough 3-day hike through some mountains, and make it through the first day and night but get too tired in the middle of the second day, is that a failure? It is if you are mad at yourself for not getting to the end, for not being disciplined. It’s a success, though, if you decided at the beginning to do it “just for fun” and had a great time while you were doing it.
  • If you start writing a book but only get about halfway through, is that a success or failure? It’s a failure if you expected to get finished and are disappointed in yourself for not sticking it through to the goal. It’s a success if you decided to do it for fun and had a wonderful time writing.
  • If you start an online venture and it doesn’t take off and you have to call it quits after a year — is that a failure? Well, by now you know the answer. Have fun doing it, and it’s always a success.

If you go for a walk, a run, a hike, do it for fun, not for the benefits you might get. Do experiments in your life for fun, not for the results. Wake up each day and do something for fun, not to accomplish something. Every waking moment should be just for fun.

It shifts everything. It doesn’t only determine whether something’s a success or failure — it changes your attitude while you do anything, while you’re talking with someone or reading or watching something. Your mood lifts, you are kinder to others, you have a smile on your face.

Do handstands. Dance. Bound up a hill. Sing with your child. Write something with a light and lifted heart. Be love, and compassion, and joy. Live life just for fun.

Post inspired by my (that’s – Leo’s) friend Suraj. 

“Life is a moment to celebrate, to enjoy. Make it fun, a celebration, and then you will enter the temple. The temple is not for the long-faced, it has never been for them.” Osho, I Celebrate Myself

Copyright notice: Three of Water – Celebration, Osho Zen Tarot© 2012 OSHO International Foundation, All Rights Reserved.

Leo Babauta, great soul that he is, made his work free of copyright, but PLEASE if you are resharing, reblogging or in any other way reproducing his writings,  make sure that you are giving him due credit.

 

Related articles
  • A Journey Without a Goal (moderndayruth.net)
  • Healthier Choices: Leo Babauta’s Daily Routine (greatist.com)
  • Zen to Done eBook (christianpf.com)
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November in Moscow and Skyfall in Russian

08 Thursday Nov 2012

Posted by moderndayruth in Essay, Photography

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

Antony Hopkins, Daniel Craig, Jame Bond, Javier Bardem, Jonathan Demme, Moscow, Silence of the Lambs, Skyfall




I love Moscow in November, its cold feels like a great refreshment after the hot and humid  Montenegrin fall.  It’s dry for now, no snow yet and the temperature is above zero Celsius – just the way i love it.

I’ve been crazy busy ever since i got here; the teeny-weeny studio i left behind nine months ago needed thorough de-cluttering  and cleaning, i was reapplying for residence permit, catching up with my studies, meeting friends – i don’t get to sleep more than 4 or 5 hour per night from all that running, but i am loving it.

I didn’t go clubbing yet, so i don’t know what changed in capital’s night life; so far we went with Elena for a dinner and some shopping to Kapitoliy-Vernadskovo, one of the Moscow’s biggest and best equipped shopping malls, and for some coffees in local Starbucks.

Last night we went to see Skyfall, i loved it, it’s definitely one of the best 007 movies so far! The villain is amazing, i must say i loved him more than James Bond!

The funny part is that all foreign movies are dubbed, so we got Russian speaking Daniel Craig – not to mention that he anyway looks like a combo of a Pagan Slavic deity and a KGB colonel!

(In addition to that, Ralph Fiennes – aka Gareth Mallory, the head of the Foreign Intelligence wing of Her Majesty’s Secret Service – is mostly remembered in these parts by the role of the jaded and driven by wanderlust St. Petersburg’s aristocrat Eugene in 1999 remake of  Onegin!)

Anyway, the new 007 is surprisingly not sexist – and the “gay scene” where the villain strokes James Bond’s chest is  just great.

Javier Bardem, whom most would remember as Felipe in “Eat, Pray, Love”, did a great job as Silva – i don’t recall seeing such a complex and psychologically deep bad guy ever since Antony Hopkins and “The Silence of the Lambs”; apropos – there is an obvious hint on the latter in Skyfall (warning, spoiler ahead! ) ; the glass cage where the villain is held and the action going on there has obvious allusions on Jonathan Demme’s classic.

Other than that – i gained 2 kg/ 4 pounds in a single week since i got here  from all the perogi, pelmeni, vareniki and other Russian wonders from unleavened dough, those are addictive! It’s downright miraculous how Russian women manage to be that skinny with all those delicious yet horribly fattening traditional foods!

I asked around what’s their secret – and it seems crash diets are still in vogue; on youtube there is plenty of ridiculous eating plans, like this one where you alter chicken with veggies – for ten days one day you eat an egg+cucumber and a boiled chicken , and the other day – cabbage, carrot and beetroot salad (no salt, no oil, no supplements – nothing!) It’s beyond me how nutritionists – or at least that’s how the TV host addresses them – can suggest something that imbalanced, and more so claim that you will lose 5 kg/ 11 pounds in only ten days?! I mean, dumping salt is awesome – whomever can do it, and if that menu actually combined the lean protein with veggies on a daily basis – that would be more than fine, but losing 11 pounds in such a short period is impossible, most of it will be water and all of it will come back too soon, probably doubled; yo-yo dieting is notorious for that.

I included fish and diary in my menu once again; vegan works for me back in Montenegro, but here i don’t have all the time it takes to plan a balanced vegan menu, hunt down the products which aren’t readily available, not to mention hours that it takes to prepare them (mind you, raw vegan is not a good idea in harsh Russian winter.)

With NaNoWriMo i am terribly behind, with all the research and writing i am doing for my thesis, it would kill me to write additional 1.600 or so words per day; i settled for a novelette (that would be 15.000 words only) and if i finish the first draft by the end of the month, i’ll be more than happy; i choose a borderline genre – a fictional memoir of a mail order bride and so far i am having fun working on it.

I took several shots for you of the area where i live, my University – the prestigious Pushkin State Institute and surrounding it South-Eastern Muscovite scenery.

From Russia with love,

yours L.R.S.

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An Undemanding Illusion Of Belonging

04 Sunday Nov 2012

Posted by moderndayruth in Poetry

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Arts, Desert, desert mirage, illusion of belonging, Red Square in Moscow, Tretyakov Gallery

A hidden opening in gloomy reality,

a dreamy narrow passage

leading away from

unwanted lives

overcrowded by ghosts of failed relationships,

is that what we are to each other?

Could it be that ours is merely

an undemanding illusion of belonging?

 And i wonder why am i scared

to loosen the desperate grip

and let go this desert mirage

made of things that will never be.

 

Red Square in Moscow
Fedor Yakovlevich Alekseev (1753–1824)
Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Copyright notice:the image is in public domain because its copyright expired.

 

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