I came back from Moscow two weeks ago. The trip was quick but very instructive.
Moscow is actually a strange city for a westerner. In 2007's Putin's Russia, Moscow spread a quite agressive impression made of ultra-capitalism and Soviet/Stalinian herency... Quite a strange feeling that is reinforced by huge cars, huge streets, almost no pedestrians, no scooters or bikes in the streets.. Very huge adverts for international companies... Or for Putin's party (only for his party.) - I saw one near the red place which was about 100 meters wide and 25 meter high !! And policemen with Sovietic-style hats whatching quite attentively the people, especially those who don't look like Russian. I was quite surprised to see that many of the symbols of the sovietic times are still in place: Lenin or Stalin's statues, communist red stars... and the most impressive landmarks of the city which are the "stalinian skyscrappers" even a new one, in a sort of "las vegas style", has been build for the new "elite class". Only the very city center, around the red place and Kremlin are reletively touristic, relatively old and pedestrian - a sort of "vitrine" of the eternal Russia, with its golden domes and a very chic commercial fashion center just alongside Lenin's tomb.
Actually the red place and Kremlin were very impressive when we arrive at night, but the place is much smaller than what I imagined before. also for the Saint Basile church, which is relatively small. In fact the image of the red place that was spread to the west was voluntuaraly made bigger with special angles to impress the western powers during the military demonstations.
The description you've given makes it sound as though Moscow is bizarrely a bit like an American city in many ways. Would you say that?
definiltly not at all. Even if I spoke about "ultra-capitalism" I'd say it produce something typically Russian in the sense that it is about a country in which the population is still quite poor for most of it (it is especially true outside the city center, and outside Moscow urban area the feel is more is more "third world".
I think the way the "new rich" russian lead a capitalist way of life in a very caricatural way, maybe in the purpose of miming what they percieve as being western. This vision of the west is miles away from our social democracies of western Europe, but is also quite far from the high income American society who have learn to deal with capitalism since ever.
what is I felt quite new in Russia during the few years of Putin's reign is a valorisation of the soviet times, not in the economic field, but in the national, political, military ones, etc.
Even today most of the city is made of building of Kroutchev period - those blocks were preconstrudted and uniformized. I fell that globally Moscow has still a strong feel of communist times. I think it has more to see to China in that way (a socity based on the old comunist structure that promotes hard-capitalism). I agree that it is somthing unusual and difficult to categorize if we follow the traditional way of thinking in terms of "left or right" in western Europe.
I agree that it is somthing unusual and difficult to categorize if we follow the traditional way of thinking in terms of "left or right" in western Europe.
That's certainly true. I think it would be a bit like trying to categorise past Western European leaders according to modern Western European thinking in terms of 'left-wing' and 'right-wing'. Even those from not so long ago — Winston Churchill, for example, was a Conservative and is thus viewed as 'right-wing' and was definitely not a 'socialist', but was he really an advocate of 'economic liberalism' in the modern sense? I don't think so.
English Wikipedia describes Putin's United Russia party as 'centrist', 'conservative' and 'Putanist', but I'm not sure if that's from a Western European (or perhaps North American) perspective, or from a Russian perspective. I can't even begin to imagine what might be considered 'centrist' or 'conservative' in Russia — if those concepts even exist there at all, I'm sure their meanings would be very different from what you or I would understand by them.
Location: El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Río de Porciúncula
Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 12:57 am Post subject:
Lovely pictures, Fab! Did you get a chance to hang out at the clubs? I've often wondered (well, not really) how the social scene is in Moscow.
And if I may:
red place > Red Square
stalinian skyscrappers > altho' "Stalinian" isn't incorrect, it sounds ugly to my ears (maybe that's the intent). I prefer the term Stalinesque skyscraper
Kroutchev > for some reason the French spelling of this name looks so "un-Russian"! As if spelling it Krushchev makes it any more Russian.
English Wikipedia describes Putin's United Russia party as 'centrist', 'conservative' and 'Putanist'
I think "putinist" may be the rightest word to describe his regime, it does not have much common points with other classifications I think.
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Did you get a chance to hang out at the clubs? I've often wondered (well, not really) how the social scene is in Moscow.
We have been in a clud one night. they does not seem to be so much in Moscow. Actually that's not very different form other night clubs on earth. Russia seems to be very "90's style of techno musics" as concerns the music. the main difference is the price of vodka, which was less than water... I'm afraid I don't remember clearly how I managed to come back to the hotel
Celle-ci me fait penser à une région de la RDA que j'avais traversée, quelques années après la chute du Mur.
Elaine wrote:
Kroutchev > for some reason the French spelling of this name looks so "un-Russian"! As if spelling it Krushchev makes it any more Russian.
Actually the spelling is Khrouchtchev for Хрущёв, where <щ> stands for either /ɕʨ/ or /ʃt͡ʃ/, both to be pronounced in one row. In Хрущёв I think it might be /ɕʨ/ rather than /ʃt͡ʃ/, but I'm not sure.
Location: San Francisco, Noord-Kalifornië, Noord-Amerika
Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 10:57 pm Post subject:
greg in noord-frankrijk wrote:
Actually the spelling is Khrouchtchev for Хрущёв, where <щ> stands for either /ɕʨ/ or /ʃt͡ʃ/, both to be pronounced in one row. In Хрущёв I think it might be /ɕʨ/ rather than /ʃt͡ʃ/, but I'm not sure.
Although the letter щ is described (for English speakers) as sounding like the "shch" in fresh cheese, I've never heard anyone pronounce it like that. What they say is more like "shsh" as in "fresh shoes". But the "t" in the French transliteration is obviously there because of this insistence on pronouncing щ like "shch" (or "chtch" in French).
By the way, another transliteration mistake is that ё is actually pronounced like "yo" in English (but without the "u" sound at the end). And all voiced vowels are unvoiced when they occur at the end of a word, so that "v" should really be an "f". I think an accurate French transliteration would be more like "Khrouchchof". In English it would be "Khrushshof", but you'd have to know that the "u" and "o" should be long vowels, not short.
Nice pictures, fab -- they bring back memories. But those huge billboards are definitely something new since I was there.
Thanks for that explanation, Deborah. From what I gathered, the letter <щ> was originally a mix of <ш> & <ч>, <ш> being /ʃ/ whereas <ч> stands for /t͡ʃ/, hence the misconception : <щ> = <ш> + <ч> → <щ> = /ʃ/ + /t͡ʃ/, although it's only /ʃ/ that's doubled, correct ? It seems, however, that the pronounciation of <щ> is mouillée (palatalised), so we'd have : <щ> = /ʃ͡ʃʲ/ or /ʃ͡ɕ/. Do you agree ?
As for <щ> transcription into French, the traditional convention is <chtch> as is <schtsch> for German. As you said it's not the only feature inconsistent with Russian phonology since /ʲo/ = <ёв> final is rendered <ev> (it used to be <eff>), like <Gorbatchev> for <Горбачёв>. That said, final <ев>, when preceded by a vowel, is generally rendered by <ïev> : <Дудаев> → <Doudaïev>. Also, final <ев> after a consonant can be <iev> : <Тургенев> → <Tourgueniev>, probably because it was written so before the current <ev> standard was set.
Location: San Francisco, Noord-Kalifornië, Noord-Amerika
Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 10:24 am Post subject:
greg in noord-frankrijk wrote:
Thanks for that explanation, Deborah. From what I gathered, the letter <щ> was originally a mix of <ш> & <ч>, <ш> being /ʃ/ whereas <ч> stands for /t͡ʃ/, hence the misconception : <щ> = <ш> + <ч> → <щ> = /ʃ/ + /t͡ʃ/, although it's only /ʃ/ that's doubled, correct ? It seems, however, that the pronounciation of <щ> is mouillée (palatalised), so we'd have : <щ> = /ʃ͡ʃʲ/ or /ʃ͡ɕ/. Do you agree ?
I don't know the symbols, but since the first one appears to be a doubled sound followed by something that I assume is the symbol for palatization, I'd say the first one could be correct.
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As for <щ> transcription into French, the traditional convention is <chtch> as is <schtsch> for German. As you said it's not the only feature inconsistent with Russian phonology since /ʲo/ = <ёв> final is rendered <ev> (it used to be <eff>), like <Gorbatchev> for <Горбачёв>. That said, final <ев>, when preceded by a vowel, is generally rendered by <ïev> : <Дудаев> → <Doudaïev>. Also, final <ев> after a consonant can be <iev> : <Тургенев> → <Tourgueniev>, probably because it was written so before the current <ev> standard was set.
In recent years, I've noticed that certain ballet dancers' names are being transliterated a bit more correctly. For example, "Soloviev" is now being spelled "Solovyov". They're still not taking into account the Russian pronunciation rules in the transliteration (unvoiced final consonants and unvoiced "o" being pronounced like "a", which would result in something like "Salavyof"), but it's a start.
So what about Moscow seems "not European"? I always hear Europeans speak as if it were some other part of the world, but seeing as it is teeming with white people, and I associate the architectural styles with Europe (as opposed to Middle Eastern or Asian or African), it always seems like just another part of Europe to me, from my outsider's perspective. But it seems to strike others as eminently foreign in some fundamental way. _________________ An apple a day....
I have to say that I don't usually include Russia when I think of 'Europe', whereas I certainly include countries such as Latvia, Lithuana and Estonia which were part of the Soviet Union. I agree with Uriel though that to separate 'Russia' from 'Europe' is arbitrary — Russia is predominantly Christian, Russian is a Slavic language, most people in Russia look and dress like most people from the rest of Europe, Russian music and art is not uniquely distinct from European music and art in general, and when I've met Russian people, they don't stand out as wildly different in terms of social behaviour compared to people from elsewhere in Europe either.
Is Moscow in Europe? well that's a big question... Actually Moscow is offically at the west of the Ural chain, so IS supposed to be in Europe.
The problem is that it is the capital of a country that is at about 80% situated in Asia.
When you are from western continental Europe and you go there you have definitly the felling of being in a very different place - the recent economical regime makes it having a lot of common points with the other big communist countries such as China.
Personally when I was in Moscow I had the feeling of both being in Europe and being in other continent.
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I always hear Europeans speak as if it were some other part of the world, but seeing as it is teeming with white people
Actually I don't associate "white" (which does not means a clear notion for me) with "European". USA in mainly white, Argentina, Uruguay, Canada, Australia, etc. are also populated with mainly "white" populations without being "European".
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and I associate the architectural styles with Europe (as opposed to Middle Eastern or Asian or African), it always seems like just another part of Europe to me, from my outsider's perspective.
actually yes, Moscow is more "European" in the sense than most people looks "white" and are of christian herency, than middle eastern or African, but is not necesserally more exotic. I think I would feel much more at home in Algeria than in Russia (and that's actually geographically much closer from Paris than Moscow is - about two hours of flight vs about 4 hours for Moscow...)
Yes, Moscow is farther from Paris than many places in Africa... so you can imagine that"s different on many points (different alphabet, orthodox religious architecture... and of course climate which is much more harsher than the relatively mild climate of the rest of Europe.
concerning architectural ambiance, once again Algerian urban ambiance would be much more familair for me than Moscow would be. of course there is a sort of "European architecture" in the wider sense, but not more than in the USA or Canada, and probably much less than in Argentina for exemple
Actually I don't associate "white" (which does not means a clear notion for me) with "European". USA in mainly white, Argentina, Uruguay, Canada, Australia, etc. are also populated with mainly "white" populations without being "European".
From a certain point of view though, all of the Americas (some parts more than others) plus Australia, New Zealand, parts of Africa etc. could be seen as sort of 'European', even though they are not geographically part of Europe.
I've very occasionally heard people suggest, in semi-seriousness, that Canada should consider applying for EU membership. I can see their point — the main reason for rejecting Canada would be its geographical location (and the economic implications of this). But I can understand why the idea of Canada joining the EU might appeal to some Europeans who reject Turkey primarily on 'cultural' grounds.
From a certain point of view though, all of the Americas (some parts more than others) plus Australia, New Zealand, parts of Africa etc. could be seen as sort of 'European', even though they are not geographically part of Europe.
I would agree; that's why I always think of the ex-colonial areas as sort of "post-European", in that the people are predominately of European descent, the dominant culture is heavily European in tradition, and you can look at them as really far-flung satellite regions of Europe, albeit with indigenous influences. I imagine to outsiders (non-Westerners, I suppose) the dynamic between EU and the US looks mainly like a family squabble. And from that perspective, considering Russia some how fundamentally different from Europe makes little sense, which is why I was curious to see what it' like from other perspectives.
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The problem is that it is the capital of a country that is at about 80% situated in Asia.
When you are from western continental Europe and you go there you have definitly the felling of being in a very different place - the recent economical regime makes it having a lot of common points with the other big communist countries such as China.
Personally when I was in Moscow I had the feeling of both being in Europe and being in other continent.
So it sounds like you have the sense of Moscow being a sort of transitional zone between Europe and points east. Andf the economic disparity only heightens the sense of differnece. Do you think it would be different if it were more prosperous and stable? More "European", more familiar? Or are there fundamental non-European influences that would color it anyway? (Although, as a French person who feels a strong sense of familiarity with North African influences, that may not be an issue!)
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As if spelling it Krushchev makes it any more Russian. 