Sunday 16 March 2014

Here's to my Russian Readers.

Through the magic of this website's spying capabilities (no doubt inspired by the NSA's own efforts (bloody Capitalist pig-dogs!)) I have discovered that a lot of my traffic has been coming from the great nation of Russia.

Now, we all know Russia has been in the news recently for playing a TEENSY WEENSY bit too roughly with its neighbours. That's not what I'm here to post about. Anyone in any country can tell you that we're embarrassed by the actions of our politicians on a daily basis, and that we have not a goddamn bit of power to stop them. That goes doubly so in Russia. So, for this post, I shall be posting my favourite things about Russia:

Dmitry Glukhovsky

Probably the most successful Russian writer's story is pretty close to my own heart. His breakthrough novel, Metro 2033, was originally posted online for free, until someone realised how good it was and threw lots of money at Mr Glukhovsky in order to publish it.

The Metro series of books are now popular worldwide, and have been adapted/ formed the inspiration for two fantastic video games.

For those not familiar with the series: some form of disaster has caused the inhabitants of Moscow to seek shelter in the metro system. The survivors of the disaster have learned to adapt to life underground well, and in some cases, life is fairly bearable. However, although some communities have managed to develop systems of peace and order, there are other settlements which are more chaotic. And of course, between the settlements there are long, dark tunnels which one must not venture into alone if one ever wants to be heard from again.

Vodka

What kind of writer would I be if I passed up this opportunity to reiterate my appreciation for alcohol. Vodka has led to some of my worst examples of decision making, but has consequently given me lots of good stories to tell at parties.

English Russia .com

My number-one source of information and culture about Russia. The site is presented without bias (or at least it used to be before they installed the hammer and sickle in the header) and lets outsiders see the Russia that Mr Putin would rather you didn't.

http://englishrussia.com

Mr Putin Himself

Not as a politician, but as a martial artist:



Presumably about to throw those two children?

So there you have it, my favourite things about Russia.

Do svidaniya,

Steve

2 comments:

  1. Hello from Russia, Mr. Magill. :)

    As a Russian, I appreciate your vision of the situation. While I'm not on the cutting edge of the Ukraine situation news, I wish them the best, in any case, as people of Ukraine are as much akin to many Russians as people of my native country are. I also appreciate you doing the research required to spell Russian analog of "Goodbye" correctly: not many people do that, and seeing the correct phrase warms my heart. :)

    I realize how much stats you can view, but for your readers I will point out that I came to see this post from /r/fantasywriters. You may see what exact word cought my attention in the Reddit post's title. ;)

    I wish you good luck and much inspiration for everything your work on, including this blog.

    P.S. Is your sidebar profile info real? I can't tell if it is. :)

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  2. Thanks for the comment :-)

    I must admit that I got the spelling wrong the first time, but one of my friends on r/fantasywriters helped me out with that.

    Thank you for the kind words, and no, the info about me in the sidebar is not real, my real life is much less interesting :-P

    Steve

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