Word Count: 657 Brief background in case you’re just joining us: The Republic of Moldova (where I live) is a divided country, where some people speak Romanian at home and some people speak Russian. Likewise, politics are divided, with some groups wanting to join the European Union, and some groups wanting closer ties with Russia (and its Customs Union, similar to the EU). And so, … Continue reading Loan Shark
Word Count: 698 A couple of weeks ago, I had the chance to visit the lovely city of Odessa in Ukraine. A casual comment got one supporter all riled up, which led me to write a lengthy response. Since then, I pointed the Unsleeping Eye towards activities in that neck of the woods, and discovered even more evidence that the police in Odessa are corrupt … Continue reading Good Hitting Police
Word Count: 1810 It’s been an interesting week in Romania. What started out as a one-note story, that 27 people died in a fire at a club/disco soon morphed into wide-scale protests, and the “sudden” resignation of the Prime Minister (and a few other minor hacks). The Western media has been scrambling to knit these facts into a cohesive story, all without success. For low-attention-span … Continue reading Blowing Smoke
WORD COUNT: 530 One of the unexpected bonuses of learning Russian is discovering just how how much comedy exists in that language. I was always raised to think of Russia as a dour, dull place, but underneath that grey exterior exists a beating humorous heart. Russians engaged in fighting Ukrainians have come up with an interesting nickname for their opponents: Укропы or “Ukropi”. This comes … Continue reading Dill Heads
Word count: 421 What happens when the United States appoints a new ambassador to a friendly, allied country? There’s a little ceremony and then a press release goes out. Right? Well that’s sort of what happened today. The United States now has a new ambassador to Moldova and here he is, saying hello to the people of RM in both Romanian and Russian with professional … Continue reading The Curious Case of the Half Ambassador
