Stalin did plenty of REAL bad shit during his lifetime, but Romanian patriots prefer to blame him for things he had absolutely nothing to do with.
Tag: language
Case File: Moldovan v. Romanian
In the Romanian speaking world, there are few issues more divisive than whether or not “Moldovan” is a separate language than Romanian.
The President of all Moldovans
For more than seven years, I’ve been proudly telling the world that I’m the king of all Romanians. Today, I had to laugh at the press statement released by Vadim Krasnoselsky, the president of the Nistrian Republic. My translation: In an interview given to the Russian news publication Izvestia, Krasnoselski declared that, ‘If it wasn’t…
Fear and Loathing
After my wife and I enjoyed a lovely day in Transnistria last month, I told the Unsleeping Eye to increase its attention on this country that “doesn’t exist.” So, you can imagine my horror when I saw this story being reported by Agerpress, the official state media of Romania. My translation: The Use of the…
Transnistria FAQ
After my interesting adventure in Transnistria, I realized that basically, no one knows anything about this country. Excuse me, no one outside the Russian-speaking world. Therefore, I present to you the world’s very first FAQ page for Transnistria, the country that doesn’t exist, except, of course, that it does. Isn’t Transnistria a breakaway republic? Kinda…
Brânză vs. Cașcaval
One of the great difficulties in learning any foreign language is when there are two words in the new language for something, but you only have one word in your own. Nearly 20 years ago now (my goodness, how the time has flown!), I remember asking the woman who taught me so much about Romanian…
Your Tax Dollars at Work
Trigger warning: if discussion about the Russian language threatens your self-identity, stop reading now! Few Romanians know that their tax dollars have been paying to broadcast news in the Russian language since 1975. Yes, you read that right. Radio Romania International, a state-funded broadcaster operating out of Bucharest had been treacherously providing news content in…
The Unkindest Cut
A few months ago, a dipshit from England contacted me to inquire as to whether I wanted to host some advertising on this site for the Untold Music Festival that’s currently ongoing in Cluj. In exchange, he didn’t want to pay me any money, only offer me free tickets, so I turned him down. For…
Limba de Stat
The Unsleeping Eye, as is its wont, sometimes goes down interesting paths. The other day, it led me to the OSCE‘s online presence. The OSCE has an office a 2-minute walk from my house, and they’re quite active in these parts because of PRM (Transnistria), so I was curious what they had to say about…
Good News
When you have a language like Romanian, sometimes you get two (or more) similar words with subtle shades of meaning that come from two different linguistic sources. In Romanian, stiri (shteer) and veste (ves-teh) both mean “news.” The first comes from Latin and means “knowledge” while the second comes from Slavic roots and means “that…
Tongue Bath
If you ask someone from Cluj-Napoca what language they speak here in dear, quaint Moldova, you’d get a unanimous answer: Romanian. Indeed, if you remember my post Akum noi toti govarim pa romaneste, you know that Romanian is the official language of the Moldovan constitution and so you probably consider the case closed. As an…
The King of Romania Podcast – Episode 1
Oh my word, what a crazy adventure I’ve been having lately with my new computer. It took forever to find what I was looking for at the right price, and now it’s paid for but not here and literally nobody knows when it will come. So where is it? Ah, that’s the story for another…
