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: 1054 Hey, here’s an interesting question – which came first, Romania or Moldova? I realize that the photograph shown above looks like it is about 50 years old, but it is actually a photograph of a newspaper from 2014. During the run-up to the parliamentary election season in November last year I got a lot of printed material from the various political parties. … Continue reading Big Brother
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
Word count: 1301 Last July after I was forcibly ejected from the country, I began a frantic and unplanned odyssey through Europe. Nonetheless, there was definitely one place I knew that I wanted to go – Cernauti (chair-na-ootz), the lost jewel in the crown of Romania. A long, long time ago, when everything was going amazingly well for Romania, and maybe, possibly, 100 thousand people … Continue reading The Jewel of Bucovina
Word count: 47 A lot of people have contacted me to tell me that my post about the current situation in the Moldovan parliament was too long. Fair enough. Here is that entire post explained in a single graphic: AND NOW YOU KNOW THE CURRENT STATE OF THE MOLDOVAN PARLIAMENT! Continue reading KKK Illustrated
All Things Romania 