On my first visit to Moscow in a February in the 90’s I picked up a nasty cold on the flight in that manifested itself shortly after my arrival. This combined with the arctic like weather and jet lag must have made me look like a man on his last legs. My local hosts offered me a “certain cure”, Balzam. I was feeling bad enough to try anything and the immediate sensation of alcohol on my palate had me assuming I was ingesting a Russian version of Nyquil. I slept like the dead that night, and did feel better the next day. My improvement was attributed to the dose of Balzam, and i saw no reason to argue if it was good sleep, the elixir or both. During the visit some of my hosts routinely added a teaspoon of this medicinal wonder to their tea to ward off illness.

In the following article, you’ll see that at in the writers eyes, Balzam is considered to be a Liqueur.

If Russia is admired worldwide for its sophistication in some circles — epic literature, classical music, advanced rocketry — its drinking habits, critics say, have never been hailed for their subtlety. Russian drinking, these critics say, is about as subtle as a Russian circus, and Russian circuses dote on costumed bears riding tiny motorcycles.

But these critics have never heard of balzam. And they surely have never heard of Ms. Savostyanova’s balzam — Ussuriyskiy Balzam, the one with the contented Siberian tiger gazing languidly from the label. Ussuriyskiy Balzam is not just alcohol, though it is certainly that.

It is a tonic for life’s ills, Siberian Prozac, a nostrum whose uses are, a brochure says, ”as broad as your fantasy: juices, jellies, added to ice cream, tea, coffee.” It is a booster of low blood pressure, a lift for sufferers of chronic fatigue, a recommended medicine (the brochure says) for rescue workers, emergency physicians and anyone else ”in extreme situations.”

All that, and it tastes, well, subtle. Somewhere between a finely aged bourbon and a domestic burgundy with no breeding, but amusing pretensions.
For those who know nothing about balzam — which includes most everyone outside Russia and the Baltics — the premise can be summed up in an old Russian saying, ”I’m not drinking; I’m healing myself.” (New York Times)

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Carving as a folk art in Russia goes back to prehistoric times, and many pieces that have been found exhibit exquisite craftsmanship. Sculpture as a fine art came late to Russia, largely because it was considered taboo by the Russian Orthodox church. The first imperial patronage of sculpture beginning the 1700’s and the art form flourished thereafter.

Peter the First, when starting the Russian fleet and artillery and requiring sculpture masters hired foreign casters and sculptors who were to teach their art to the Russians. But both under Peter the First and his successors sculpture developments long stayed in foreigners’ hands.

The Academy of Sciences open under Catherine the First had an arts department where sculpture was taught, yet it did not contribute much to progress of Russian sculpture. Still masters from abroad were employed to meet the demands of the imperial court. Out of those overseas sculptors there stood out Count Carlo Bartolomeo Rastrelli, famous for his statues in Rococo style. Only upon the establishment of Arts Academy first Russian sculptors started to grow up under the guidance of the talented sculptor Nicolas-Francois Gillet from Paris. Covering the requirements of noblemen who following the Western fashion wanted to have works of sculpture at their disposal, sculptors of Catherine’s epoch were engaged in creating marble monuments and manner busts that were in great demand.

Most remarkable of the first Russian sculptors were the gifted Fedot Shubin and Mikhail Kozlovsky, who worked in reign of Catherine the Second, and Boris Orlovsky from Alexander’s epoch. Having got classical education and perfected their skills in Europe they adhered to classical technique and French style reigning in Western Europe in those years, and yet at the same time they managed to add something independent and original into their creations. (Russia-IC)

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Beginning in late May and lasting to to early July the nights are bright in St Petersburg, with the brightest period, the White Nights, normally lasting from June 11th to July 2nd. The White Nights (Beliye Nochi) are a curious phenomenon caused by St. Petersburg’s very northerly geographical location - at 59 degrees 57? North (roughly on the same latitude as Oslo, Norway, the southern tip of Greenland and Seward, Alaska). St. Petersburg, the world’s most northern city with a population over 1 million stands at such a high latitude that the sun does not descend below the horizon enough for the sky to grow dark. During this period the sky is so bright that the city does not turn on the street lights at night.

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In what appears to be some deliberate saber rattling, Russia is doing maneuvers in plain sight of the Georgian state.  After invading Georgia only a few months ago, Russia’s government seems to be telling the world that this is its turf.

Russia has mobilised thousands of troops in the North Caucasus in sweeping war games aimed at warning foes that its military remains alert since fighting a war with Georgia in the area last year.

Georgia swiftly condemned the exercises as “dangerous” and accused Moscow of seeking to stoke tensions in the region.

“Holding such large-scale exercises in this region… is dangerous and is playing with fire. This is aimed at further increasing tensions in the region,” Georgia’s deputy foreign minister, Alexander Nalbandov, told AFP on Monday.

Dubbed Caucasus 2009, the week-long exercises are just north of where Russia and Georgia fought over the pro-Moscow rebel region of South Ossetia. (Brisbane Times)

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It never ceases to amaze me how little time the US news media devotes to reporting when net filtering happens in Russian republics. They go crazy when China blocks access to porn and Iran blocks news, but when bloggers in Bashkortostan get blocked the silence is deafening.

Residents of Bashkortostan, a central-southern Russian region, found their access to the popular LiveJournal blogging website blocked Tuesday, after a court ordered an opposition blog to stop publishing.

As the Kasparov.ru online newspaper reports, internet providers in the region were ordered to limit user access to the IP address used by the “Revinform” online news agency.  When two providers complied, some 63% of the republic’s residents lost access to all blogging content on LiveJournal.  Authorities were apparently unaware that the shut-down, which affected thousands of bloggers, would be so wide-reaching. (The Other Russia)

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The next adventure for RTs Wayfarer Mark Ames takes place in Rostov-on-Don. He gets acquainted with some Russian Cossacks, visits the famous Rosselmash machine plant and celebrates Halloween as a vampire!

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Based on the play “A Dowerless Girl” by the prominent 19th-century Russian playwright Alexander Ostrovsky. The beautiful Larissa Ogudalova, daughter of an impoverished, widowed noblewoman, living in a small town on the Volga, is madly in love with Sergei Sergeyevich Paratov. He reciprocates the girls feelings as long as it suits his purposes. Paratov keeps secret his engagement to another girl and just passes time with Larissa. At the climactic moment, when the girl is expecting him to explain himself, he leaves town to go inspect his estate. At the same time, Larissa is being proposed to by Karandyshev, whom she despises. Starring as Paratov is the famous actor and director Nikita Mikhalkov. The film is enriched with a lot of beautiful music, with romances which had been written expressly for this motion picture and became very popular after the release of the film.

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