The time came for Maxim to get his citizenship. I was trying to delay this moment as much as I could. I am waiting for the news from my Cyprus citizenship case that is in processing for more than two years now. And, naturally, I was hoping to get the Cypriot citizenship and pass it on to Maxim.
Unfortunately, it can’t wait no more and we have to arrange for the Russian citizenship for him too.
Continue reading Maxim’s citizenship. Attempt No. 1
For years now Limassol is inhabbited with crowds of Russian people. There are so many of us that many locals somewhat speak the language, many restaurants offer menus in Russian, as well as shops have “special” price lists.
One of the sides of the strong Russian community is a number of “Russian” shops. These are rather small shops that sell all sorts of goods that many Russian people miss. Mostly those are books by suicidal novelists and food items like caviar, pelmeni, and vodka.
For years, both Olga and I were going to visit one of this shops just to see if there was anything that we’d like to buy. We always knew practically the complist price list, because so many of our friends shop in these places regularly and tell us all about them. But we never got our act together. Either we were to lazy, or didn’t care much – I am not sure.
Our shopping routine was almost rock solid for all this years. A weekly trip to Woolworth Ermes covered almost all our food needs. Nearby bakery supplied us with fresh bread. And when we felt like and adventure we would sneak into the enemy’s camp go shopping to either Chris Cash & Carry or Orphanides.
Guess what have changed last week? You’ll never do, as we were surprised ourselves. Our best and favourite supermarket Ermes opened a small section with products for that Russian market. Some of the products are imported directly from Russia – cereals, beer, bread. Others bought from European countries that have so many Russians that it is economically feasable to produce those goods – canned mushrooms, tomatos, and meat.
When we discovered this Russian shelf near the butcher’s section were were laughing out loud. They say that if gnome won’t come to the mountain, the mountain will come to gnome. True indeed.
Now we have even fewer reasons to go shopping at another supermarket. Not only we have everything we need in Ermes, but we surely have more.
P.S.: Russian beer sucks big time. Canned (salted or marinated) mushrooms imported from Germany are pretty good. Canned (salted) tomatos are superb! Just in case you were wondering.
The other day in the park I overheard to kids talking. One of them was saying that he is from Russia. Another one was claiming to be from Moscow. There was a confusion in their talk. They couldn’t understand each other because neither of them knew the difference between the country and city. They were “feeling” that they were from the same place, but they couldn’t just figured the connection between Moscow and Russia.
They were discussing the issue for about five minutes or so, which is a long time for any kids’ conversation. I was laughing almost out loud as they argued. It was really amazing.
Few days later I realized that I was thinking way too much about that episode. My memory was coming back to it and replaying it back and forth. And I couldn’t understand why. And then it suddently hit me.
Many adults argue the same issue, using practically the same arguments. You see, currently there are so much money and power concentrated in Moscow that it is very separated from the rest of Russia. There is even a joke that says: the only problem with Moscow is that it is surrounded by Russia. If you are to watch a person from Moscow talking to a person from somewhere else in Russia, you’ll see that they can hardly understand each other. The differences in culture, level of life, money, jobs, and opportunities are just too great.
So, I find it very ironic how those two kids were discussing the issue and it seemed like the only thing on the way was the knowledge that Moscow is the city in the country of Russia. But many adults have this knowledge is still have a problem in understanding.
Yesterday, when I wrote about Maxim’s first food I of course meant his first solid food. It’s just that I didn’t know that solid food is called solid food in English. The direct translation from Russian is “solid” indeed, but when I was writing the post, I wasn’t sure that I could the word “solid” to describe food. And I was too lazy to check in the dictionary. Today, when I was replying to a comment for that post, I noticed the Google Adsense banner which was promoting some “solid food” website. I checked the site, double checked in the dictionary, and it was indeed – “solid” food.
Either I am being too smart or too stupid. I don’t know.
P.S.: Maxim seems to really enjoy his new diet.
The spell is on me. The spell of watching terrible terrible Russian movies that I don’t even want to watch. I don’t know how it happens actually. Magic. Black magic. I watched “Zhmurki” today…
Directed by: Aleksei Balabanov
Genres: Comedy, Thriller
Cast: Aleksei Panin, Dmitri Dyuzhev, Nikita Mikhalkov, Sergei Makovetsky, Viktor Sukhorukov, Dmitri Pevtsov, Kirill Pirogov, Aleksei Serebryakov, Andrei Merzlikin, Yuri Stepanov, Grigori Siyatvinda, Anatoli Zhuravlyov, Garik Sukachyov, Andrei Panin, Aleksandr Bashirov
IMDB raintg: 5.1
My rating: 2.0 [rate 2.0]