Remember your Soviet motherland, Bond girl!

Posted by Admin , Labels: , Tuesday, November 9, 2010 4:02 PM


                         Lenin would not approve
With communists constantly losing their political relevance, they seem to be gaining popularity as an inexhaustible source of fun and humour. Model and actress Olga Kurylenko, who plays the lead Bond girl in the latest Bond film “Quantum of Solace&r
“How low you’ve fallen – becoming James Bond’s new lover, you prodigal daughter of suffering Ukraine!” That was the main message of an open letter published on the communist website of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region.
“You agreed to be the girlfriend of a man who during his long career has killed hundreds of Soviet people, Cubans, Vietnamese, Koreans, Chinese and Nicaraguans,” wrote a blogger, scolding the “traitress”.
Wringing their hands, they heartrendingly declare in language worthy of heroes of ancient Greek tragedies: “For years Bond was destroying the Soviet Union – the country where you were born. It was he who blew up Soviet factories and poured poison into our wells.”
The authors sum up the depth of the moral degradation of the poor girl who now stands little chance – if any at all – of a bright future: “You started by posing half-naked in glossy magazines and gradually found yourself in the arms of an American spy.” They should probably be reminded that James Bond is an agent of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, more commonly known as MI6) but they don’t let any need for accuracy stand in their way.
First and foremost among her sins, however, and what seems to cause them the most anguish, is the fact that she gives her lover a bottle of gorilka (Ukrainian moonshine) as a gift.
We can only assume that on reading these lines Olga Kurylenko must have burst into tears and fallen on her knees begging for forgiveness. But she can atone for her guilt, say the authors generously, and they set her a task of redemption accordingly. “You must capture and bring the latest James Bond, actor Daniel Craig, to Russia and hand him in to our law enforcement bodies. Olga, you still have a long life to live. Just think about it.”
For the record, Daniel Craig was in Moscow two weeks ago to promote the latest Bond movie. He was accompanied by Olga Kurylenko.

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Communists want “pot-singer” Sting to perform in jail

Posted by Admin , Labels: , 3:57 PM


St. Petersburg’s communists, who are famous for their eyebrow-raising ridiculous statements, are calling on Russian drug police to have British singer Sting arrested for promoting marijuana.
The reason for prosecuting the world-famous performer, who just had two concerts in St. Petersburg and Moscow, are his calls for the legalization of recreational drugs. Promotion of drugs consumption is an offense in Russia, punishable by a fine.
However, the organization of communists of St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region has called for a jail term for the Briton.
“Sting uses his talent to promote marijuana. He may do this on an order from drug mafia or following his own vicious addiction. It doesn’t matter! He must be stopped as soon as possible,” they said in a statement on their website.
The communists also accuse the city’s authorities of turning a blind eye to Sting’s alleged wrongdoing due to his celebrity status.
“If someone argues in his favour that that he sings well, then he can sing as well in jail, in an amateur band. Our children’s health is a thousand times more important than the songs of a rotten Englishman,” they say.
The Organization of Communists of St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region or KPLO is not a political party and has no relation to the Communist Party of the Russian Federation – the most popular leftist party in Russia and the successor to the CPSU.
Earlier the communist organization, the participants of which have taken a habit to making hilarious statements to draw public attention, criticized Madonna during her tour in Russia for using revealing clothes during performances and not singing revolutionary songs.
They also accused Ukrainian actress Olga Kurylenko for starring in the latest James Bond film “Quantum of Solace” – because the fictional British secret agent “killed hundreds of Soviet people, Cubans, Vietnamese, Koreans, Chinese and Nicaraguans.”

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Web sensation previews Eurovision show in Moscow

Posted by Admin , Labels: , 3:46 PM

The top sensation of the Russian web, Peter Nalich, who will represent Russia at this year’s Eurovision song contest, will give a concert with his band at Moscow’s B1 Maximum club on Friday.
"The program of our performance at B1 will be big enough… We expect to play some 30 songs and an encore of some 10 pieces," Nalich told Ria Novosti. Well, that is impressive enough, especially in order not to be “lost and forgotten.” This song, which will become Russia’s Eurovision 2010 entry, is also on the band’s playlist, along with the one that brought Nalich fame across Russia.
“Guitar, guitar, guitar, jump to my jaguar, baby” – a song the lyrics of which were hardly clear to anyone and a cheap video placed on YouTube in 2007, has brought Nalich the love of thousands and thousands of Russian Internet users.
The artist later said that both the song and the clip were made just for fun. Listeners agreed and kept raiding the small concert halls and clubs where he was singing. However, Nalich remains a one-of-a-kind Internet sensation in Russia.
The concert at Moscow’s B1 Maximum will see Nalich’s band in an expanded structure: they invited a pianist and a guitarist to play with the other six members of the band (which, by the way, includes quite an impressive number of instruments).
"Peter Nalich's Musical Band" sings songs in a style which he characterizes as "Cheerful Baburi." Not deprived of certain irony and humor, his music has Gypsy, French, Balkan and Latin influences.

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U.K. embassy in Moscow made Russian blind singer feel ‘humiliated’

Posted by Admin , Labels: , 3:44 PM

Blind Russian pop singer Diana Gurtskaya is waiting for an official apology from the U.K. embassy in Moscow after she was asked to take off her dark glasses for a visa photograph.
Together with her husband, Diana Gurtskaya wanted to go to London for the May holidays. After she handed her visa application to the British embassy, Gurtskaya was asked to remove the dark glasses she always wears due to her blindness.
“According the rules, applicants are required to provide biometric data – fingerprints and a retina scan. But there are situations when it’s impossible,” said Gurtskaya’s husband, lawyer Pyotr Kucherenko, in an interview with the Russian RIA Novosti agency. “Diana has all her ID photos taken with glasses and had her visa photo taken the same way. But the consul service requested the second visit and a photo without glasses. We refused. They asked for health record and I gave them a medical sheet. But that’s where the process hanged. Seems we are not making it to England for the holidays,” he said.
Diana Gurtskaya said she felt ‘humiliated’ over the situation.
The couple sent a letter of complaint to Ann Pringle, the British ambassador to Russia, over the incident saying the rules of applying for British visas violate the rights of physically handicapped people covered by the UN convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Gurtskaya underlined in the letter that the incident ‘was the first time for many years of travel to different countries in the world that her blindness has become an obstacle.’
A few days later Gurtskaya got a response. In her letter, Ann Pringle promised to investigate the changes to the visa requirements for people with disabilities.
“I’m deeply sorry that you were not satisfied with the service of our visa department,” says the letter. “Our visa offices are encouraged to provide high level service for all applicants.”
The ambassador underlined that though these visa regulations are on legal basis, she asked officers from the U.K. Border Agency to urgently study the issues raised in Gurtskaya’s complaint.
“We will send you extra information once the agency finishes the investigation of the matter,” said the letter.
Such a quick answer from the ambassador shows the problem really does exist, suggests Diana:
“My situation became a starting engine which, I hope, will bring changes to the work of British consul services in Russia,” commented the singer.
The information on visa requirements from the official website for the British embassy in Moscow says:
"Digital photographs must be of your full face and you should not wear sunglasses, a hat or any other head covering (unless you wear it for cultural or religious reasons but the face must not be covered)."

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Ronnie and Russian lover still rocking?

Posted by Admin , Labels: , 3:41 PM


Recent rumors that the Rolling Stone’s guitarist Ronnie Wood has split up with his Russian girlfriend have proved premature after the Sunday Mirror revealed photos of the couple hugging and kissing.
In fact, it seems that their relationship is far from over. According to the British tabloid, the 62-year-old rocker and his 20-year-old lover Ekaterina Ivanova have moved into a new apartment just a short car ride from the mansion where Ronnie’s dumped wife Jo has been left alone.
Just earlier last week, the British press said Ronnie and his girlfriend allegedly had a fight after Wood informed Ekaterina of his plans to have dinner with his ex-wife Joe, daughter Leah and baby girl Maggie Dylan without taking Ivanova with him.
According to the Daily Mail, neighbors claimed the lovers were screaming at each other, with the Russian girl yelling“I'm going to kill myself! You’re going to find me dead!”
The rocker was reported throwing Ivanova's belongings off the balcony of their shared flat onto the street after an all-night party the previous day. Neighbors called police after the argument went out of control. Officers told Wood his girlfriend had the right to stay in the house.
Rumors had it that Ronnie was even planning to go back to his family following the strife.

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“Trololo man” becomes Internet sensation

Posted by Admin , Labels: , 3:16 PM




A Soviet hit composed almost half a century ago has become the latest craze on the Internet, after nearly 2 million people watched the vintage video clip featuring Soviet crooner Eduard Khil performing his golden oldie.


From Kansas City to London, from Canada to Philippines – fans from around the globe have recently been responding to it, begging the 75 year-old baritone, Khil, to go on a world concert tour with his unorthodox hit, "I Am So Happy to Finally Be Back Home".
An official petition has even been launched and published on Facebook, referring to Eduard Khil as the “Trololo man”, and urging the singer to go on a tour with his “greatest song ever”.
Eduard Khil says the news of his global popularity was as much of a surprise for him as a snowfall in the middle of July.
“I found out about it from my 13-year-old grandson. He walked into the room humming the song – and I asked him: why are you singing it? He says: grandpa you're home drinking tea here, in the meantime everyone is singing your song on the internet,” he recalls.
Khil's signature style and optimism have proved infectious to the point where the Oscar-winning star of “Inglorious Basterds”, Austrian actor Christoph Waltz, performed his version of the Soviet hit when he recently appeared on the Jimmy Kimmel show.
The song is an evergreen, but in fact, it is called a “vocalization”, i.e., singing without words.
Khil told Russian online source Life News that initially the song was meant to go with the following lyrics: “I'm riding my mustang horse on the prairie, while my beloved Mary is a thousand miles away knitting my socks…” But in Soviet times, such lyrics would not have survived the harsh censorship, so Khil and the composer of the song, Arkady Ostrovsky, decided to get rid of any words at all.
“The song is very naughty – and since there are no words in it, it had to have something special to attract listeners, which is why it features a very interesting arrangement,” Khil was quoted as saying.

In an interview with “Komsomolskaya Pravda” newspaper, Eduard Khil told more about the song and his reaction to its sudden popularity.
Despite the fact that Khil’s "I Am So Happy to Finally Be Back Home" has attracted such attention around the world, not so many people abroad know that he was a legend of the Soviet stage. The handsome, charming man with a remarkable baritone was a top voice on the radio. His songs filled the streets from open windows… And it was not only “Trololo” that he sang…
After winning the International Youth Festival in Berlin in 1973, Eduard Khil went on a global tour, visiting 80 countries worldwide.
In the late 1980s – hard times for the Soviet state – Khil traveled to Europe and the US, performing for the Russian immigrants there: songs still beloved, halls still fully packed. Greater popularity came to Khil in Paris, with his shows at the “Rasputin” cabaret. There, in the French capital, his first CD “Le Temps de L'Amour” was released.
Some of his hits that excited the hearts of young Soviet ladies back in ’60s and ’70s are “Where the Fatherland Begins”, “Winter”, “At a Nameless Height”, “The Song Goes Round”, “Lumbermen”, “Moon Stone” and many more.

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Russian-born pianist gains global recognition

Posted by Admin , , 3:00 PM


One of the world’s most promising pianists, Russian-born Kirill Gerstein, has won the Gilmore Artist Award, presented to an international pianist of any age and nationality who is “deemed worthy of a global career”.
Apart from praise and recognition, the award comes with some of the most generous financial support given in the musical arts – a $300,000 paycheck.
Gerstein, 30, is originally from southwestern Russia and has studied piano since childhood.
He moved to the US as a teenager to continue his studies in jazz piano which was his main passion at the time. Gerstein became the youngest student ever to attend Boston’s Berklee College of Music.
But the gifted pianist never put classical music on the back burner and so he eventually moved to New York to attend the Manhattan School of Music.
An American citizen since 2003, Gerstein has also become a regular in Germany, where he is a professor of piano at the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart.
The Russian-born musician has a roster of music awards. However, unlike winners of other major musical competitions, the Gilmore Artist is chosen through a “noncompetitive” selection, in the sense that musicians under scrutiny don’t even know that they have been nominated.

Nominations are gathered from a range of sources, including recordings and independent assessments made by a designated group of international musical performers and educators
.

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