Yes, the whole country.
I realize several of your citizens have been visiting my blog recently, and I do not suspect a grassroots roller derby movement to be the culprit. I believe my rather personal / emotional "movie review" to have thrown things off, since I mentioned the ill-fated Russian Cosmonaut.
I do wonder what they were expecting to read. Well, not much more can I say about your country. Obviously you know it better than I do. In fact I don't know it at all. Want to see my ignorance? Ok, here we go... Top Ten Facts I Know About Russia... That I May Have Fabricated
1. There is this really deep lake... the deepest in the world. Lake Bichal. Bikal? I'm not going to cheat and google it... anyway, this lake looked super beautiful in a documentary I saw, but then I was talking to a lady who had visited and she said it was really trashed. So, Russia, clean up your act.
Ok, just looked it up... Lake Baikal holds 1/5th of the world's freshwater supply and is dangerously over-polluted. Look at this sad seal...
2. Siberia is large, and cold... but arctic foxes live there. (Another documentary...)
No contest here...
3. There is a farm in Russia where they raise foxes for pets. Each fox is around... $7,000 I think. Super expensive but I still dream of the day... no, this was not gleaned from a documentary but NGO!
Here is the original story that I read last year. The price is actually closer to $6,000... but then I started reading more about the ethics of owning an exotic (or even domestic fox!) which brought me down a whole 'nother wormhole. I guess it's just as well I'll never have the cash to worry about this sort of thing!
4. Russians like to drink. Not featured in any documentary that I've seen, but is a well-established stereotype that I will continue to uphold. C'mon... who doesn't like to drink?
Wow, stereotypical... hmmm, a great way to invite readers. Also, I'm not even going to address that last question. (Too flippant to come out of my mouth! Except it did.)
I turned to Google to get to the bottom of this. Low and behold, after typing in, "Do Russians..." Google supplied "drink a lot" as the fifth query. (#1-4 were, "Like Americans" / "Hate America" / "Celebrate Christmas" / "Need a visa to visit Mexico". Crazy what people are feeling the urge to google lately...
Anyway, this question has actually been statistically analyzed. Pictures are worth more than my crappy explanations, so here you go:
5. Russia loves to swallow up countries. Russia is like a diabetic who binges on sugar (i.e. land) and then is really fat and gets really sick because it cannot manage all of its sugar but is still defensive of its desserts all the same. And if a dessert says, "NO! You can't have me! I'm going to run away!" Russia gets all pissed and chases after it with forks. But sometimes the dessert wins (I.e. South Ossetia... and Poland...)
I don't even know where I was going with this.
6. Russia had this really cool queen... Helen? Helen the Great? She had red hair (I think) and was super sly and smart. She didn't bother getting married because that was just TOO much drama for her! Instead she was all about conspiracies. And she was super good at managing her diabetes, but then of course after she passed on the crown (i.e. died?) everything went downhill for a long while... some may argue has yet to ascend....
Her name was Catherine, she did not have red hair and she did a lot of cooler things than I implied.
7. Gorbachev has almost the exact same birthmark as my high school religion teacher, the latter was extremely proud of this.
Crickets....
8. Babushka and ba-boosh-KA are two similar words that mean grandma and butterfly. I don't know which means which. Maybe Russians like to appease their grandmas by calling them butterflies. Hey, I didn't invent the language...
Butterfly: бабочка
Grandma: бабушка
This knowledge came from a little Russian girl I spent a few weeks with. She stole my heart and I wonder where she is today.... another story I may share another time. Anyway, she tried her darndest to get me to hear the difference but I never could sort it out!
9. The Berlin Wall came down just a few years before I was born... a chunk of it is in a local museum. And by a chunk, I mean the whole shebang. Taller and wider and hopefully heavier than me, with graffiti and everything.
I'd show you a picture as proof but really, who cares?
10. Uhm... my mom makes DELICIOUS Russian Tea Cakes. Folks around here call them "Spanish Wedding Cakes", I do not know why. They are clearly Russian in origin.
No proof needed, you wouldn't believe me anyway! And I'm not sharing! :P
Whelp, there you go. I am disturbingly under-educated and seemingly insensitive about Russia. I did apologize in advance...
...however, I am surprised that I could even come up with 10! (I could have kept going, too! Didn't bring up hemophilia, or matryoshka dolls, or St. Petersburg's origins...)
will you still let me visit??
please??
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