Happy New Year

Today we are welcoming 2009, here is a Soviet Era postcard with this theme.

Russian Oligarks - BBC Documentary (2005)

The official name of the BBC Documentary is Russian Godfathers but I believe it is misleading and Russian Oligarks should be a better name since the documentary does not discuss any of these men's relationships with mafia or murdering people etc.Instead they are represented as political opponents of Russian regime asking for democracy[blah!]

It has a IMDB page located here.

Anyway the documentary is consisted of 3 eppisodes, each approximately 1 hour.
The first eppisode is on Boris Berezovsky.
The documentary claims that during Yeltsin regime he was infact the behind the curtains ruler of Russia and corrupted Yeltsin era. He infact found Putin as a successor but the plans did not work out obviously and he has to escape England as a political exile. Now he became the number one democrat! fighting to put down Putin regime and bring democracy back! to Russia. He also has effects on Ukranian orange revolution with this great amount of green paper.


He even obtained support from George W. Bush's brother. The photo show the happy family during an evening walk on Moscow streets.







Eppisode 2 is on Mikhail Khodorkovsky who is in jail now for some tax charges but many bealive that this is a political issue.
I've heard his name during another CBS documentary which I mentioned here before.
It seems the anti-Putin oligark lobby is very powerful[not surprising with their huge financial power] in England.







And the third eppisode is on Yury Luzhkov, mayor of Moscow since 1992. Documentary first starts with his immense constuction efforts in Moscow, the huge rants created and their aestethic value. He was a political opponent to Putin but then he found the right way and somehow started to support him. Documentary also mentions his wife Elena who is the richest woman in the world, the only female dolar billionaire.

Movie Review: Mongol (2007)

I watched this movie sometime ago but forgot to write about it, i saw its name in a few places so wanted to write one or two sentences about it.

This movie was famous but i did not understand why?, it was supposed to be the story of Cengiz Khan but the movie itself was lacking any storing, when the movie ended we are still waiting for something to happen...
IMDB point is 7.4, i am losing my confidence in them.

I don't recommend to waste time on it.

Moview Review: Sword Bearer-Mechenosets (2006)

Not bad...not good...if you have time...

Sascha has a superpower and uses this to murder, he falls in love with Katya but they are traced by the police..
To download see here. And IMDB link is here.

Book Review: Oldugu Gibi

This very nice book is memoirs of Turkish Journalist Zekeriya Sertel during his exile in USSR.
The book contains his impressions,evaluations,remarks and comments on various sides of life in USSR. I found this book even more useful then Soviet Century.
The book contains observations of pressure on people, bad effects of Stain era, Kolhoz system, Khruschev era, Family life and women, economy...everything.
If you are interested in a brief book on how people lived their lives during USSR , this is the book.
See Sertel Vakfi web page for more info on Sertel family.
His wife Sahiba Sertel and their daughter Yildiz Sertel were/are also good journalists/writers.

Movie Review: Kukushka(2002) The Cuckoo

Great! Movie with 17 wins&5nominations. A villager wife, house husband went to war 4 years ago has to accommodate a Red Army Soldier who speaks Russian only, an SS-Solder who speaks Finnish only, and the lady only speaks Lapon-language.
The movie is consisted of these three people, none of them knows and of other two's languages...
Fantastic movie, I loved it. Can be downloaded from here.

Movie Review: Zhest(2006)

What the hell is that? Absolutely stupid, boring movie, waste of time,i could not even finish it.

It has 5.0 points on IMDB but it should be 2.0 at most.
Still if you wanna download you may find it here.

In Bruges(2008)

Bruges is a dream city, it is my number one city (together with Amsterdam).Some people have claims for Rome or Paris but hell no!. Bruge rocks, it is lovely, old, historic and full of peace.
Anyway the movie takes place in Bruges, I was hoping to see more lovely Bruge scenes...as you can see I can not find much to say about the movie,it was kind a boring. It is hard for me to understand how it became one of Top 250[234] movies in IMDB. I downloaded it from here.

Book Review: Rembrandt'in Orospusu

This nice novel is based on true life-story of Rembrandt van Rijn. After death of his 3 new born kids his wife also dies, Geertje Dircx takes care of his kids, one day a new servant enters Rembrand's house and becomes his lover but this relationship is not accepted by the church or society which leads to many problems..
Here is the link to buy online.

Moview Review: (Ярик) Yarik The Robinson (2008)

Sweet boy Yarik loses his mother in airport while she went to buy something to eat and his father's whereabouts are unknown, he tries to find his father and mother himself but this will bring him trouble.
I liked the movie till the very sad end, the boy was sweet and movie was nice but the end did not follow the rule 'the good ones always win/the good ones always survive'. This time bad guys won which was very upset...
Download links can be found here.

Book Review: Beyaz Zambaklar Ulkesinde

According to the back cover, the book was extremely popular in Turkey in the past due to the fact that Ataturk suggested this book as recommended reading in military schools.
The book is about an evangelist who gives enthusiastic speeches to the Finland public to build a better Finland after the country is occupied by Russians following a long Sweden invasion.
Unfortunately I did not find the book quite interesting so I did not finish it,so mush optimistic and idealistic 'we can make better ' words...does not work for me.
To buy online you may go to ideefixe.

Movie Review: Admiral (2008)

One of the best Russian Movies I've ever watched. Story of Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak who was the commander of Russian Black See Fleet and became a head of White Army against the Bolshevik revolutionists.
I strongly recommend this movie to everyone, even to the ones not interested in Russia or Russian History.
The download links can be found here and the IMDB link is here.

Book Review: Ataturk'un Sovyetler'le Gorusmeleri

Very interesting book. The author got permission to Soviet achieves and composed this nearly 600 pages thick book with great information.
Some of this information was already known, some were talked about but not proved and some were unknown or intentionally hidden.
This very valuable resource enlightens the foundation and very first years of young Turkish Republic and its relationships with the also newly founded and enthusiastic neighbor USSR based on Soviet achieve documents.

Book Review: Moskova Gunlugu

Another unfortunate,dissapointment. I was hoping to see observations about 'Moscow' in this diary but thw writer Walter Benjamin generally wrote about this relationships with other people, mainly his beloved Asja Lacis. I don't know why he or even the publisher chose to distribute such boring, selfish and sometimes rude comments.