There to find: In Russia (в России)
Three friends. Four trips to Russia. Moscow in spring, Kamchatka in the fall, and in winter to the Baikal Lake, Murmansk, Salekhard, and Saint Petersburg. You have to see what those three came back with. ‘Whatever man wishes to see in our Mother Russia, is there to find.’
An exploration
Well, Vincent Urban, Max Neumeier and Tim Höddinghaus are not just occasional filmmakers with a simple drone and camera. In Russia – в России is also (as described on YouTube, see there for more) ‘an exploration of all the different lenses, viewpoints, and expectations one can apply in a travel film’. Compressed into six minutes, which is short for a travel log but long for a promotional clip. This is both.
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Country
The Netherlands holds a unique place in the Russian imagination. This is how our country, and we, are viewed through Russian eyes.
An interview becomes legendary when it gets its own page on
Wikipedia. On February 6, 2024, Tucker Carlson spoke with Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin. The report (127 minutes) offers a good, or at least broad, opportunity to hear the Russian perspective on the war against Ukraine.
What we would call ’tokkies’ or ‘gabbers’, and what elsewhere might be referred to as white trash or hooligans – in Russia, these are called gopniki. Folk culture in a tracksuit.
Since the age of sixteen, Игорь Мухин (1961) has been taking photographs. Armed with a
Смена-8М camera, he started his journey. So, when he found himself among artists and musicians in the 1980s, he already had a trained eye – and a better camera. Mukhin (sometimes Moukhin) witnessed major changes and began documenting them.
Freedom of speech is decreasing everywhere, though the reasons vary by region. Meanwhile, Big Tech’s power is growing, along with its interference. In this new era, a nearly forgotten Soviet answer is reemerging: samizdat, the underground DIY press and distribution network.
Every country has a flag and a coat of arms. The Netherlands has a lion, France has a rooster, New Zealand has a kiwi, and the United States has a bald eagle. In Russia, it’s an eagle with two heads and three crowns, and a man on a horse who has just killed a dragon with a spear.
