Word: russian
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...hockey team of Russia's state-run energy giant Gazprom locked horns with the Belarus national team in the final game of the annual Belarus President's international hockey tournament in Minsk. In a desperate moment, a Belarusian tripped the Gazprom captain with his stick, but the Russian scrambled back to his feet to pass the puck in a lightning movement that led to a goal. Gazprom won the game 4-3, and the cup. And well it should, smiled the Gazprom captain Alexander Medvedev, 51, because Gazprom always wins...
That is what you call a power play. Be it a scuffle with foreign consortiums on Russian soil, or in pricing battles with Russia's neighbors, Gazprom wins very much in style of the proverbial Soviet Army steamroller: inefficient, unwieldy and mismanaged, it crushes foes by its mammoth weight and monopoly gas supply. In January 2006, for instance, when the Ukrainians balked at Gazprom's price, Medvedev turned off the taps. Pay or freeze, he told them. They paid...
Early on in the 2004 supernatural Russian thriller Night Watch, the protagonist, trying to prevent a witch from casting a spell on his unborn child, yells at the top of his lungs in protest. For English-speaking audiences, the subtitles do more than just translate the literal meaning: the words "no" and "stop" with three exclamation points are shown on different parts of the screen in large, moving letters. In another scene, as a swimming character hears a voice in his head causing his nose to bleed, the words "come to me," appear in red letters that dissolve like blood...
...early work, Koudelka seemed to have trouble finding a theme. But the 1968 Russian invasion of Prague immersed him in the topics of upheaval and alienation that were to characterize his later work. He took to the streets, capturing events as they unfolded, and when his shots were smuggled out and published anonymously, they received international acclaim. Since 1970, he has lived in exile from his native country, training his lens mostly on modern Europe's complex landscapes and honing a stark, desolate style. But it isn't all gloom: whatever his subject matter, Koudelka's photographs are marked...
...contentious still when all three men developed head colds, something that can be uncomfortable enough on Earth and is exponentially worse in the unfamiliar pressure of a sealed spacecraft. Reporters noticed the sparring between mission control and the ship and began writing about the "snappishness" of the astronauts. The Russian press weighed in too, pointing out the crew's "increased irritation due to the monotony of the spaceflight and the imperfect design of the systems for controlling the vital functions of the spacemen...