National Unity Day

Today is the National Unity Day in Russia. I've always thought that it's a very young holiday as I remember it being celebrated since 2005 only. But according to Wikipedia this holiday was widely celebrated in Russia until 1917.

So, what's the reason for it? It's pretty important, because on this day in 1612 both Russian peasants and the nobility united in order to free their country from Polish and Lithuanian invaders. If that hadn't happened, the territory of our country would probably be divided between Poland and Lithuania now... As much as I respect people from both of those countries, I'd rather stay Russian =)

Now the sad part comes: in 1917 this holiday was replaced with the Day of October Revolution (November 7). As a child I remember watching big demonstrations on TV on this day. I was proud of my country, of the Soviet Union... Little did I know that one day it will collapse like a paper house in the wind because the mere existance of that country was based on lots of lies and tons of blood... There's a monastery in my city which my friends and I visited when we were university students. Before there was a KGB office there. The monks told us that when the monastery was given back to the Orthodox Church they started reparing everything and decided to make a garden on its territory. But as they dug the ground... they found lots of human bones... They found so many of them that they burried them in a separate place and they often pray there and do the liturgy now. They were not even sure they found all of them then.

No wonder that now our government does everything to make everybody forget those times. They cancelled the Revolution Day and returned the National Unity Day. But it's not accepted by most people. It's just another day off for them. Because we forgot how important this holiday once was. And there are lots of people who, like me, remember vividly those bright celebrations dedicated to the memory of October Revolution. Yes, I know now that it was all a big lie. But it's carved somewhere very deep in my soul, and it's not easy to carve another holiday with a different story in the same place.

So you know what? I'd rather choose to celebrate and to congratulate all visitors of my blog on the Day of Our Lady of Kazan. It's also today! The Lady of Kazan is an icon that the Russian Orthodox Church respects probably most of all. That holiday sounds more natural to me, a granddaughter of an Orthodox priest and a daughter of an orthodox mother. Being an Evangelical Christian, I don't worship icons, but I realize that it's an important part of life of every Orthodox believer. And it makes me remember our Lord jesus Christ and think about Him. What more could I dream of? =)

Happy November 4th!

Translation Forum Russia 2017: my report

A few days ago I came back from Translation Forum Russia which took place in Ufa, Bashkortostan . My daughter Delia went with me because she never visited Ufa before (neither have I) and because of the trip to the Southern Ural mountains we planned to take after the conference with a small group of colleagues. Ufa is not considered one of the primary tourist attractions of Russia, though I am convinced now that it definitely should be. Some pictures of the city (not all of the pictures are mine, some were made by the official photographer of the conference Elena Ekaterininskaya, our company CEO Fedor Kondratovich and some other colleagues): The bee is a symbol of the region as Bashkortostan produces the best honey in Russia. We saw installations shown below in different parts of the city. There were still covered because of the cold weather, but they will be full of blooming flowers as soon as the warm weather comes. The bee as we saw it That's what it...

10 interesting facts about the Russian language

In my previous post I promised to follow with the interesting info about some other languages. So here are 10 facts about the Russian language which might be of interest to those who are studying it. If you would like to have this list in Russian, please contact me and I will send it to you by email. So, what do I find interesting about my native language? 1. Russian has about 500,000 words, but only 2,000-2,500 of them are used frequently. 100 most frequently used words make 20% of all written and oral speech. A high school graduate's vocabulary usually has 1,500 to 4,000 words. Those who have graduated from a higher educational institution normally have a richer vocabulary consisting of approximately 8,000 words. 2. It's compulsory for all astronauts in the international space station to learn Russian, so we can call it an international language of space :)

10 worst mistakes I made as a freelancer

"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." Sir Winston Churchill Image granted by my colleague and friend Magda Phili If Sir Winston Churchill was right, then I should be very successful. We all make tons of mistakes. And I am not an exception. My mistakes nowadays may not be as big as they were at the beginning of my freelance career, but I still make them and do my best to learn from them. I also watch others make mistakes and I do my best to learn from them, too. So here's the list of major mistakes in freelance business I made since 2007. Hope it helps other colleagues to learn and grow. And you are welcome to share the mistakes you made, so we can all learn from one another!

AnonymousNov 17, 2010, 11:18:00 PM
Not The Lady of Kazan. It's "vladelitsa Kazani", "(ta)kazanskaya dama" etc. You need to say "OUR Lady of Kazan". The Mother of God (and her icons) are referred to as "Our Lady" in English.

Valery Sardushkin, PhD
Olga ArakelyanNov 17, 2010, 11:21:00 PM
Thanks for the correction, Valery!

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