Music

The following two vids contain two pieces of music that are among my best-loved. The first is quite recent, a waltz written by Eugene Doga, a Moldavian composer, for a Russian movie 'My tender and sweet beast.'  I think it is my favourite waltz ever.

The second is a finale of 1812 overture by Tchaikovsky. I loved the whole overture even before I got into the whole Napoleonic Wars thing. ^_^ Wikipedia had a very good summary of the overture's plotline, which I'm posting as well, with the bit relevant for the finale highlighted.


( Music here )

Satirist-induced rant.

I remember the first two times I came to England in 1998 and 1999, I invariably got asked one question numerous times. 'Do your parents work for KGB or for the mafia?' Because at that time the thought process seemed to go like this:

A Russian abroad is rich.
All rich Russians are criminals.
Therefore he/she works for KGB or mafia. (In my case my relatives.)

It was annoying to say the least, but I was still a kid, I didn't exactly know how to answer, besides my English wasn't all that good.

In 2001, I came to study in England full-time and it seemed for a time that people got over that highly logical process, until one day... I was having a dinner with my guardians (my paid guardians, oh, God!) and they had some friends over as well. At the end of the dinner what does one of them ask? You guessed it.

'Do your parents work for the KGB or the mafia?'

I wasn't quite such a kid anymore. I replied, non-chalantly. 'Both. There is not much difference.' You should have seen their eyes. I think for a moment there they truly believed me. It's amazing what propaganda can do. It's amazing what one can convince people of.