Weird stuff in Russia (2)

- Attaching his belt in a taxi is perceived as an offense (as if the driver doesn't drive well)
- the fact that there are more control agents in museum than visitors
- Russian channels make their own version of US TV shows such as Married... with children and The Nanny
However they are real copies of the originals: same episodes, same scripts, same characters...
An article about this phenomenon found in the NYT website.
- there is a train which goes to the North Pole (in Murmansk) and it lasts 28 hours
- the urban legend about the opening of the bridges (when do they close ? 3 o'clock or 6 o'clock ? who knows ?)
- the fact that KFC is opened 24/7 (Mc Donald's closes between 4 and 7 a.m.)
- Russian blinis are just like French crêpes
- there is a clothing shop called OGGI and Russians are persuaded that is Italian-style but actually it's a local company
- when you order a hot chocolate in a café, you'll have melted tablet-chocolate in a mug

That's it for today.

SuperPrésident-TV

(Sorry for using French for this post, but I think it's more appropriate)

Vu sur le Figaro :

Le site officiel du président de la République est donc une copie conforme de celui de campagne du candidat UMP : couleurs, disposition, la TV perso... Tout y est.
Je suis un brin choqué et j'aurais préféré quelque chose de plus institutionnel à la manière des sites des ministères. C'est vraiment too much, on dirait qu'on veut nous vendre un nouveau produit.

Mon coup de gueule en français est donc fini.

Eye catch stuff

Some readers asked me for other brand names translated in Russian, so here is a new one :



The fun thing is that when you have to read it, you should say "Pitsa Khat" and that's a very strange translation, isn't it ?



We were just walking along a canal of the Neva, and suddenly a jet skier appeared so fast. For me, that's not normal to see this type of vehicle in Russia. Am I right ?

In da street

The first photo is to show you how a Russian police (or milice) car looks like. It makes me think of the movie RoboCop.



The man on this poster is Vincent Pérez : a Swiss-French actor. So he's playing a part in a Russian movie (the director is Vadim Shmelev) and it's called : Apocalypse Code. Sounds interesting, doesn't it.

So wild and so French

Chabal plus français que jamais
envoyé par drummer62

Na zdarovie

I have seen this in a western-style supermarket called Paterson Universam. One third of the space is only dedicated to alcoholic drinks and an entire shelf is for all the vodkas.

No need to be scared

That is the medicine the French consulate gave us. We have to take it if a nuclear power station explodes near St. Petersburg. Obviously we must not take it in other cases :-)

Everything gonna be fine...

Forbidden !

(Sorry for the quality)

I have just seen this picture today in the bus : this means that you can't drink beer ("пиво") in this place. You should think that is normal, but actually many people (even teenagers and women) drink beer in the streets.

For information, one can of beer costs 20 RUB (0,57 EUR) and one bottle of vodka costs between 60 and 500 RUB, but you can find some good for 100-150 RUB (2,84-4,26 EUR).

Next time, you'll have a picture of a 1-litre can of beer, I'm not kidding :-)

Everybody can be Samy Naceri

Maybe the title of the post sucks, but I don't care (just to remind, Samy Naceri is the hero of the four movies Taxi).
I wanted to present you a Russian practice : if you want a taxi, just rise your hand and in five minutes someone will stop. Then, you have to negotiate the price : 100 or 200 RUB (3 or 6 euros), it depends on where you wanna go.
Yes, that's true anyone can be a taxi driver and that's really convenient when it's 6 o'clock in the morning. Most of the time, they drive you in a Lada (with no belts):
It is the typical Russian car : not very secure and maybe very polluting, however in St. Petersburg half of the cars are Ladas.

Let's learn Russian

Who said that Russian was complicated ?

Russian Cappuccino

That is the reason why StarBucks Coffee had so many difficulties to settle down cafés in Russia. Кофе Хауз (or Café House) seems to be a huge company : it is very easy to find one in St. Petersburg (there are five of them in Nevsky Prospekt).
I went to the Кофе Хауз in Vassilievsky Island : it was quite nice. The cafés have a western style and you can order many things (even an "éclair au chocolat").

However the first StarBucks Coffee will open in Moscow in a few weeks...

Chinaman in Russia

So I've just uploaded some photos on my flickr account.
They're not very good and very interesting but whatever I don't like to be a tourist.

Just click on this link.

There will be more, stay tuned.