Krutaja Babulka

Month: January 2015

  • “I won’t Part with Komsomol, I’ll Be Always Young!”, On the 80-th Anniversary, Vladimir Alexandrovich Ivashutin! Many Happy Returns of This Day!

    Vladimir Ivashutin

    Vladimir Alexandrovich Ivashutin was born on October 29, 1934, the day of the 29th of October is celebrated in Russia as the day of birth of Komsomol (Association of Younger Generation of the Russian people) of the country. Which is why sounds for V.A. Ivashutin the famous Russian song:  Iosif Kobzon- “I won’t Part with Komsomol”

    Vladimir Alexandrovich was born to the family of hard workers: father belonged to the committee of fighting with criminals in militia, mother worked as an accountant, they set a prime example for their little son.

    He studied at Bryansk school #2, then entered the Bryansk Building College, graduating from it in 1953, becoming a builder.

    After 2-years work in Smolensk region, returned to Bryansk, came to work at the Bryansk Building Trest #15 where he became a member of the Communist Party, membership of which he is still proud of till now. He was promoted to the position of chief engineer of “Bryansksovkhozstroy”.

    In 1973 he started to work as a First Secretary of Volodarsky RK of the Communist Party, by correspondence he finished VZISI and Academy of Social Sciences in 1984.

    In 1988 at the heat time of perestroika he was appointed as Chairman of Regional Council of Trade Unions.

    Yu. Lodkin in his book “Russian Zone of Chernobyl” underlines the specific role of Vladimir Alexandrovich Ivashutin while acknowledging the Bryansk region as zone of Chernobyl.

    Thanks to the restless character of Ivashutin (personally it cost him two heart attacks) many residents of the western districts of the Bryansk region had an opportunity to get an immediate treatment and help, and remained alive on this earth.

    Vladimir Alexandrovich was on the high level positions with great responsibility for people’s lives and destinies. It was not always easy to foresee the situation, the evolution of the events and take the honest, straight-out resolutions.

    Vladimir Alexandrovich keeps on living a descent life as prompts his citizen’s consciousness.

    Nowadays he is a Head of Bryansk Regional Council of Veterans of Builders and is very active, discussing every day businesses, helping the sick vets and their families, at his free time he likes to play chess and preferance.

    Hold this way, honored labor vet Vladimir Alexandrovich!

    Listen now to: Vien, Golden Hall of BSO named after P.I. Chaikovsky, Conductor-Vladimir Fedoseev

  • Murakami, “Kafka on the Shore”, translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel, Vintage Books, London, 2005 (An Opinion)

    Murakami, Kafka on the shore“Kafka on the Shore” is classic Murakami. The story is rich in references to music and Western culture, dreamy sceneries that expose the spooky underbelly of ordinary life, utterly unadorned language, and elements of magical realism that challenge the reader’s grasp of reality.

    Murakami’s intention was to write a story about a boy who escapes his dangerous father and goes in search of his long-lost mother. The Greek  myth of Oedipus is thrown with a cast of supporting characters that include an old man, who tals to cats, a female hemophiliac who lives as a gay man, and the World War II soldiers trapped in time. The familiar themes of isolation, reality versus fantasy, and the connection between past and present are handled with Murakami’s trademark humor.”Kafka on the Shore” is a post modern fiction that’s actually fun to read.

    Quotes from there:

    “Memories are what warm you up from the inside. But they’re also what tear you apart.”

    “It’s like Tolstoy said: Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story”.

    “When I open them, most of the books have the smell of an earlier time leaking out between the pages- a special odour of the knowledge and emotions that the ages have been calmly resting between the covers. Breathing it in, I glance through a few pages before returning each book to its shelf.”

    “When I wake up, my pillow’s cold and damp with tears. But tears for what? I have no idea.”

    Listen to the music from “Kafka on the Shore” by Murakami: “Archduke Trio”-Beethoven

  • “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman” by Haruki Murakami, translated by Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel, Vintage Books, London, 2007. (A Review)

    sheep 2015After summer trip to Japan, I was smashed by the incomparable Japanese author Haruki Murakami. Murakami’s world is one of imagination. In his world, he can make mundane seem surreal and the surreal seem mundane.

    But I think there is an echo of longing and loneliness in his work. “The year of Spaghetti” is in my mind the best. “Firefly” is also one of the best for me. I was reading it over lunch break and I was nodding off in some parts, but I don’t get lost (amazingly). It talks about young love, love lost, letting go. I like the metaphor on the firefly. I don’t want to spoil it by rambling on the story, so just read it for yourself:

    “I opened the lid of the jar, took out the firefly and put it on the edge of the water tower that stuck out an inch or two. It seemed as if the firefly couldn’t grasp where it was. After making one bumbling circuit of a bolt, it stretched out one leg on top of a scab of loose paint. It tried to go to the right but, reaching a dead end, went back to the left. Slowly it clambered on top of the bolt and crouched there for a time, motionless, more dead than alive.

    Leaning against the railing, I gazed at the firefly. For a long ti,e the two of us sat there without moving. Onlythe wind, like a stream, brushed past us. In the dark of the countless leaves of the zelkova rustled, rubbing against each other.

    I waited for ever.

    A long time later, the firefly took off…

    Long after the firefly disappeared, the traces of its light remained within me. In the thick dark behind my closed eyes that faint light, like some lost wandering spirit, continued to roam.

    Again and again I stretched my hand out towards the darkness. But my fingers felt nothing. That tiny glow was always just out of reach.”

    Beautifully translated without any of these awkward idioms and expressions typically found in a translation, kudos to Philip Gabriel and Jay Rubin.

    Listen to: “Dance of the Fireflies”