My web site

So I got myself a geocities web site to dump my longer writings on. Now I just need to see how I get Cyrillic working there... I started with a piece of fiction (in German) I wrote in, I think, 1999. Prizes to who guesses first which short story was the inspiration.

Geocities? Ja, ich wollte einfach was schnelles, um längere Texte abzulegen. Ich weiß nicht, ob das eine gute Idee war - Kyrillisch funktioniert z. B. schon mal nicht. Liegt wahrscheinlich daran, dass ich so ein Web-Analphabet bin. Für den Anfang eine Kurzgeschichte, die ich so um 1999 geschrieben habe. Wer rät, welche Kurzgeschichte mich dazu inspiriert hat?

Есть у меня теперь сайт на geocities. Пока там ничего особенного нет - кириллица не работает и там только рассказ на немецком.

Blasts from the 80s

Zwei Erinnerungen an die 80er in zwei Tagen - ist das ein Signal, dass ich alt werde?

Alternative lives

Was ist exotischer - in einem Computerspiel zu leben oder ein Jahr im Libanon?
What's more strange - to live in a computer game, or a year in Lebanon?
Что более странно, жить в компьютерной игре или год в Ливане? Решите сами.

Lawrence

I'll start reading "Seven pillars of wisdom" now.
As "Lawrence of Arabia" is one of my favourite films of all times, I wanted to note that down, before I write anything stupid under the influence of that book (the edition I'm reading has an introduction by one Angus Calder quoting modernist literature and trench warfare guilt - sheesh, couldn't you just say that Lawrence was a great bastard who had fun doing desert warfare?)

Gute Besserung!

Sometimes, doing term papers is good for something - back during my Slavistic studies, I had to do one on a collection of short stories by Vassiliy Aksyonov, and since then I love his works and his style.
So I'm sad to see that he's been hospitalised after a stroke - I wish him a full and speedy recovery!
Meanwhile, if you know Russian, you can read his Alternative History novel "Остров Крым" ("The Island Of Crimea") online.

Иногда сочиняешь семинарные работы не зря - давным-давно, когда я учился славистике, мне задавали писать об одном сборнике рассказов Вассилия Аксёнова, и с тех пор я - поклонник его творчества.
Поэтому мне очень грустно узнавать, что он попал в больницу; желаю ему скорейшего выздоровления!
Может быть, это повод перечитать "Остров Крым"?

Putin continued / Путин - продолжнение

Things move quickly - so it looks like it will be variant 2)?
If you want more from me on Russia, go to this board - it belongs to a blog that you ought to read if you don't just want to sit and wait for history to happen, but want some intelligent guesses at what the next millennium or so will bring.

Кажется, всё уже решено, и Рутин станет премьером, а не Белорусско-Российским президентом? А жаль, мне эта идея нравилась...
Здесь обсуждают не только Московскую политику, а также главные черты настоящего и даже будущего.

How Putin can become president again - Как Путин опять сможет стать президентом

Everybody and their dog is speculating about how Putin will remain in power after his presidential term expires. He consistently has ruled out a third term, for which the Russian constitution would have to be changed. The main versions currently discussed by the pundits are:
1) Despite what he's saying, he will have the constitution changed if he's asked enough by the masses (I think this can be finally ruled out now that he's announced his support for Medvedev becoming his successor)
2) He'll become Prime Minister and either have the constitution changed to move power from the office of president to that of prime minister or have his successor step down in favour of himself after a fig leaf period, technically avoiding a third consecutive term.
3) He'll rule from behind the scenes, maybe taking over the management of an influential company like Gazprom.

The snag of both 2) and 3) is that he has to rely on his sucessor to adhere to whatever agreement was struck in advance and not to stab Putin in the back as soon as he passes on the keys of the Kremlin.

So, today I read something that made me think that Putin may consider a different option:

BELARUS DENIES REPORTS THAT UNION STATE CONSTITUTION WILL BE SIGNED SOON.
Pavel Lyohki, a spokesman for President Lukashenka, on December 7 denied media reports that Lukashenka and Russian President Vladimir Putin will sign the Constitutional Act of the Belarusian-Russian Union State during their mid-December meeting in Minsk, Belapan reported. Lyohki's statement contradicts reports aired by Russia's Ekho Moskvy radio that the presidents will soon sign the Constitutional Act. "This obscure information came as a surprise to Belarus," Lyohki said. "Since it appeared in the Russian media, I advise you to approach the Russian side for comment," he added. Pavel Borodin, Russia's state secretary for the Belarusian-Russian Union State, earlier said that the meeting between Lukashenka and Putin will focus on a draft of a Constitutional Act for the proposed union state.

In the twilight years of the Yeltsin administration, Belarussian president Lukashenko promoted the Belorussian-Russian Union; not only to save his economically declining country from bankruptcy, but also with the ambition to become Russian president by stealth. Putin never was a fan of this Union, although the Kremlin kept paying lip service to the Union as a final goal, and some Union institutions exist, largely unnoticed by the world.
So any movement here could be an indicator that Putin took a leaf out of Lukashenko's script - becoming Russian president again through the backdoor of the Union presidency.
After this idea came to me, I googled a bit and found a denial distributed by RIA - so if there's smoke, there may as well be a fire?

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Вкратце (предполагаю, что вы все знаете версии насчёт того, как В. В. сможет оставаться у власти, "от и до"), я прочитал вышеуказанную заметку и думал - может быть, он пойдёт другим путём? У Александра Григорьевича с этим вариантом в своё время не получилось, но Путин, конечно, это - другое дело.
РИА уже отвергает этот вариант - значит, не один я набрел на эту мысль...