Monday Film Review: 5 Elephants

The Goethe Institut in Chicago is always showing movies or having cultural events to promote German culture. Despite taking classes there and being generally impressed, I never made it to their events until now.  They were showing Die Frau mit den 5 Elephanten (The Woman with 5 Elephants) and I forced my husband to attend with me.

Get a Taste of Eastern Europe

I came across this magnificent Pinterest user: A Curious Taste.  It is a complete smorgasbord of pictures from all around the world, including the beloved CEE, and even has a board specifically for cuisine blogs.  I found a number on there that I would like to share for those interested in making authentic cuisine from these areas, and added to the list to fill in the gaps.  I had to cut so many blogs that had no English translations/translation function.  :((

This is by no means an exhaustive list.  Plenty of cooking and recipe websites have sections for regional cuisines that aren't difficult to find, but I sought for original blogs in English.  There are plenty of regional cuisine cookbooks as well, so do not feel limited to the internet (is that a limitation? I wonder...)

Baring It All: 4/12 Recap

Welcome to the recap of the week.  There's so much to read and know that I've taken the liberty of condensing it for you.  If you want to see these things as they happen, follow me on Twitter!  You just have to click that button over to the right.  It's not far...  You can also see who I follow; I discovered that Twitter is the best place to find anything on CEE and there are fantastic, smart people to interact with.

Let's get to it.

Risen Again - 4/5 Recap & Rants

It was Easter this past Sunday and it was a good time to indulge in the east European traditions, some of which seemed a little more cruel than unusual.  Particularly when it involves whipping women.  There were lovely eggs to make up for it, though.  Though Europe had it tough because snow, not flowers, came to greet them on the symbolic holiday of rebirth.  It's like winter reborn.

The cat's out of the bag. Orbán is the most sought after television personality in Hungary.  No, I'm kidding, he's stealing all the airtime available.  I want graphs on the Politburo air times for comparison, just for kicks.

April Fool's!  I thought this was a pretty USA-centric holiday, but it turns out that Odessa is the OG of pranks.  The best part was that Humorina started during the Soviet rule. That's one way to let off steam about the endless droning of ideology!

Europe Came to Chicago

I don't mention Chicago on this blog as much as I should.  I grew up just to the north of it and came back after college.  While I hadn't anticipated staying, it seems Chicago had other plans and got me a job and married within my second year of being back.  This place has a very soft/large place in my heart and it's not just nostalgia.  Though the winters are harsh and unpleasant, the summers are season-long celebrations.  The Parks and Recreation Department blows most of its budget during those 4 blissful months by hosting all manner of free events, whether outdoors at Grant Park, the Pritzker Pavillion in Millenium Park  (with the famous "Cloud Gate"/the Bean nearby), or just any park that exists in the city.  Then neighborhoods and any organization that wants to have a party does it during that time.  There's never a thing NOT to do.  It is, hands down, the most enjoyable part of the year despite oppressive humidity and heat.  There's cool stuff to do indoors, like our fabulous museums, and year-round, but the real taste is in summer.  You see all the ethnic mixing and vibrant culture bursting out of the concrete.

Art, Music, Articles

Since I have not been following the news this week (which I am sure to regret since that's when EVERYTHING happens!), I can't do a summary.  I'm very sorry.  However, I do have a bunch of fun links and that's always a good time.  You're welcome.

Communism and Fire

Self-immolation is a way to get attention.  Just ask Ndreca, Palach, Plocek, and Zajíc.  There is a whole list that I can barely fathom, especially since the last one was in 15 days ago.  They've picked up popularity, though I wasn't aware of almost any of the immolations in the past 10 years, which have to do with Tibet or an Indian province that would like to separate.  But they had a strong tradition in the USSR.

Election Season!

It's election season, and how!  As America gears up for its presidential election, let's reflect on elections for our beloved former USSR satellites.

Let's do a quick round-up of recent elections:

FEMEN Moves to France

FEMEN has now set up camp in Paris, France after their well-publicized stunt in support of Pussy Riot.  The feminist featured in the piece linked above said that they were invited by French feminists, but Inna was also in physical danger after cutting down the Orthodox cross with a chainsaw.  I've featured and discussed FEMEN's protest methods in a post long, long ago, but I think that now Pussy Riot has received international support, American women are increasingly aware of their disenfranchisement, and attention is also being directed at westernizing countries in the Middle East where women are starting to fight back, feminism has come back in a way that hasn't been popular for at least 2 decades.

Ukrainian Performance Art

I was alerted to this article on a fascinating Ukrainian exhibit that's causing quite a bit of controversy.  The only real question I have is, "Does the performance continue past the initial stage of choosing?"  I feel like that's lifelong performance art.  I'm curious what other people think of the piece.

Minimal Olympics Coverage

I haven't been able to watch the Olympics--no TV and no time--but I try to keep abreast in the major events of the Olympics.  I would do more in-depth coverage of ECE nations if I didn't have a day job and public transit didn't eat up additional hours of my day.  I would love to simply watch athletics for hours on end, but being an adult has completely eroded whatever time and enthusiasm I have left at the end of the day.

I wasn't aware that Slovakia had a company that made competition canoes.  Were you?  Luckily, my RSS feeds (see my page for the ones I follow!) brought this to my attention.  I see that Eastern Europe is doing pretty well in the medal count, all things considered.  The full list of medal counts are here on ESPN, but here is the individual list linked for your quick reference (these only include counties that have medals):
Belarus
Croatia 
Czech Republic
Germany
Hungary
Lithuania
Moldova 
Poland
Romania
Russia
Serbia
Slovakia (notice the number of canoeing medals!)
Slovenia
Ukraine

The medal count per capita in these countries must be higher than the USA, which has a ridiculous number of medals.  It seriously resembles the 1% getting the larger part of the spoil.  It is worthy to note that Hungary has more medals than Brazil (where my mother-in-law is from) or India, which is embarrassing for those BRIC countries.  You'd think that a "backwater" Eastern European nation with a despotically inclined PM would not get more medals than two of the fastest growing economies with large populations.  Funny, ain't it?

FEMEN and Feminism

via

Ever since I heard about this group, I was intrigued.  No, it was not because they were protesting topless.  My fascination stemmed from the visibility of a Ukrainian feminist group.  It's not like Eastern European feminist groups make many headlines, so FEMEN's prominence is not to be taken for granted.  It must be noted that bare breasts do make great news, though that's not why FEMEN bares them publicly.  This article on the Eastern Perspectives is well written and covers all the bases necessary for discussion, but I have used quotes from the Der Spiegel article linked at the end.

Russia Lays Down the Law

via

I have been busy trying to get myself a better job, so this blog has unfortunately suffered.  So it goes.  However, I could hardly contain myself when I found this article on my EU News feed.

Iryna Krasnianska

via

Today is a more contemporary gymnast, hailing from the great Ukrainian nation.  I picked Iryna/Irina (however you choose to transliterate the Cyrillic) because of her completely bad ass balance beam mount.  She is well known for it and I have to say, it's something.  After watching her mount, you can understand why this photo via Couch Gymnast (which proclaimed her to have a 12 pack) is not a surprise.  With that being said, she has beautiful lines.  Speaking of balance beam, she won a gold medal at the 2006 World Championships.  She deserved it because it's real, real purdy.

Ukrainian Avant Garde

I'm sorry there wasn't a post yesterday.  I was at a friend's during the famous "Blizzard 2011", which plays up the significance of the weather a little too much.  It was cool and a bit intense, but nothing to tell the grandkids about in front of a fire.  To make up for the loss of a music post, I'm extending Music Week to Saturday.

Next week's theme is Design Week!  It's going to be about CEE design.  I need to get better about announcing these at the beginning of the week.

Mariana Sadovska (borderlandmusic.de)

Today's post is about Ukrainian avant garde music.  Naturally, I know nothing about it but the wonders of search engines has pulled up some cool results.  The first ones to come up were Mariana Sadovska and Roman Turvosky.