Job hunting. Woman's Day. Barbarity in Afghanistan. Exhibition of Scandinavian art. European Cinema Week. Books & films

2 March, Friday
The job offer from the publishing house. I spent the day yesterday at the company, a small publishing house, that offered me a job. I was asked to translate the Berlitz English-Swedish phrasebook (the English and the phonetical parts into Russian), for which this publisher has bought license.

I didn't like the place: the steel entrance door without a nameplate, the firm's seedy-looking premises located in a unventilated basement. The computer which I got was very slow. I'm not accustomed to iMac and Quark Express either. I thought it won't be exciting to commute to Moscow in order to sit whole days there translating a phrase book, even Swedish. I could do something like this at home as a side job, though at home I have a different computer and software.

Today I called and said that I won't come again.

My other job hunting activities. So far I've placed my ad at some good jobs websites, e.g. Job.ru and Rabota.ru. I also answer ads in the quality newspapers, particularly in The Moscow Times. Last Wednesday I went to a seminar for job-seekers. I have also started to send out my data to the recruitment agencies.

11 March, Sunday
Woman's Day. Today is a working day in Russia; the last three days (8 - 10 March) the country took off marking the Woman's Day (8 March). The Woman's Day was a Soviet holiday, now it's still a national holiday in Russia and the NIS (CIS) and a very popular one. That's the only day when Russian women can take a complete rest and Russian men will be serving them. There's also a Man's Day which is actually called the Day of the Defender of the Fatherland (23 Feb.).

On the 8th my mother, sister and I had a cosy festive meal. I bought coconut cakes to them, I also got a ticket the Historical Museum for my sister; she's an artists and she needs to visit such places.

Barbarity in Afghanistan. Today I was appalled at the news of destruction of two gigantic Buddhas in Afghanistan, in spite of the protests from the UN, governments and museums. What crazy people they are, they do not understand that this heritage belonged to all humanity! They are no different from Russian atheists who demolished cathedrals after the Bolshevik revolution. Something must be done to stop them.

29 March, Thursday
Life in general. Nothing in particular has happened since my last record. I'm still looking for a job. I go to Moscow twice per week (Wed. and Fri.) to pick up The Moscow Times with the jobs page, to visit the library, the post office and the food market. I haven't been to any cinema or theatre, but yesterday I went to a museum. The weather is sunny, half of the snow has melted, but the recent few days have been cold.

The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. This is one of the two biggest art museums of Moscow. While The Tretyakov Gallery (which I visited in January) contains Russian art, the Pushkin Museum is a repository of Western art.

The exhibition I went to see is called The Land of Life-Giving Coolness. Scandinavian Art (18 - early 20 c.) in Russian Museums. Russian collectors were especially interested in Scandinavian art in 18 c. and at the turn of 19 - 20 c. The exhibition was mainly paintings (ceremonial portraits of 18 century, landscapes and cityscapes, etc.) and also some crockery, coins, medals and posters. I especially liked the portraits by Swedish painters Bengt Nordenberg, Carl Mazer (e.g. portrait of Princes Volkonskaya, the famous wife who followed her husband to Siberian exile after uprising of December 1825).

Then I went to the permanent exposition: saw the French art (Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, Gauguin) and a glanced over the Ancient Greek and Rome.

1 April, Sunday

The Week of the European Cinema has started in Moscow. On the first day (30 March) I went to see a Swedish film Sånger fran andra våningen (Songs from the Second Floor, 2000) by Roy Andersson. It was in Kinocenter's Big Hall ("largest screen in Russia"). The cinema was packed with people, I got the ticket because I came one hour earlier. The tickets for the Week are very inexpensive, 20 - 30 roubles (about 1 dollar), because this is seen as a cultural, not commercial event.

The crowd had to wait in the lobby 40 minutes, it was quite hot. Fortunately, there was free champagne there! In the official part there were three speeches: by the Ambassador of Sweden, the Head of the European Commission in Russia and the Russian Minister of Culture. They all said that Russian screens are still dominated by Hollywood, so this Week is a great event for all Russian cinema lovers (I fully agreed).

The film itself was subtitled, not voiced over, so it was great to listen to the language. The plot is surreal, but scenes are quite interesting. A small businessman burns down his furniture shop in order to get the insurance. He wanders over the city coming across strange scenes: eternal car jams, a colossal luggage terminal where passengers struggle to move trolleys with dozens of suitcases on, a Russian boy searching his sister to ask her to forgive him (he did have time to do it before because he was hanged by nazi during the WW2). This all seemed to be about lack of love and inhumanity of the modern society, but I'd need to see the film again to understand the author's message better.

Next day I went to see the Dutch program: a series of animated films Great Paintings (2000) by Maarten Koopman, very beautiful and original, and a comedy Rent a Friend (1999) which I also enjoyed.

Books

Non-fiction
Krupnick, A. Poisk v Internete (Search in the Internet) - SPB, Piter, 2001, 272 p., in Russian.
Very useful and well-written. Strategies of search, detailed description of English and Russian-language search engines, other search resources.

Polyakov,V.; Yanovskaya Yu. Kak poluchit' khoroshuyu rabotu v novoi Rossii (How to get a good job in the new Russia) - M: InfraM, 1995 - 176 p., in Russian.
Worth reading. Strategies of job-hunting adapted to the Russian realities.

Hunt, Ken. The Xenophobe's Guide to the Aussies - M: Egmont Rossiya, 2000, 72 p. (translated to Russian)
A humorous book about Australians. Good reading on a commuter train.

Films (cinema)
Rent a Friend (1999, Netherlands), Sånger från andra våningen (Songs from the Second Floor; Sweden, 2000)