I saw an old, old, spotty version of Gone With the Wind on TV last night, which was evidently a German version translated into Russian. (The letter when Scarlett's husband died was all in German, as were other written items. I wonder how many changes in nuancing/translating were made by doing a German version into Russian!). It's one man who does all of the voiceovers in the same monotone. It was too much effort to put togther the voice of this extremely disinterested Soviet man with Elizabeth Taylor's (over)emoting as Scarlett, so I switched the channel. I did catch Four Weddings and a Funeral, which at least had one male and one female dubber. Good dubbing is important--it's when I can hear the English underneath the Russian or even before the Russian that it makes me nuts. So much so that I will switch the channel, even when it's something good that I want to watch.
There are two Russian TV shows that I really enjoy and make an effort not to miss. One is called "Happy Together." The plotline: a sitcom of a couple where the woman is an overly made-up, spend-crazy, red-headed housewife, the man is an impoverished shoe salesman waiting on women with fat Russian legs, their daughter is a ho with an IQ of about 14, and their son is a dork. Yes, they have a dog and their neighbors in the flat across that hall are oversexed, nerdy bankers. Sound familiar? If you've guessed that this is the Russian version of Married With Children, you are indeed correct!!! Except for some reason, this show is a lot more entertaining to me. So every Monday-Thursday at 8 pm Almaty time, you can find me watching this show on DTV.
The other is "Borzovski Friends, subtitled, All Men are Swine." It's about 4 women living in Moscow in their early 40s who are all very good friends and support one another through their ups and downs with life, love, and work. One of the main characters is a shrink named Vera who narrates the events that unfold. There is a blond, a brunette, a redhead, and the ho lawyer who changes the color of her hair often. The women meet out in restaurants and cafes, and generally are well-to-do Muscovites. Most of the time, they are discussing men, sex, and fashion. Sound familiar? If you guessed that this is the Russian version of Sex and The City, you again are correct!! It's on Mon-Thurs from 11pm to midnight on NTV.
I also get BBC World in English, Animal Planet (dubbed), Fox News in English (lord have mercy, even over here I can only tolerate about 60 seconds of it before it's time to move along), several Discovery channels, and a bunch of other stuff including a French and Italian channel. Yup, I have cable. Let the record show, ladies and gentlemen, that I am living larger in Almaty than I was in B'more.
I promise that I will post about more cultural things like all-wooden churches built with no nails, Medeo (the world's highest elevation skating rink) and all of the other lovely things that Almaty has to offer in the future. At a later date I will talk about the lovely Turkish lady I buy homemade yogurt and bread from who calls me endearing words (I'm told) in Turkish, and the sweet Uzbek man who force feeds me samples of his delicious dried fruits. I will talk about taking the bus and the trolleybus and the lack of personal space and use of deodorant. I do more than watch TV here, honest! :) But today, that's just what happened to come out as I decided to blog.
Here are a few more shots of Turkmenistan...
the tripod is the one with the rotating gold dictator atop it. The "bleu heur" shot is of some library or ministry or university or something. Then there's the market shot, and the photo that needs to be rotated 90 degrees to the right is the ministry of gas/energy. It looks like a lighter, doesn't it? Yes, that was on purpose. I don't know who copied whom, but evidently there was a similar building in Astana (the new capital of K'stan) that everyone called "the lighter", too. Which was also the ministry of energy. But that one happened to burn to the ground. Being the superstitious lot they are around here, everyone says that it's the name that caused it to burn the ground. We'll see if that happens to the one in Ashgabat....
the tripod is the one with the rotating gold dictator atop it. The "bleu heur" shot is of some library or ministry or university or something. Then there's the market shot, and the photo that needs to be rotated 90 degrees to the right is the ministry of gas/energy. It looks like a lighter, doesn't it? Yes, that was on purpose. I don't know who copied whom, but evidently there was a similar building in Astana (the new capital of K'stan) that everyone called "the lighter", too. Which was also the ministry of energy. But that one happened to burn to the ground. Being the superstitious lot they are around here, everyone says that it's the name that caused it to burn the ground. We'll see if that happens to the one in Ashgabat....
Speaking of superstitious...one last TV-related comment. There are all sort of psychics now on TV, fleecing the poor public (mostly elderly ladies with various maladies wanting to know if their will get better, or desperate, single women in their mid-30s wanting to know if they'll ever get married/have babies). These women all have dagger-clawed manicures, dons of makeup, and very lacy clothing. They also wave their hands around a lot and waggle their fingers over candles, feeling callers' energy/sending callers energy. I found it entertaining for about 3 minutes before I made me sad. These women are not nearly as sweet as Madame Cleo. I find them more than a bit disturbing.
Ok, from here on in, no more TV talk--I promise!
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