topum

Latin Quarter, Paris

You may remember that I used to read a couple of entries from the Russian LJ Top every now and then via Google Translate (it is fun). I haven't done it for a while but I do have more than a couple of Russian friends here. And one of them brought to my attention one of the things trending in Russia at the moment apparently. So if you feel tired of ridiculous news headlines and complete non-issues blown out of proportion and sold as "news" over and over again, here is a headline from Russia to put things in perspective:

"Transsexuals from Uzbekistan stole Chihuahua puppies from a brothel in Moscow."

This has something for everyone really.

One of apparently multiple sources in Russian.

There is even a short video (of course!). It gets better, the puppies are in it too. The thieves "worked as prostitutes in one of Moscow's gay clubs" apparently.

Here it is (one of the culprits starts at 0:15, the puppies kick in 0:34).



And yeah, if you watched it, you are never getting those 47 seconds of your life back.

I am going back to Gingrich bitching about Romney and for once it is going to feel really good to do so.

Transnistria, the break-away region of Moldova heavily populated by ethnic Russians and Ukrainians is smaller, poorer, a bit more run down and paradoxically quite a bit more expensive than Moldova. The streets of its cities also look much emptier than the streets in Moldova do, many people left the region it seems even compared to Moldova. They do love their dogs there though.

This girl with this puppy were members of a dog owners' club and were preparing to march through the central square of Tiraspol (the capital of Transnistria) on the New Wine Day, which coincided with the "City Day" this year after they moved the wine day because of the bad weather. Note the guy on the right with a Russian flag. The Region is very pro-Russia. The topic of "joining Russia like Crimea has" is a popular one here. The red and green flag the guy on the left is holding is the flag of the Moldovian Soviet Socialist Republic. This is how they called Moldova when it was part of the Soviet Union. It is now the official flag of Transnistria.



Many stray dogs are dressed. This is partly because it can get quite cold here in winter but mostly to make them look like they have an owner and save them from being shot as strays. Many of them have hand-made bright red collars like the one this dog has for the same reason.



These three are luckier and have a home. They were very excited to be going for a walk.

I noticed that most dog boys had more or less similar masks, there was no variety of breeds most of them where doing Dobermans or Great Danes?



( Read more... )

In Chisinau's central park, Moldova

Enjoying December sun in Thessaloniki, Greece.