I'm stuck in my non-blogging vacation and have no idea how to get out of it.

I'm still reading and linking on Global Voices a lot, though.

I'm still reading Yulia Latynina's novel, and have gathered some links, and am planning to write a longer post once I'm done with the book. "Each side is playing poker with shaitan, hoping to win": this quote of one of the characters describes what the book is about pretty well. It's an amazing book, anyone who reads Russian and is interested in what's going on in Kavkaz should read it.

I'm addicted to Facebook, which explains my current inability to blog here to some extent. Facebook's got this very convenient feature that allows you to share stuff you read, view, etc. - if only I could post all those items here as well as there.

Marta is really funny now, so sweet: she makes perfect sense much of the time, as long as you understand her language or have someone to translate. Her teeth are really bad, though: caries on eight of them. One of the toughest jobs in the world must be that of a dentist who works with kids Marta's age. Lots of screaming and kicking to deal with.

Moscow is okay on some days and way crazy on others. The politics is really depressing, all that "playing poker with shaitan." The United Russia's campaign ads are all over the place - only the city is so huge and loud they don't seem as conspicuous as they would've been in Kyiv.

Ukrainian politics is depressing, too. Sickeningly so. It's hard to believe that there was so much to write about just two months ago - and then they went into their coalition-building mode again and suddenly it's all irrelevant, annoying and boring. When they decide to have yet another election, I hope there'll be enough people from all camps at Maidan to chase the elected bastards back into the Rada and force them to start working at last. Gas blast in Dnipropetrovsk, oil spill near Kerch, the coal mine tragedy: neither the media, nor the politicians can ignore these three, but then there's also the rest of the iceberg down there.

I'm considering doing a GV translation on the Eurasian Youth assholes who destroyed the Holodomor exhibit here in Moscow - but even though I've got enough quotes to show how wrong they are, I keep postponing it: the problem with genocides is that at some point it all evolves into political finger-pointing - while the victims get pushed backstage. I just don't feel that mourning and arguing can be done simultaneously. Especially when the "arguing" part involves a bunch of imbecile losers. I mean, it's good that there are people who can do both, but I'm not one of them anymore, I'm afraid.

That's it for now, I guess.