This Journal serves as a compilation of blogs of Russian-speaking residents of northern Israel, translated into English. All of these blogs were started prior to the launch of the current military campaign in Lebanon. The authors describe how the war has been affecting their daily living.
You have a fantastic opportunity to call the Socialist Party of Ukraine regional headquarters and ask why "Moroz has [betrayed] us." Also, it seems reasonable to ask if they feel comfortable working for the head of the party who has betrayed the Ukrainian people.
[A list of phone numbers and other contact info is omitted from the translation.]
***
viktoza: I called this number: (044) 573-58-97. Told them: I'm Victor ..., I voted for the Socialist Party in this election, and now I do not understand the actions of your faction. We stood together at Maidan against [Yanukovych], and now suddenly you become his allies. I think you've betrayed me.
A Socialist woman replied: "This is what it looks like at first only, that we've betrayed you. In reality, though, you have to know who truly cares about Ukraine. If someone's guilty of what's going on now, it's the president." And then she hung up.
[...]
In the Kyiv City Committee, I've been told that all the Orange ones are to blame. If they had nominated Moroz instead of [Poroshenko], everything would've been OK. But she couldn't answer the question about why Moroz was kissing with Yanukovych and Kivalov [head of the Central Election Committee in 2004], the men he used to call bandits.
I told her, "You are traitors all the same, and I won't vote for you anymore." That was the end of our conversation.
[...]
067_33_44_55_6: I don't think it'll work, but I'm writing letters in which I let them know that they can cross me out of the Socialist Party voters list and I'm also wishing them success in further political intriguing.
kotyhoroshko: Letters are being read by their [computer network] administrators. Making phone calls to them, on the other hand, is fun. You'll enjoy it a lot.
orange juice
I'm reading today's news and feel the world collapsing. The world that we seemed to have created two years ago.
[Victor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine] is in the opposition, Pora lies by the [Parliament's] door, [Yulia Tymoshenko's Bloc] is blocking all they can and cannot, but is it going to help in any way?
Yanukovych will be the prime minister. The rest will follow. Kalashnikov [parliamentarian from Victor Yanukovych's Party of the Regions, assaulted a TV crew recently] will head the Freedom of Speech Committee. [Yulia Tymoshenko's Bloc] will continue to block everything and everyone.
Russia will lower gas prices for us, potato prices will be lowered focibly, pensioners will get a pension raise that will last one month. Everyone will be happy.
My Russian friends will say gleefully: "We did tell you!"
And NATO isn't taking us anymore, anyway, and no one's relaxing visa regime for Ukrainians.
Finita la comedia.
?
***
yurr: finita.
I'm probably not even going to vote in the next election - there's no use.
And if they lay themselves underneath [Moscow], I'd even think about where to leave for. Because I love this country, but I hate this state.
rgmss: [...] Actually, all this was showing through.
When we were standing and freezing there [at Maidan in 2004], everything was right. But right afterwards it all began to fall apart. When "they" [representatives of the former regime] were all interrogated and then let go... it became clear then.
This country needs [Pinochet]. For five years, no longer... just to purge the ranks.
983: Then all the Medvedchuks [representatives of the former regime] will quickly change their last names to Pinochet. And then they'll purge so much, the only thing left to do would be pray to the photo of Leonid Brezhnev...
[...] this is the simplified version. there’s another, infinitely more colorful, one featuring tymoshenko, but too much would be lost in translation.
three famous ukrainian men, volodymyr klichko, andrey shevchenko, and president viktor yushchenko are pushing baby strollers in the park.
klichko starts contemplating the future of his progeny out loud.
“take a look at his jaw and big fists,” klichko says. “he has all the makings of good boxer.”
shevchenko then beckons the men to examine his baby boy, who is thrashing about with his legs. “my son will probably become a world-class soccer player,” he says.
both men turn to the president and ask, “what future awaits your son?”
yushchenko bends over slowly and sticks his head the stroller.
after straightening up, the president turns to the men and replies: “[Obosralsya. Molchit.]”
"He's shat himself and is silent now."
Real
A dear childhood friend [LJ user] dzogaba, who specializes in making reality shows for television, has sent me an SMS, asking: "Are you having a war over there? For real?" So I'm sitting here and thinking how to respond. Meanwhile, my friends, shabat shalom from Jerusalem to all! For real.
On girls and bombs
Very moving discussions are taking place in LJ regarding the photos of the girls signing missiles with "To Nasrullah from Israel with Love." Incredible discussions, cave mentality, along the lines of "and you drink the blood of Christian infants [...]." Seemingly normal people are fighting each other on both sides of the barricade.
But do you know that in Israel there is such an army profession as a military clown? It's a person who entertains children in bomb shelters. And there's also such a branch of child psychology as the psychology of stress. And a child on whose house fall Katyushas, who hears sirens ten times a day and has a class on "how to hide from missiles" at school, is taken to paint missiles, by psychologists. The missiles, which, by the way, aren't going to be used to bomb a specific Nasrullah - because these are artillery missiles. But children don't care. This is therapy. It'll just help them stutter less and sleep better at night - yes, until the first siren, but still - and not to hide under the table for 20 hours each day as the children of Sderot do.
By the way, they changed the missile alert code in Israel ("the scarlet dawn" - "shachar adom"), because of a request from a 4-year-old girl called Shachar (Dawn). The army has changed the missile alert code because a 4-year-old Shachar gets teased at the kindergarten - they call her name "a bad sign."
Everyone has, of course, forgotten about bombs with flowers and words written in chalk: "On to Berlin!" Even though it's our - our common - history textbooks.
God willing, you won't find out what a war in your house is - the house that you have nowhere to go from. Nowhere to go because you don't have thousands of kilometers for retreat. And, God willing, YOUR army will listen to little girls' requests. And there'll be a profession of a military clown in your army. [...]
A police car drove by, I went to the window to listen in. With crackles and coughs, in two languages (Russian is already like a state language!), they've allowed everyone to leave the shelters. And right at that very moment, there was an explosion.
We're being bombed, send me a repairman!
Yesterday after the bombing, my satellite TV switched off. I called the tech support department.
- Hi, my TV's not working.
- How did it happen?
- We were being bombed, a missile hit a building next door, and now the TV picture is gone.
The girl on the other end of the line begins to stutter. Together, we try to push on various buttons, but the TV is not reacting, the screen is still static.
- Could you send a repairman? - I ask tenderly.
The girl falls silent.
[...]
In yesterday's attack on Nahariya, by the entrance to a shelter, a Russian guy was killed, my acquaintances' friend, I've read an interview with them. His face seems familiar. I should call them, but I can no longer look at the phone - over ten phone calls since morning.
[...]
Three families left the building next door yesterday. I was watching them pack their suitcases from the balcony. The father was carrying the luggage, in no hurry, the mother was running very fast, covering herself with a bag. Then they led the kids out - an infant, a girl of 7 or so and a boy of about 13. Behind them ran an old mama. It looked especially wild with some man walking his dog in the background.
Only two families are left in the neighboring building - one of them is the family of Lebanese refugees with four children. These ones definitely have no place to go.
[...]
Ira and Andrey came for a visit yesterday, and I was drinking vodka with them, for the first time in many years, and I felt good. If I had known that vodka helps to relax so well, I would've been drunk every evening.
But I still didn't manage to get enough sleep: I woke from an explosion at 4 am.
When I was showing them the apartment, we heard a siren and headed for the shelter. Only later did I realize that I'm no longer in Haifa, that we don't have sirens, and the sound was coming out of the stupid TV.
Today at work, there was a siren without explosions and explosions without a siren.
[...]
I'm sitting on the balcony, looking gloomily in the direction of the Lebanese border. Danya takes a seat next to me.
[...]
The Gadyukins (a [...] nickname [referring to a poisonous snake] of the neighbors downstairs, with whom we've had a rich history of [bad] relationship) are listening to the damn music again.
- Well, what can we do? They are fighting stress with music. These are difficult times.
- But they're difficult for us, too, and you have a headache!
- You have a headache? - asks a worried voice from the balkony below us.
- Yes, - Danya and I reply in unison, [startled].
- I'll turn it off now... You should have told me... It's just that I'm off to milium tomorrow... So I've relaxed.
- Oh, then leave the music on! - I tell him, leaning forward over the balcony rail. - You do have to relax! You're going ... to Gaza, aren't you?
- To Gaza. It's time to pack for me anyways...
A multitude of useless thoughts rush through my head...
- I'm sorry for your dog... We lost our cat in December, - I say (it's hard to find something more idiotic to say).
- I know, - he says softly. - We have the same vet doctor.
- So! - He's looking at [Danya]. - You haven't been hitting the ball for so long, we are feeling somewhat uneasy!
[Danya] is embarrassed.
- Do play your ball, - [the neighbor] says. - But not too much. They found my mama has Hepatitis C, she needs to rest a lot, and she works hard...
- Let her get well, - I say, with the most genuine feeling.
Let his mother get well. Let him be all right. Even if we fight over idiotic trifles.
At last, my sister has moved in with us. She didn't want to leave but when a missile fell just one house away from her, I managed to talk her into [moving]. It turned out to be not so easy to leave Haifa - no trains or buses, the price for cabs has gone up three times. [...] My mother keeps watching the news in all accessible languages, and yesterday I happened to watch the [Russian state-run channel] ORT news, too. Reminded me of my [Soviet] pioneer childhood, around 1980, "the Israeli aggression in Lebanon." They are showing Beirut in ruins, are talking about evacuation of the Russian citizens. Not a word on the shelling of Israel, nothing on the fact that there are hundreds times more of the Russian citizens here. [...]
This is Lena-Pilka speaking, from the frontline Haifa.
And you thought I wouldn't write anymore?
Dream on!
Everyone here is migrating south, following the birds. On my way to work in the morning I saw some guys walking furtively with suitcases. I thought, damn, they've robbed someone! Wanted to call my husband, but looked closer and recognized our neighbors [...].
The sirens wailed 4-5 times today. We didn't hear the first time, though, and went to the dining hall. And were surprised by how few people there were at the hospital.
And my husband was at home and kept running to the shelter with the little one periodically. [...]
He says: He's running with the stroller during yet another siren alert, and suddenly - an explosion, a "boom" real close, the windows begin to shake. He thinks: "Well, the little one probably has poops up to her ears in the diaper." But looks and sees that the kid is sitting and clapping her hands and laughing, like: "Bravo! [...]" She liked it, you know.
[...]
Anyway, all's okay. Thank you to all for your support, and don't worry!
I'm off to watch the third Terminator with my husband. Life continues.
[...]
Daniel Raeburn writes about the birth of his daughter, after his wife’s previous pregnancy ended in stillbirth.
[...]
“Stand up, Dad,” a voice commanded. “It’s a girl.”
The doctor was holding a baby upside down by its ankles. The baby hung there, as blue as a blueberry and covered in fluids. She wriggled. Someone snipped the coil connecting her to Rebekah’s exposed gray bowels and blood jumped from the nub. The blue baby spluttered. She choked and turned as pink as a piece of candy. She changed from an internal organ into a human being. She cried. Then I cried.
[...]
Mental asylum patients sit by the TV and watch the news. One of them jumps up and exclaims happily after each piece: "I'm so glad I'm here at the hospital! So glad I'm here and not there!"
- How do you think it became possible for the terrorists to reach the school without having encountered any obstacles?
- I asked them. That Ali, he was more communicative during the first day, he was the Colonel's deputy. I asked him: "How did you get here?" He said: "No problems here. We paid money at each checkpoint. They didn't search us." I wasn't the only one who heard it.
- And what's your opinion on this?
- What do you think my opinion is? My opinion is that many more people should be sitting next to him [Nurpashi Kulaev]. But they are wearing uniforms.
Btw., the story needs to be read with a good critical sense. In the part already published, the version given by Chris Chivers differs strongly from the protocols of the Kulayev case. E.g., either the central witness, Mr. Misikov, lied in court, or Mr. Chivers "adapted" the story to the demands of a Hollywood script. I'd suppose the latter, to be frank.
[Prosecutor Maria Semisynova]
- At the very beginning you said that to quieten the hostages, the militants were firing machine guns overhead. That was during the first day. (Kulayev's guard fainted.) Oy, oy, oy, oy. We should at least turn on the fan, it's so hot, let him sit down. Give him some water, too. Can you switch the air conditioner over there?! Open the windows.
