Attackers (истребители)
It is 1943 and the Attackers relates the tale of a squadron of the Soviet Air Force operating close to the front in an area fairly close to Voronezh. The correct translation should be "Fighters" - right at the beginning they are detailed to act as support to ground attack aircraft, and indiscipline among the raw recruits causes that operation to go badly wrong. The actors include Ekaterina Vilkova as Captain Lydia Litovchenko, Dmitry Dyuzhev (who latterly gained infamy by supporting Rasputin's invasion of the Ukraine) as Ilya Bestuzhev, Mariya Andreyeva as Yevgeniya Dementeva, long-established actor Oleg Fomin as the Commander of the base Victor Stepanovitch Kanishchev, Nicolay Kozak as the political officer Pavel Alekseyevich Terentyev, Anton Sokolov as Boris Maslov, Dmitry Arbenin as Leonid Shugaev (Bordo).
The Dawns Here are Quiet (А зори здесь тихие ...)
This film is based on the novel of the same name by Boris Vasilyev, which sold almost two million copies within a year of its publication in 1969.
Online Language Learning
Language Learning (offline)
Some recommended books
General Resources
Russian in Britain
Books, Literature etc.
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Online Links
Some recommended books
- Dersu Uzala (sometimes known as Dersu the Trapper), V.K. Arseniev, Factual description of three surveys carried out by Arseniev in the Ussuri region, north of Vladivostok in the 1900s. At the time, unexplored by the Russians and inhabited spasely by native aborigines, Chinese and Koreans - presumably quite different today. A film was made in the 1970s which did get nominated for the Foreign-Language Oscar.
Russian Press and Magazines
'Non-Mainline' Politics
Recommended Books
'I have wondered a great deal about why I have so got it in for Putin. What is it that makes me dislike him so
much as to feel moved to write a book about him ?'
Moscow
Petersburg/Leningrad
Online Shopping
Miscellaneous
Short Bilingual Texts
How to Obtain a Visa
This procedure can be very confusing - although the Russian Consulate appears to have made their
explanations a bit clearer recently - you need to go to
Russian Consulate. There they will allow you to download an
application form, and state that they require the following supporting documentation (for a Tourist Visa)
This is
presumably straightforward if you are using a Travel Agency. I went independently by bus and forwarded a receipt from the Eurolines Bus Company
(I didn't send them the original tickets - although might be best to send a photocopy)
Usually if you stay at a hotel or youth hostel this will be what is provided under their 'help with passports'. It will probably cost you
about 20-30 pounds just for this document and in my experience will cost more if they mail it to you (get it faxed if possible). I made the mistake
of sending this document in too small a size (i.e. as it came out of my FAX machine - 'too small to read'). The Russian Consulate used my pre-paid Special Delivery
envelope (as detailed below) to send all my documents back to me - I had to re-submit them all again.
