To Learn Spanish - Some good sites

Afters Russian, as a fourth language I started to learn Spanish. For those who is also interested and to make a note for myself on web here some good sites:

http://clave.librosvivos.net/ (Diccionario español-español)

http://www.wordreference.com (Diccionario multilingüe)

·        Páginas web interesantes para practicar español:

http://aula.difusion.com/?pg=estudiantes (Aula Internacional 1 y 2)

http://www.mansionspanish.com/cursobasico/ecurso00.htm

http://www.spanishcourses.info/Ejerc/Ejercicios_espanol.htm

http://www.busuu.com/es

http://cvc.cervantes.es/aula/pasatiempos/default.htm

http://www.videoele.com/menu_A1.html (Vídeos)

http://newsinslowspanish.libsyn.com/

·        Conjugador de verbos:

http://www.onoma.es/

Música en español interesante

Andrés Calamaro http://www.calamaro.com/ac/ac.asp,

Chavela Vargas http://www.chavelavargas.com.mx/,

Ojos de brujo http://www.ojosdebrujo.com/,

Bebe http://www.labebebellota.com/,

Los delinqüentes http://www.delinquentes.es/ ,

Manu Chao http://www.manuchao.net/ ,

Amaral http://www.amaral.es/category/noticias,

Mártires del compás http://www.myspace.com/martiresdelcompas,

Canteca de macao http://www.cantecademacao.org/2009/,

Muchachito bombo infierno http://www.muchachitobomboinfierno.com/

Enrique Bunbury http://www.enriquebunbury.com/

Diego el cigala http://www.elcigala.com/

Love of lesbian http://www.myspace.com/loveoflesbian 

Wikiforextr - Forex Information Sharing in Turkish

Although this news is not related with Mosocw and Russia, I wanted to share it in my blog.

We, two friends, formed a web site for sharing information, news and knowledge about forex in Turkish. We decided to create such a site after seeing that there was really no good, easy to use and functional forex site in web. Hope it will be useful for Turkish who is interested in forex.

http://www.wikiforextr.com/

Moscow International Book Fair -2010

This weekend there was a book fair in Moscow at VDNH exhibition center. I had been before in VDNH park, but I was never been in exhibition part. The excibition center are really large and well desinged for such organizations. At different saloons, which are called as 'pavillon', there were different fairs such as book, flowers etc..

The book fair was really big and interesting. Different book publishers and books from different countries took place in this fair. Also it was possible to see some famous people and writer giving interviews or signing their books.

I had seen two Turkish book stands there. One showing classical, cultural or tourism related Turkish books. Other one was the religion books, of the group 'Harun Yahya' which supports the theory of being againest Darwin. All their religional books and videos were in Russian. Actually I didn't expect these people to be this much active in Russia.

In general, it was interesting to see books from all over the world and being in such an international crowdy organization. Form time to time, it seems I have to follow such organizations and fairs in Moscow.

Russian Film : Aleksei Balabanov's Voyna (War)

I watched this film last week by chance on TV. I didn't know about it before and from start it seem to be interesting. Film tells about an interesting story with well describing scenes of war between Russia and Chechnya.

The subject of film is the war in Chechnya. The hostage-taking drama of some English and Russian people, and the struggle of them to run away from Chechens. The film is interesting to understand the conditions in Chechnya, real Russian life style. How rude Chechens can be, hard life there and Russian military life.

I can say this is one of the best Russian films I watched, that effected me. After this film, I have a different image of Russia on my mind about Caucasus. I suggest to watch this film who is interested in Russia.

New Year in Moscow - 2010

Again a new year past, wellcoming 2010. In TV s as usual Moscow and celebrations in Red Square with fireworks was one of the musts and classics were shown. Having spent two new years before this one in Moscow, this time I was glad to be somewhere else.

If you are in Moscow, I dont advice to go to red square to watch celebrations because its so crowdy and most probably you wont find chance to enter to the req square. You can after walk on Tverskaya street where some local small concerts are given at different sides of the road. But again you need to be carefull, some drunk people who try to dance and shout around you meet. Alternatively people make celebrations at restaurants or clubs which cost like 100-200 dollars per person.
After new year, returning to Moscow, 2010 started with a horrible cold. Now city is calm and people usually resting at their homes or out of Moscow.

With my best wishes, for a good and happy new year for all of us.

Seven Sisters I: Kotelnicheskaya Embankment Building

When you walk around Moscow, you will see some huge buildings which were built as a combination of baroque and gothic styles. They look very impressive. Actually the motivation behind their creation was Stalin’s words which had been recalled by Nikita Khrushchev: “We won the war ... foreigners will come to Moscow, walk around, and there's no skyscrapers. If they compare Moscow to capitalist cities, it's a moral blow to us". He decided to build seven skyscrapers which look like NewYorks skyscrapers. These buildings are known as Seven Sisters in foreign literature, but Moscow people call them vysotki, which means talls. These buildings are namely Kotelnicheskaya Embankment Apartments, Hotel Ukraina, the Kudrinskaya Square Building, the Leningradskaya Hotel, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Moscow State University, and the Red Gates Administrative Building. They were built from 1947 to 1953 under Stalin’s command.

Me with my friend Ahmet Olgun, who is interested in photography, decided to take photos of these buildings and try to introduce each one of them briefly here. We started with one of the most beautiful of them, the one lying near the Moscow River Embankment, namely Kotelnicheskaya Embankment Building. Its main tower has 32 levels (including mechanical floors) and is 176 meters tall. By the end of World War II, the side wing was converted to multi-family kommunalka housing, in a contrast to the planned elite status of the main tower. Behind the building lays down a hill with historical architecture and very narrow old streets. Therefore, the architect of it, Dmitry Chechylin (then Chief Architect of Moscow), was criticized too much for disregard of this fact and ruin that historical area. But he had so powerful bureaucratic influence (this is very likely to Russia nowadaysJ) which brushed of any critics. When you walk or drive through the embankment, this building seems so impressive. It seems very nice both day and night. The photo which was taken during night is the side view of the building from south-east, and the ones which were taken during day are the side view from south-west. We will continue by Moscow State University in the following days…

Che: Hasta Siempre (Museum House)

Last weekend, with one of my Russian friend's advice I visited the exhibition “Che: Hasta Siempre” at the Dom Nashokina gallery. I knew from my observations that Latin culture is loved in Moscow, so I thought it would be nice to see such a museum.


The museum is a small house with two floors and 6-7 rooms. On rooms walls some great, classic images of revolutionary Che Guevara and his tovarischi is shown. The photographs in the exhibition include original images, modern prints and photos taken by the man himself. And while these are the main draw, there was also documentary video footage, personal letters and other unique items from Che’s revolutionary years on display.

Actually since the house was small, it took not much, like 40 minutes to see all the house, and I was expecting to see more interesting things, personal belongings of Che but unfortunately mostly photographs and paintings were exhibited. Anyway, it was interesting to see and understand Che's life and story. “Che: Hasta Siempre” can be especially interesting for those interested in history and socialism.

Che is so loved and popular in Moscow even there is a popular club called: Che Club.