Buranovskiye Babushki Start Eurovision Rehearsals

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On Monday, according to their producer, Ksenia Rubtsova, the Buranovskiye Babushki, a sextet of Russian grannies who won the national Eurovision-2012 selection contest, started rehearsals in their home village of Buranovo. Rubtsova said, “It’s easier, better, and more convenient for the grannies to rehearse at home. The group spent ten days in Moscow and its participants miss their relatives and homes. Of course, there’ll be rehearsals in Moscow, but the Buranovskiye Babushki will sing at home for the moment”. On Tuesday, a crew from the state Rossiya TV channel will arrive in Buranovo, which is in the Republic of Udmurtia in the Urals, to stage their show for Eurovision. The sextet of babushkas faced a tough competition in the final selection from 24 other Russian contenders, including 2008 Eurovision winner Dima Bilan, but in the end, they won the hearts of jurors and TV viewers by performing “Party for Everybody” in the Udmurt language. The colourful grannies, some of them over 70 years old, don’t speak English and their folk-style performance includes their own songs and covers of many international music hits. They mostly sing in Russian and Udmurt. The group first tried for the Eurovision contest in 2010, but lost in the selection round.

12 March 2012

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/art_living/20120312/172111134.html

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15 March 2012. His Holiness Speaks… We Should Listen to Him… Not to Jumped-Up Convert Frauds

The Red Rose… the symbol of the Socialist International… the Church is NOT an apologist for the Affluent Effluent. Any churchman who claims to speak in favour of Anglosphere “conservatives” is out of step with the mind of the real grounded Church, and that’s that.

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15 March 2012. We’ve got to get the Dirt Off the Klobuk… It’s White, After All, and It Shows: The Kitchen Cabinet Speaks

Dear Lord, when will it all end?

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We’ve probably all seen the T-shirt message, “He who has the most toys when he dies wins”. Apparently, some take the position that the church with the most hierarchs is the one most beloved of God. It’s sad, really. Perhaps all of the unordained should quietly leave out the side-door and let them revel in the purity and grandeur of their all-tonsured, all-vested ecclesiology.

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Let them play Church and prance around in their crowns… I’m going to go try to build the Kingdom. The OCA’s dying. I am so happy in the Orthodox parish we joined… it isn’t perfect and won’t be until the Parousia, but I feel loved and cared for there, and I didn’t in the convert-filled OCA parish.

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We’ve all suffered through the nauseating grandstanding of these sorts, who pontificate on things they don’t understand whilst making a show of their “pious” behaviour. It’s all “holy” this, “sacred” that, and “divine” other. Sometimes, I wish one could come up with a list of particularly irritating words and clichés to present to these fellows and say, “Here, your most holy and sacred ascetic podvig is to carry on normal human conversations with other people without using any of these”. I bet you, they’d find out pretty quickly that they really have nothing of substance to say.

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The problems that this priest caused here [in our OCA parish] will never heal… after all of these years, we got a priest who hates Russian choral music along with two sycophantic converts… he insulted the director’s ability in front of the whole choir. She cried all night after she read what the priest wrote, and one of my family members might even leave the church.

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All of my Serbian friends are very angry at the OCA for this. They spell Kosovo as the Muslims want it spelled.

NB:

The report concerns the OCA Bishop of New England sucking up to the American-puppet ruler of the illegitimate Kosovo statelet. That is, he’s sucking up to Fathausen’s right-wing fantasies. Oh… one last thing… the Rev Arthur Liolin mentioned is the brother of the bishop, and he’s Chancellor of the Diocese… there’s nothing like old-fashioned nepotism, naked and unashamed.

BMD

15 March 2012. Some of My Favourite Things… Soviet Multifilm “The Magic Mill”

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This is one of those wonderful Soviet animated films, The Magic Mill (it’s also known as Zhernovki). It’s from 1950 (the nasty ol’ Stalin times). Gran’pa lives in the woods in an izba with Cat and Rooster. One night, a major rainstorm forces the forest animals to take shelter in Gran’pa’s house. There wasn’t quite enough food to go around… so, when the rain stopped, Gran’pa, along with Cat and Rooster go off to the Magic Mountain… and they ask the Mountain to help them. They get a magic mill, which miraculously grinds out bread, rolls, bubliki, blini, and other good things. The evil king hears about it and comes and steals the mill. Rooster goes to the king’s palace and eventually gets the mill back after a little adventure. The king chases Rooster, but Gran’pa and the other animals come, and the evil king falls into the river and drowns. There’s a happy ending to it all…

BMD