White Russian
Zhenya Kuida, 18 Sept. 2009
"Our patio has been open all summer - it's a pity that no one really wrote about it. But we still did a great job with it - even on weeknights there was a line for it, people were booking tables an hour in advance. I've been scolded for the fact that not enough people know about our patio, but I just didn't have time, we built it all ourselves in a month, practically with our own hands, Arkady didn't even know. I heard he was going to hire another director for this restaurant and was on his way here to talk about that with me, but when he saw our patio he decided to let me keep my job."
Alexei, the director of Novikov's latest restaurant Tatler, is showing me sketches of how the interior is supposed to look. Inside they're doing the work (changing it from the restaurant which currently occupies the space, I Fiori), and for now only the white-curtained summer patio is open.
At the next table over, someone is smoking a hookah. The sketches show wooden tables, an open kitchen, Ralph Lauren furniture and clocks set to London time.
"Tatler is, after all, first and foremost a London magazine, the most important one about celebrities. Arkady really wants to make this restaurant more democratic, American-style, to get people to come here for lunch - big portions, big plates, an eclectic menu. It's true that we have a French chef, so this is difficult for him. At the last tasting Arkady took a long time explaining to him that he needs to have fewer fashionable things, that everything should be simpler. Why don't you order something, try something, everything is delicious, we have a new menu!"
The waiter walking by drops a menu, and Alexei rushes to help him. "I remember well what it's like to be on your feet all day. I myself am not from Moscow, I worked my first few years here as a bartender in a casino and then as a waiter in GQ Bar. I always found it interesting to work at the bar - even when I was a kid, I dreamed of becoming a bartender and making cocktails."
Alexei's phone rings, and he has a long conversation about a car loan. "I want to buy a Volvo, maybe now they'll give me a loan, one of the co-owners [of the restaurant] is a banker, he promised to help, and now I have a decent salary. It was, of course, a big step for me to become a manager. Although I'm really young, I run pretty much everything in the restaurant - I hire the staff myself, I watch the till, I structure people's work. Arkady only looks after the chefs and other little things."
Two beefy Armenians sit down at the table next to us, and Alexei's face darkens.
"Of course this used to be a completely dead restaurant. When I became manager, I cam here and freaked out - the place was full of darkies ["черные"]. It's like that everywhere - as soon as the darkies start to come, that's it, the restaurant dies. Of course I try to fight it - I don't let them in, I tell them that the tables are occupied or reserved, there's no table for you here, but you can't control everything, they still get in. And then normal Russian people come up to you and say, 'What sort of a zoo are you running here?' They also feel uncomfortable when something like that is sitting at the table next to them, they just want to come have dinner at a place with their own people, without these darkies. But what can you do, in these times of crisis things have become very difficult, who comes to restaurants these days? Just the darkies, no one else has any money. Just watch how restaurants go bad before your very eyes, and the same thing happens with clubs. One must strictly maintain the proper ratio - you can let them in sometimes, but not too many, so that they don't ruin the look of the place."
Alexei notices the hookah attendant walking by and calls him over. "By the way, we have excellent hookahs - the best in the city. Try the apple-flavored one, people say they come back to try it again."
Saturday, October 10, 2009
A Racist Restauranteur - Routine in Russia?
This was a pretty amazing article - appeared a few weeks ago on the afisha.ru website and generated some reaction from the Moscow dining public. So I translated it:
Russian world
Every day, there's some new story about the misfortunes of the Russian language in the former Soviet republics. Here are just three recent examples.
Kazakhstan: starting in 2012, all movies will be required to be shown in the state language [Kazakh].
Tajikistan: now all official paperwork, correspondence and education must be conducted in Tajik. All citizens are required to know the state language - Tajik.
And finally, Ukraine: Yulia Tymoshenko has signed government order #1033, which requires all public-school teachers to speak only Ukrainian during work hours - including during breaks. Even in the school cafeteria.
How can all of this be assessed by someone who lives in Russia, speaks Russian and loves their language? Of course, such a person should feel pain, bitterness and disappointment - basically, a whole range of negative feelings. After all, we're talking about the language of Pushkin and Dostoevsky! After all, this is the language which we all used to speak together and in which we all seemed to understand each other wonderfully! The language of peace and friendship!... And so on and so forth.
I love my language. That's what I could say. But I won't. Because I perfectly understand that there's no way to separate a language from politics. Whether we like it or not, in the newly proclaimed states the Russian language is the most immediate (and daily!) reminder of the former empire. And attempts to preserve or promote it are judged as attempts to return the former state of relations - between the imperial center and the colonies.
The arguments of the now-independent states say the following: We have our own language, and this language should have an indisputable priority; anyone who wants to be a citizen of our country should first learn the national language, and all other languages are secondary. Do you have anything to say against this? I don't. Because this is exactly how Russia acts in relation to its own state language. And Russia is absolutely right!
But why does it deny others the same right? Just because "we used to be together"? That's why I won't say "how horrible" about the linguistic innovations of the former republics.
The real question is, what should Russia do about this - fight the situation or make peace with it? I have an answer, but I doubt you'll like it. We should make peace with it, I'd say. Fighting it is not only useless, it's dangerous, because all it does is generate increased aggression and firm opposition to the phrase "Russian language."
So, we need to accept the situation. And work out a new language policy. A NEW policy! One that will be, excuse the pun, free from politics. People shouldn't be afraid of Russian. They should love it. And love and fear do not go together.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Divided by a common language?*
CIMG1630, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.
Limba Noastra decorations in Chisinau last year.
This poster says "Our Language - Romanian," whereas I saw other,
similar posters elsewhere in the city that left off the word "Romanian."
On August 31st (yes, I've been busy IRL** and the timeliness of this post has suffered), Moldova celebrated a holiday called Limba Noastra ("Our Language"), which celebrates the Romanian language (notwithstanding the Voronin government's preference for calling the local dialect a separate "Moldovan" language) and country's transition to the use of the Latin alphabet at the end of the Soviet era.
The holiday occasioned a lot of interesting online commentary. Imedia offered a straight-news report. Morning in Moldova characteristically takes a somewhat strident tone in defense of more robust promotion of Romanian language usage in Moldova, in a post which occasioned a pretty interesting comment. Nicu Popescu posted (in Romanian) an interesting historical survey of Russification efforts which shows that Romanian language usage in Moldova has actually survived much harder times than the past eight years of PCRM rule, and expressed the pragmatic and in my view absolutely correct point of view that people should not get hung up on what to call the language. Louis O'Neill, writing for RFE/RL, discusses the language issue in light of the mini-scandal which erupted after Voronin's apparent outburst (delivered in Russian) in Filat's direction at last Friday's opening session of parliament.
Natalia Morari also covered the language issue in one of her columns for RFE/RL last month (they are being translated into English - from Russian - but unfortunately RFE/RL doesn't seem to have a way to aggregate all the translations of her posts on one page), exploring the situation of the children of Russian-speakers in Chisinau (or, more precisely, the situation faced by Russian-speaking parents of children in Chisinau). And finally, award-winning and sometimes controversial Moldovan blogger Soacra Mica shared her personal experiences with the country's bilingualism.
As for my own experiences in the ten years I've been traveling to Moldova, I can say that I've always felt comfortable using Russian in Chisinau, although I've been glad not to have to in recent years, having picked up Romanian (or Moldovan, whatever) over time. For the most part, I find that people in the Moldovan capital tend to be fairly laid-back about which of the two languages is used in their day-to-day interactions, which is something I have always admired - it means that, if you only know Russian, you don't have to worry that you are creating political offense every time you open your mouth. It's something of a problem, of course, for the many citizens who end up using both languages passably but neither of them correctly, but I am not much moved by arguments based on linguistic purism.
In any event, the penetration of Russian seems to be slowly waning - as far as I know, none of the deputies use it in parliament anymore (though this was the case a few years ago, and it's still common to see political figures give interviews in Russian), and there is now a generation of young adults which has grown up able to avoid using Russian entirely. As the photos posted below show, though, there is plenty of usage of Russian in the public space, especially in Chisinau.
Even when people can't agree to speak the same language, sometimes they can still have a conversation. Last year I had lunch in Chisinau with a politically active Moldovan who spoke Romanian to the waitress taking care of our table. She spoke Russian to him. They had a conversation about the menu, about what would be tasty that day, etc., and each understood the other but did not speak the other's language. Of course such situations have the potential to be a bit tense, but I think there is something positive - or at least not entirely negative - about the mutual acceptance.
Earlier this year, I attended a peaceful gathering with speakers by (then-)opposition politicians on Chisinau's main square, just a few days after the violence of April 7th. Of all the speakers, Andrei Popov, who is now in parliament with the PDM but at the time was working as the director of a think-tank in Chisinau, made the strongest impression on me when he gave some remarks in Russian about how the Communists were cheating all Moldovan citizens - Russian-speakers included - out of a democratic government.
Also earlier this year, I was talking with an Estonian who works in Chisinau about the country's bilingualism. I mentioned that it was an unusual situation of a country that is really bilingual. The conversation took an unexpected turn when my interlocutor agreed and pronounced the situation in Moldova "disgusting," expressing his relief that the Baltic republics had avoided a similar situation and that Moldova would be less confused politically and better off in general if it had somehow moved away from widespread use of Russian being acceptable. It's a not-uncommon point of view that I understand but can't agree with.
CIMG3202, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.
Bilingual signage can be seen in all walks of Moldovan life. This is a sign listing prices for having
various prayers said or ceremonies performed at the monastery in Saharna in northeastern Moldova.
IMG_3948, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.
A bilingual welcome to one of Chisinau's main athletic venues.
CIMG3335, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.
A trilingual and very shady ad seeking "girls with fashion/swimwear body" in Chisinau.
CIMG6491-1, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.
Bilingualism beyond the grave - this sign advertises custom-made gravestones.
* There are actually two main "linguistic" divides in Moldova (notwithstanding that they persist in large part because of various political forces capitalizing on and exacerbating them, they do seem to be real), only one of which involves a common language: the division between people who self-identify as "Romanian" and the subgroup of people among those who self-identify as "Moldovan" who believe the language they speak should be called "Moldovan." The other linguistic divide in the country, of course, is between Romanian-(or Moldovan-)speakers and Russian-speakers.
** in real life...
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Moldovan Independence Day
In my Facebook feed, I saw a witty observation flash by today - "Moldova has always been independent - nothing ever depended on it." Nicu Popescu had a very interesting post today, which I'd translate if I had time, about the Moldovan mentality of dependence (he developed the theme further in this interview).
But I'm going to use the day as an excuse to post some of my photos from last year's celebration of the holiday. A year ago today, I got up well before 9am, quite a feat on a holiday for someone who had just been a student for three years, and made it down to Chisinau's main square to watch the ceremony of flower-laying at the statue of Ştefan cel Mare.
I have no idea how the festivities went down today (actually, with the exception of Lupu's absence, it looks like a familiar scene - Zina shi Vologhea u Shtefana), but I'd imagine there is a more tense atmosphere this year, as tomorrow marks the first meeting of parliament after the July 29th repeat elections. The current government ministers will tender their resignations, and the no-longer-opposition will be able to form a new government (though it lacks the 61 votes required in Parliament to choose a new President).
According to the excellent Morning in Moldova blog, it is absolutely imperative that a speaker of parliament be elected tomorrow. Imedia reports (on their excellent and extremely useful new English-language blog) that the members of the Alliance for European Integration, recently formed from the four opposition parties that made it into parliament on July 29, may not quite be done haggling over who gets the spot. Of greater concern is the fact that the Communist Party this week stated that it will not negotiate with the Alliance as a whole, but would be happy to negotiate with the individual parties that make up the Alliance, suggesting that the horse-trading over who becomes the country's next President (and of course the side deals that may be necessary to arrive at a compromise on that central issue) may just be heating up.
Anyway, I prefer to think back to a happier time - last year, when I was still enveloped in post-bar-exam bliss, and April 7th was just another insignificant date like any other...
IMG_7941-1, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.
PM Zinaida Greceanii, President Vladimir Voronin and then-Speaker of Parliament
Marian Lupu, accompanied by the Patriarch - separation of church and state is so
overrated - approach the Stefan statue, preceded by goose-stepping soldiers...
IMG_7979, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.
Meanwhile, lesser lights await their turn to lay flowers of their own, and
the bigwigs' chariots stand ready, lined up with military precision.
IMG_8016, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.
Even here, somejackass opinionated individual showed up with one of those pro-unification t-shirts.
A bit like showing up to a 4th of July celebration with a t-shirt claiming the US in George III's name.
Well, not really, but I couldn't think of a better analogy.
IMG_8036, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.
Beer tents set up in anticipation of a concert planned for that evening.
IMG_8022, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.
At the time, I wondered if the arrows on the sign at right symbolized
Moldova's unfortunately non-straightforward road toward Europe.
IMG_8021, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.
The holiday was known as Independence Day for years (still is, officially and colloquially).
Therefore, when I saw the signs on the stage on PMAN proclaiming it Republic Day, I
immediately recalled how for many years June 12th in Russia was celebrated as
Independence Day (though not without some bemused wondering about "who did
we become independent from, anyway?") but under Putin became known as the more
bombastic Russia Day. "Further evidence of Putinism in Moldova?" I wondered lazily.
But I'm going to use the day as an excuse to post some of my photos from last year's celebration of the holiday. A year ago today, I got up well before 9am, quite a feat on a holiday for someone who had just been a student for three years, and made it down to Chisinau's main square to watch the ceremony of flower-laying at the statue of Ştefan cel Mare.
I have no idea how the festivities went down today (actually, with the exception of Lupu's absence, it looks like a familiar scene - Zina shi Vologhea u Shtefana), but I'd imagine there is a more tense atmosphere this year, as tomorrow marks the first meeting of parliament after the July 29th repeat elections. The current government ministers will tender their resignations, and the no-longer-opposition will be able to form a new government (though it lacks the 61 votes required in Parliament to choose a new President).
According to the excellent Morning in Moldova blog, it is absolutely imperative that a speaker of parliament be elected tomorrow. Imedia reports (on their excellent and extremely useful new English-language blog) that the members of the Alliance for European Integration, recently formed from the four opposition parties that made it into parliament on July 29, may not quite be done haggling over who gets the spot. Of greater concern is the fact that the Communist Party this week stated that it will not negotiate with the Alliance as a whole, but would be happy to negotiate with the individual parties that make up the Alliance, suggesting that the horse-trading over who becomes the country's next President (and of course the side deals that may be necessary to arrive at a compromise on that central issue) may just be heating up.
Anyway, I prefer to think back to a happier time - last year, when I was still enveloped in post-bar-exam bliss, and April 7th was just another insignificant date like any other...
IMG_7941-1, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.
PM Zinaida Greceanii, President Vladimir Voronin and then-Speaker of Parliament
Marian Lupu, accompanied by the Patriarch - separation of church and state is so
overrated - approach the Stefan statue, preceded by goose-stepping soldiers...
IMG_7979, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.
Meanwhile, lesser lights await their turn to lay flowers of their own, and
the bigwigs' chariots stand ready, lined up with military precision.
IMG_8016, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.
Even here, some
A bit like showing up to a 4th of July celebration with a t-shirt claiming the US in George III's name.
Well, not really, but I couldn't think of a better analogy.
And the band played on...
IMG_8036, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.
Beer tents set up in anticipation of a concert planned for that evening.
IMG_8022, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.
At the time, I wondered if the arrows on the sign at right symbolized
Moldova's unfortunately non-straightforward road toward Europe.
IMG_8021, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.
The holiday was known as Independence Day for years (still is, officially and colloquially).
Therefore, when I saw the signs on the stage on PMAN proclaiming it Republic Day, I
immediately recalled how for many years June 12th in Russia was celebrated as
Independence Day (though not without some bemused wondering about "who did
we become independent from, anyway?") but under Putin became known as the more
bombastic Russia Day. "Further evidence of Putinism in Moldova?" I wondered lazily.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Happy 421st birthday!
This year, my wife's hometown of Floreşti celebrated its birthday (last weekend) without us. Incidentally, unless there's a local trend with which I'm unfamiliar (which is not impossible, since I'm not exactly plugged in with the youth subcultures there), someone has pranked Wikipedia by adding a sentence to the entry about Floreşti - "Since 2009 Floreşti has become the most popular producer of Moldova's Hip-Hop and Rap industry."
Be that as it may, a phone call last weekend reminded me of how much fun last year's "City Day" celebrations were, and I decided to share a few of the photos from way back when (the whole photoset is here, including some photos of the two nights of concerts on the main square - on one of which the city was honored with the presence of one Fuego, an artist previously unknown to me who is apparently a Romanian pop star):
Be that as it may, a phone call last weekend reminded me of how much fun last year's "City Day" celebrations were, and I decided to share a few of the photos from way back when (the whole photoset is here, including some photos of the two nights of concerts on the main square - on one of which the city was honored with the presence of one Fuego, an artist previously unknown to me who is apparently a Romanian pop star):
IMG_7284, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.
Celebratory assembly at the local House of Culture, which included speeches by
local luminaries and children reading some genuinely touching poems they had
written about their hometown - as well as an older woman who had witnessed and
survived deportation by the Soviets and read a tear-jerker of a poem about that ordeal.
18 years ago...
Last week, Snob.ru asked its community of readers and "global Russians" whether they remember August 21, 1991, the date when the GKChP and bit the dust - and with it, any chance that the USSR could be preserved. For those unfamiliar with the acronym, it stood for "State Committee on the State of Emergency," the group of people behind the attempted putsch which - much too late - aimed to derail Gorbachev's reform (or liberation, or running into the ground, if you prefer) of the Soviet Union.
[image source]Boris Yeltsin at the barricades with his bodyguard Aleksandr Korzhakov,
whose apparent role in ruling the country (at least according to his tell-all
memoir) made him infamous during the '90s as a symbol of poor governance
The comments are pretty emotional and talk about the various stages of people's feelings about Russia's post-Soviet experiment:
Naive but wonderful feelings of unity - "A couple of times during the night [of 20-21 Aug.] I had a completely incredible feeling, as trite as it sounds, but a feeling of unity with my people [с моим народом], with all of the people [со всеми людьми] who had gathered there for whatever reason. It was a physical feeling of brotherhood, which I have never felt since. By 1993 it became clear that in 1991 we had been total idiots. What remained was an unpleasant aftertaste and those feelings, and it's not clear what to do with them. They have been lost for nothing. And it's a pity."
Later disappointment - "Everyone had incredible - and naive, as it later turned out - hopes...... Who could have known then that the nomenklatura (in epaulets and otherwise) would - having repainted itself - steadily come crawling back, once again grabbing up everything for itself, although now in the role of 'state capitalists'."
Dashed hopes - "Those were days when the hope appeared that there would be real democracy in [our] country. However, that hope rather quickly died a quiet death....I remember that since then I have never seen so many normal, human faces in one place. The first sign that nothing would really change was when they allowed the Communist Party to continue. First they banned it, and then they authorized it on the sly - that little fact left a feeling of extreme disgust. And didn't leave any hope for a better future."
And one of Snob's readers had an interesting story which I've translated:
It was one of the most powerful impressions of my life!... At the time, I was working as a line customs inspector at Sheremetyevo-2. In those days, all of the flights with people leaving to live in Israel departed early in the morning (around 5am), so that arriving foreigners would not be discomfited by this picture of thousands of people emigrating. Naturally, all of the people leaving would show up at the airport the night before, and all night the departure halls were noisy, people would hold farewell parties for their departing friends and relatives; some laughed, some cried...The GKChP plotters and their not-so-bad fates (not counting Boris Pugo, who shot himself), 15 years later, as reported by AiF in 2006:
On the night of August 21, the departure halls were DEAD QUIET! And thousands of absolutely white faces, raised up to the monitors which had been set up in the airport, on which a single question was frozen - WILL THEY LET US OUT OR NOT? It was a frightening picture, burned into my memory...
[image source]More: Reports on the GKChP anniversary from 2004 and 2006.
Paul Goble's impressions of Russians' historical memory of August '91.
"A Soviet Fly in Geopolitical Amber"
Strange Maps provides a dandy headline phrase describing Transnistria, as well as an detailed map of the region. I have a similarly fascinating poster-sized map of Moldova with various demographic breakdowns and migration statistics, but unfortunately I have no way to scan in such a big piece of paper.
Here's a recent update on the prospects for conflict resolution (if you can get past the tired phrases like "it could be a museum of the Soviet Union"), and here's a great resource if you are looking for further reading on the subject - three volumes of essays on the conflict which were presented at a conference that I attended in late May.
Here are some photos of Tiraspol, Transnistria's capital, from my most recent trip there on June 18 of this year:
CIMG3392, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.
HQ of the local youth organization, Proryv (Breakthrough).
CIMG3391, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.
Billboard of Russian President Medvedev and Transnistrian leader
Igor Smirnov - the banner at left reads "Our strength is in unity with Russia!"
CIMG3385, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.
Decidedly old-school advertising posters outside of the Officers' Club,
which now rents some of its space to other organizations - unfortunately
I wasn't able to photograph the incredible, museum-like display of portraits
of historical Russian military figures which adorns one of the large rooms inside.
CIMG3381, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.
Inside the HQ of the Transnistrian Communist Party (not a huge vote-getter, but - according to the party's leader - a
genuine opposition party, although according to others I spoke with if they threaten the authorities too much then they
might face a mud-slinging campaign based on their earlier contacts with the Moldovan Communist Party)
CIMG3378-1, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.
Recruiting poster for the Felix Dzerzhinsky (!) boarding school for cadets, which prepares 5th- to 9th-graders
for a career in the local police or internal troops - the appeal is to "Duty, Honor, Fatherland" - MacArthuresque!
Monday, August 17, 2009
The Caucasus in 1842
This is the latest in an ongoing series of Caucasus maps (note that some other maps will probably also be caught by the "Maps" label, but most are from this endlessly interesting part of the world).
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Navel-gazing
This is the latest post in a highly infrequent series wherein I examine the contents of my server logs (yes, I know there are more important things I should be writing about...).
This time I will be brief and will simply say the following to the individual in Texas insistently searching for "ingredients in russian crepes teremok": what makes up the food of the gods is to be gratefully enjoyed but not to be known by us mere mortals. Please, do you really need to know? Isn't it likely that knowing would take away from the delight we experience while savoring a Teremok blin?
If you're worried about the nutritional value of the ingredients (and having perused the details, it's possible you should be - the mighty Ilya Muromets blin is over 1,000 calories!), check out this helpful chart. If you're trying to reverse-engineer Teremok blini and open up a stand in Texas (I confess I've had visions of exporting the blin-stand business model to the US), I suggest you propose a franchising arrangement - you can get in touch with the Teremok team through their customer forum. And you can read here about one of the visionary individuals who we all have to thank for the heavenly blini. Happily, I can confirm that Teremok appears to be going strong in spite of the crisis - I had the chance to enjoy one of my favorite outlets with friends (and, to be honest, a couple more times on my own) on recent trips to Moscow, and the place was packed.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Moldovan election observation - in London (2)
Four years ago, I posted an account of Moldovans voting in Moscow; earlier this year, this space saw a rundown of the voting at the Moldovan Embassy in London on April 5th. As I watch the privesc.eu videostream from Moldovan Central Electoral Commission headquarters and marvel at the things they permit themselves to discuss when they think the mics are off (e.g., should the country properly be called "Moldova" or "Moldavia"), here are a few pics of Moldovans turning out to vote in London today:
For some reason, a cop car showed up and an officer went inside to discuss things
(presumably crowd control) with Embassy officials. This was around 8pm or so.
Apparently some people turned out with protest-type signs. And one of the
observers told me that an English-speaker had shown up and made a scene,
shouting about "don't let [an unspecified] THEM tell you what to do!"
Some comic relief - a sign designating the London consulate as "Voting Precinct #313,"
with the word "Voting" misspelled ("Voatare" as opposed to the correct "Votare").
The happy result - a "Voted" stamp in the passport identical to the one Lorina
got in Moscow in 2005, with an extra stamp indicating the date of these elections.
For some reason, a cop car showed up and an officer went inside to discuss things(presumably crowd control) with Embassy officials. This was around 8pm or so.
Apparently some people turned out with protest-type signs. And one of theobservers told me that an English-speaker had shown up and made a scene,
shouting about "don't let [an unspecified] THEM tell you what to do!"
Some comic relief - a sign designating the London consulate as "Voting Precinct #313,"
with the word "Voting" misspelled ("Voatare" as opposed to the correct "Votare").
The happy result - a "Voted" stamp in the passport identical to the one Lorinagot in Moscow in 2005, with an extra stamp indicating the date of these elections.
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