No one is allowed to have an opinion about this post until they have carefully read the “Ethnic groups in Russia” Wikipedia page
Nobody really familiar with Russia or the USSR (who isn’t a racist) would blink an eye that she could be Tatar or Bukharan Jewish or whatever else you could ask for here
There weren’t many ethnic minorities in the KGB but it makes sense for minority groups to be targeted for physical reconditioning and brainwashing and so on, especially if it meant they couldn’t have children due to the Soviet Russian strategy of flooding regions with ethnic Russians in order to drown out the indigenous non-Russian populations, so who really cares
Plus her patronymic – meaning she has a part in her name that means ‘the daughter of Alian’ – isn’t Russian, Alian is definitely not a Russian name. I think her father has an Arabic name (according to googling around on runet it’s from Arabic) and many Muslims in Russia are Asian. Whoever her father was he wasn’t 100% ethnic Russian and his family did not identify with Russian culture.
In fact if I were told I was going to meet someone called Natalia Alianovna I would actually expect an Asian (or someone like Azerbaijani) to walk out
(Although I wouldn’t really be surprised by someone who is white passing either, people from Asian groups in Russia can look very diverse – but if she were played by an Asian actor it wouldn’t be pandering or erasure or nonsensical)
(yeah some ethnicties like Bukharan Jewish are extremely small in population but my opinion on this is if a single person could fit the bill it’s completely normal to have such a character)
This is a really cool and informative addition to this post, thank you!
Built in park near the Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Novosibirsk, Russia.
There is so much to love about this. It’s comical, poignant and respectful all at once. It’s a cartoon mouse knitting a double helix of DNA, which is charming but also a reminder that scientific discovery owes a lot to animals, without which most discoveries in medicine and biology would not have been made.
In 1952, an American attaché in Moscow was innocently fiddling with his shortwave radio when he heard the voice of the American ambassador dictating letters in the Embassy, just a few buildings away. He immediately reported the incident, but though the Americans tore the walls out of the Ambassador’s office, they weren’t able to find a listening device.
When the broadcasts kept coming, the Americans flew in two technical experts with special radio finding equipment, who meticulously examined each object in the Ambassador’s office. They finally tracked the signal to this innocuous giant wooden sculpture of the Great Seal of the United States, hanging behind the Ambassador’s desk. It had been given as a gift by the Komsomol, the Soviet version of the Boy Scouts.
Cracking it open, they found a hollow cavity and a metal object so unusual and mysterious in its design that it has gone down in history as ‘The Thing’.
‘The Thing’ had no battery, no wires, no source of power at all. It was was just a little can of metal covered on one side with foil, with a long metal whisker sticking out the side. It seemed too simple to be anything.
That night the American technician slept with ‘The Thing’ under his pillow. The next day they smuggled it out of the country for analysis.
The Americans couldn’t figure out how ‘The Thing’ worked, and had to ask the British for help. After a few weeks of fiddling, the Brits finally cracked The Thing’s secret.
That little round can was a resonant cavity. If you shone a beam of radio waves at it at a particular frequency, it would sing back to you, like a tuning fork. The metal antenna was just the right length to broadcast back one of the higher harmonics of the signal.
The resonator sat right behind a specially thinned piece of wood under the eagle’s beak. When someone in the room spoke, vibrations in the air would shake the foil, slightly deforming the cavity, which in turn made the resonant signal weaker or stronger.
As the attaché discovered, you could listen to this modulated signal on a radio just like a regular broadcast. ‘The Thing’ was a wireless, remotely powered microphone. It had been hanging on the ambassador’s wall for seven years.
Today we have a name for what ‘The Thing’ is: It’s an RFID tag, ingeniously modified to detect sound vibrations. Our world is full of these little pieces of metal and electronics that will sing back to you if you shine the right kind of radio waves on them.
But for 1952, this was heady stuff. Those poor American spooks were up against a piece of science fiction.
Today I want to talk about these moments when the future falls in our laps, with no warning or consideration about whether we’re ready to confront it.
Another amazing talk by the creator of Pinboard. I first heard Maciej speak at XOXO, he blew me away. This transcript of his Webstock talk was also amazing.
Technically outside the scope of this blog, but this was way too interesting/cool not to share.
Alina Davis, a 23-year-old trans woman, and Allison Brooks, her 19-year-old partner, donned matching white floor-length bridal gowns and married at a civil registry office earlier this month.
As Davis is still legally regarded as male, the office had no choice but to hand them a marriage certificate.
The couple said officials chided them, and appeared to be violent.
‘She called us the shame of the family and said we need medical treatment … I was afraid my pussycat [an affectionate pet name in Russian] would beat the fuck out of her,’ Davis said on her VK page.
But the couple were allowed to sign the papers, meaning a gay couple in Russia are legally recognized as married – even if it’s through a loophole.
‘This is an important precedent for Russia,’ Davis said.
Russia banned same-sex marriage and outlawed ‘gay propaganda’ in 2013.
holy jesus look at these two warrior princesses
they are my heroes
YOU GO GIRLS
“Oh, you don’t wanna recognize my gender? Okay then lol guess you have to recognize my marriage”
knitting in the dark 