Russian Chimp is Drunk as a Monkey

Let me start by saying, this article has everything I've ever wanted in a story: booze, addiction, monkeys, and Russia.

So according to YahooNews, the Rostov zoo has sent Zhora, one of its chimps, to rehab, because he can't kick his beer-drinking and smoking habits.

"The beer and cigarettes were ruining him. He would pester passers-by for booze."

And yes, of course passers-by at a zoo in Russia had booze on them. Who goes to the zoo park without some beer? And for those of you who don't know, the Russian language is so awesome it actually has a verb that means "to get an animal drunk." The imperfective is опаивать, and the perfective is опоить. Yes, this is the Russia I fell in love with.

Cold War Flashback

If you’re interested, there’s an awesome retrospective on the bitter architecture wars which erupted between east and west during Cold War-era World Expos.

At the 1959 World Expo in Moscow, GE's canary yellow “modern kitchen” sparked the Nixon-Khrushchev kitchen debates. (Is that Leonid Brezhnev eyeing the self-cleaning oven?)

The Soviets responded with this monster pavilion at the 1967 Montreal World Expo, featuring the exhibition’s largest restaurant (stuff it GE).

Which, if anyone is keeping score, was a shameless rip off of Eero Saarinen’s 1958 design for the Main Terminal at Dulles airport.

Orange and Blue, Together at Last?

Only in the eyes of a Siberian Husky competing at this year's European dog sled championship in Donovaly, Slovakia.

(JOE KLAMAR/AFP/Getty Images)

So I started watching the Russia-Canada game...

...10 minutes ago. The score was 4-1 Canada, which I'm like, wow, I only missed the first period and it's already a blow out. The score is now 7-2, Canada. So here's the thing...

1. It's the Olympics. This is supposed to be close competition
2. It's now 7-3, but still really bad, Russia
3. I miss the Soviet Union athletics program! I want crazy competition back!

All the same, go Canada!

Lenin Had a Sex Life?

We might have just found a new motto for Eternal Remont, compliments of Helen Rappaport’s new biography of Lenin during his pre-revolutionary exile:

“There it is, my fate. One fighting campaign after another — against political stupidities, philistinism, opportunism and so forth."

Amen, brother Vlad.

So why is everyone talknig about the biography of a Kremlin lawn ornament? Well, Rappaport jumps head first into Lenin’s sex life, particularly his long-whispered affair with Inessa Armand (pictured). Rappaport writes:

"His sexuality, seemingly, had long been subordinated—along with his emotional needs.”

Get Fabio on the cover and you've got a best seller.

EU Visa Regime Weakens

Don't worry. The EU still hates Turkey.

So after the meeting of the EU top diplomats in Brussels, the Italian Foreign Affairs Minister, Franco Frattini, reported that the EU will propose a visa-free regime for travel inside the Union for Ukrainian citizens. The EU wishes to establish strong relations with the administration of the newly elected President of the Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, known for being a bit more pro-Russian.

So Ukraine is being rewarded for picking the candidate the west didn't want? Ukraine, why didn't lean east earlier?

Montenegro Wants Its Own "Watermelon"

Not content to watch Serbia and Croatia fight it out over Serbo-Croatian, Montenegro now wants its own language.

"Montenegrin is different in many ways…Take the word for 'milk', for example. In Serbian it's 'mleko', in Croatian 'mljeko' and in Montenegrin 'mlijeko'."

Yeah, totally different. So different, in fact, that it’s hard to understand how Yugoslavians were ever able to communicate with each other. Ask for 'mleko' in Split and someone might just hand you an toilet brush.

"In Serbian, they say 'dinja' for melon, but in Montenegrin, that actually means 'watermelon.'"

Excellent point.

It might also explain why Yugoslavia disintegrated. I ordered watermelon!

Don't Dance Angry

Russia's Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin offer a little insight into why "Ice Dancers Are The Angriest People At The Whole Winter Olympics."

(Yuri Kadobnov / AFP/Getty Images)

Sarajevo in Winter

Time for a poll: Is Sarajevo 1) the most beautiful city in East Central Europe, or is it 2) not, not the most beautiful city in East Central Europe?

Answers in comments.

Photo Finish

Russia's Nikita Kriukov (left) won gold by a toe in the Men’s Individual Sprint Final. His teammate, Alexander Panzhinskiy (right), took silver and is now ordering really big boots for Sochi 2014. Congrats to both.

(Credite: Lars Baron/Bongarts/Getty Images)

But is it Racist?

You’ve heard of black face. Well, Russian ice dancers Oksana Domnina and Maksim Shabalin decided to do one better: black skin, body paint and eucalyptus leaves. Just like painting your face back and pretending you're a tap dancer, Shabalin thought this would be a great idea. But is it racist?

"We are respectful towards all competitors and all nations," said Shabalin.

*Stunned silence.

Alas, Russia enslaved its own people for centuries, rather than importing them from other places, and never enjoyed an all consuming discussion on race in society (examples here, here and here) like the United States.

But that doesn't make it right, Maksim.

Carpooling Win

Via KuvatON.com, the best place to kill 6 hours of your life.

Edmund Burke Would be Proud

Masha Lipman at Carnegie Moscow has an op-ed in today’s WashPost on the spate of protests poping up across Russia. At one protest in particular, Irkutsk residents came out in droves to oppose a pulp factory that will dump chemical waste into Lake Baikal.

“Although Putin’s decision will bring jobs back to the former factory workers, it caused outrage: Many people saw the lake’s water quality sacrificed as a favor to Oleg Deripaska.”

Meanwhile, isolated calls for Putin to resign are now ringing from Kaliningrad to Samara. Alas, Putin is too busy counting his money to care.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em

In a world where smoking is banned basically everywhere and smokers are treated as pariahs, one country has the yaitsa to let people enjoy their cancer sticks in peace. That country is Bulgaria.

According to the Sofia Morning News, the Bulgarian Parliament has decided to annul a full smoking ban. Why? "...The full ban would harm restaurant businesses and the tourist sector and would be frequently violated anyway." It sometimes amazes me that any laws are followed in our region.

528-pound Romanian Woman Gives Birth

According to YahooNews, a 25-year-old, 528-pound Romanian woman gave birth to a 6 lb 4 oz. baby girl today. The baby, "the fruit of the love between [the mother] and [her] future husband who is slimmer, weighing just 70 kilograms (154 pounds)," was born by c-section.

Florin Costandache, who helped perform the operation, said: "It was a real challenge because she needed four times the anesthetic a normal person needs." So...

Let's get to my interest in this story: A 528-lb woman found love, and I can't get a date most weekends, and I assure you readers, I am hot and nowhere near 528 lbs and I'm fun. Yeah, I'm putting this under my "Really?! Really?!" files. I am disturbed and angered.

Why You Should Never Cut Costs on PhotoShop

"Turkish Airlines introduce the world's first Viagra-powered aircraft."

Via PhotoShop Dissasters.

Skittles Vodka, Need We Say More

A public service announcement from Eternal Remont:

By placing Skittles candies in a bottle of vodka for a day or two, you can make a tasty, sugary infusion that's a perfect change of pace.

Here's how...

What Does Your Latte Say?

If only my cheery, slightly anthropomorphized milk could talk.

(Thanks to a friend of ER for the pic!)

Biggest Loser, Sovereign Debt Edition

Not a sustainable financial policy either.

This Greek business has everyone a twitter over sovereign debt. Remarkably, our region has managed its debt rather well. Only Hungary cracks the top 20 (as a % of GDP) of the world’s most indebted countries. The highlights:

--United States, 20th place, external debt 95% of GDP.
--Hungary, 18th place, external debt 124% of GDP.
--Ireland, 1st place (or last depending how you look at it). The country’s external debt totals a whopping 1,352% of GDP.

While official statistics are hard to come by, roughly 1,350% of that is owed to Polish guest workers.

Where are the Russians?

So yesterday, Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo of China won gold for the ice skating pairs competition. Um...what? For those of you not keeping track, since 1964, Soviet or Russian skaters have won the pairs competition. This year, no Russian pair even won a medal. Oleg Vasiliev, a 1984 Olympic pairs champion, has some thoughts as to how this could have happened:

"The breakup of the Soviet Union essentially cost Russia a generation of pairs skaters... The pipeline of government funding — free flowing in the sports-as-propaganda time of communism — began to dry up. Rinks closed to be transformed into other businesses, like car dealerships and shopping malls. Some top coaches left to work in the United States, where they could be assured of teaching private lessons and getting paid."

It is the end of era.