Rock 'n' Roll

I've been advertising it forever in our weekly e-bulletin, so when I spied a review for the Goodman Theatre's production of the play Rock 'n' Roll, I thought that a round-up of various reivews might be of interest to our readers here. Playing until June 7, Rock 'n' Roll takes place in Cambridge and Prague, spans a time period of 20 years, and takes its soundtrack music from The Rolling Stones, The Doors, and U2, to name a few. Sounds exciting, no? 

Anyways, there are reviews of the show in the Chicago Tribune, as well as the Chicago Sun-Times. My favorite Chicago blog, Chicagoist, also has a review. 

For ticket information, visit the Goodman Theater website. As I said, the play runs until June 7. 

Eggs Eggs Eggs

Easter season means tapping into some of the most visible, historical, and spiritual traditions from the Eastern Orthodox parts of the CEERES region. Perhaps most notable is the tradition of egg decorating. A general synopsis can be found, of course, at Wikipedia "Easter Egg."

For those of us here in Chicago, we can learn about the process, design, and significance of egg decorating first hand at the Ukrainian National Museum, located at 2249 W. Superior St. in, you guessed it, Ukrainian Village. On top of their extensive collection and knowledgeable guides, they also offer periodic classes on how to do it.





I found this video on Reuters about the egg decorating tradition of Germany's Slavic minority group, the Sorbs:

News Roundup!

I hope all the U of C students are having a good reading period! 

First off I have some interesting news of a type I usually don't cover: Wired magazine's blog Danger Room has an article talking about how Georgia is blaming the Russian government for a cyber attack which took place three weeks before the crisis this summer. Whether or not you believe them, it's an interesting story. 

There's been a lot of news floating around recently about the 2009 Eurovison Song Contest, being hosted by Russia this year. The most interesting story, in my opinion (more Georgia and Russia, my apologies!) is how Georgia's song was deemed unacceptable due to the political connotations in the lyrics. The BBC also reports on how Russia has chosen a Ukrainian singer to represent it in the contest. They also have a more opinion-type piece on the politics behind the contest (I find it interesting to read the comments, left by people from all over, as well).

While maybe not a current event, the NYT has a good piece on bribery in the Romanian medical system. I thought the most interesting part was how patients would worry that if the doctor didn't accept their bribe, it was because they had an incurable disease. From some of our favorite news sites: Balken Insight has a good page with news about the upcoming election in Macedonia, and Transitions Online has a followup article about the closing of the American air base at Manas. 

And, in things that you might not think is as exciting as I do: One of my favorite websites (The Daily Beast) did an article on stylish first ladies from around the world. Two from the CEERES region that made it are Kateryna Yushchenko, wife of the Ukrainian president, and Mehriban Aliyeva, first lady of Azerbaijan. I think two of ten is doing pretty good! 

European Union Film Festival

If you've got some free time, you should definitely check out the upcoming European Union Film Festival. The festival, which will take place at the Gene Siskel Film Center at the Art Institute of Chicago, will run from March 6 to April 2. According to their website, all 27 nations of the EU are represented, there will be a total of 59 films, and all of them are Chicago premieres. 

Apparently, tradition has it that the film festival is opened by a film from the country which currently holds the presidency of the EU. This year, that happens to be the Czech Republic. The film, entitled I'm All Good, will be screened Friday, and will be presented by the Czech Consul General. The director will also be there for an audience discussion. There will also be an exhibit of Czech film posters from the 1960s-1970s on display in the Siskel Film Center's gallery/cafe throughout the festival. 

Countries that overlap with our region and the EU which will also have films in the festival include Greece, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Poland and Lithuania, as well as a few others.  For the full schedule, including what other movies, visit the Siskel Center website and click on "European Union Film Festival." 

CEERES-region languages on Google Translate

I just read on the Official Google Blog that they recently added seven new languages to Google Translate making the grand total of languages available now 41! The exciting thing about this is four of these new seven languages are CEERES-region languages: Albanian, Hungarian, Estonian and Turkish! 

Anyways, Google Translate already has a bunch of other language spoken in our region available as well, including Russian, Ukranian, Polish, Greek, Serbian, and Bulgarian, to name a few. Just thought this might be interesting to some of our blog readers! 

News Roundup!

Sorry, it's been a while and I've missed a bunch of news!

I think the biggest piece of news is the closing of the US air base in Kyrgyzstan. It was obviously covered in many news sources. Some more recent news though, says that the Kyrgyz Parliament is to vote on a bill to close the base this week, as opposed to in March, which is when it had been expected. The BBC has an article about the base with a helpful map of other bases in the region. There's also a few articles speculating where the US might go next, as well, from Eurasianet and Transitions Online.

I've never really profiled other media than articles, but I've dug up some interesting video. While I haven't watched all of these, they look pretty good. The BBC has video of a reporter's trip there, discussing how Georgia is still trying to rebuild after the conflict with Russia. Also, a lot longer but possibly very interesting, I dug up this video of a lecture the Foreign Policy Association held with the former Prime Minister of Italy, on Russia from a European perspective.

Also exciting is the fact that Kosovo marked it's first independence day this week. Balkan Insight has a good article on the mixed feelings that the independence caused.

In brief: The Eurasia Daily Moniter has an article on Armenia and Turkey's relations, Russia is cutting the budget for the 2014 Olympics by 15% and an interesting article on the Obama administration's views of security threats in Central Asia.