Author: knari

Mosab Hassan Yousef “Son of Hamas”

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Hamas hasn’t left the news cycle—both in a negative light and, from pro-Palestinian quarters, in a positive one. Yet back in 2010 a book came out about the organization that shows it from the inside—and hardly in a laudatory vein.

It’s called Son of Hamas, and with good reason: it was written by Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, one of the seven founders of this Palestinian group. The eldest child in his family, Mosab was raised fully in line with Hamas policy. At 18 he was arrested by Israeli law enforcement for attacks on Israeli soldiers. About a year later he was released and for a long time became his father’s trusted aide.

Only no one knew that from that moment he spent nearly ten years working for Shabak (Shin Bet), Israel’s security service. During that time he managed to prevent numerous terrorist attacks and save many lives on both sides. He helped in the arrest of high-ranking Hamas operatives, and in 2007 he left the Middle East; three years later he was granted political asylum in the United States—something that required Israeli services to officially reveal his identity.

Mosab renounced Islam and in 2005 was secretly baptized in Tel Aviv. Since then he has been an outspoken opponent not only of Hamas but of Islam as a whole.

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David Gay “The Tenth Circle: Life, Struggle, and the Destruction of the Minsk Ghetto”

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Right now, when the whole world has turned viciously on Israel, when denying the Holocaust is fashionable and being an antisemite has suddenly become not shameful again, even politically correct, it is a hundred times more important to remind ourselves what real genocide is. At least to oneself, because those unwilling to hear won’t hear anyway.

Books about the Nazis’ “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” have always held a special place on my list. Because, as I’ve said many times, for me this is not an empty phrase and not a “Zionist fabrication.” And then, unexpectedly for me, the BAbook publishing house began selling a book I had never heard of before, even though it was first printed back in the USSR. Now, its author, David Guy, has decided to reissue it, in part in response to the October 7 massacre in Israel.

And I’m grateful the book caught my eye, because people know very little about the history of the Minsk Ghetto. The one that’s usually on everyone’s lips is the Warsaw Ghetto, vast, on whose ruins—among other places—the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 fought, only to be crushed by the Nazis when Soviet troops were already not far off. The ghetto itself has been shown more than once in cinema, and Roman Polanski’s Oscar-winning The Pianist is almost entirely devoted to the story of one Jew in that ghetto.

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Songs: Tsoi Lives — AI, and AiRushV Will Confirm

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Disclaimer: this post is mainly for those familiar with the work of legendary Soviet rock musicians. But even without understanding the words, you can still see here how songs are already being created with the help of neural networks. Of course, without the ability to compare with the original works, the perception of these songs will be quite different.

After Ozzy’s death, a wonderful picture like one above began circulating on the internet. I think if Ozzy had known who Tsoi was, he would have appreciated such a posthumous joke about himself. The text over it is says:

— And where is Tsoi?
— But Tsoi lives!

Because for my generation, the phrase “Tsoi Lives” was never a meme. Viktor Tsoi is a legend — ours, our own.

And in memory of Viktor, new works keep coming out. His already famous song “Peremen!” became one of the anthems of the 2020 protests in Belarus. Viktor’s son brought together former band members and created a remarkable project with modern arrangements of the songs, over which his father’s cleaned-up voice was laid.

And with the development of artificial intelligence, people have gone even further. I once stumbled across one such song, listened to it, and forgot about it. But the other day I was shown another one — and suddenly the puzzle came together.

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Asya Kazantseva “Where Do Children Come From?”

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Asya Kazantseva is one of the most well-known popularizers of science. Her first published book Who Would Have Thought! literally blew up the market — it was so unconventional, since Asya spoke about complicated things in fairly simple language, with plenty of good humor. I myself was wildly enthusiastic, and so I gladly went on to read her next two books. After that, Asya disappeared from the public sphere as a writer for a while, though she continued to give many live lectures. And in 2023 her fourth book was released, titled Where Do Children Come From?

Here Asya stepped away from her favorite topics, deciding to talk about the myths and realities of pregnancy and childbirth. All the more so since she had tested it not only in theory but also in practice, having given birth to a daughter. She approached the topic as thoroughly as always, having studied a large amount of material long before her pregnancy.

And although, as usual, I made many notes while reading, for a very long time I couldn’t bring myself to start writing a review of this book. Because Asya’s second and third books were already somewhat weaker than the first, but this fourth one seemed to me the dullest. And the first one that I have absolutely no desire to recommend.

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Book: Lyudmila Zotova “How to Raise a Bilingual Child and Stay Sane”

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In 2014 the topic of bilingualism suddenly became relevant for me. That was the year my family moved to another country, and the children suddenly had to immerse themselves in a school environment not only with a completely different language but also with a different culture. And while one can still argue about the bilingualism of the children who moved with us (although for all of them English has already become more widely used than their original native Russian), with the younger ones, born in Cyprus, there is no question at all.

That is why, observing the development of all the children, I increasingly asked myself how we could help them in mastering several languages, what peculiarities there are, and whether we as parents are doing everything right. And then, at Sandermoen Publishing, a book by Lyudmila Zotova was released under the title How to Raise a Bilingual Child and Stay Sane. I was curious to look at another person’s experience and opinion and perhaps find answers to the questions that troubled me.

Lyudmila’s case is considerably more complicated than mine. She is married to an Italian, lives in France, but in a region near the German border, where the population also speaks German. In relation to her daughter one can already speak not of bilingualism but of tri- or even tetralingualism. However, while her daughter will easily learn the surrounding languages simply through immersion, with the mother’s native language there were peculiarities. And Lyudmila asked herself how to ensure that her daughter would know Russian.

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Book: Elena Khudenko – “Translation and Localization: An Introduction to the Profession”

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I’m absolutely in love with the field of localization in development. Once, in my youthful overconfidence, I dove headfirst into translation and became the translator of the first novelization set in the Starcraft universe in Russian (these days, I would never agree to such a thing—so youth definitely has its advantages). Later, I helped build and for many years led the localization department at Wargaming (though I’ve mentioned that many times already, I think). That’s why almost no book on this topic escapes my attention. And that’s exactly the case with Translation and Localization by Elena Khudenko.

From the blurb, it seemed that Elena would dive into the specifics of the field—why it’s important and interesting. Especially since she herself has extensive experience in this area. She has translated books, brought Russian text to many TV shows (Killing Eve, Silicon Valley, and others), worked as a localizer for the Duolingo app, and translated many video games into Russian (The Whispered World, Batman: Arkham Asylum, etc.). In other words, she truly knows what she’s talking about.

And in this book, she tries to cover different types of translation, essentially following the arc of her own professional experience.

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Songs: Plateau, all available songs

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A few weeks ago, I posted about one album of the band Plateau and their appearance on Vyacheslav Butusov’s program. Since the band members kindly gave me permission to upload all of their albums to YouTube, I’ve been gradually doing just that. Now, you can find everything I’ve ever had from them online (including some songs that, as it turns out, hadn’t even been preserved by the musicians themselves).

Below are links to all the playlists, along with a few of my personal comments. And as an illustration for this post, I’ve chosen a studio photo of the band taken in 1998 in Berlin. What makes this session special is that I’m not sure the band ever had another studio shoot like it—and by pure chance, I ended up in the photo too. On that trip, I was filling in for the band’s manager and percussionist, Denis Sikorsky, who unfortunately wasn’t able to go.

And now, the playlists:

  1. Альбом “Tabula Rasa” 1996 года, отреставрированный ребятами в 1998 году. В качестве бонусов в нём есть несколько треков в изначальной версии.
  2. Альбом “Нити жизней” 1998 года, им я уже делился в прошлом посте
  3. Концертная запись 1998 года, где прозвучали все песни альбома “Нити жизней”, а также большинство более ранних
  4. Три песни с того самого Питерского концерта “Бибигония” 2000 года с Вячеславом Бутусовым
  5. Альбом “Точка” 2002 года
  6. Все синглы группы, выходившие отдельно после альбома “Нити жизней”. Часть из них вошла позднее в альбом “Точка”. Здесь я отдельно выделю несколько песен:
    • В той самой поездке в Германию в августе 1998 года группу записала сингл совместно с немецким музыкантом Sherman Noir, которому очень понравилась их песня “Он не уснул” из последнего альбома. Он буквально на месте написал свои слова к той же мелодии, и в одну ночь был сделан совместный сингл “Он не уснул / Turn Back the Time“, который позднее ротировался на немецком радио, насколько мне известно. Нежно люблю до сих пор.
    • “Нова радасць” — это не собственная песня группы, а аранжировка. Но я её очень люблю. Тем более, что именно её ребята пели акапельно в качестве подарка на нашей свадьбе
  1. Album “Tabula Rasa” (1996) – restored by the band in 1998. Includes several tracks in their original versions as bonus material.
  2. Album “Niti Zhizney” (Threads of Lives) (1998) – already shared in a previous post.
  3. Live recording from 1998, featuring the full Niti Zhizney album, along with most of the earlier songs.
  4. Three songs from the legendary 2000 concert “Bibigonia” by Vyacheslav Butusov in St. Petersburg, featuring Plateau.
  5. Album “Tochka” (The Dot) (2002)
  6. All singles released after Niti Zhizney – some of them were later included in the Tochka album. I’d like to highlight a few tracks in particular:
    • During that same trip to Germany in August 1998, the band recorded a single with German musician Sherman Noir, who was deeply impressed by their song “On ne usnul” (“He Didn’t Fall Asleep”) from their latest album. He immediately wrote his own lyrics to the same melody, and overnight they recorded a bilingual single, “On ne usnul / Turn Back the Time“, which—so I’ve heard—even got airplay on German radio. I still have a soft spot for it.
    • “Nova radasts“ (New Joy) – not an original song by the band, but an arrangement. I love it dearly, especially because the guys sang it a cappella as a gift at our wedding.

Hiring: My Approaches

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Somehow, over the years, although I’ve mostly been an IT manager, I’ve become something of a go-to person among HR and recruiting professionals. Probably because every manager needs to know how to hire the right specialists for their team.

For a few years now, I’ve been actively recommending the book “To Hire or Not to Hire?“ by Konstantin Borisov. It’s concise and very clear, covering most hiring-related topics in our field.

That said, there are a number of points that often don’t get the attention they deserve—and I’ve promised more than once in various discussions to eventually share my own approach. It seems that time has come.

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Book: Ivan Belov, the ‘Zastupa’ series

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I love fantasy, especially the kind rooted in Slavic folklore, filled with all sorts of dark creatures. But I only discovered Ivan Belov’s Zastupa series thanks to a review by a friend. I got curious and almost immediately decided to read it — and I have no regrets.

This isn’t just another gothic novel about vampires, even though the main character throughout the series is undead — a vurdalak (actually a vampire) named Rukh Buchila. He serves as the zastupa in a village near Novgorod — that is, the protector of its people from other dark forces, literally the one who “stands up for” them (in Russian — ‘zastupaetsya’).

Although it’s the 17th century and the village is located in Novgorod lands, this isn’t the world we know. In the world of the zastupa, mysterious portals once opened on Earth, unleashing hordes of demons and other monsters. And while humans had long shared the land with other races like the navki and the white-eyed chud’, these new invaders permanently redrew the map.

Ancient Kyiv was besieged and destroyed, some peoples swore allegiance to dark powers and even founded their own empire near the Balkans. The Novgorod Republic managed to defend its lands and independence, though it still occasionally fights with both the Muscovite Tsardom and the Swedes.

People have learned, with great difficulty, to coexist not only with familiar beings like leshies and domovoi, but also with those who came through the portals — not all of whom turned out to be purely bloodthirsty. Even chorts (imps) have found a place in society, and in Novgorod they’re even honored, since it was the chorts who once saved the city. You can’t really trust them, of course — but with the right oversight, even chorts can be useful.

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Songs: Plateau “Threads of Lives” and “Ovals” (based on the album by V. Butusov)

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Recently, I was unexpectedly asked several times if I had any materials or songs from the band “Plateau.” This interest is likely due to the fact that some time ago, I wrote about my friendship with the band and later published a whole album of studio photos of them on Facebook, where I even sneaked into a few shots myself.

The thing is, the band existed from the mid-90s and effectively ceased its activities in the early 2000s. It was a very distinctive group, blending folk with ethnic motifs, and sometimes just playing cheerful and romantic songs.

In 2000, the band caught the attention of Vyacheslav Butusov, the former vocalist of the band “Nautilus Pompilius.” Together with the members of Plateau and the theater troupe “Licedei,” Butusov performed three acoustic concerts based on his album “Ovals” (one of which, by the way, took place in Minsk). These were not just concerts — they were theatrical performances under the title “Bibigonia.”

On Vyacheslav’s official channel, you can find a TV version of one of these concerts, which took place on February 25, 2000, in Saint Petersburg:

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