Tag: I-recommend

Book: Vayner brothers “The Age of Mercy”

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Ever since childhood, I’ve loved watching detective stories on TV. Later that hobby spilled over into books too (I wore my Sherlock Holmes volumes out back in that same childhood). And among detective stories, I always singled out films and series about the Soviet police fighting the criminal underworld. You can’t not mention epic staples like The Experts Are Investigating and Born by the Revolution.

But one particular favorite for viewers was the four-part 1979 TV film The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed, directed by Stanislav Govorukhin and featuring a wonderful cast. Vladimir Vysotskiy brilliantly portrayed the tough Moscow Criminal Investigation Department detective Zheglov, while Vladimir Konkin played the very young Volodya Sharapov, who joined the force right after the war, where he had commanded a reconnaissance unit. For Konkin, this role was probably the most significant in his entire career—he never played anything else quite as memorable. And the characters outgrew the film itself long ago—making their way into jokes, songs (like Lyube’s “Atas”), and everyday culture.

At the heart of the story is the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department’s fight against a brutal, elusive gang known as the Black Cat, which terrorized postwar Moscow.

I loved this film too. I’ve rewatched it countless times since, and every year I noticed something I hadn’t caught before, simply because I was too young back then. What’s more, as I got older, even my attitude toward the characters began to change (but more on that later).

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AI in Video and Music — by Oleg Kuvaev

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Right now, AI is stirring up fierce debates — careers are being derailed, games are being banned or stripped of awards… in short, all hell seems to be breaking loose. This will eventually calm down, though, because AI really does help get many things done faster and better. No, it won’t replace a living human being — but it can be a powerful aid.

And riding this very wave, animator Oleg Kuvaev, the creator of the legendary Masyanya, has started making videos using artificial intelligence. He has even shared behind-the-scenes fragments showing that AI is just a tool — and that there’s still a tremendous amount of work involved. But what Oleg has managed to demonstrate is how this tool, in the hands of a talented creator, can help bring yet another series of wonderful works to life.

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Book: Alexander Chernukho “Pigs”

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A music journalist and columnist writing about provincial Belarus suddenly decides to write a novel — and that novel is just as suddenly published and attracts a fair amount of attention. That’s Alexander Chernukho. I had never read his work before: I’ve almost never been interested in music criticism, and Belarusian online media had long since dropped out of my field of view altogether — especially after 2020, when many outlets simply ceased to exist.

As for what the state calls “official media,” it’s hard to describe that as journalism at all. In fact, according to the author himself, those very official outlets became one of the triggers that pushed him to write his satirical novel Pigs. Because how can you not laugh at what they print and broadcast? Though at its core, the book is first and foremost a response to Alexander’s own emotional experience of the events of 2020 in Belarus — just expressed in the form of a comic-satirical novel. After all, it’s well known that the best remedy for anger, bitterness, and melancholy is laughter.

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Book: Marina Pereskokova “Mom, I’m a Team Lead!”

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This year I’ve been reading fewer books on professional topics, but the ones I do read I choose very carefully. I didn’t pick up Mom, I’m a Team Lead! right away: first I listened to colleagues’ feedback, then I looked into what other readers were saying about it. And only after that did I decide it was worth reading myself — because the topic of growing from an individual contributor into a manager has always interested me. I myself spent a long time trying to sit on two chairs at once, until I finally moved fully into “pure” management (although I still don’t shy away from working with my hands when there’s no other choice).

The main goal the author set for herself in this book is to show how any manager needs to grow — starting almost from the very first steps, when just yesterday you were simply an executor (even a highly skilled one), and today you’re already responsible for other employees in the company. Marina breaks down the main fears and typical mistakes along this path. And that alone is extremely valuable, because not every young manager is lucky enough to have a good mentor who can help them deal with such fears and challenges.

I have to admit, though, that at first I reacted somewhat skeptically when Marina mentioned that she gained virtually all of her experience (10 years) in a single company with a single culture — one she was clearly very lucky with. Because she was genuinely fortunate: she had a manager who helped her grow, and the team relationships were built according to healthy rules, judging by her descriptions. But the harshest school of management is learned when things aren’t so rosy. And the lack of such tough experience is felt a bit in the book, because it’s easy to act “correctly” and “by the book” when the company and leadership allow you to. You need to be even more prepared to grow and solve problems in situations where circumstances make that much harder.

Of course, one might say: “Why work at such a company? Go find another!” But that’s not always possible — the job market doesn’t welcome everyone with open arms, especially young and inexperienced managers. And besides, there are no ideal companies in the world. There are better ones and worse ones, and far more of them will be not quite what you’d like (I personally believe that if all companies were ideal, strong managers would barely be needed at all). And finally — the harsh school gives you far more problem-solving skills, meaning you’ll be fully capable of working even in good conditions later on. But the other way around? That’s far from guaranteed.

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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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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.

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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