From our Russian correspondent, mab, this story (first posted here):
Here’s the breaking goat news from Russia via The Moscow Times (it’s the silly season for newspapers…) I have to go see this goat and find out the story. I mean, why is he in glasses? And what the ruble around his neck for? Inquiring Readers Want to Know!
We here at Crime Watch like to keep readers abreast of not only the latest gruesome felonies but also of random acts of criminal anarchy.
Some people, it seems, have no shame.
A five-meter tall statue of a goat in the western Russian city of Tver was brutally vandalized this week by unidentified hooligans, who removed the wooden animal’s glasses, broke his tail, tore up his saddle and left him covered in graffiti, the local Tver Information Agency reported.
To add insult to injury, the vandals also stole a large wooden ruble that had been hanging from the neck of the goat, which, according to the report, is one of the city’s most prominent symbols.
The wooden goat has had some troubles in recent years. Last year its head fell off, forcing the cancellation of an event called “A Visit to the Tver Goat,” sparking “deep discontent among city denizens and foreign guests” who had arrived to have their picture taken atop the beast, the news agency said.
The Tver Goat will be on the DL for a while now while undergoing repairs, after which the city will make greater efforts to protect him, the report said.
It’s was unclear from the report whether a criminal hooliganism case had been opened, though we assume Tver City Hall will be pressing for a full investigation.
The glasses are of course the big question, but I wonder what they mean by “sparking ‘deep discontent'”. It’s a good phrase, that leaves something to the imagination.
A Bad Guide 
“Fini les vacances” or “finies les vacances”?
Oh, Mr. Crown, you need to visit Tver.
It turns out that the goat is the symbol of the old guberniya (province). Apparently there was a stone marker between Novgorod and Tver provinces; on the Novgorod side was a bronze coat of arms, but on the Tver side was a bronze depiction of two goats butting either a mortar or a chalice (which was not the Tver coat of arms). Here is a nice photo of prehistoric goat drawings
http://www.rol.ru/news/hobby/travel/06/03/02_001.htm
Here are photos and a video of the desecrated wooden goat.
http://www.tvernews.ru/content/view/10194/1/
But — hold your hat — there is also a Goat Museum with 600 goat objects and contests, like goat milking, cigarette rolling (a hand-rolled cigarette is called a goat’s horn in Russian), and dominos (which is called “beat the goat”). Every year they also give a medal to the Merited Goat, ie someone who succeeds due to his or her stubborn perseverance. (This sounds very funny in Russian, since a “goat” is a moderately harsh curse word for someone who is stupid.) There is also a Goat Museum in Uriupinsk, and not long ago a delegation from the Tver Billy Goat museum was received by the Uriupinsk She-Goat museum. In honor of the Tver delegation they held a Miss She-Goat Beauty Pageant.
How on earth did I miss this?
Well, I’ll definitely have to go visit the Goat Museum; Tver is about 2 hours from Moscow, and I’ve been longing for a day trip.
Meanwhile, we hope you and your family had a nice holiday.
Also, you shouldn’t miss this link about the opening of the museum:
http://news.rin.ru/eng/news///5382/
Apparently the citizens decided to “memorize” the goat. Also the information
It appears “goat” means something else in Russian. Oh do be careful if you go there, Kron, it seems these Tverians have a very bizarre sense of humor. There’s no telling what they might do.
From mab’s second link, a headline on the top right says “В Тверской области на ферме живут танцующие страусы,” which is to say “In a farm in Tver Oblast [province] there are dancing ostriches.” Tver is obviously a happening place.
I take it that страусы is ostriches since it’s a struts in Norwegian. Does it have anything to do with to strut, do you think?
I like people who did prehistoric goat drawings and are now doing goat monuments. Very consistent; the Tversians sound like they are Merited Goats themselves.
“Fini les vacances” or “finies les vacances”?
Both, I guess. Or neither. I wasn’t on holiday, A Bad Guide was on holiday because I had to devote myself to writing something else. I’m hoping that from now on I can write something here about once a week or so. But, as Language said, it would be really great if you could continue the conversation; and you don’t have to be quiet. I heard goats may be stressed by mechanical noises, so just don’t sound like a flushing toilet or an air conditioner. That leaves some room.
“Tver is obviously a happening place.” This is very funny, Hat. It’s like saying, “Schenectady is the next Chicago.” Actually, the city of Tver is a fairly charming/fairly Soviet small city, with lovely pastel buildings (in various states of repair) and some awful Soviet bloc housing. I love weirdo museums, and discovered the museums of Tver oblast site. In addition to the Goat Museum, they have a peat museum, banya (bath house) museum, and a fish museum. I can’t wait.
Are the fish in the bath house museum?
Ha ha. I can tell you know nothing of Russian bath houses (or Russian fish, for that matter). The only fish in a Russian bath house can be found in the relaxation room after the steaming. This is dried, salted fish, consumed with copious amounts of cold beer. Deeeelicious.
Don’t you folks have a sauna/bath house where you are? I thought all the Northern Peoples loved getting naked together in an incredibly hot, small enclosed space. It’s what we do to entertain ourselves in the long, cold, dark winter:)
There’s none of that kind of thing in Norway. I’ve been to saunas in Finland and Hamburg (I remember a shipyard in Turku that has a sauna adjoining the conference room), but the only place I’ve had that Russian mosaic-tile kind of experience was on the Lower East Side in NY, I think it might have been Ukrainian, come to think of it. A friend of mine had his birthday there and we had steaks and I guess vodka after the steam and bathing stuff. Actually those things make me incredibly tired I’ve found, but I did enjoy the Russian one, unless it was Ukrainian. Or Lithuanian. This was pre-the Berlin wall coming down, all those Soviet places were a blur in the East Village.
I take it that страусы is ostriches since it’s a struts in Norwegian. Does it have anything to do with to strut, do you think?
It seems not.
Lots of words for the tall funny bird start with str. English ostrichis derived from avis struthio. The German word is Strauss, but I suppose it’s too much to hope that the birds near Tver were waltzing.
In the family scene that I described with the landlord in Tuscany, one of the few moments when we really had to fall back on that dictionary was when Massimo said istriche and we couldn’t guess what animal it was. (It came up because he mentioned that he was about to head for Siena for the Palio — he knew people on one of the teams — which one — istriche — what’s an istriche ? … )
I dear, I read it wrong. I thought it was AJP thinking about the sidetrip to the goat museum but it’s Mab. Can you tell I’ve never been north or east of Copenhagen? I have no clue about distances in northern Europe.
How interesting that Norwegians are not bath house-sauna people. The one in the Village was/is Russian-ish — it’s actually all a blur over here, too, except the distinction between Slavic bath houses and Eastern ones. Russian ones are wood, with benches going up, and a stove — open (rocks on a metal platform heated from below) or closed (rocks inside a stove). You toss water on the hot stones, steam rises and then falls like lava on your shoulders. When you can’t stand it anymore you go out and plunge in cold water, or, if it’s winter, roll naked in the snow. At a friend’s house by the Vyborg Finnish border at Christmas last year we would just go outside and stand around naked in -10. The Eastern style is much less jarring — hot marble slabs and moderate steam.
And yes, when you leave you feel like a wet noodle. And sleep like a baby.
I’m not great on geography either, Nijma, but the Internet tells me it’s about 1000 miles (1600 kilometers) between Moscow and Oslo. Mr Crown and family are northwest of me.
I like the image of the walzing ostriches…
The Jordanians are also bath house people. I went to one in Aqaba with a New York friend. She wore her underwear, I had a one piece bathing suit and felt very immodest. All I remember was running into a room with steam, then running out to a faucet with cold water. Then the massage with some rough sponge thingy by a guy–hard to believe since Jordanian women won’t even talk to a guy they’re not engaged to, much less let themselves be touched. Sometimes they even wear gloves in case they have to receive change from a man when making a purchase–anyhow the massage guy clearly disapproved of my swimsuit and was amazed that the skin on my legs peeled so easily (from sunburn).
When my Amman roommate ‘s brother and sister came to town (American) they all went to a newly opened steamroom together. The proprietors were very diligent in making sure they were a family group–they kept asking over and over if the guy was really their brother before they would let them in together.
Istriche is porcupine, by the way.
Sorry, but shouldn’t that be istrice?
Don’t be sorry! I hate getting things wrong and now we’ve got it right.
Of course, it was the sound of istrice that got us thinking of ostrich, and then after a certain amount of bootless pantomiming back and forth my son got out the dictionary.
In the end I didn’t clearly remember either the pronunciation or the spelling, just the animal.
Too bad we can’t make out a porcupine banner here.
Here. It’s funny that so many of Siena’s contrade, which compete in this big-deal annual horse race, have as their emblems rather slow animals: the list includes not just porcupine but caterpillar, snail, and tortoise.
Too bad I didn’t read this earlier, I was talking for a long time to a guy from Siena today.
I wouldn’t want to get ‘porcupine’ and ‘ostrich’ confused, either way round.
I still don’t see why to strut couldn’t be related to struts, maybe from your Latin bird. You can never find a linguist when you need one and then three come at once.
At a friend’s house by the Vyborg Finnish border at Christmas last year we would just go outside and stand around naked in -10.
I think the sauna is one of the outstanding features of Finnish culture, I like it a lot. It wasn’t just that one conference room; when I used to have to travel a bit to Finland, often businesses and workshops would have a separate sauna building and you could imagine them all rolling around in the snow like my dog Topsy. I’m not sure of the significance of this, but I’m sure it’s there somewhere.
You know what? You’re right. According to my etymological dictionaries, both strut and Strauss come from the Indo-European root *ster– ‘to be stiff.’ (So does stork, for that matter, not to mention stark, starch, and cholesterol.)
Oh, thank you, Language. I had always thought of cholesterol as being floppy, but I guess I was wrong.
There is sort of a connection between Topsy and Russians. In a very good way, Russians have very little body modesty. At the bath house, it’s sort of like being one puppy among many. I think it’s very healthy. After a few trips to the steam room with women ranging in age from 11 to 70, you end up with a great appreciation for the variety of the human body.
Nijma, Turks do the same kind of body rub — with soap bubbles squeezed from a pillow, with a rough cloth, and with a sponge. After Russia I automatically stripped down in Turkey. There were other nudists (European), and a lot of folks covered up. I don’t know if we nudists scandalized, thrilled them, or made no impression.
I think Americans are much more likely to be modest, and having worked in home health care/hospice for a number of years, and having cleaned a huge number of rear ends, I would say men are much more modest than women. But as a result of my experience, I’m afraid my appreciation for the rear end has diminished rather than increased.
I still can’t get used to the European hostel custom of putting men and women together in the same sleeping room (not all the European hostels do that, of course). In Amman hostels, the Jordanians put all the Europeans together in one room, but the Americans they separate male/female. Arabs do not get put in the same room as westerners at all–they have to follow Jordanian cultural norms, including the one about a man talking to a woman alone.
I also seem to remember some anecdote about a Brit in a Swedish bathhouse alarming a female bath attendant by not allowing her to wash him. The punchline was “He is English, he will wash himself.”
Hat, you may be mixing up two German words Strauss.
My AHD says that the Greek word strouthos meaning both sparrow and ostrich (!), from which the word ostrich and presumably also German Strauss and Norwegian struts are derived, comes from *trozdos-, also the source of English thrush.
There is a different German Strauss, as in Blumenstrauss (as in “Der Mai war mir gewogen mit manchem Blumenstrauss”), meaning a bunch of flowers, which (according to a book that I peeked at online last night) comes from an older word meaning a bunch of bushes, so I could believe that that word is a descendant of *ster-, to be stiff.
Oddly, it turns out that sturdy also comes from *trozdos-, apparently by the following route:”sturdy” in Middle English meant “giddy, rash, impetuous”, and came from an Old French word meaning “dazed, stunned”, from a Vulgar Latin word probably meaning “to be stunned like a thrush drunk with grapes”.
D’oh — you’re right! Sorry, AJP, I hope you enjoyed your brief spell of confirmed insight.
Oh, no! One likes to be right, occasionally, on one’s own blog. I may have to start censoring some of these comments.
That’s funny.
I seem to have been locked out of the back rooms here, where I write the posts and delete the spam. It’s called “the dashboard” and it’s disappeared.
What do I do now?
Where’s Nij?
That’s why I put the “meta” widget on my sidebar. You can always sign in very quickly from it. When you’re signed in, you should see a little bar for entering the dashboard if you scroll all the way up.
I also subscribe to my own RSS feed (and yours) so I can access a lot of blogs (and blog comments) quickly from one central screen on google reader.
Let me see what I can figure out.
Oh, thank you, Nij. I mean it’s ridiculous, how can you get locked out of your own blog? How embarrassing.
I’m going to mow the grass instead …
Oh, wait, I’ve done it. I just had to find ‘log in’ at wordpress.com.
Did you all know that Grumbly Stu has disappeared? He hasn’t written anything for three weeks. I hope he’s okay. Maybe he went on holiday, and didn’t tell anyone in case he got burgled.
Okay, try this:
Go to wordpress.com
At the very top of the page you will find *username* *password* and a login button.
After you log in you will see a list of your blogs. Under the name of the blog, one of the clickable options will be “dashboard”. Poof! You’re inside.
Thanks for the grass reminder, I usually mow across the street on Sunday, but this week I ended up going to both Koran class and church, not to mention the Palestinian bakery….
You mow other people’s grass? What a neighbor!
Thanks, Nij. It’s very reassuring to know you’re there even if I figured it out the same way as you (this time).
Oh, we crossposted, I’m glad you found your key.
…and Grumbly left a comment on the Martian blog not too long ago, so he’s probably all right.
I found a new toad last night, I’ll put the pictures up before I mow.
Don’t run over the toad. That’s always my worry with cutting the grass.
You mow other people’s grass?
I mow for my old landlord, who lives two hours away, in exchange for storage. I have a small locked compartment, an old coal chute really, where I keep an extra car battery, oil, tires, and an embarrassing number of books.
Grumbly commented on August 6 on Sig’s blog. But that’s still nearly two weeks.
If you look at his archives, some months he only has two posts and for March he had none at all. So he’s still within his usual pattern. And he’s been using the name “Bougon” too, so he could be using a different name.
I don’t worry about the toads, they always disappear when they hear the sound of the mower.
Did I read that you have broken ribs, AJP? Good heavens, what happened?
BTW, the assertion above about “the Greek word strouthos meaning both sparrow and ostrich” is not borne out by Webster’s Seventh, which says sparrow comes from
Drat, the markup for italics didn’t work.
Oh, I see what the problem is. This theme automatically puts all blockquotes in italics. Here it is again without the blockquote in case anyone couldn’t read it.
[ME sparow, fr. OE spearwa; akin to OHG sparo sparrow, Gk psar starling]
Broken ribs, AJP? Good heavens, what happened?
How quickly they forget.
You didn’t tell us they were broken. Oh well, broken bones are supposed to heal in 6 weeks (although who knows what it is at our age) so you should have another 2 weeks left to tough it out. May I recommend red wine?
Crown,
For some reason I thought that you had been spared any real damage when you fell off the horse. Wishful thinking on this end, or you choosing not to claim as much sympathy as you might, or some combination of the two …
Anyway, heal well.
Nijma,
I didn’t say anything about the English wordsparrow, or about the Greek word for “starling”. I said that the Greek word for “ostrich” also meant “sparrow”. Actually some dictionaries give a slightly different account, saying that the ancient Greek for “ostrich” was a two-word phrase meaning “big sparrow”.
I’m trying to remember how I got comfortable when I had my rib misadventure–I don’t think I ever did. For sleeping I think I just bunched up a pillow and wedged it under the sorest part to try to put pressure on it.
There are a couple of postures that can help breathing. If you lay on your back with the head raised 30 degrees–and you can do this just by propping up a bunch of pillows–you can breathe with less pain. The physiology behind this is that when the head of the bed is raised, gravity causes the diaphragm to drop, and you are using your diaphragm instead of the muscles, which are attached to the injured ribs, to breathe. The very easiest position for breathing is sitting with the torso bent forward and resting on a table. I’ve seen people with severe breathing problems and oxygen put a pillow on a table and actually sleep like that. Back when I was smoking and had a severe flu I had occasion to test the position and it does work.
Thanks, Nij. I’ll try the first one, it’s not so bad that I have to resort to the second.
You didn’t tell us you were sneezing either.
That reminds me of the post-op routine
for people who have open heart surgery. The first thing that happens when they wake up is they are supposed to cough and get rid of the effects of the anesthetic. But they have just had their rib cage sawed open and coughing is not comfortable, to say the least. So they are given a huge pillow to hug when they have to cough. The coughing produces pressure from the inside, so they apply pressure from the outside to counteract it. When they go home, sometimes they are given a smallish teddy bear for the same purpose. I am not making this up, the name of the bear is “Sir Coughs-a-lot”, and they can become quite attached to it.
I think you can see where I’m going with this, because it occurs to me that sneezing and coughing are very similar, and that you probably have either pillows or bears or both laying about the place.
I was serious about the wine too–alcohol is a mild muscle relaxant.
Grumbly commented on August 6 on Sig’s blog. But that’s still nearly two weeks.
In a few days I might post something about custard cream (and napolitains). That might bring him back.
Oh, good on both counts.