Back when i smoked...

HRW

Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch calls work in Russia a form of suicide. Read into those words, carefully. 

Durango Herald News,

Durango Herald News,
Rights activist killed in Russia

THIS HOUR 7 YEARS AGO

It's 8.11pm in NY so 4.11am in Moscow. In 45 minutes 7 years ago the Russian secret services gassed the auditorium with 912 people in it. 60 people died on the spot, another 70-on the cold stairs of the building where they were put by the rescuers, in busses and ambulances that took then to the hospitals, and in hospitals themselves. To those who we lost that day i want to say the following: despite the desire of those in power to erase the memory of this tragedy, WE will not forget and we will not forgive this. 

Dailies

Sometimes after I talk to him I feel so down. Like it’s hopeless. So desperate. Like we’re on Titanic and already hit the iceberg. What a sloppy comparison.  A. said they now have the heating; it was turned on today for the first time. So, at least it won’t be cold. There is a rotation of people in the cell. He keeps saying he misses me. 

Director of Die Hard 2 and Cliffhanger has started filming a movie based on the events in South Osetia a year ago-5 day war between South Osetia (really Russia) and Georgia. Andy Garcia is playing Georgian president Mikael Saakashvilli. The budget is 32 million US dollars and the filming is taking place in Georgia. Russians are already trying to politicise this of course.  

CAN ANYTHING BE MORE TASTELESS?

Here is an interesting documentary about prisons in Russia. A horrific reality. 

RUSSIANS ON HOLIDAYS

Shakespeare Rocks!

This is the project we took to Russia I named 'Shakespeare Rocks' and which was largely ruined because of our Russian partners. It was theatre in education project, which included a performance of extracts from Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet and a week of workshops. These included a whole range of exercises as well as working with specially designed workbooks.All in English!  I fought to bring it to at least some of the Moscow schools and we did. The kids cried when we were leaving. 

Our 'dailies'.

Andrei called telling me that he prepared soup for everyone in the cell made of macaroni and sausage, kalbasa. And that things are tough after the visit of big local bosses. They were asked by the guards to say that they’re treated ok. Some did. That didn’t turn out well for some reason.  The TV is turned off at 10pm and they are treated badly. I sent him my ‘private’ photos which were met with a little less than overwhelming enthusiasm.

My beloved Oleg in a beautiful film based on a story by Leo Tolstoy

A masterpiece

Amazing sequence from Andrei Tarkovsky's "Nostalgia".

My new project, currently titled State of the Heart, requires a lot of research into the world completely unknown to me, that of medical studies. I also wonder how much in that is off limits, classified in any way. The topic is interesting.  The risks and the liability and the thin moral line between testing the cure and curing.

PERSONAL

So, my parents divorced after 37 years. Was it a big mistake from the get go, yes, probably was. The mistake that resulted in two brand new people being born. Me and my sister. Never mind that. It's painful for my mother, and that hurts us too. Not the break up but her pain. 

7th of October 2009

Three years since Anna was killed. The time goes by fast, the loss doesn't become any less and the country is in stalemate.