"Hoping that the Russian image of a bear, constantly drinking vodka, will dissipate..."
The weirdest part of Pravda Online is the "Russia Makes it Funny" section. It's intended as a digest of light-hearted, amusing, or bizarre stories. "On this site," write the editors, "we collected all funny stories that are possible to find in the Russian media outlets." The English translations are often charmingly fractured, as are the comments that are occasionally left by readers.
(Example: a story entitled "Unsuccessful Breeding of Ostriches in Orlov Region," describes infertile eggs laid by ostriches at a national park. The comment: "Weird stuff... still, I rather have that chasing me than the wolfman...." Indeed.)
"Funny," though, seems to have a slightly different set of connotations to these folks. In today's round-up of "funny stories:"
Three-year-old boy shot his mother while playing policeman
Vatican is concerned about pedophilic priests
Abundance of vitamin A entails frequent bone fractures
A girl cut one-legged football player’s penis off
Posted by Dr. Frank at January 14, 2002 09:54 PM | TrackBack