A Radio Interview and a Brawl

Some weeks ago the other Holocaust Center volunteer and I were invited to speak in front of students at the Moscovian university of foreign languages. The lecture dealt with Antifacism in Germany and mostly students studying German attended this event. A couple of days later I recieved a message by a young Russian journalist who currently works at the Russian radio station Голос России (Russia’s Voice) and who also took part at the lecture, because she wanted to organise an interview with us for one of their German speaking programmes. As far as I know this weekly programme is called „Foreignern in Russia“. So, we went to the radio station last week and we recieved special cards to pass security and then we entered the recording studio. I had not imagined the studio to bet that modern and it was really interesting to see how radio station work and look from inside. Before it was our turn to have the interview they were about to finish the German news for this day. The interview was taking place in a tiny room and we sat behind two microphones together with the journalist who was interviewing us. Another lady was sitting behind a window behind a computer to record, cut, and edit what we were saying. I was really nervous, however, it was better than I had thought. You can listen to the final result when you click on this link: http://german.ruvr.ru/radio_broadcast/26178531/35307980/
My voice sounds awful and what I am saying is really not the most intellectual of all things. I also do not really look good on the picture. But it is nevertheless, or perhaps just because of that, kind of funny.

On Friday I was having dinner with a friend in a Japanese restaurant and it would have been a normal evening out if it was not for a brawl to start. We do not really know how it began but at some point there were two relatively young drunken men throwing chairs at a 40 year old man who was with his girlfriend. The older man was also really agressive. They were kicking and beating each other really brutally in that restaurant. They also threw down most of the furniture and at the end there was so much blood on the floor, because the older guy and one of the younger ones had open wounds. Overall, it was really frightening and it showed that some Russian men still try to impress women by being agressive, especially once they are drunk. The police came thirty minutes after the fight was over. Normally they are everywhere, but when you need them they are late.

Finally, I would like to say that last weekend it began to snow in Moscow, but today it is only raining. On the picture you can see my favourite place in Moscow: Patriarshi Prudi.