Tatars

Real ones, apparently. In traditional costume. The song, less so.

G.K. and the boys of Subatai's 10th Tatar Tuman are probably rolling over in their grave.

I suppose I should dedicate this post to Jack's family. maybe not.

Genghis Khan again...

... No one can get enough of the Great Khan.

But really, picking John Wayne or Richard Tyson to play the great Asian warlord is almost as stupid as ... as.. well, picking an Arab who got his start in Egyptian soap-operas.


little Mr Miggs could do it better!

Return of the "Conqueror"

Anybody out their remember "The Conqueror" - it was about Genghis Khan, played by John Wayne and a cast of hundreds, most of whom died of cancer. It was filmed on an atomic bomb testing site. It also won the Golden Turkey award for really awful movies.

Now someone seems to want to repeat the experience.


minus the a-bombs, one would hope

Babies in Russia - lots of them.

One of our readers, Jack, is in Russia, or Tataristan to be exact (I love all the little Stans ... for years I had a key chain of the Kazakstan national flag which briefly was a Muslim country with more nuclear weapons than you could shake a stick at), and is making some fascinating observations of the scene in old Kazan.

Last 7-7-07 there was a surge, to use a current expression, in marriages here in the USA, as well as in Kazan. So much so that the streets were nearly deserted.

If there are so many marriages, then one would expect that in about nine months there should also be a surge in births (well, it worked that way for my favorite Irish American and my favorite Cuban American couple)**. This is especially significant in Russia where the birth rate has been low and the death rate, mainly due to alcoholism among men, has been high. Jack has some comments on all this here.

I am continually amazed at the quality of observations and writing on some blogs - fewer than I would like but more than I should have expected.

** Maeráed was one result, Joey Sobrino the other. Since Mr Sobrino's dad is 1/4 Irish, is it something about the Emerald Isle?

.