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Tamara Nosenko

Stories from Tamara Nosenko

02 Ombudsman Pavel Astakhov
In the Best Interests of a (Russian) Child
Russia wants a new agreement with the U.S. on international adoptions
Tamara Nosenko
01/05/2010

Raising a kid is a tough job. Raising an adoptive child from a foreign country is even more so. When something really bad happens to your own child it’s a tragedy, but when something goes wrong with an adoptive foreign kid – it’s an international scandal.

Babies and Books
Studying and having an infant is a test of endurance; fortunately you don’t mind
Tamara Nosenko
01/04/2010

It gets boring when you keep saying that you’re tired all the time. So I add details and try to say it in a light funny way. But I am tired all the time, and there is nothing I can do about it. I can only try to enjoy every minute of my life, regardless.

I am a studying mother of a 17-month-old baby, who is the most wonderful child ever born. Of course, I have some limited help from my hard working mother and a great babysitter. But most of the time, it’s just the two of us.

04 Ludmila Alexeeva
Forgotten Constitution
Russian human rights activists meet to demonstrate for peaceful rights of assembly
Tamara Nosenko
01/04/2010

The first demonstration of Soviet human rights advocates in the history of the USSR took place in the center of Moscow in 1965. It was a very short one. As soon as demonstrators in the mass gathering on Pushkin Square started to unroll their banners, the militia appeared and arrested them. At the police station, a KGB officer finally unfolded the sign carried by the rally’s organizer, Alexander Yesenin-Volpin. It read as follows: “Respect the Soviet Constitution”.

09 Perestroika
Beginning the Future
1989: Capturing the emotions of a crumbling world order through mixed media at a recent exhibtion at Kunsthalle Wien
Tamara Nosenko
01/03/2010

“1989? Go upstairs.” The staircase itself is old; the yellowish stone steps are uneven, and it feels like I’m entering a CPSU committee building from Brezhnev’s time. The resonance of a hammer hitting a stone mixes with the voices of a crowd. The sound is somewhat familiar and I quicken my pace.

Dancing On The Edge
Russia Risks its International Reputation After Suspending British Council Operations
Tamara Nosenko
18/02/2009

The year 2008 began another round in the turmoil of diplomatic relations between Russia and Great Britain. This time the international political elite felt the chilling wind of the Cold War blowing in again from Russia.

The regional offices of the British Council in two Russian cities -- St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg -- did not open on the morning of Jan. 16. The Russian Federal Security Service had appeared at the door and was quizzing the staff about their work for the foreign cultural organization. This was not an interrogation, the FSS said, just an information session. Still, it continued long into the night, when some British Council employees were visited further at their homes.

Moscow Posh
With its History and Traditions Brutally Interrupted by the Worldwide Experiment of Communism, Russia Has Lost its Own Scale of Values
Tamara Nosenko
18/02/2009

In the mid-nineties there was a joke about two Russians in Paris. One shows a Versace tie to another, proudly announcing that he bought it for 1000 Dollars.

Another says: 'You were the fool to get it so cheap; I know the place here, just around the corner, where the same tie costs 2000 Dollars.'

Summer 2007: I am finally in my hometown of Moscow, Russia, after six months of living and studying in Vienna. Not exactly shocked but puzzled, reflecting on what's happening in the city I used to live in. There is construction everywhere I go; I know that the mayor is building new offices and apartments wherever he can find an unused ten square meters.

Politics As Usual
In Russia, the Key Positions Still Get Handled Out to the Favored
Tamara Nosenko
02/10/2008

 

The Sept. 14 nomination of Viktor Zubkov to replace Mikhail Fradkov as prime minister of the Russian Duma should not have been a surprise. Indeed, rumours about the dismissal of the previous Russian Government started immediately after the appointment of as the Prime Minister in 2004.

Nevertheless, the political elite of Russia and the entire world found themselves caught off guard. Three days later the State Duma approved the new candidate, showing unusual unity in this decision -- the relatively unknown head of the Federal Financial Monitoring Service, Zubkov got 381 votes of parliamentarians - out of 450.

Putin’s Thin Skin
Russian Authorities Still Find a Free Press Hard to Tolerate
Tamara Nosenko
02/09/2008

On a visit to Vienna last May, Russian President Vladimir Putin can- celled his scheduled interview with the Austrian public television station ORF. The Austrians were dumbfounded.

There was no time, explained the Russian officials off-handedly. And anyway the “unfriendly reporting on the eve of the state visit,” containing pictures of the Chechnyan war, left the Russian president disinclined to be cooperative. Both reasons were presented and widely discussed in dip- lomatic circles: Nobody believed the “time” excuse, and by the time the Chechnya excuse had been researched and dismissed, Putin had already left the country.

Ninety-Nine Years in White
An Exhibition at The Architekturzentrum Wien Celebrates The Bauhaus Buildings and City Planners of Tel Aviv
Tamara Nosenko
02/03/2008

A brilliant, bright-blue sky looks down at the nearly 4,000 snow-white cubic buildings on the shore of the Mediterranean -- an enormous urban ensemble of Bauhaus architecture designated a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 2003. This is Tel Aviv, a young city in the New Functionalist Style.

In a current exhibition at the Architektur-zentrum Wien, historic and contemporary photographs of Tel Aviv, the master plan and a series of 3-D graphics provide an overview of the White City's design and vivid ambience.

Path of Memory
A Walking Tour Honoring Jewish Residents of Vienna's 2nd District Who Died at the Hands of the Nazis
Tamara Nosenko
02/03/2008

'This is not a tourist attraction,' said my tour guide, Walter Juraschek, as we walked towards Tempelgasse.

Yes, that was clear. The Path of Commemoration through Vienna's Second District, the former Jewish Quarter, is neither fun, nor an easy walk.

In 1938 about 200,000 Jews lived in Vienna, most of them within a 22 square km radius of the 2nd and 9th Districts. With the invasion of the Nazis, the Jews were suddenly deprived of all their rights, their jobs, their homes, their belongings and their dignity. About two thirds of Austrian Jews were able to emigrate before the borders closed. Those who could not -- some 60,000 Jewish men, women and children -- were deported to concentration camps principally at Mauthausen, Dachau and Auschwitz, and murdered.

The Russian Reaction
Following the Political Stand-off in Georgia, the Kremlin Accuses Saakashvili's Statements of "anti-Russian Hysteria"
Tamara Nosenko
18/02/2008

Georgian President Saakashvili has accused Russia of financing the opposition to destabilize political events in Georgia: 'We have evidence of disruptive activity by the Russian special service in Georgia and we will present this evidence,' he said on Nov. 7.

Soon afterwards, he deported three Russian diplomats accused of being involved in the opposition protests. 'The events in Georgia were planned and financed [in Russia]. If we'd failed to take serious measures, the situation could become more dangerous,' said Saakashvili in a public address broadcast on Georgian television. No substantial proof has ever been presented.

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