Odna's Mental Rave: Tatar fever

Last events prevented from making a less “oh, the world is annoying me” post. I still have to post and re-write some of the events that took place before the New Year. Some conversations I had with people which really made me think.

But I'm not going to talk about that. I am going to talk about my recent obsession with Tatarstan, a republic of the Russian Federation, and Tatar culture and language in general.

It all started when I was doing some research about patriotic songs. I went to Youtube and found a patriotic song from Tatarstan. I was touched by it and found it very beautiful. I have a problem with patriotic things in general as well as with nationalism etc. But this one was really nice. I did mention it in my post about songs.

Well, after adding it to my favorites, Youtube put in my "recommendations" box, a song by Landysh Nigmetzhanova (Ландыш Нигметжанова) called “Siu” (Cию.)*. It's extremly "pop-dancing-in-the-nightclub" kinda thing. But I couldn't stop listening to it O_o. Now I'm even trying to sing along. Of course it is pathetic, since I don't speak Tatar and don't even have the lyrics. Well, my shower doesn't know that.

After that, there was another link to another Tatar song. At first I wasn't thrilled by the song itself, but by the video. It is very well done, looks like a short movie which tells the stories of various characters only through images. Really nice and as a wannabe filmmaker I thought “I wish I had made that”. The singers are Färidä (Фәридә) and Alsu (Алсу), the song is called Èz oem (Єз оем)*. I won't spoil it for you. You can check here:

Afterwards, I started liking the song a lot too. That's how it happens with me sometimes, I need some time. I really like this music video a lot. I think it's great.

Anyways, soon I saw the link to another song, this time by Fättaxova (Фэттахова)* called Tugan yak (Туган як). Now, that one was really surprising to me because I heard it before. Yep, I heard it, I don't remember where was it, but I think it was quite a while ago. So it was a very pleasant reunion. The video posted in Youtube is of bad quality, but there is another one which has the same song as background which the quality is better.

The singer's video:

And the song, although I really had some restrictions to this movie. Well, whatever, the sound is good:

(Note: there is a girl by the end of the video who looks so Brazilian, it is almost weird to me. She even has hair like mine... maybe she's my lost cousin O_o)

So, that is how the Tatar fever started. After that I started reading about Tatarstan and Tatar culture. I also discovered that Tartar sauce, while delicious, is not Tatar. And Brazilian waxing is not popular in Brazil at all. I don't even know why people give things names which suggest a false origin like French kiss, Russian dressing, French fries, Persian pastry etc. Actually, I do have a clue, but I don't really want to talk about it.

Back to Tatarstan. I really got into it. So much that if you asked right now “Would you like to go to Chennai or Kazan?”. I would have to stop to think. I would probably pick Chennai, because Tamilnadu is an old love. But I would pause. Well, that's why God invented “Google Earth” where I can fake a trip to Kazan. It was very nice. :)

Because I said that I won't be writing about annoying things (although I did almost start with the Tartar sauce thing...), I won't talk about how irritating some of those silly youtube comments can be. If it is not an Western European / North American pop song or something in English people already start with some sort of ridiculous pseudo-ethnic / anthropological / sociological political superficial discussion. It's pathetic! But, as I said, I won't talk about it now. Hehehe...

Enjoy my Tatar fever and if you are Tatar or know a lot about Tatar culture, please help me with some lyrics, songs, culture, you name it. Pretty please

Well, best regards to all.

*My transliteration following Wikipedia. Hope it's an ok transliteration. :)

P.S.: I REALLY want to change this blog's template... I just don't know how to do that right, since I like blogger's gadget system. Can any of you help me? :)