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D. A. Medvedev we strongly ask you not to hang out underwear on the balconies.
Update: On the question by Marguerite in the Hungarian version concerning what kind of underwear they refer to, here you are another picture from Khabarovsk, from the same blog:
LOL! Alas, with the correct translation, the joke looses much of its bite: just белье = laundry, while "нижнее белье" would have been "underwear"
ResponderEliminarLaundry: that’s the word I was looking for. In Hungarian белье embraces (veniam verbo) both underwear and laundry, and I could not find its proper English equivalent. The actual subject of the word is shown on the second picture, where laundry and underwear are mixed in peace. But anyway, the joke did not consist that much in the underwear, but rather in the fact that the authorities find it necessary to officially warn the population to momentarily withdraw this second wall from before the first wall of their flats.
ResponderEliminarI see prayer flags embodying the working meditation of doing the laundry. It all looks remarkably orderly, and not a satellite dish in sight!
ResponderEliminarThanks for putting it into words, Walter. Yes, the second image also struck me as uncommonly serene, structured, and warm. And not a single custom glass frame retrofits of the balconies, which reinforces my opinion that this great image isn't from Russia at all. But I was unable to locate the original blog with both of the images, as the 1st picture and its story of Medvedev and laundry has gone totally viral on the Runet. The authorship isn't clear, most likely it originated at a local TV station's page in Russian social network VKontakte, and the neighborhood authorities are cited as confirming the story. They said they received an oral instruction from someone in the city govt., who of course denies it.
ResponderEliminarSo where was this sunlit peach-colored building photographed? It is +8 degreed C and cloudy on the day of Medvedev's visit in Khabarovsk :)
You should have not searched so much: it would have been enough to click on the first picture, so you get to the source. Somewhat below, in the comments, the same author posts the second image as an illustration of what they are speaking about. Now, as I checked once more, he does not state explicitly that this is from Khabarovsk (indeed, he does not state anything, just posts the picture), but I guess it is, both from the context and from the fact that the author of this blog posts almost exclusively about his home town.
ResponderEliminarHehe, hidden in plain sight as it happens :) Thanks, Studioulum. This picture has been taken in the Adriatic coast of Italy in Bari, Puglia. It is from the website of a St. Petersburg-based tour company
ResponderEliminarWow, an amazing finding!
ResponderEliminar"Love Calls Us to the Things of This World": "Oh, let there be nothing on earth but laundry..." (one of my favorite Wilbur poems, and he's one of my favorite American poets).
ResponderEliminarAh, that's why they call our type of courtyards as "Italian courtyards".
ResponderEliminarWell, it’s a mystery.
ResponderEliminarIs that picture from Bari indeed? They say so, but.
Too much tidy laundry, a non-typical house, and not even a single t-shirt of the local football team :-)
Mmh.
Bari has very evocative old quarters (with coloured laundry too) that would worth a photo; that pic doesn’t allow to identify the place without error.
A Khabarovsk photo passed off as a Bari one?
A international photographic conspiracy?