July 21, 2020

A Veritable Musk-see


A Veritable Musk-see
Musk is inviting the family to see his work. Image by geralt via Pixabay

Elon Musk, one of the wealthiest people in the world according to Forbes, showed that he is up to speed on important figures in the history of space travel. The billionaire recently invited the family of well-known Soviet rocket scientist Sergei Korolyov to visit his company SpaceX in the US.

Sergei Korolyov is known as the father of the Soviet space program. He is credited for the launch of Sputnik in 1957. And Elon Musk has been in touch with his family, as reported by Andrei Korolyov, Sergei’s grandson, who said Musk first reached out to his family in May, after the launch of the SpaceX Crew Dragon. He later linked up with the family via videoconference. It was during this chat that Musk invited the family to visit the SpaceX factories and see its latest launches. The family, in turn, invited Musk to Moscow.

According to Andrei, “We talked for 20 minutes, in conversation he is a pleasant, very funny, very positive person, we laughed a lot. He greatly respects the memory of my grandfather, he considers him one of the greatest engineers and most outstanding people of his time.” Musk reported on the conversation on Twitter, adding that Sergei Korolyov “was one of the best.”

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93 Untranslatable Russian Words

Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.

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One of the most famous works of Russian literature, the four-act comedy in verse Woe from Wit skewers staid, nineteenth century Russian society, and it positively teems with “winged phrases” that are essential colloquialisms for students of Russian and Russian culture.

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