#hetaliafandomhub

[from-russia-with-mixed-feelings]

You know what helped hammer home the fact that the 4th of November is a holiday nobody cares about? The contrast to the amount of attention that a discontinued holiday - the 7th of November - got instead. Granted, this year it was the 100th anniversary of the October revolution, but still!

All throughout the past week we got news mentions, rallies, documentaries, thematic movies and talk show guests (a dude was claiming to be Lenin’s descendant), and 2 whole new TV series: “Trotsky” and "Demon of the Revolution”. (the latter is about Lenin, and the actor playing him is the same one that had the lead role in a space drama earlier this year, which adds a nice extra layer of surrealism to it)

So yeah, the country is still split on the question of the Octover Revolution being the worst thing that ever happened, the best thing that ever happened, or something in-between... But damn if we don’t care about it!! suck it, Unity Day

[vampelune]

nyo spamano week 2017

As Spamano leader, here’s the next event -- Nyo!Spamano week! It was supposed to be earlier, but thanks to things getting busy I had to postpone it, so I’m sorry if this is a bad time for anyone!

So check out the prompts / how to participate! Listed are some prompts, paired with suggested AUs – you do not need to use the AUs, feel free to just do the prompt! In fact, feel free to do your own AUs! Do whatever you want, so long as you fit the prompt!

(a special thanks to everyone in the spamano discord server for helping me figure out some prompts to use!!)

prompts

DAY 1 / SEPT 24: Fashion (Canonverse) 

DAY 2 / SEPT 25: Party/Festival (Highschool AU)

DAY 3 / SEPT 26: Food (Coffeeshop AU) 

DAY 4 / SEPT 27: Historical (Human AU) 

DAY 5 / SEPT 28: Gifts (Cardverse)

DAY 6 / SEPT 29: Music (Mertaila) 

DAY 7 / SEPT 30: Football (Any/No AU) 

BONUS  / OCT 1: Vacation (Any/No AU)

how to participate

Any and all creations are accepted and encouraged; fanart, fanfic, edits, etc. Just do your best to fit the theme!! And any AU you wish is okay, too! 2ptalia is accepted as well!

And, if you are late by a day or so and draw a past day, it will still be reblogged, so don’t worry! Just don’t draw a prompt before it’s day.

All content will be reblogged to @spamanoweek so tag that blog, or put it in the #nyo spamano week 2017 tag (needs to be in the first 5 tags to show up), so we don’t miss it!

[kunikidaz]

are you sure you wanna back down here?

[silk-road-to-samarkand]

When speaking of Uzbekistan, a few major cities come to mind as we navigate the region’s complex and beautifully rich history. Among these cities are Samarkand and Bukhara. Together, these two cities of “divine Bukhara and happy Samarkand” make up what British poet-diplomat James Elroy Flecker called “the Golden Journey.”

Known by the Greeks centuries ago as Marcanda, Samarkand stands as one of the oldest inhabited cities in Central Asia. With its centralized position, Samarkand enjoyed status as a valuable trade hub and intersection of goods, culture, philosophy, intellect, and innovation from places such as China, India, Europe, and Siberia. Through Samarkand and Bukhara from the East traveled porcelain and silk; spices and Gems from the South; ivory and perfumes from Europe; fur and amber from Siberia.

This dual status as such thriving cities meant the two sometimes campaigned for supreme leadership in the region. Tamerlane’s capital was Samarkand in the fourteenth century (for it was close to his birth city of Kesh, and when not campaigning, all his efforts went into forging Samarkand into a city worthy of his might); before him, Persian Samanids named Bukhara the capital. Just when Bukhara enjoyed dominance over Samarkand in the eighteenth century, Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution again made Samarkand the dominant city.

As crossroads of the world, Samarkand and Bukhara were exposed to much of the world’s treasures, both physical and intellectual, enjoying all the best that North, South, East and West wanted to share. It was in Samarkand that the first paper mill outside of China opened, and tenth-century eastern Islam enjoyed the most influential library in Bukhara.

The influences upon these cities is as complex as the rest of Uzbekistan’s history, and just as colorful and all-encompassing. For the capital Tamerlane (”Timur the lame”) built out of Samarkand, the architects he captured incorporated a unique Tartar concept, though the final product bore Arab, Indian, and Persian influences alike.

And of course the city needed to be in palettes of the fearsome conqueror’s favorite color: blue.

Sources:

Image 1 Image 2

Lawton, John, and Francesco Venturi. Samarkand and Bukhara. London: Tauris Parke, 1991. Print.

[kimanda]

Hello, hello! It's the Ambassador for Carpathian Ruś here! I have a (long passed, sadly) great grandmother from Ireland, and apparently she did Irish stepdancing! Would you be able to tell me more about it, please? Thank you in advance!!

Hello there! :D

Aaah well, I don’t really consider myself to be a big expert on Irish dancing or to be very knowledgeable on the technicalities of Irish step dancing. However since I’m a big history nerd, I can offer you a brief history on Irish dancing and how step dancing fits in the whole picture?  ;w;

(video of step dancing from 1972)

There is surprisingly not much that is known of Irish dancing in medieval Ireland and earlier. Therehave been quite a few references to it in written records throughout the centuries, but we know little of how these dances would have looked like back then.

We are first able to start working with known dance forms from the 12thcentury onward. Withthe Norman invasion of Ireland in the 12th century, various Normancustoms were introduced to the country. Among them was the Carol, a type of dancein which the leader sang in the middle of a circle of dancers who would reply tothe leader’s song. This dance was often performed in Irish towns that had beenconquered by the Normans. It is believed that the Carol introduced the concept of circledances in Ireland, although it isn’t completely certain that native forms ofcircle dances didn’t exist previously. However the Carol seems to have stuckaround for some time and perhaps popularized the concept of circle dances.  

 In the 16thcentury there were three types of Irish dances that were the most oftenmentioned: the Irish Hey, the “Rince Fada” (Irish for long dance) and the Trenchmore. 

- The Irish Hey was a type of circle dance that involved dancers wounding in andaround their partners. It was a forerunner of the reel, which is stillperformed in Ireland to this day. (the video above is an example of a treble reel, one of the evolved dance forms of the Irish Hey)

- The Rince Fada was typically done in two longlines, one line with women and the other with men. Hence the name “long dance”. :P The video is a pretty good example of how this dance would go, though usually there are more participants.

- The Trenchmore was apparently an Irish dance that was adapted for the Englishinvaders, being derived from an older type of Irish peasant dance. This dancewas very popular with the English, to the point that they brought it back tothe court of Queen Elizabeth. This video is a reconstruction of how it would have looked like, to my knowledge the Trenchmore hasn’t survived otherwise.

By the 18th century the jig was well established inIreland. Other popular dance steps included slip jigs, double jigs, slides,mazurkas and polkas. From around the 1750s to the early 1900s, travelling dancemasters were going from village to village, teaching various forms of dancesand steps. Step dancing in particular was widely taught in all parts ofIreland. Another type of dance that was taught during thistime was the reel, the whirling or spinning dance. Travelling dancemasters usually would spend a couple of weeks in each village, staying with alocal family. In return for the lodging, they would teach dancing free ofcharge to the family members.  

Inthe 19th and 20th centuries, the most popular dancesthroughout Ireland were sets and half sets. A good example of a set dance canbe seen in this video:

Setdances were brought over to Ireland and England by the armies of the Duke ofWellington returning home from the Napoleonic wars in 1816. This militaryorigin can be seen in the names given to certain dance movements. Beingoriginally derived from the French quadrille, set dances in Ireland developedfurther to better suit native Irish rhythms.

Dancesused to be commonly hosted in people’s houses but this practice would decreasewith the appearance of commercial dance halls and changes in travel,communication and lifestyle by the mid-20th century. However anotherfactor that is thought to have majorly contributed to the decline of housedances was the passing of the Public Halls Dance Act in 1935, which made thehosting of unlicenseddances illegal. House dances as they hadbeen known previously would disappear almost completely afterwards. A survivingrelic of this custom is the Irish word “céilí”, which refers to “an informalsocial gathering (at a neighbour’s house)” but now the word is mostly used to describean organized dancing session.

TheGaelic League, in their goal of re-establishing the Irish language and culturein the country, went on to ban their members from participating in dances thatwere regarded as being foreign introductions. One of the dances that werebanned was set dancing, which was regarded by the Gaelic League as being tooEnglish.

Stepdancing would instead be encouraged by the Gaelic League and this form ofdancing would become heavily popularized during the 20th century. Throughout the 20th century,the competitive solo form of step dancing would evolve. This would lead to step dancing becomingcodified and certain styles being standardised. (particularly styles from thesouthern areas of the country) Informal competitions for students of variousdance masters were held between towns for several years but the Gaelic Leagueheld the first organised competition in 1897. The Gaelic League would create in1927 An Coimisiún Le RincíGaelacha (The Commission of Gaelic Dances), a separate body that would be incharge of organising dances and contributing to the further standardisation ofIrish dances. This organisation wouldalso start holding examinations and giving certifications to dance teachers. 

Inthe recent years, older and freer forms of step dancing have started to betaught at summer schools and festivals. Showslike Riverdance would also revolutionize Irish dancing by returning to moretraditional step dance forms and move away from the rigid competitive forms. The video below shows the interval act of the 1994 Eurovision show, which is considered to be truly historic as it introduced Irish dancing (particularly step dancing!) to a global stage. This act not only managed to attract new fans to this dance form, but it also reinvigorated traditional Irish dancing and has contributed to the bright and vibrant culture it is today.   

Whereare the arms in Irish dancing?

So this is probably a question that has baffled many people when on the subject of Irish traditional dancing: Why is there little to no arm movement in Irish dances, particularly in step dancing?

Aaaahif only there was a straightforward answer to why arm movements became absent fromIrish dancing. The silliest explanation I’ve seen states that when the Englishbanned the Irish language and other forms of cultural expression, the Irish decidedto not only dance inside their houses, but to do so without using their arms sothat any Englishman passing by wouldn’t know the Irish were dancing.

A more likely explanation is due to lack of space back then. Local venues wereusually small, so travelling dance masters reportedly taught the steps bydemonstrating on tabletops, or even on top of barrels! If this was the case,these masters would have had to hold their arms rigidly at their sides and wereunable to do any kind of lateral movement. Later when there were larger venues,various regional styles evolved to include more movement of the body but armmovements never fully caught on.  

Anotherpossible explanation relates to the state of the stage, or a lack thereof. Mostplaces lacked a hard surface to dance on properly, so people often unhingeddoors and lay them on the ground to dance on. Doors didn’t offer a lotof space and so due to having a small “stage”, it didn’t favour using the armsmuch. Instead, people would favour dances that showed off the quick and intricatemovements of the feet.

Addingon to this explanation, there is a belief that in earlier competitions a danceteacher decided to have his students perform with arms purposefully heldrigidly to the sides to draw more attention to the steps. According to thisbelief, those students were praised for their movements and won thecompetition, which led to other teachers and dancers adopting this trend and iteventually became part of the standard of Irish dances.

I’mnot certain about the validity of this last explanation as we are not givennames, dates or any kind of specifics for that matter. But I could believe thatthe trend of not using the arms grew gradually and not one, but several danceteachers began to forgo arm movements completely and it eventually became thestandard.  

Inany case, we don’t have a straightforward answer to why arms fell out of use inIrish dances. The most likely explanations show that lack of space (and/or lackof a proper stage) led to arm movements being an underdeveloped aspect intraditional dances and with the establishment of dancing competitions, thenon-usage of the arms probably became deliberate. 

Inmodern Irish step dance, arm movements have started to be integrated more often thanks to showslike Riverdance but many regard it as non-traditional and dancing competitionsstill maintain the “no arms” rule. 

[scarlet--holmes]

I had a question for a Ukrainian Hetalia ambassador! What do you think would be an appropriate surname for APH Ukraine? The fandom uses "Braginskaya" for her often, but it doesn't seem fitting to give her a Russian surname, especially not the same one as Russia himself.

Thank you for the question! 

That is strange! I do not understand why does the fandom use Braginskaya, when there are so many great Ukrainian options to choose from! I also saw that a lot of people chose Yekaterina (Katyusha), which is a Russian name. 

So today we will try to pick a new name for APH Ukraine that would fit her! 

Let’s start with the name itself. I already mentioned that the most popular name that the fandom gives her is actually Russian. Instead you could use Ukrainian version of the name - Катерина (Kateryna). It sounds good and is widespread in Ukraine. 

Dark Lord Hima Himaruya also suggested a couple of names: Ірина (Iryna), Марія (Mariya or Maria) and Софія (Sofiya/Sofia). I kinda like these options. Especially Iryna and Sofiya. Both names have a Greek origin. Iryna means peace and calmness, while Sofia is the ancient Greek word for wisdom. 

Other common names are Надія (Nadiya), Ганна (Hanna), Олена (Olena), Олександра (Olexandra), Віра (Vira) and Любов (Lyubov). If you want some extremely Ukrainian names, options like Докія (Dokiya), Килина (Kylyna), Зіновія (Zinoviya), Мотря (Motrya) and Соломія (Solomiya) are perfect for you! But my personal favourite is Ольга (Olga), which means saint. It also reminds me of Княгиня Ольга (Olga of Kiev), who was a ruler of Kievan Rus’ and had a big influence on Ukrainian history. I also come across this name quite often, because some roleplayers and fanfic writers use it. 

And now the surname, which is really important for Ukrainians! Hima actually suggested Черненко (Chernenko) as an option. This surname does not sound familiar (maybe it is more widespread in other regions of Ukraine), but it exists and is appropriate, I think. 

A lot of surnames end with -енко/-єнко (-enko/-yenko) or -ук/-юк (-uk/-yuk). It is also quite easy to meet a person, whose surname represents the profession of their ancestors ( e.g. Швець (Shvets’, Shoemaker), Ткач (Tkach, Weaver), Гончар (Honchar, Potter) and many others). Having an animal-related surname (yeah, that’s a thing) is also not a big deal here :D Most surnames do not have male and female forms. However surnames, which are derived from adjectives, do change (Кобилянський - Кобилянська).

Some of the most widespread Ukrainian surnames are Мельник (Melnyk), Шевченко (Shevchenko), Бойко (Boyko), Коваленко (Kovalenko), Бондаренко (Bondarenko), Ткачук (Tkachuk), Марченко (Marchenko), Лисенко (Lysenko). Радченко (Radchenko) would also be perfect (not because of my obsession with Ukrainian literature and Stepan Radchenko, not at all). It is pretty common here. 

As for nyo!version of Ukraine, there are names like Олег (Oleg), Андрій (Andriy), Ігор (Igor), Віктор (Viktor), Святослав (Svyatoslav), Володимир (Volodymyr) and Олександр (Olexandr). 

That’s it for today! I am sorry, that I also added information about the name (I did not want to split them). Still I hope you will be able to find your perfect name and surname for Ukraine! I really like Olga Radchenko. What about you? Which version is your favourite? Send them in my askbox, please. I would be happy to read them! 

[saorsayay]

🐝*Lana Del Rey playing in the background, probably*🐝

(hey yall here’s a lil somethin’ I drew for @petitebaguette enjoy)

[minamikorea]

Happy birthday, South Korea!

Today, August 15th, is the day that the Korean peninsula was freed from the rule of the Japanese empire in 1945. (This national holiday is one of the few that is shared with North Korea.)

The official South Korean name for this day is Gwangbokjeol (광복절), which in English roughly means “the day the light came back”. There are many festivities and ceremonies to commemorate the liberation of Korea. Also, Koreans are reminded to remember and honor those who suffered and died while fighting for liberation.

On August 15th you can see South Korea’s flag, the taegukgi (태극기) everywhere, displayed in parades and hung proudly on homes and apartment buildings!

If you’d like to learn more about South Korea’s National Liberation Day, feel free to watch this video!

Happy Gwangbokjeol, South Korea!

[drev-the-ambassador]

Can you tell us a little about food in Finland, like... What do you eat day to day? What are sweets like? Which fast food chains are the most popular? or something else you think is interesting. Thank you! :D

Thank you for the ask! I can tell you a lot about food in Finland, fortunately, because both of my parents happen to be cooks, so I can ask about stuff from them. A lot the information I’ll tell you probably came from them.

Well, first off, I want to say that today Finnish people often eat food that isn’t necessarily traditionally Finnish or anything, for example my town has at least 5 pizza-kebab restaurants, and spaghetti is very popular. This thing called “raketti-spagetti” is sold in stores, it’s just normal spaghetti but cut into shorter pieces, and the name literally means rocket-spaghetti. I’m not sure how that name came to be, but it rhymes, so maybe it just sounded funny…? I don’t know. Stuff like rice is pretty common too, even though it’s in no way traditionally Finnish. Anyway, I’m sure that a similar phenomenon (the international foods thing, not raketti-spagetti) exists in almost every country.

Also, the Finnish cuisine has gotten a lot of influence from our dear neighbours, Sweden and Russia. Especially Sweden. So anyway, if you’re from either one of those countries and I say that something is Finnish when your country has the exact same thing, please blame my ancestors for not being more original. Although I’d like to hear about foods or customs similar to these I’m about to mention from other countries, so if you’d like to, please share them in the tags!

Okay, so I think I’ll start with the fast food- part of the question.

Finland doesn’t have that many fast food chains, really. We have McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway, and soon a few Taco Bells. Like, three. BUT! We do have a chain of our own, Hesburger, which is my personal favorite out of these. It is the most popular fast food chain in Finland, with 268 restaurants. For comparison, McDonald’s has 65, Burger King 32, and Subway 155 restaurants here.

If you want to have a taste of Hesburger’s food, but don’t want to come all the way to Finland, that’s totally fine! There are Hesbugers in eight other countries, too: Estonia (42 restaurants), Latvia (44), Lithuania (47), Russia (34), Germany (3), Ukraine (3), Bulgaria (3) and Belarus (1). Pretty impressive for a chain from such a small country, huh?

I hope this doesn’t sound too much like an ad, this post is not sponsored by Hesburger. I just think it’s pretty neat. I don’t know where the restaurants are more specifically, but I’ve been to Tallinn and there were a few Hesburgers there. They have really good paprika-mayonnaise! Just saying.

Scratch that, I now know where is the Hesburger farthest from Finland: 

Now, for sweets, I think I’ll have to make their own post, but we do have a lot of different kinds of candy in Finland, since we have two bigger and several smaller candy manufacturers, the two big ones being Fazer and Panda. Fazer also makes bread and cookies.

Popular candies are suklaa (chocolate) in different forms - bars, slabs (?? I hear that is also called a bar sometimes? Like smaller bars like Snickers and then slabs like the one I’ll show a picture of), chocolates, like the ones sold in a box, with filling or without, you get the idea, a lot of chocolate - and, of course, salmiakki, salty liquorice. Salmiakki candies get their amazing/awful taste from ammonium chloride. Mmmm. Potentially life-threatening chemicals combined. Delicious. (pic source)

Here is perhaps the most iconic Finnish sweet: Fazerin sininen, Fazer’s Blue. It’s just simple old milk chocolate and yet is the most popular candy in the country. Is it really that good?

Yes. Yes it is. The shade of blue used in the wrapping is trademarked*, by the way.

Okay, moving on to the day-to-day stuff…

In Finland we drink the most maito (milk) in the world per capita, a bit over 360 liters. The 2nd is Sweden by the way, with around 356 liters. We also consume the most kahvi (coffee) per capita, the national average being around 2.6 cups. Seriously, people here drink coffee all the time. In the morning, after lunch, when you come to visit you can be sure you’ll be offered a cup of coffee, at weddings, at funerals, with dessert, I mean, all the goddamn time. Sometimes they don’t even have a reason I’m sure. You know when at work there are those shorter breaks? In Finland a break like that is called kahvitauko. It means coffee break, which I’m sure is a familiar concept in other countries too.

But yeah, people do drink milk at every meal - not everyone, of course, but most people - and for people who are lactose intolerant there are special kinds of milks where the lactose has been processed already, so lactose intolerant people can drink it safely.

This is our fridge. That milk probably lasts like half a week. The light blue one is fat-free.

‘There is also this thing called piimä, which is a drinkable product made from milk with Lactic acid fermentation. It’s not my favorite, but it’s okay.

Maito versus piimä. (source) 

Apparently there is a strict divide in Finland between west and east, where west likes piimä better, but east prefers something called kokkelipiimä, which, to me, sounds very suspicious, and I did not know it even existed. It’s piimä with something more solid also made from milk mixed into it. Looks like this.

I seriously had never heard of it. I do live in the western half, so I suppose the divide is real. Huh. (source)

A traditional Finnish drink, kotikalja, is often drunk at fancier occasions, for example at the Christmas meal or at some other celebration, like weddings or such. It has a bit of alcohol, but so little that it doesn’t really count as an alcoholic beverage. Wikipedia tells me that it’s similar to Estonian kali, Swedish svagdricka, Dutch oud bruin and Russian kvass. It’s not the same, but it’s similar. People drink it with food.

(source also includes a recipe for kotikalja)

 There is a Finnish word ruokajuoma, which means any drink that is often drunk at meals, like water or kotikalja or milk and sometimes also juice.

This post is getting really long, sorry about that. Anyway, we eat a lot of different keittoja (soups) here too. Most of the time they contain potatoes (perunaa), carrots (porkkanaa), possibly other vegetables, and some meat (lihaa). Kalakeitto (fish soup) can be creamy (I love it) or clear (not so good). Lihakeitto (meat soup) and jauhelihakeitto (minced meat soup)are usually clear as well. There is also hernekeitto, which is made from peas, minced meat or ham or something and some carrot. People can add mustard and onion to it. It’s often eaten on Thursdays, a habit that has spread from the army. There every Thursday is hernekeittopäivä, hernekeitto-day. With hernekeitto the dessert is usually pancake with jam. (pic source)

The pancake, pannukakku, doesn’t look like what you might expect, though. It’s like this.

(source)What is the closest relative to the other kind of pancake is called lettu here, or räiskäle, and it’s closer to a crêpe or a blin. (An actual blin, in Finland there is some misconception about blinis being small and thick… things, but maybe people would otherwise mistake them for a räiskäle?) (source)

 They are usually eaten with jam or sugar or whipped cream, or ice cream, or berries, or all of them. There are also muurinpohjaletut, which are cooked differently. (source)

A very basic dish we eat a lot here is potatoes and some kind of kastike (sauce). The sauce usually has pieces of meat, or sausage, or minced meat. We use a lot of minced meat. The picture example is made with makkara (sausage). (source)

When it comes to leipä (bread) I might be a little biased, because my parents bake a lot of bread themselves. Most households usually have at least two types of bread available, some lighter bread like piimälimppu for example, and ruisleipä. It is very Finnish, even though rye bread is eaten elsewhere too. In grocery stores you can find many shelves full of it. There are even rye chips here! Not French fries, or potato chips, really, more like nachos. But made from rye. Weird. (source of pic below)

One of the many forms of rye bread. (source)

Usually the shelves would be full but it was late and almost juhannus. That’s all for rye bread there. (Don’t mind my sister’s hand btw)

You can get rye bread in dried from too, all crunchy and pretty tough. Examples of this, dry, crunchy, though perhaps not that tough bread are näkkileipä and hapankorppu. Näkkileipä is often served in schools, since it doesn’t go bad easily. Both näkkileipä and hapankorppu are the best when they have some butter (voi) on top, at least I think so.

Hapankorppu in the front, näkkileipä in the back. 

“Which side do you put the butter on?” is a common topic of debate between Finnish people. (It’s the side without the holes, fight me)

And yet another traditional Finnish food that’s eaten like bread and has rye in it, is karjalanpiirakka, Karelian pie. It’s basically rice porridge in a crust made from rye flour. It is also called riisipiirakka. There are other versions of it as well, for example they can have mashed potato instead of rice in them. It’s traditionally eaten with munavoi, boiled egg and butter mixed together. It is heavenly. It’s the stuff in the picture way up there, actually, but I’ll refresh your memory.

(source)

Another pretty basic, and quite traditional Finnish food that is still pretty popular as I understand, is makaronilaatikko, macaroni casserole, made of macaroni, minced meat, and a mixture of milk and egg. All the ingredients are put together and mixed, and cheese is put on top, though not in traditional versions. Then the whole thing is put into the oven and cooked for some time, and then eaten usually with ketchup. It’s one of my favorite foods.

(source)

Fish is eaten fairly often, but pork, chicken and beef are probably more common. In summer we eat a lot of sausages and nakki (frankfurters) (?? I have never heard this word). Most common spices are salt, suola and pepper, pippuri. There are also a ton of prepared foods in markets, and I mean a lot. Whole aisles, many meters, of foods like makaronilaatikko or jauhelihakeitto that you just need to warm up. Convenient. One of my favorites are pinaattiletut, small lettus with spinach in them. I like them a lot. There are also the same kinds of small lettus made with carrot. Oh, and also blood. They’re called veriletut in Finnish.

(source)

Well, I’d love to tell you more, but this post is already way too long, so. I’ll end it here. If you want to know more of something specific I mentioned, ask, and I’ll try to get a post made. I’m planning on covering a few topics here more in depth in the future, but we’ll see.

Oh, also, a lot of the sources for the pictures in this post also feature a recipe, though they’re in Finnish. If you’d like me to translate one of them so you can try it out, just ask!

Thank you for the ask again!

(*edited because I, the smart person I am, mixed up copyright and trade marks. Sorry about that.)

[salytierra]

*Hello! Would you mind giving me a brief explanation about the deal with Portuguese towels? I just want to make sure I double check my facts before I say anything about it :)

Ooooh yeah! 

Every country has a preferred joke about their neighbors. For Spain - it’s Portuguese towels. 

Okay, so the long story is that some decades ago, towels, furniture and things like that were much, much cheaper in Portugal, so people either went there expressly to buy them or bought a fuckton whenever they were in Portugal. Brought them back and gifted them to their friends and family. 

Nevermind that they didn’t dry well, from what I’ve heard. But try to tell that to your economy-obsessed mom. 

The thing got so out of hand that the “stop stealing our towels” return joke from Portugal was born, and even there were discovered cases of... entire operations of illegal trafficking of towels. *sigh* iberians. 

Anyway, now almost every time Portugal is mentioned, people start making Towel jokes™. Even if the towel business is not what it used to be and people mostly still buy them for the sake of the joke. But there are still some grannies that legit go to Portugal only to buy old-fashioned, terribly quality towels. Unironically. 

Anyway, some towel joke gems can be like this:Q: are there Portuguese street gangsters?A: Yeah, but instead of gold chains they hang towels from their neck

But mostly they are situational. You mention Portugal around and somebody always finds a way to immediately bring up towels. And you all laugh. Except that one Portuguese person that rolls their eyes and tries to murder you with their mustache. 

Oh yeah, hairy women. That’s another recurrent joke, but I don’t know where it comes from. 

[from-russia-with-mixed-feelings]

Hey so, you've mentioned tea is the most popular (?) drink in Russia and I wanted to know what the most popular/common flavour was and if the tea+jam combo was actually A Thing. Thank you for giving us all this awesome info about Russia!

Oh don’t you give me that (?), tea is definitely the most popular drink in Russia! :P By a wide margin, too! It’s difficult to find statistic data for some reason, but here’s a list of major non-alcoholic beverages by popularity. Tea is the one on top, naturally, with mineral water in 2nd place and coffee only in 3rd. I also found 2 blog posts about it, with some historical and liguistic facts, in case you’re interested: post #1, post #2. And just based on personal observations: most people I know drink tea at least twice a day; if the guests come, you don’t offer them “something to drink” or “coffee, tea or water” - no, you offer them tea, because 9 times out of 10 that’s what they’ll want; and even at work, if you’re having a break it’s either a smoke break or a tea break, because coffee is usually for waking up in the morning only.

(and by the way, if anyone thought that at least among alcoholic beverages vodka is the most popular one here - nope. That would be beer!)

Anyway, back to your question! Flavoured teas are not very popular here in general (i’m the only one who likes them in my family, for example), but the most popular way to drink tea is definitely this: black, hot, and with a slice of lemon (sugar optional). Black tea with milk/cream and sugar, and green tea (plain) are also pretty popular options.

As for the tea + jam combo, it is absolutely A Thing, yes, especially for sick people. A cup of hot tea with raspberry jam is the essential “grandma’s recipe” when it comes to home remedies for cold and flu. It’s also delicious! Beats hot milk with butter & honey (aka the other essential Russian recipe against cold) ANY DAY, imo xP

That’s it, thank you for the question (and for the compliment, oh my >////

[circlique]

Hello! My name is Circe and I recently got accepted as an art beta for @hetaliafandomhub! 

Now what does an art beta do, you may wonder? Well, pretty much the same thing as a writing beta, but in an art sense. 

For example, say you’re working on a picture like the first one but you just can’t get the hands to look right. Send me a message and I can redline it for you and give you my best interpretation of the hands you’re trying to do. Or, say there’s something off about the face you just drew but you’re not quite sure what. Again, send it to me and I’ll do my best to help you out! I can also help with posing and colors and just general concrit, but I didn’t do examples for those. I can’t promise I’ll be able to help with everything but I’ll certainly do my best! Just send me a message or an ask off anon if you need help with art!

[vampelune]

spamano week 2017

As Spamano Leader, from July 30th to August 5th I’ll be hosting SPAMANO WEEK 2017!! 

So check out our prompts / how to participate! Listed are some prompts, paired with suggested AUs – you do not need to use the AUs, feel free to just do the prompt! In fact, feel free to do your own AUs! Do whatever you want, so long as you fit the prompt!

(a special thanks to everyone in the spamano discord server for helping me figure out some prompts to use!!)

prompts

July 30 / Day 1: Dresses (Canonverse)

July 31 / Day 2: Sleepover (Child AU)

August 1 / Day 3: Surprise (Coffeeshop AU)

August 2 / Day 4: Historical (Human AU)

August 3 / Day 5: Gifts (Cardverse)

Ausgut 4 / Day 6: Sailing (Mertaila)

August 5 / Day 7: Festival (Any/No AU)

August 6 / Bonus: Comfort (Any/No AU)

how to participate

Any and all creations are accepted and encouraged; fanart, fanfic, edits, etc. Just do your best to fit the theme!! And any AU you wish is okay, too! Nyotalia, 2ptalia, etc, are accepted as well!

And, if you are late by a day or so and draw a past day, it will still be reblogged, so don’t worry! Just don’t draw a prompt before it’s day.

All content will be reblogged to @spamanoweek so tag that blog, or put it in the #spamano week 2017 tag (needs to be in the first 5 tags to show up), so we don’t miss it!

[kunikidaz]

#me

[scarlet--holmes]

For the Aph ambassador, what kind of fairytales and folktales do Ukraine have? And what are some of the most beautiful poems there?

Thank you for the question! Ukrainian folktales are indeed interesting. They can tell a lot about life of Ukrainian people in different periods of time and traits that were appreciated or criticized by them. 

One folktale that I clearly remember from my childhood is Лисиця та Журавель (The Fox and The Crane). The story begins when the Fox invited the Crane to have dinner with her. Since they are different types of animals, they use differnet types of dishes. The Fox thought it would be entertaining to make fun of the Crane and give him the dishes that she used (they were flat and uncomfortable for him to eat from). The Crane was very upset and disappointed, so he decided to pul the same prank on the Fox as a revenge. She didn’t see that coming! The Fox was really angry and ended her  friendship with the Crane immediately. The moral of the story is that one should never make fun of problems that other people have (otherwise one will end up lonely). You can read a translation of this story here (it is more detailed there). 

(Source: x )

Another common Ukrainian tale is Рукавичка (The Mitten). Long story short: an old hunter lost his mitten. A Mouse found it and decided to live there. A bunch of other animals joined her (such as a Frog, a Hare, a Fox, a Wolf and a Boar). When the Bear got into the mittem it ripped, so the animals had no place to live in. There is a Russian saying “Бесплатный сыр бывает только в мышеловке” (There is always free cheese in a mousetrap/There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch) which explains the whole point of the story. Here is the best translation of the folktale so far. It is quite different from the one in the post, but the main point of the story is pretty much the same. Thanks @darkumbreon9 for finding this version!  

(Source: x )

One of the most popular folktales is Колобок (The Little Round Bun). Once upon a time an old couple had nothing to eat. They decided to bake a bun. However the Bun was alive. It escaped and met various animals on his way, all of which threatened to eat him. But no one actually ate him, because he sang a lovely song and ran away. The last animal he met was a Fox. She was sly enough to fool him (by telling that she was deat and couldn’t hear the song, so she askes him to sit on the top of her nose). At the end of the story she ate the poor Bun. The story teahces us that we should not be trust creepy people as the Little Bun did. You can read the translation here . 

(Source: x )

There are also a lot of other interesting Ukrainian folktales, such as: Коза Дереза (Nibbly-Quibbly the Goat), Лисичка-сестричка та Вовчик-братик (Sister Fox and Brother Wolf), Царівна Жаба (The Frog Princess) Івасик-Телесик (Ivasyk-Telesyk) and many others. We share a lot of folktales with people from Russia and Belarus, because of our Slavic origin. 

And now fairytales! Some of the authors, that wrote fairytales are Леся Українка (Lesya Ukrainka),  Іван Франко (Ivan Franko), Борис Грінченко (Borys Hrinchenko) and a lot of others. They also made translations of foreign ones. Fairytales written by French, German, Brittish, Italian and Russian authors are also well-known here in Ukraine. 

It would be a shame to talk about fairytales and not to mention байки (fables). Their task is to criticize bad behaviour in order to teach people some important lessons. Григорій Сковорода (Hryhoriy Skovoroda) changed the way fables are treated in Ukrainian literature. One of the most significant fables written by him is Бджола та Шершень (The Bee and the Hornet). The Hornet told the Bee that it was stupid because it was still working, even though that work was dangerous for the bees and they had no profit at all. And the Bee said that it enjoyed the work and that is the only thing that matters. As a moral of the fable I want to cite a famous Chinese philosopher Confucius: 

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life”.

One should enjoy their job and do not listen to other people that judge them because of that. 

That is all for today’s post! I will talk about poetry in a different post next time, because I didn’t want to make this post too long. I hope the information was helpful and the tales interesting! 

[saorsayay]

My digital escapades feat. Monsieur Bonnefoy playing fancy-dress

(yo Napoleonic-style uniforms are the shit and now i finally have an excuse to draw them Wow)

@hetaliafandomhub