Posts Tagged ‘belarus’

Minsk Monastery trip to saint Elizabeth’s Nun Convent – Spiritual realms of Belarus

Monday, April 7th, 2014

st_Elizabeth_Romanova-monastery-Church
If you happen to be in Belarus's capital Minsk and you're a Christian you would definitely will be interested to see the spiritual side of Belarus. I was in Minsk with my wife for a month and had the chance to go for a pilgrimage in st. Elisaberth's Orthodox Christian Convent.

In Belarus about 80% of population of population are Orthodox Christians with about 7% Catholics, some 4% protestants and 9% atheists. I'm Orthodox Christian myself so mostly I kept interest in exoeriencing Orthodox religion life there. The religious life in Belarus so deeply impressed me so I decided to even document it here.

I was in a couple of Orthodox Churches during the Great Lent first week attending afternoon (Great) Repentence services canon of St. Andrew of Crete. And was amazed how many people are religious in this God fearful country. All Churches where I was during the Great Canon or Holy Liturgy was so full of people that you cannot even enter the Church if you're late for the service. People attending were also very concentrated on the service and most of the people came to services bringing most of which holding a book with the Great Repentance Canon following the service and concentrated in praying and doing ground prostrations. One thing to note is Belarusian Orthodox Church is a sub-division of Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), Belarusian doesn't have their own patriarch but are under the patriarchy of Russian and all Moscow patriarch – Kiril I.

Few weeks ago for Sunday of All Orthodoxy (Triumph of All orthodoxy) for Holy Liturgy service me and Svetlana with a close friend of her Tatyiana went to St. Elisabeth's Monastery. 
Monastery is named in honour of St. Elizabeth Feodorovna Romanova – which is the last Russian Grand Princess of the Romanov family later executed with her husband and kids by Communists Bolsheviks, canonized by ROC in the 1990s.

Saint_Elizabeth_holy_orthodox_icon_monastery_Minskst_Elizabeth_Romanova-monastery-Church

The monastery as almost all Churches in Belarus is so full of people you cannot move (it seems in Russian Orthodox Church – there is an amazing spiritual awakening at the moment). I wanted to confess and even though I was in the Church building before beginning of the holy liturgy and there were two priests to confess the queue of people to confess was so long that confession lasted until the end of the Holy Liturgy. In order to able to confess I've waited on the "confession queue" for about 2 hours and a half. Even though Holy Liturgy completed confession continued and those who confessed after the Church service end was also offered the Holy Sacraments. Another stunning thing for me was the amount of young and obviously intelligent people who was in the Church – just to compare here in Bulgaria, seeing young people in most Churches and monasteries is a rare thing ..

Saint Elisabeth's Monastery is the only monastery situated in (very near 19 km away) from MINSK on Vigotskogo 6 str. We reached the monastery by taking bus from regular Minsktrans (state's bus company) city bus nr. 26, other bus and trolley riding there are – bus 18 and trolley 33, 38, 55.
Monastery was established in 1990 after dissolvement of USSR and is situatuated on a place where previously there was no church or a monastery. The SisterHood in monastery is enormous by size and consists nowadays of 7 Churches!!!

St_Elizabeth_Monastery_Monastery_Minsk-picture

The main Church of the Monastery has saint relics from all around the known Orthodox Walls, to venerate all the saint relics you will need at least 20 minutes!! The Holy Relics of the monastery are so much that they remind me very much of Monasteries I've seen on Holy Mounth Athos. The spiritual father of the monastery is father Andreya Lemoshonka.

father-Andreya-Lemeshonka-spiritual-father-of-st-Elizabeth-monastery-Minsk


From ruromrs the sisterhood in monastery consists of about 120 sisters (and even maybe more), some of them are Nuns and others are the so called "Sisters of Mercy" (something like the "White Sisters" moveing in the Roman Catholic Church) – woman who deliberately decided to help the monastery often walking the streets shops and metro stations collecting charity for poor, sick and people in need. Sisters of mercy are something exception and seeing a lady dressed in white robes on the street or metro with a prayer book at hand is something rare to see in today's crazy materialistic world. Some of this kind sisters of mercy are novice nuns in the monastery and others are just worldly woman with family whom the monastery employes on a small renumeration.

Minsk-sister-of-mercy-sestri-miloserdie-Belarus

The cloister is a unique place next to the majestic Church buildings, the monastery has a coffeteria where you can have a coffee / snacks or even a dinner after service, there is a Church shops full of icon and all kind of orthodox spiritual literature,a Christian games for kids (Orthodox Lotto, kids collapsible Churches from cardboards) as well as a food store with fasting and non-fasting food and even a shop for Christian clothing "Православная Одежда". 

orthodox-clothes-shop

Orthodox Clothes Shop near St. Elizabeth's monastery Minsk

st_Elizabeth-monastery_minsk-medovaja_lavka

A Honey Store – St. Elizabeth Monastery Belarus

st_elizabeth_monastery-food-store

Orthodox Foodstore near St. Elizabeth Monastery Misnk

In one of the Churches there is a 3 floor tiny shop first floor sell icons, books and faith related things, monastic souvenirs and on the second floor there is a herbal pharmacy  with healing herbs for almost all kind of physical and nervological disorders etc. Part of monastic life is the evening and morning service which occur everyday in the monastery. The spiritual father of a monastery Andreya Lemoshonka who is a married priest is also leading frequent lectures on faith and is often helping people coming to him for a spiritual advice, a problem or question related to faith. The Nuns are fasting each Monday, Wednesday and Friday – fasting also in Mondays even though this fasting day was only observed in ancient Church and in many Orthodox monasteries, Monday fastings (In veneration of Angels) is no longer observed – i.e. sisterhood life is very strict. Near the monastery is situated a Mental Hospital and one of the duties of nuns is to often visit the mentally sick there. The sisterhood helps orphanage homes and is bringing for Holy sacraments often a lot of sick children.

st_elizabeth-monastery-minsk1

Part of monastery service is sheltering the homeless, alcoholics and drug addicts offering them encouragement and work in the small monastic farm. The monastery has also workshops where people with disability work in making gloves, icons, decorations, souvenirs embroided by hand. Near the monastery there is a wooden shop where one can order all kind of custom crafted wooden wardrobes, chairs or anything wooden you like for your home.

What I saw there make my heart joyful. It seems Minsk Monastery achieved something which is rarely seen in Orthodox world a symbiosis between Faith, charity and a monetary funding model that works
The monastery very much reminded me to an Orthodox movie Forpost and to the Godly initiate in Bulgaria by father Ioan of Novi Khan who by his efforts, Gods help and the charity of hundreds of bulgarian takes care for about 150 homeless orphans in a monastery.

 

'Forpost' (Outpost) – What the Church Can Accomplish. 

As a closure word I want say Thanks and Glory be to the Holy Trinity The Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit! for blessing me to the pilgrimage journet to St. Elizabeth's monastery!

Interview with Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko (The Independent)

Thursday, January 24th, 2013

Many people and most of the Western European countries blame Lukashenko to be dictator, to be stealing the freedom of Belarusians and as a bad and intolerant. It is my own understanding that though Lukashenko's leadership of Belarus might have it is bad sides he is not so bad. His thinking actually is much more Christian than most of important politics of the Western European Union. Belarus is still keeping some of their society models left from communism and even today. It is very interesting interview, unfortunately no english translations so, one has to understand a bunch of Russian to understand what they're speaking about. What is interesting to compare one representative of Slavonic world against one typical person who even though Russian by blood and genetics (the interviewing person Evgeni) is a cultural traitor. The interviewer for the newspaper "The Independent" is obviously dressed, looks and talks like most of western europeans, his questions like every journalist are mostly tricky. I really liked how Lukashenko understands Democracy, as being identified with justice on the first place. Lukashenko saying that today we have no democracy in western countries, because there is no righteousness in ruling and things in country is very right.
Belarusian economy managed to survive through the so called Perestroika. If my homeland Bulgaria had enough smart politicians to lead the country into proper re-structure of our economy to an open economy, Bulgaria would not have been in such a terrible
economic state as it is today ….
 

Lukashenko interview Лукашенко – интервью "The Independent" и "BBC" _ телеве

 

Belarusian Good Night song ( Kids Lullaby )- Беларуская Калыханка

Tuesday, December 4th, 2012

Here is a beatiful Good Night song (Lullaby) popular in Russia and Belarus.

Беларуская Калыханка Доўгі дзень (БТ) Качественнее.mp4 –  Колыбельная

There is also a newer remake of the song from 2010, in the video one can see how they "smartly" heavily embedded the spiral, as well as plenty of twisting and cycling objects as a mean to hypnotize the poor unknowing kid 😉
I don't believe in hypnosis as I'm Christian and I think hypnosis works only if you believe it, but the guys who made this video definitely believed in hypnosis methodologies 😉 I never saw a video with so many twistings. Of course as always I'm a bit over critical, however I cannot stand without admitting the video animation is really high quality. I get the impression in Belarus they have a high quaite painters and animators.

Here is one other performance of this so beautiful and calming song – (Doctors should start prescribing this song as a song for healing people with nerveous disorders ;))


 

Белорусская колыбельная – Калыханка

The positivism below song emits along with the drawings joy is something totally missing nowadays in Western Civilizzation.

As an ex-metal, punk, rock person it was interesting for me to see Kalyhanka, has a Neo-Metal / Alternative Rock version.


 

Сьцяна – Калыханка

Here is also a piano version of the song – i don't like that so much but the video clip is really high quality of modern art – This gives me the idea in belarus modern art is quite advanced.

Biełaruskaja kałychanka / Беларуская калыханка / Belarusian lullaby

Below is the lyrics:

Доугі дзень
Цеплы дзень
Адплывае за аблокі
Сіні цень
Соны цень
Адпаўзае у кут далекі
Збеглі зайкі усе у лясы
Змоуклі птушак галасы
І буслы у гняздо схавалі
Свае доугія насы
Баю бай
Баю бай
Вачаняты закрывай (2 разы)
Пакрысе на расе
Патухаюць зоркі-сплюшкі
Гульні усе
Казкі усе
Пахаваны пад падушкі
Спяць і мышкі і стрыжы
Спяць машыны у гаражы
Ты таксама каля мамы
Ціха ціхенька ляжы
Баю бай
Баю бай
Вачаняты закрывай
Баю бай
Баю бай
Разам з намі засыпай (2 разы)

I found few other interesting Russian GoodNight kids songs are below:


 

Спят усталые игрушки


 

Спокойной ночи, малыши! (Заставка конца 90-х)

The animation is quite good, besides that it is rather interesting how the video is made to overflow the mind, so after the mind is "buffer overflowed" it turns into the Sleepe State generating Beta Waves 😉

As I'm Bulgarian and Slavonic it makes me wonder, why modern Bulgarians have not seen this, after all our Languages and Culture is so close to each other.

Here is one more which is great for kids, before going to bed 🙂

The Nativity in Christ Evangelical story of the birth of the saviour Jesus Christ in Russian language

Wednesday, December 26th, 2012

Rojdestvo Hristovo romanska ikona - Romanian Holy mosaic of the Nativity of the Lord Jesus Christ
I Wish Happy Christmas, to my dear readers. I wish to anyone who reads around. The Lord Jesus Christ to give good faith, peace, joy, health and heavenly blessings.

While checking various Church troparions on Nativity of Christ (including some Troparions) of the Russian Church I come across a short story, retelling the glorious events occuring around the birth of the Saviour of the world Jesus Christ! I'm currently having as a guest a girl from Belarus which and Belarusians speak Russian as their mother language. Thus I have the opportunity to learn a lot of Russian. In that relation finding such a video re-telling the story of Messiah (Christ's) birth was great opportunity to both improve my Russian language comprehension and enrich and strengthen my faith. The video is enjoyful so I hope it might help others in situation similar to mine. Enjoy!

Рождество Христово – Short Movie re-telling the Glorious story of Christ's video in Russian language

How to fix Skype no (built in) web camera on MacBook Air with (Mac OS X 10.8.5) resolve Skype issue of Aug 2013

Sunday, September 29th, 2013

Resolve fix issue with no camera in MacBookAir

My dear fiance girlfriend Svetlana, has a MacBookAir from 2013 since a month time. We speak quite regularly in Skype since right now she is in Belarus and I'm in Bulgaria. So it was a big surprise for me today her brand new shiny MacBookAir camera stopped working. She is completely new to Mac OS X so she didn't have idea if something automatically updated on the notebook, probably some update poped up and she proceeded to update. Well no matter how the issue happened … I instructed her how to install TeamViewer (for Mac OS X – just download the .DMG double click it and install) and logged in to the PC to check what's happening. In FaceTime video was showing fine so obviously on OS level webcamera was detected. I saw some threads suggesting sometimes built in webcam is not working due to some other application which uses the camera (Safari instrance using flash to open webcam, FacePalm or whatever) …
I checked the version release of Mac OS X and it showed Mac OS X 10.8.5. I checked whether some updates are available but there were none. After browsing a bit figured out the web camera not detected Skype error is experienced by hundreds of MacBook air users online. Thanksfully there is a quick and simple fix by just substituting a file called AppleCamera.plugin.

Below are instructions on how to fix I followed from Skype's Community Website: 
———————

This is a very simple fix that works! There are lots of ways to do it, but to put it very simply ,

Download  the AppleCamera.plugin provided.
 

Click on go in the finder menu, select go to golder and paste in  /Library/CoreMediaIO/Plug-Ins/DAL/ ,

 

move that item, AppleCamera.plugin, to the trash

 

Go to your downloads folder and copy the new  AppleCamera.plugin, then paste it in the folder where the old one was. 

 

It works

After following literally instructions Skype camera worked out like a charm 😉

deb Linux: How to add support for Bulgarian, Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Serbian, Macedonian, Bosnian language cyrillic localization to Xfce, GNOME, KDE Desktop

Monday, March 18th, 2013

If just installed Ubuntu or Xubuntu and choose as a default language English by mistake and you happen to live in Bulgaria, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus or any other cyrillic speaking / writting country and you want to make the desktop graphical environment to display menus in mother language Cyrillic. Here is how;

To add cyrillic localization, native support in GUI environment for major Dsektop Graphic Environments (XFCE, GNOME, KDE …) run in terminal:

For Bulgarian Cyrillic language Desktop support:

linux:~# apt-get install language-pack-bg

Четене на списъците с пакети… Готово
Изграждане на дървото със зависимости      
Четене на информацията за състоянието… Готово
Следните допълнителни пакети ще бъдат инсталирани:
  firefox-locale-bg language-pack-bg-base
Следните НОВИ пакети ще бъдат инсталирани:
  firefox-locale-bg language-pack-bg language-pack-bg-base
0 актуализирани, 3 нови инсталирани, 0 за премахване и 2 без промяна.
Необходимо е да се изтеглят 0 B/1048 kB архиви.
След тази операция ще бъде използвано 3533 kB допълнително дисково пространство.
Искате ли да продължите [Y/n]? Y
Selecting previously unselected package language-pack-bg-base.
(Reading database … 287291 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking language-pack-bg-base (from …/language-pack-bg-base_1%3a12.04+20130128_all.deb) …
Selecting previously unselected package language-pack-bg.
Unpacking language-pack-bg (from …/language-pack-bg_1%3a12.04+20130128_all.deb) …
Selecting previously unselected package firefox-locale-bg.
Unpacking firefox-locale-bg (from …/firefox-locale-bg_19.0.2+build1-0ubuntu0.12.04.1_i386.deb) …
Processing triggers for software-center …
Updating software catalog…this may take a moment.
INFO:softwarecenter.db.pkginfo_impl.aptcache:aptcache.open()
Software catalog update was successful.
Инсталиране на firefox-locale-bg (19.0.2+build1-0ubuntu0.12.04.1) …
Инсталиране на language-pack-bg (1:12.04+20130128) …
Инсталиране на language-pack-bg-base (1:12.04+20130128) …
Generating locales…
  bg_BG.UTF-8… up-to-date
Generation complete.
 

Two packages language-pack-bg and language-pack-bg-base packages add to system localization files which in Linux are in the format of .mo files. Here is list of 2 packs file content:

 

linux:~# dpkg -L language-pack-bg

/.
/usr
/usr/share
/usr/share/doc
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-bg
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-bg/copyright
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-bg/changelog.gz
/usr/share/locale-langpack
 

 

linux:~# dpkg -L language-pack-bg-base

/.
/usr
/usr/share
/usr/share/doc
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-bg-base
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-bg-base/copyright
/usr/share/doc/language-pack-bg-base/changelog.gz
/usr/share/locale-langpack
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/Linux-PAM.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/pidgin.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/findutils.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/mutt.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/help2man.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/pppconfig.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/jade.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/recode.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/wdiff-gnulib.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/software-properties.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/grub.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/cracklib.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/ggzcore.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/libapt-inst1.4.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/system-service.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/gwibber-service-sohu.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/mlocate.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/lynx.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/dnsmasq.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/apparmorapplet.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/gettext-tools.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/binutils.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/hello.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/quota.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/ld.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/libvisual-0.4.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/friendly-recovery.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/gnupg2.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/git-gui.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/bash.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/apturl.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/sharutils.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/ubuntuone-control-panel.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/pulseaudio.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/hello-debhelper.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/hunspell.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/dctrl-tools.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/gwibber-service-sina.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/popt.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/powertop.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/xdiagnose.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/ubuntuone-client.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/gettext-runtime.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/debian-tasks.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/nano.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/lvm2.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/ecryptfs-utils.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/duplicity.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/ubuntu-wallpapers.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/dselect.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/debconf.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/mountall.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/JabberBot.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/net-tools.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/apport.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/libidn.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/newt.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/tar.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/gnupg.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/coreutils.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/make.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/libapt-pkg4.12.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/kerneloops.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/ldm.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/ufw.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/pidgin-libnotify.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/pppoeconf.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/acl.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/python-apt.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/gutenprint.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/MoinMoin.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/usbcreator.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/launchpad-integration.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/example-content.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/avahi.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/transmission-gtk.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/xkeyboard-config.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/dpkg-dev.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/libgpg-error.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/human-theme.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/grep.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/sane-backends.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/NetworkManager.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/libvirt.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/ubuntu-sso-client.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/app-install-data.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/dpkg.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/whois.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/system-config-kickstart.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/gprof.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/zeitgeist.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/shared-mime-info.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/virt-manager.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/bison-runtime.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/wget.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/quilt.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/command-not-found.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/jockey.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/attr.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/ltsp-login.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/kcm_gtk.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/alsa-utils.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/aspell.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/fetchmail.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/man-db-gnulib.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/devscripts.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/xscreensaver.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/unity-2d.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/compiz.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/apt.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/gODBCConfig.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/libc.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/plasma_applet_menubarapplet.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/update-manager.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/psmisc.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/screen-resolution-extra.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/unattended-upgrades.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/adduser.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/sysstat.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/checkbox.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/apt-listchanges.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/ubuntuone-installer.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/upstart.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/upower.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/tasksel.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/byobu.mo
/usr/share/locale-langpack/bg/LC_MESSAGES/language-selector.mo
/var
/var/lib
/var/lib/locales
/var/lib/locales/supported.d
/var/lib/locales/supported.d/bg
 

 

Above .mo files are  binary files, generated from plain text .po / .pod files. In free software OS .po files are the most common language translation files, where for each different language a set of .po files exist. Translators usually translate from English to respective language using a GUI text editor called poedit. Once translation is made from those .po files .mo binaries are generated and shipped as localizations for program or group of programs. Below is edit of one of Polish translation of lang file belonging to CUPS Printing service.

poedit gnu linux xubuntu screenshot editing cups .po language plain text file

Once .po files are created, generation of .mo files can be done in various way, however usually Linux system uses msgfmt – (compile message catalog to binary format). In order to generate .mo file out of lets say cups_pl.po;

hipo@linux:~$ msgfmt cups_pl.so
hipo@linux:~$ ls -al *.mo
-rw-rw-r-- 1 hipo hipo 31988 Mar 18 12:38 messages.mo

Anyways, here is how to add Cyrillic support for rest of Major cyrillic speaking countries, issue;

For Russian Cyrillic language Linux Desktop env support;

linux:~# apt-get install --yes language-pack-ru
...

For Belarusian Cyrillic Linux Desktop;

linux:~# apt-get install --yes language-pack-be

For Linux Desktop in Ukrainian;

linux:~# apt-get install --yes language-pack-uk

For Linux Desktop in Serbian language;

linux:~# apt-get install --yes language-pack-sr
...

For Graphic Environment in Macedonian;

linux:~# apt-get install --yes llanguage-pack-mk
...

For Linux GUI in Bosnian;

linux:~# apt-get install --yes language-pack-bs
...

For Kyrgyz language Linux localization;

linux:~# apt-get install --yes language-pack-ky

Whether, you are using Linux Desktop internationalization on some other Cyrillic related language, which I'm missing here please feel free to drop me a comment how you install it? I

 

Easy way to travel from Belarus to Holland hopping through Lithuania or other Shengen country

Friday, January 4th, 2013

Shengen tourist visa travel to Holland from belarus via Lithuania

Over the last 2 months or me and my girlfriend from Belarus, had quite a lot of pondering on how and if is easy possible to travel from Belarus to Holland. As with every new undertaking, obtaining enough information on how to proceed put a lot of stress on her and me.

I will explain in short the whole situation in hope that someone else who is in a situation like this can benefit out of our experience.

I am born in Bulgaria with Bulgarian nationality, but currently living in the Netherlands, because of my studies. I study here in Arnhem, Holland in Arnhem Business School. My Belarusian girlfriend is with Belarusian ID and since Belarus is not in EU. They're not allowed to freely travel within the EU without a VISA. To receive a VISA for EU Belarusians obliged to have first invitation send by a person – (priglashenie) as called in Russian language) and then it is up to government authorities to issue the Visa.

We wanted to meet each other here in Holland for the Christmas holidays somewhere in period 20 Dec – 05 January 2013 and thus she needed a tourist VISA. My first idea was to send her invitation through a Bulgarian friends family who live and work and have a registered company here in Netherlands. I asked them to check about if it is possible they somehow invite Svetlana, through their company, but it never happened I received an answer. Then failing this I thought about asking a Slovenian friend if it is possible, that he send Svetlana invitation using his Offshore Company which is already offering clients issuing Business VISAS for few destinations.

My logic was since Slovenia is within Shengen, it should be possible to invite Svetlana to Netherlands. However as I heard from him he contacted the embassy  of Germany / Netherlands to ask them but received a reply this is not possible. Failing this as an  option then  I thought of a friend of mine who is a citizen of the Netherlands – I asked him if he can send her invitation, but he refused to do so fearing maybe, Svetlana will stay as illegal emigrant here in Holland and he might have problems with police.

My next, idea was to ask the Slovenian guy to invite Svetlana to Slovenia and hence she make VISA for Slovenia; Slovenia is in the European Union and in Shengen agreement for Free re-location and work within all Shengen countries, thus she might first fly to ljubljana and then from ljubljana take another flight to Holland. This "doorway" is far away from convenient, even if possible (I was not sure if even possible it was just an idea), the ticket prices for flight from Minsk to Lubljana and Lubljana to somewhere in Holland costed around 400 EUR!

In one of our consequent Skype conversations with Svetlana, I've learned she researched on some Belarusian internet forums many people claim it is actually possible to travel from Lithuania to any of the 27 countries of the European Union. Meaning she needed to get a tourist (Shengen) VISA for Lithuania. Issuing VISA for Lithuania is comparatively easy cause Belarus and  Lithua are neighbor border countries and many people frequently travel from Belarus to Lithuania and vice versa.

Issuing a VISA from Belarus to Lithuania is possible through using few agencies in Belarus helping people to have a vacation trip to Western Europe. Svetla applied for one of those agencies, promising to issue a VISA for a week / week en a half or so. However as Belarus is still living on  a plenty of government structures inherited by the Communism which was until 1991 and which were kept after the fall of communism there and perestroika, it is necessery that a special government institution approves the Tourist Visa after the Lithuanian government  issues it. It seems there were plenty of people from Belarus who applied for Tourist Visa to western European countries, so Svetla was put in a queue line not knowing for sure  if the Visa will be possible to be issued until 22nd of December. The big trouble here was I already booked a flight ticket ticket from Lithuania capital Vilnius to Eindhoven Holland with low cost company – Wizzair. BTW I flight with Wizzair 2 times so far and the flight experience was pretty decent for its low ticket price.

Finally after the agency failed to confirm whether it will be able to help her in issuing the tickets before 22nd of Dec, she had to go herself to the Embassy  of Lithuania to sign up on a queue with other people to receive a VISA to Lithuania. The situation was quite uncertain, as it was not clear if this Embassy of Lithuania will issue her Visa or not or even if her queue turn will come before 22-nd. In theory it should have but it also depended on Belarusian governmental athorities who had to also approve the visa. Like in all complex situations like this, all left was we pray God to help us and hope it all will just run smoothly with issuing and approvel of visa.

One important note to make here is Svetla asked a lady in the Embassy of Lithuania, if she can use her Lithuanian VISA to travel within the rest of the member states of the European Union and she was given a negative response – a fact which discouraged and saddened both of us.
The encouraging thing was Svetla asked other people waiting for entering the embassy to request a Visa and as she spoke with them they all said it is possible to use the Lithuanian Visa to travel freely with no check to any country within the EU.

It was days of waiting and a lot of stress mainly for her because, I was in Holland and I couldn't help her (physically) in arranging the visa.

Praise God all went Okay and she was issued VISA few days before the flight date!!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂

Now to take the flight which was early in the morning of 22 of December 2012, Svetla had to travel quite a lot. First on a bus from Belarusian capital Minsk, she had to travel to Metro (if not mistaken), from Metro to Bus-Station, then take bus fr Minsk – Vilnius and after going down on Bus Station in Vilnius to take another bus to Vilnius Airport. After this long travel  finally had to check in on Airport and fly on Wizzair airplane in 06:15 morning.
She had to spend about 6 hours waiting for the check-in on Vilnius Airport, because the bus from Minsk arrived about midnight.

Thanksfully by God's Grace she met a nice Russian family travelling to Brussels, through Eindhoven and hence flying on same flight to Eindhoven like her, so she had a nice chat time on the Airport. Thanks God again, all went smoothly with the flight and about 08:30 she was on Eindhoven's airport waiting for me and I take her about 09:15.

There was no need for passport and security check on Eindhoven airport – as I heard from her, cause there is no border control of passengers travelling within the circle of Shengen EU country zone. In Vilnius she had the usual security check before entering the plane, but in Holland it was not needed. In Holland all she had to do is to collect her laggage from the luggage circling platform.

Hopefully this little post will help other Belarusians who need to travel to any country within the Shengen zone to meet friends, beloved or family.