масло из кадила

04:59 Aug 17, 2015 

Thank you for the kind words, I will try to respond in a PM!

15:59 Aug 15, 2015 

You are welcome! It was fun figuring it out. :)

It would be nice seeing this book printed in English - when it is, I am going to buy it as a present for a good friend of mine from the US who likes to travel around Europe. Can you say which publishing house it's going to be or what the title will be - or are those things a secret?

By the way, it's not every day that you see travel guides translated from Russian into English, 99% of the time it's the other way around. This is a nice change.

14:44 Aug 15, 2015 

Oh for sure, I just like to at least attempt to figure out problematic moments first. Thank you greatly for this typo - had I realized what it was it would have made more sense to go to him first!

08:20 Aug 15, 2015 

Have you throught about contacting the author directly with your questions? I am sure he would be happy to provide all the relevant clarifications - and such collaborations usually results in better translations (not always, they say Umberto Eco is not much help to his translators, for instance :) ).

01:31 Aug 15, 2015 

Not really, Byzantine Propaganda reads quite different. But you are right; there is a whiff of irony in it; Greek propaganda of Christianity was always half-hearted; they NEVER believed in de-barbarization. (And were right in the long run, I can say ;-) Wise people, what.

01:14 Aug 15, 2015 

He does tend to write in a semi-ironic tone, at least in the other work I'm familiar with, about Byzantine missionaries. To me it is enjoyable and reminds me of Kapuściński...or, rather, of Kapuściński's translator since I do not read Polish :-)

00:04 Aug 15, 2015 

Well, maybe he was trying to "dumb it down" for his audience? :) Guides like that (especially by "Вокруг света") are usually full of typos, unfortunately...

I gotta make more time for reading.

00:01 Aug 15, 2015 

(Someone invited me to stay for a while Istanbul a while ago, so I did.)
Did you notice the language of the book is NOT exactly the professor's and definitely NOT professorly? To say nothing of the typos.

23:50 Aug 14, 2015 

Have you read it? I started reading it about a month ago and since then it's been on my "to finish reading" list. :))

23:46 Aug 14, 2015 

(And trouble is, this is not the only косяк in the book. Sound like his name has been used without him knowing.)

23:37 Aug 14, 2015 

The author, Сергей Аркадьевич Иванов, is a history professor at СПбГУ studying Byzantium, in fact, he is the leading expert on Byzantium in today's Russia. I don't think he would make a silly mistake. It's rather more likely that he is right. :)

23:25 Aug 14, 2015 

ointment, миро, is smear-liquid, в лампадах, а не кадилах. Ладан твёрдый. ;-) Аффтар жжот (не то топливо).

22:43 Aug 14, 2015 

I'm sure they meant incense, not oil.