Yes, we certainly could have teamed up better when it came to terrorists. I remember the Moscow theater, also Beslan (real heartbreaker!) and the subways, too. All so tragic. And tragic that we pushed all chances for camaraderie and peace, as you said so well.
That’s wonderful you tried to learn Russian! It’s not easy for us English speakers. At least not for me.
I liked Russian “taxi beer” (means “so so” and has nothing to do with taxis or even taxi girls). “How are you?” “Taxi beer.” For some reason, I found it amusing.
I was trying to learn Russian right after Serbo-Croat*, which sounds a lot like Old Church Slavonic to Russians and sort of country bumpkin. I would come out with these Frankenstein words that were a mashup of Serbo-Croat and Russian that Russians found hilarious. Those were really tough times in Russia (late 90s), so I’m glad I could give them something to laugh about. It was truly heartbreaking, the poverty and all.
Russian Cyrillic is somewhat different from Serbian, so I sometimes “wrote funny” too. And always like a child, because I only learned to print and never mastered cursive.
*I refuse to call it Bosniak, Croatian and Serbian — it’s the same darn language. Although Croats’ accent is slightly different when pronouncing certain words. And Serbs use Cyrillic.
I still have the books, the tapes and such but the "old dogs and new tricks" thing makes it more unlikely.