This is an aerospace-themed holiday greeting card from the former Soviet Union. It bears the New Year greeting in Russian (s novym godom). New Year was the main holiday (ideologically more acceptable) celebrated in the former Soviet Union (officially atheist). Christmas was banned after the 1917 revolution and not celebrated again until 1992. Also, in Russia, Christmas is celebrated according to the Julian calendar, on January 7 (Armenians celebrate on January 6), and is a much different type of celebration than New Years.

My wishes for 2008!

May we all:

1. Enjoy world peace (or at least continue to dream).

2. Continue to do good and help as many people as we can in our lives.

3. Benefit from intelligent decisions from our leaders, and in the case of the Americans in 2008, the voters.

TENNIS WISH: Nalbandian, please win a Grand Slam. PLEASE!

Thank you for reading my blog!

According to Russia’s Fed Cup captain Shamil Tarpischev, Anna Chakvetadze hasn’t yet recovered from the robbery ordeal: “Anna has problems with her left hand–she almost cannot feel her fingers, because during the attack her hands were tied very tightly with some ropes,” told Tarpischev to the newspaper Sovetskiy Sport.

He went on to explain that Chakvetadze had already started practicing, but she had not fully recovered yet, for which she is currently undergoing acupuncture treatments with a Chinese expert. Tarpischev also noted that the whole ordeal had left Anna quite traumatized. She doesn’t want to stay home. Who would want to?

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Indian tennis star Sania Mirza was signed by world’s leading sports brand Addidas as its global brand ambassador. This doesn’t come as a surprise to me. You don’t have to be a marketing genius to understand that any tennis player from India or China that finds himself or herself in the top 100 needs to awarded by huge endorsement deals. Why? Just look at these numbers. India has more than 1.12 billion people, which is more than any other country in the world except of course China. It is the seventh largest sized country in the world in amount of land. Read more »

World No 9 David Nalbandian is scheduled to play an exhibition match in Uruguay.

Venue: Conrad Punta del Este Resort and Casino, Punta del Este, Uruguay
Date: December 28-29, 2007
Surface: Hard
Website: http://www.tenisenpunta.com/2007/

Confirmed players:
David Nalbandian (Argentina)
Nicolas Lapentti(Ecuador)
Mariano Zabaleta (Argentina)
Pablo Cuevas (Uruguay)

–Marat Safin is planning to play for Russia in the opening Davis Cup tie against Serbia. It will be held from February 8 to 10 in Moscow. Hopefully New Year’s partying and vodka drinking sessions in Moscow will give a good jump start to his 2008 season The New Year celebrations are huge in Russia. Partying and eating for about two weeks! Russia celebrates Christmas on January 7 which usually gets lost in the New Year’s partying frenzy.

–”Creepy” news! Officials have drawn the line at auctioning the hotel toilet seat to be used by Maria Sharapova when the Tennis “Really Golden” Girl plays an exhibition against Anna Chakvetadze next weekend in Singapore. Since the raised money will go to charities, I’d say if there are crazies out there willing to pay thousands of dollars for it, let’s do it for charitable causes!

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1992 - “One day I’ll be on this court and I will win,” said a 10-year-old Justine Henin to her mother, Françoise, after seeing the final between Steffi Graf and Monica Seles at Roland Garros.

2003 - Justine dedicates her first Grand Slam (French Open) title to her late mother, who died of cancer when Henin was 12.

2007 - The 25-year-old Henin posts her best tennis season to date - 63-4 record, 10 titles, two Grand Slams (including her fourth French Open), 25-match winning streak, 14 wins out of 16 tournaments.

Despite the off-court emotional roller coaster in her personal life, including a divorce from her husband of four years and a reunion with her estranged father and siblings, the Belgian tennis star Justine Henin has found enough strength and stamina to establish her dominance on the women’s tour in 2007.

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In an interview with Russian newspaper Tvoi Den, famous Russian tennis player Anastasia Myskina confirms that she is four months pregnant and is due in May. Myskina has broken up with her recent boyfriend Russian hockey player Konstantin Korneev. No wonder Nastya was reluctant to talk about the baby’s father:

“That topic is closed. I’ll just say that I am not getting married in the near future. I am a single person. I don’t know about the baby’s gender yet, and I haven’t decided yet where I will give birth—in Russia or abroad.”

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I’ll be back

New details are coming out from Russia about the robbery attack on Anna Chakvetadze’s family in Moscow country house.

–According to Tvoii Den after collecting all the money and valuable, the thieves have told Anna Chakvetadze: “Keep playing, we will be back!”

–The robbers were very cynical to the point that they apologized and said that they needed the money for one kid’s heart surgery.

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Russian media are reporting that thieves broke into and robbed Russian tennis star Anna Chakvetadze‘s country house in southwest Moscow early on Tuesday.

According to police, six unknown people wearing masks climbed over the fence of the country house at about 4:00 a.m. Moscow time then broke into the house and tied Anna and her parents up.

“The robbers took away money and valuables worth some 5 million rubles (over $203,000),” the police spokesman said.

The 20-year-old Chakvetadze is ranked No 6 and has earned more than $1.4 million in prize money this season. An investigation is underway. Anna and her parents were not hurt.

Horrible. Maybe this is one of the reasons why Russian tennis stars prefer living anywhere else but Russia?

(Source: RIA Novosti, others, Photos: Vesti)

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David Nalbandian, the top-ranked Argentine at No. 9 in the world, beat compatriot Juan Monaco 6-4, 7-5 in the Copa Argentina final in Buenos Aires. Nalbandian also won the 2005 title at the Buenos Aires Lawn Tennis Club. David is scheduled to play in Kooyong Classic tournament in Melbourne from January 10-12. He will be in a field that includes Roger Federer, Andy Roddick (number 6), Fernando Gonzalez (7), Andy Murray (11), Tommy Haas (12), Ivan Ljubicic (18) and Marat Safin (56). It is a warm-up for the Australian Open.

Official Website

David is one of the few top players who has never had an official website. Now, with his recent two ATP masters wins, it looks like David has finally understood that he is a world famous tennis star and he needs to communicate with his millions of fans. His official site www.davidnalbandian.com will be officially launched in 17 days. FINALLY!!!

(Via davidnalbandian.net)