2014 Oboronekspo

Looking at some photos from a trade show, I noticed these pretty girls wearing full combat uniforms. I supposed it's a natural combination since sex and fighting seem to be people's two main interests. I think it's wrong, but then I'm an old knucklehead.

Then I looked up the website, and they've got some small photos of bigwigs and one of them is this guy:

Sergey Shoygu, Russian Minister of Defence

He keeps popping up on my screen. He's almost as popular as Putin on the Russian photos section of Military Photos dot net. So I look him up on Wikipedia, where I find this little bit.

Sergey Shoygu is married to Irina Shoygu, and has two daughters (Yuliya, born 1977 and Kseniya, born 1991).^[7] In his spare time, Shoygu enjoys sports such as football and horseback riding, and enjoys music of Vanessa Mae and The Ramones. He speaks nine languages^{[citation needed]}, including English, Japanese and Turkish. He also has the largest collection of ancient samurai swords in Russia, worth over $40 million.

Nine languages? The Ramones??!!?? The samurai swords I can kind of understand. But who's this Vanessa Mae? She's one of those wild dancing fiddler women:


I have seen a few here and there and I am always blown away by their performances. Playing a fiddle is a bit of trick all by itself, but to play it well AND cavort about the stage while doing it, well I dunno, she must be some kind of super woman.

But this video does make me wonder about Stradivarius fiddles. Here we have a celebrated fiddler (excuse me, violinist) and she's using a plastic fiddle. Perhaps the tune and venue have some bearing on whether a golden violin is required.

Update May 2021 repaired YouTube embed code.