A messenger to be blocked
I listen to another detective audiobook and enjoy it a lot. To get off screens is a blessing nowadays. And choosing voices over texts helps to spare my astigmatic eyes. The reader makes me see places while I stare at the ceiling, his talent is astonishing. I imagine people I know in real life as actors to play characters.
Russia opened a criminal case against Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram. I use it a lot, especially to chat with Ivan and Alyona. Whatsapp, Viber, Discord, Instagram, Youtube and Facebook are blocked for them, and Telegram remains(ed) the best solution to communicate. Taking into account the Kremlin accuses Durov of some very bad things the future blocking looks more and more probable. You know, I dislike Telegram actually. It's full of scammers, shady people with questionable schemes but it has its perks as well. I feel sorry if my friends will be available only via Russian media. Urgh.
Yesterday in the main hall of my organisation, at the shelf for leaflets, I noticed a book in some Slavic language. I did understand rječnik meant 'dictionary' but still decided to check the title. Printed in Zagreb, this dictionary was Croatian. Today I found another Croatian book in the hall, the situation seemed ridiculous to me. Was there an anonymous hrvatski jezik enjoyer scattering books around? The main librarian told me they got an offer from a person who used to learn Croatian but since this language is too rare here they decided to let the books be taken by anyone who'd find them useful. How should I, a potential target, realise taking those books wouldn't be stealing?
What I did like was that Croatian was kind of understandable if you don't miss Latin script classes of our national language. Though it uses almost exclusively Cyrillic it has a rich Latin tradition. Reading its representatives helps understanding Polish, Slovak and, to a lesser extent, Croatian and Serbian.