Eastern European corner

This is an interesting thread, and I’m glad I came across it.

I am of Slavic heritage, my gran was born and what is now Belarus, but was then the Russian empire. My grandfather was from what is now, Ukraine, but was also the Russian empire before they emmigrated. Both sides immigrated between 1898 and 1903.

I also have a love of history and at one point I started my PhD and was thinking about Slavic medieval history. Very interesting all those tribes and forming states and mixing with world religions.

Khazars Picked Judaism.
Kiev Rus ended up picking orthodox Christianity.
Turkic tribes often picked Islam
And some tribes , like the Mongols, with their native Tengrism

My best friend’s wife is from Serbia, and boy is she a number!
And so is my wife, who is from Hungary. (Altho, I don’t think the Hungarians are Slavic. I know the language is not.)
My old boss was Romanian, also not Slavic, but she was hot!!

Interesting stuff!
 
Though this all may be my racial stereotypes about poor Neanderthals. (if I had a time machine, I'd definitely go and take a look at them).
Hmm, I wonder if any parts of the world have populations with larger amounts of Neanderthal DNA than most other populations.
 
Hmm, I wonder if any parts of the world have populations with larger amounts of Neanderthal DNA than most other populations.
Yes.

East Asians are the most Neanderthal (2.5%). Europeans also have quite a bit of Neanderthal genes. Africans much less. South Africans almost none.
 
My favorite Eurasian tribes were the volga Bulgars, the Avars and the Pechenegs.

The Pecheneg khan, killed Sviatoslav and made a drinking stein out of his skull.

Ah, the good ol daze!

I always thought the Pechenegs would be a good name for a band or a motorcycle gang.
 
My favorite Eurasian tribes were the volga Bulgars, the Avars and the Pechenegs.

The Pecheneg khan, killed Sviatoslav and made a drinking stein out of his skull.

Ah, the good ol daze!

I always thought the Pechenegs would be a good name for a band or a motorcycle gang.
Volga Bulgars are still there. Their name is Tatars now.

The Avars are now in the Caucasus.

The Pechenegs, no more. They did help ancient Russians stay fit.

But today's Russians don't remember this. And they find the name funny because in Russian pechenek is a form of the word "cookies".
 
I also posted the yesterday's question about Neanderthals in a different thread, and, after I mentioned that Neanderthals probably couldn't speak like us (according to some theories), there was a wonderful addition from Penny Thompson:

Depending on how it's written, there could be a lot of fun, interesting options for two or three sapient human species who can't speak to each other...

Maybe Neanderthals used some form of sign language, but only simple vocalizations? Growling, laughing, moaning are likely shared sounds...

Maybe Denisovans whistled or sang, speaking through tone more than syllables!

https://forum.literotica.com/threads/a-prehistory-setting.1663513/#post-103853462
 
I also had yesterday a conversation on the same topic, we discussed The Beauty and the Beast where a human female also chooses a mate that doesn't look very much like the males she is accustomed to - and remembered a funny Russian joke that I will tell you. The joke, however, requires a preface. But, being a nerdy girl, I am willingly offering you this preface.

There is a Russian version of Beauty and the Beast, very popular, written by a classical Russian author based on a story told by his nanny.

The name is The Scarlet Flower, and it starts with a merchant going abroad and his three daughters asking him for gifts to bring from the countries far away. And then he comes to the flower (because the youngest asked for a scarlet flower, the most beautiful in the world), and then the story is more or less similar to the Beauty and the Beast.

So a modern Russian joke goes as follows:

- Well, darling daughters, what should I bring you from lands far away?
- Dear father, bring me a big ugly Beast for sexual adventures.
- WHAT?
- Oh, okay, okay. Bring me a scarlet flower.

[Needless to say that the merchant and his daughters are Russian, and since my early childhood I imagined myself in the role of the merchant's younger daughter, falling for the Beast].
 
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I wanted to say yesterday, about Neandertals:
They had a significantly larger brain case than either the Cro Magnons or modern humans. While I don't necessarily buy in to the common assumption of scientists that brain size is an automatic indicator of intelligence, there is the real possibility that they were in fact more intelligent. Neandertals lived very successfully for 360,000 years— until the Cro Magnons came along about 55,000 years ago. So why did Neandertals suddenly disappear? Yes, there was coexistence and interbreeding at some times in some places. Yes, there was some assimilation. But I don't think that explains their disappearance.

Stronger. Smarter. A record of successful survival six and a half times greater than modern man has achieved so far. And then. Suddenly — poof! — gone? 🤔

I don't believe it. I believe they were a fundamentally peaceful people, and were exterminated by their earlier cousins. Modern man's first successful genocide.
 
I wanted to say yesterday, about Neandertals:
They had a significantly larger brain case than either the Cro Magnons or modern humans. While I don't necessarily buy in to the common assumption of scientists that brain size is an automatic indicator of intelligence, there is the real possibility that they were in fact more intelligent. Neandertals lived very successfully for 360,000 years— until the Cro Magnons came along about 55,000 years ago. So why did Neandertals suddenly disappear? Yes, there was coexistence and interbreeding at some times in some places. Yes, there was some assimilation. But I don't think that explains their disappearance.

Stronger. Smarter. A record of successful survival six and a half times greater than modern man has achieved so far. And then. Suddenly — poof! — gone? 🤔

I don't believe it. I believe they were a fundamentally peaceful people, and were exterminated by their earlier cousins. Modern man's first successful genocide.
They had worse genetics. More interbreeding. Lived in much smaller groups. Were less communicative. And the brain, while bigger than ours, was less balanced than ours. So I wouldn't think we genocided them. Though our ancestors were not the nicest bunch, of course.

Also. Not sure about six and a half times. It seems that the modern-type man (aaaaaand woman) is much older than previously thought. I think it is around 200,000 years for them more or less, according to the latest findings.
 
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Some of my favourite erotic stories were written almost 700 years ago by Giovanni Boccaccio as part of his Decameron.

Decameron has also my favourite dedication to readers. I think Boccaccio was the first author ever to dedicate his book specifically to women readers. Some passages may seem outdated but hey, it was written in the 1340s, and they reflect how women lived in Boccaccio's time.

However, in the English translation I found online it looks even more outdated. I guess it is a very old translation but oddly, it looks much more archaic to me than Boccaccio's original text.
Boccaccio is a great read and marvellously naughty. I was surprised at how many of those stories were either nicked or adapted by Chaucer.
 
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