Russia

The Culture of Death in a Chicago Elevator

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I work in a building with an in-elevator video system. This morning, a tale of russian cultists, 29 in all threatening to blow themselves up in their sealed cave if anyone interrupts them as they wait for the end of the world this spring. “Who cares” erupts loudly from the only other person in the elevator, a guy in a business suit. I was “It’s always good to talk them off the ledge” I replied and off I went to work.

You had to be there to catch the contempt, the utter disregard for the sanctity of life in his simple words. He was wondering why his life was being inconvenienced by these russian religious fanatics when he could be getting his stock news on his elevator ride. That was how little their lives meant to him. It was the culture of death in a nutshell. These 29 people (I later learned 4 were children, the youngest under 2 years old) were just meat to this guy and not only that, he had to share the sentiment so we could all join him in being unhappy at the inconvenience. We could have found out about the Dow 15 seconds earlier. And what about Britney? Don’t these Captivate Network guys have any sense of proportion?

The Culture of Death, where the rubber meets the road, will have a suit on more often than not, will be ‘respectable’ more often than not, and, more often than not, will insist on you joining in. That’s creepy, and not as theoretical as it was yesterday.

Possibly the Best Quote in All of Russian Literature

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Or at least the most realistic. The following is from Voinovich’s Moscow 2042, and takes place on a Lufthansa flight.

Улыбнувшись в полном соответствии со служебной инструкцией, она спросила меня, что я буду пить. Разумеется, я сказал: водку. Она опять улыбнулась, протянула мне пластмассовый стаканчик и игрушечную (50 граммов) бутылочку водки «Ð¡Ð¼Ð¸Ñ€Ð½Ð¾Ñ„Ñ„ ». Она собралась уже двигать свою тележку дальше, когда я нежно тронул ее за локоток и спросил, детям примерно какого возраста дают такие вот порции. Она понимала юмор и тут же, все с той же улыбкой, достала вторую бутылочку. Я тоже улыбнулся и довел до ее сведения, что, когда я брал билет и платил за него солидную сумму наличными, мне было обещано неограниченное количество напитков. Она удивилась и высказала мысль, что неограниченных количеств чего бы то ни было вообще в природе не водится. Поэтому она хотела бы все”‘таки знать, каким количеством этих пузырьков я был бы готов удовлетвориться.

— Хорошо, — сказал я, — давайте десять.

Translation:

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A New Cornucopia of Old Color Photos from Russia

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A collection of fabulous color photos of Czarist Russia was publicized a couple of years ago.

Now there’s a new exhibition of the same photographer’s images, including thousands of photos that were not previously shown.

These photos are well worth looking at. The photographer was sponsored by the Czarist government and recorded many scenes of great interest. He produced his images using a photographic process that, while cumbersome, yields excellent color.

(IIRC I blogged about these photos a year or two ago, but I can’t locate the post.)

Links:

Newly restored images.

Earlier exhibit.

Technical details.

UPDATE: From John Robinson comes this tutorial on how to assemble the color images from the B&W originals, and some interesting thoughts:

Perhaps one of the reasons for Prokudin-Gorskii’s rediscovery in the present time period is the fact that it is now possible, with computers, to make these into marvelous color depictions that were impossible with the technology of Prokudin-Gorskii’s day (printing the images, for example, was out of the question). This might, additionally, be an indication of the man’s being born well ahead of his time.

Minor Aggregation – 2

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A&L links to two discussions of communism and the influence of its Russian version. The first is to a review of two new books, Seven Years That Changed the World and Comrades! in “The Ash Heap of History” from The Economist. The author sees Brown’s book (Seven Years That Changed the World) as a useful discussion of Gorbachev’s reign but is especially impressed by Comrades!, in which he describes Robert Service’s strength:

With this volume he has produced one of the best-ever studies of his subject, even if he is much stronger on Russia than on other countries. Eschewing the usual convoluted language of Marxist debates, he provides a gripping account of communism’s intellectual origins, pedigree and impact.

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Death of another courageous journalist

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Well, they finally got her. Anna Politkovskaya, one of the world’s most courageous journalists, who wrote openly critical pieces about President Putin and his system, who managed to get through to Chechnya and report truthfully about the war there, who was nearly murdered when she was trying to get to Beslan to find out what was really happening in that unfortunate place, has been assassinated.

Her body was found by the lift of the apartment block she lived in, with a gun and ammunition beside it. According to Russia-IC the investigation into the murder “is being led by the General Procuracy of Russia under personal control of department’s head Yury Chayka”.

Her husband expressed the opinion that he did not think the murderers would be found, which is quite likely, unless the General Procuracy can find some little minnow in the conspiracy who can be blamed. Mr Politkovsky has also said that his wife had been receiving threats for the last two years. It is not clear, says the news agency, whether she had reported these threats to the police. I can think of several reasons why Anna Politkovskaya might not want to deal with the Russian police in this matter.

I have written before about this extraordinarily courageous woman before, mentioning the Leipzig Prize for the Freedom and the Future of the Media, which she shared with Hans-Martin Tillack, Britta Petersen and Seymour M. Hersh. Even Herr Tillack’s travails pale into insignificance (well, almost) compared to the life and death of Anna Politkovskaya. The other two recipients are alive and well with Mr Hersh being feted up and down the “drive-by media” of the United States.

There are words of horror being expressed by various journalists’ organizations but, as I have had to point out before, it is not always clear that the biggest and most important of these, the International Federation of Journalists has a clear idea of what is really going on in the world. I suggest they compare the events in Anna Politkovskaya’s life to those in Seymour M. Hersh’s. It is entirely possible that they will not be able to see the difference.

For those of us who would like to see Russia take her rightful place as one of the truly great countries in the world this assassination, coming so soon after the assassination of Andrei Kozlov, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Central Bank, who was trying to clean up the banking sector, marks another tragic and bloody step downwards for the whole country.

Cross-posted from EUReferendum