I got into Minsk on December 21st 2010 (Tuesday), coming in from Smolensk. I’d seen news reports in Russia of large scale protests and large scale arrests in Minsk on Sunday, after opposition supporters decided to express their skepticism of Mr Lukashenko’s reported 80% share of the vote in the Belarus presidential elections. I hadn’t […]
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Post-Election Minsk
December 22, 2010
Baikonur: Soyuz TMA-20 Launch
December 17, 2010
I was at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to watch the Soyuz TMA-20 launch. It was spectacular. I strongly recommend it. (Tour Logistics.) (More Baikonur photos.) I found myself in a tour group of six: our guide told us we were all the tourists visiting the launch. There were also some press, and various Roscosmos/ESA/NASA […]
Lord Cochrane in Valparaiso
October 7, 2010
For all you Patrick O’Brian fans: In Valparaiso, Chile, I discovered that Lord Cochrane is regarded as one of the great Chilean naval heroes and is suitably commemorated in Chile’s main port city, with a street named for him, a large monument, a stained glass window in the Naval Museum, and inside the Museum a […]
Stalin in Virginia
August 21, 2010
The US National D-Day Memorial is in the small rural town of Bedford, VA. Overall it’s a fine, elegant and well designed monument, commemorating a key WWII event. But it has recently become noteworthy for a certain small addition… The Memorial include busts of the principal allied commanders and of all the principal allied leaders. […]
Moscow: Museum of Cosmonautics
June 2, 2010
I took the Metro out to the VDNKh stop. As you emerge, you see the stunning soaring tower of the Monument to the Conquerors of Space. 100 meters of titanium clad concrete, thrusting a rocket ship into the cosmos. Build back in 1964, as a tribute to the bold new Soviet Cosmonauts and the Brave […]
Moscow: Armed Forces Museum
June 2, 2010
Moscow’s Central Museum of the Armed Forces doesn’t specify a country in its title, but the answer becomes clear when you step inside. This is the Armed Forces of the USSR, comrade! Allowing for the Soviet focus, it is an excellent museum of its kind, well laid out, with many shiny artifacts. Outside are arrays […]
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