I’ve bagged Lenins by the dozen. And even a couple of Stalins. But a Brezhnev? In the wild? Now there’s a real rarity. But there he was, striding casually down the street in downtown Novorossiysk. So I nabbed him. This isn’t the doddering, geriatric Brezhnev of the 1980s. This is the rising apparatchik, posed with […]
Browsing Posts in Travel
Novorossiysk: Brezhnev
September 24, 2011
Balaklava: Giant Secret Lair
September 20, 2011
In Balaklava, Ukraine, I visited one of the USSR’s super-secret bases, “Facility 825”. This is a giant semi-submerged underground lair, where submarines could enter, be refueled or repaired, and be entirely invisible from the air. Oh yes, and it was designed to survive a 100 kiloton direct hit. The base seems to have been conceived […]
Sevastopol and the Black Sea Fleet
September 18, 2011
I’m in Sevastopol, Ukraine. The city was formerly host to the Soviet Black Sea Fleet. After 1991, the fleet was partitioned between Ukraine and Russia and both halves are still based at Sevastopol, although most of the warships I spotted had Russian ensigns. Like Vladivostok, Sevastopol was a […]
Pyongyang: Kim Il Sung Mausoleum
August 4, 2011
I’ve been through the Lenin Mausoleum and the Mao Mausoleum. The Kim Il Sung Mausoleum is much, much, more intense than either. Definitely no loitering, chattering, or smirking. We were strongly encouraged by our guides to dress in our best clothes and to wear shirts and ties for our visit. The Mausoleum is a large […]
North Korea's Mass Games
August 3, 2011
I attended the Mass Games in Pyongyang. They were a bizarre, wonderful and very intense experience. (More photos here.) The current version of the games, the “Arirang”, tells the history of North Korea through a giant series of dance and gymnastic sequences. There are reportedly up to 100,000 participants, although only a few hundreds or […]
Nagorno-Karabakh: Shushi
May 26, 2011
I took a marshrutka out from Stepanakert to the old scenic town of Shushi. Shushi was on the front-line of the 1990’s Nagorno-Karabakh war and suffered heavy damage. It was an Azerbaijan stronghold, opposing Armenian-held Stepanakert. Over the course of the war most of the population fled, and the town still has many abandoned buildings. […]
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