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 […]
Browsing Posts in Travel
Lord Cochrane in Valparaiso
October 7, 2010
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 […]
Abkhazia and Sukhumi
May 24, 2010
Before I arrived in Georgia, I had applied to the Abkhazian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Sukhumi for a visa to visit Abkhazia. After a little toing-and-froing I was assured that my visa would be waiting in Sukhumi and my name would be on the “approved list” at the incoming border checkpoint. I took a […]
Gori's Stalin Museum (Revisited)
May 21, 2010
Despite the 2008 war, neither Gori nor its famous Stalin Museum seem to have changed much since my previous visit in 2007. The tall statue of Stalin still dominates the town square. The Stalin Museum still provides a positive narrative of Stalin’s life with a focus on the great Soviet WWII victory, and no mention […]
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