I was in Murmansk for the Winter Solstice. The city is North of the Arctic Circle, so the sun never actually rises in mid-winter. I had been vaguely expecting that I would be encountering a 24 hour night, but no, the sky was actually a bright twilight from about noon to about 4:00pm, as the […]
Browsing Posts tagged Russia
False Dawn in Murmansk
December 22, 2011
Stalin in Vladikavkaz
September 29, 2011
I’m in Vladikavkaz (“Lord of the Caucasus”), North Ossetia, Russian Federation, where Stalin lurks. I was visiting the fine WWII memorial park “Monument to Glory”. And there he was, posed casually in front of a giant historical mosaic. The most surprising part is that the bust is new, added in 2009 by the local Communist […]
Novorossiysk: Brezhnev
September 24, 2011
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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