The picture above is one that I took while on my trip to Washington DC this past October. The sign, found in the Newseum, originally hung in the American sector of West Berlin. It features the phrase “You are leaving the American sector” in English, Russian, French, and German. The […]
Weekly Blogs
За здоровье!
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In Russia: A History, by Gregory L. Freeze, the text discusses the notions behind and the results of Mikhail Gorbachev’s anti-alcohol campaign. Freeze deliberates on Gorbachev’s intentions, and highlights the difficulties the campaign faced in its effort to make the nation sober. The text reads as follows: As the new general secretary consolidated power, he was […]
Everyone’s A Critic
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During the years that Khrushchev held power in the Soviet Union, there “began a cautious liberalization that took its name from Ilia Ehrenburg’s novel The Thaw (1954)…that extended to many spheres of cultural and intellectual life” (Freeze 413). This period included a relaxation of many of the harsh cultural policies that […]
Starvationism, Inflationism, and Explotationism
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On July 31, 1957, the Grand Sports Arena of the Luzhniki Olympic Complex (commonly referred to the Luzhniki Stadium and previously referred to as the Central Lenin Stadium) was opened in Moscow. This event not only had implications in the world of Russian sports, but also in the worlds of culture […]
Есть Метро!
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The sheer delight being experienced by the people present in the photo to right is palpable. I was drawn to it immediately when I saw it on the Seventeen Moments site. It seems that the Moscow Metro system just has a way with making people excited, and understandably so. […]
Shot Like Partridges
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In chapter ten of Russia: A History, author Gregory L. Freeze states that “The Communist Party faced a pressing need in 1921 to transform itself from a revolutionary cadre into an effective ruling institution” (309). One event that helped to emphasize how desperately the Bolsheviks needed to transition to a position […]
A Rock and a Hard Place
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The importance of the months of February and October in the Russian Revolution of 1917 cannot be denied. With the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II and the subsequent shifting of power to the Provisional Government occurring in the former, and the seizure of power by the Bolshevik party occurring in the latter, these months massively […]
An Eye for an Eye
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On January 22nd, 1905 an event occurred that dramatically influenced the Russian revolution. This event is known as Bloody Sunday. It is known by that name because of the massacre that took place outside of the Winter Palace on that fateful Sunday. When protesters, led in part by Father Gapon, marched […]
Yet Another Church
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The Cathedral of Christ the Savior, seen above, was one of the first churches I saw when I visited Russia. Our excursion around the famous sights of Moscow, including this church, happened to fall on the seventh of January. Because of this, we got to see the church on […]