Russian Craftsmen to Recreate Parts of Lost Amber Room

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Russian craftsmen in Kaliningrad shall recreate parts of the legendary Amber Room, a Tsarist-era antiquity looted by Nazi Germany during World War II. The restoration plan by the Kaliningrad Oblast government is part of a campaign to stop illegal mining in amber-rich areas near the Baltic coast. The region has the world’s largest-known amber deposits. Experts estimate that criminals mine 60-100 tons of amber illegally every year in Kaliningrad Oblast, which holds more than 90 percent of the world’s total known amber reserves and is home to the world’s only natural amber strip-mine.

King Friedrich I invited German craftsmen to decorate the main hall of his palace with amber panels shortly after his accession to the Prussian throne in 1701. However, after the king’s death in 1713, his son Friedrich Wilhelm I put an end to the expensive work, and put the amber panels on the walls of a small room of the Stadtschloss (City Palace) in Berlin. Three years later, he gave the panels as a present to Tsar Pyotr Veliki, who stored them in his Summer Palace, at Petergof. It was only in 1743 that Tsaritsa Yelizaveta Petrovna decided to use the amber panels to decorate one of her main chambers in the Winter Palace. Craftsmen expanded on the original decorations, eventually turning them into the legendary Amber Room, often referred to as the “eighth wonder of the world”.

The Wehrmacht looted the decorations during World War II, and took them to Königsberg (now Kaliningrad), where they were lost in the fierce fighting and air raids at the end of the war in 1945. Eventually, the Russians only rediscovered two small parts of the room’s decoration and returned them to Russia. According to the Kaliningrad Oblast Culture Minister Svetlana Kondratyeva, the Amber Room replica will be in the 1899 building of the Königsberg State Amber Factory, which, following its renovation, will then house the Kaliningrad Amber Museum. Museum visitors will be able to watch the craftsmen at work replicating the room through glass panels.

14 May 2013

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/art_living/20130514/181145479/Russian-Craftsmen-to-Recreate-Parts-of-Lost-Amber-Room.html

Moscow Promotes Patriotism with Street Names

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The Moscow municipal government decided to name a new street in the southwest of the city “Battle of Stalingrad Street”, to mark a key victory over Nazi Germany during the VOV. The authorities made their decision on 24 April, following a proposal by Irina Yarovaya, head of the RF Gosduma Security and Anticorruption Committee. Russia commemorated the 70th anniversary of the end of the epic 200-day Battle of Stalingrad on 2 February. The battle began on 17 July 1942 and ended on 2 February 1943 with the surrender of the Axis forces. Around two million people died in the battle on both sides; it became one of the key symbols of victory in Russia.

In the past few years, the Russian leadership has increased its emphasis on patriotism as a national idea capable of consolidating Russian society and inspiring future generations, after Russia suffered a serious blow to its national identity with the collapse of the USSR. In the most recent move, in March, President Vladimir Putin reinstated the Soviet-era Hero of Labour title, scrapped almost two decades ago. The award, established by Iosif Stalin, was widely used to praise civilian workers for their labour achievements and to boost output.

13 May 2013

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20130513/181121620/Moscow-Promotes-Patriotism-With-Street-Names.html

Editor’s Note:

Every day, Russia moves farther and farther away from the liberal (libertarian) lunacy of the Capitalist West, with increasing emphasis on both its Tsarist and Soviet past. That is, Orthodox people should ignore the hate-filled vapourings of such people as Victor Potapov and James Paffhausen… after all, Potapov’s a bought n’ paid for minion of the US government and Paffhausen’s a slobberin’ lickspittle of such Hard Right stink-tanks as the American Enterprise Institute. You can have Christ or you can have Ayn Rand… one of these things is NOT like the other!

BMD

Are the ROCOR Rightwingers in Obedience to HH and Marking Victory Day or are They in Contempt of His Decree?

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In 2011, Patriarch Kirill Gundyaev of Moscow and all the Russia issued a decree stating that all churches, monasteries, and establishments under his authority must serve a Molieben on Victory Day in memory of the deliverance of the people, “from a terrible deadly enemy, from such a danger that we hadn’t seen in our entire history”. In addition, sources at the Centre assure me that he also decreed that all parishes serve Pannikhida in memory of all those who fell in the VOV and for all the civilian victims of the war.

Perspirin’ minds wanna know… are Victor Potapov, James Paffhausen, Alexander Webster, Rod Dreher, and the monastery at Jordanville fulfilling this decree in letter and in spirit? Has the ROCOR forsworn its support of Nazi collaborators and their organisations (and their unwholesome repulsive ties with Western intelligence agencies)? Do they wear their St George Ribbons and Red Ribbons with all due dignity and thankfulness? That is, do they celebrate the Great Victory in all sincerity, gratitude, and joy? On the other hand, do they still believe that “Hitler was a friend of the Church?” To speak bluntly, there was no such thing as *“Sergianism” (at least, not in the form used by ROCOR polemicists since the ’50s). It was a lie cooked up by Far Right Church circles… Sergei Stagorodsky was a great hero imprisoned TWICE for Christ’s sake, he preserved the Holy Church for posterity… shall the ROCOR apologise publicly for its support of the Nazis and the CIA (by the way, it’s the ONLY apology necessary)? Now, that’s a SERIOUS question. Quo vadis, ROCOR? After all, HH stated publicly that he held anti-Sergei opinions as a young man, but that he came to a better understanding with maturity, and that he regretted such a stance now.

That’s the question… perspirin’ minds wanna know… do they stand for the Great Victory that St Serafim Vyritsky prayed for… or, do they still favour the godless and grasping opponents of Russia and the Orthosphere in their heart-of-hearts? Will they come to their senses, disown the “culture wars“, and overturn the Golden Calf of Rightwing Politics? On the other hand, will they harden their hearts and continue to dance around it in Dionysian abandon drunk on the wine of Libertarianism to the tune of the Koch brothers? We’ll have to see, won’t we?

* Addendum:

In its journal of 25-27 October 1990, the MP Archpastoral Council stated that the church isn’t bound by the Declaration of Metropolitan Sergei Stagorodsky of 1927, but it accentuated:

With all truth, we emphasise that the Declaration of 1927 doesn’t contain anything contrary to the Word of God, it doesn’t contain heresy, thus, there was no reason to move away from the accepted Church administration. …

We’re accused of “trampling on the memory of New Martyrs and Confessors“. Here, we’ll definitely state that our Church never interrupted prayerful remembrance of the martyrs for Christ amongst our bishops and clergy. Now, the whole world knows, we’ve started the process of glorification, which according to ancient Church tradition should be outside the influence of ephemeral political trends. …

However, for a long time, the Mother Church has been lenient to its wayward children, despite the fact that in the difficult years of persecution their irresponsible behaviour deepened her wounds and increased her torment. Now, we’re still ready to understand and to forgive. Even despite the fact that the leadership of the ROCOR has strengthened the existing divisions, forming a parallel hierarchy by encouraging parishes on the canonical territory of the MP, we once again extend a hand to them, calling for an open and honest dialogue on all matters of disagreement between us. In this regard, we’re ready to have a public debate in Moscow or elsewhere (within a scientific church conference or otherwise) on all matters of life of our Church in this century, especially, in relation to the Declaration of 1927.

http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/525416.html

This journal was issued one year BEFORE the fall of the USSR. That is, the church revival was in full swing. For ten years after the release of this journal, the ROCOR stopped up its ears and continued to attack the MP at the behest of its Western sponsors. Let those with open minds see that the ROCOR circles who claim that the Mother Church “repented of Sergainism” aren’t speaking the whole truth (to put it charitably… some circles that state such aren’t culpable… they’d lose their situations if they didn’t repeat the party-line of the Hard Right).

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Thursday 9 May 2013

Albany NY

Victory Day Traditions… Old and New

“We Remember… We’re Proud!”

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Victory Day is a great holiday that unites all generations of Russians, Russian compatriots abroad, and all people on our planet who commemorate the heroes of the Second World War. The new century added new traditions of celebrating Victory Day to those that gradually formed after the war. Nazi Germany signed the Act of Military Surrender in Karlshorst near Berlin on 9 May 1945 at 00.43 MSK. By the evening of the same day, Radio Moscow broadcast the news about the Great Victory over the Nazis on the radio. The USSR had waited for this news for the 1,418 days of that horrible war. People’s exultation knew no bounds. People crowded the city squares crying and laughing out of happiness. On 24 June 1945, after a month-and-a-half of preparations, the legendary Victory Parade occurred on Red Square in Moscow.

Mikhail Myagkov, scientific director of the Russian Military and Historical Society, professor of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, said, “In the first two post-war years, 9 May was a holiday, but then it became a working day again, although it was a public holiday. It became a day-off again only in 1965. By that time, one generation had passed. By the mid-1960s, those who survived the war were regarded as veterans”. Those who witnessed Victory Day celebrations in the ‘60s will never forget how the veterans, most of who weren’t old at all, went out to the streets wearing all their orders and medals. People were proud of them and were confident in the future of their country. Myagkov continued, “Every year, the number of veterans gets smaller. We’re still proud of them and try to take them as a model. Only they can tell the younger generation what a threat was hanging over our country when the enemy approached Moscow. Only they can tell young people how our army retreated to the banks of the Volga River, but managed to go on the offensive and take Berlin”.

In 1965, a military parade on Red Square marked the 20th anniversary of the Great Victory. Since then, a military parade on 9 May became an annual tradition. Other cities with military bases also held such parades. Writer and psychologist Sergei Klyuchnikov said, “This glorious tradition was interrupted in 1990, but revived in 1995, which is very important. It helps young people understand that we’re all one united country with a unique destiny and history. They see that there were times when things other than materialistic values mattered. In a certain way, this is a sign of our nation’s recovery”.

The 21st century brought new traditions of celebrating Victory Day. One such new tradition is the St George ribbon campaign, which has occurred on the eve of the Victory Day for nine years already, in which millions of Russians and compatriots in 100 countries take part. Orange-black ribbons handed out by volunteers in the streets are one more sign of our commemoration of the Great Victory. This year, for the first time, all across Russia from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok, people are marching in “Parades of the Immortal Regiments”. Young people march in the streets carrying big portraits of their beloved grandfathers who fought in the VOV. Nevertheless, the military parade on Red Square remains the key event of the celebration. This year, 11,000 troops, more than 1,000 military vehicles, and 68 combat aircraft are to take part in it. In the evening, just like 68 years ago, the authorities will fire off festive fireworks in honour of the Great Victory.

9 May 2013

Mikhail Aristov

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_05_09/Victory-Day-traditions-old-and-new/

Putin Sez Russia Would Do Its Best to Stop Anybody From Starting a War

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On Red Square in Moscow, in his address at the Victory Day parade, President Vladimir Putin said that Russia would do everything possible to prevent anybody from ever starting a new war, noting, “We’ll do our best to ensure security on the planet”. He gave holiday greetings to everyone on the 68th anniversary of the Great Victory in the Great Patriotic War.

9 May 2013

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_05_09/Russia-will-do-its-best-to-stop-anybody-from-starting-a-war-Putin/

Editor’s Note:

I’m not a pacifist, nor do I condemn war absolutely. War is a thoroughly-nasty business, best not engaged in unless national survival is at stake (as it was in the VOV), but the profession of arms is honourable and clean, and soldiers and policemen are straight upright people who chose service rather than profit (do give me a cop or a grunt over a stockbroker, lawyer, salesman, or accountant, thank you very much).

The Red Army saved the world from the Fascist nightmare… if you doubt this, only look at Auschwitz and Hadamar. You can have Vladimir Putin, Gennady Zyuganov, Pyotr Simonenko, and HH on the one hand, or, you can have Rod Dreher, Victor Potapov, James Paffhausen, the Koch brothers, and Wet Willy Romney on the other. That’s the only choice on offer in the real world… I’ve chosen… I think that my choice is obvious. Shall you join me?

Glory to the Victors!

Nothing is forgotten… no one is forgotten.

BMD

Please Don’t Lecture Russia

THIS was the REAL USSR… any questions?

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When I first visited Russia more than 30 years ago, it was still part of the USSR. The idea of any independent or critical press, of open debates in a parliament, or of popular demonstrations against government policies that would bring scores of thousands of people into the streets of Moscow, was inconceivable then. Today, Russia has many critics in the West, who accuse it of sliding back into dictatorship. What is their proposed solution? Usually, it is to criticise Russia and its leaders and try to strong-arm them into adopting policies of greater democracy and alleged greater respect for human rights.

These attitudes stem from a pervasive faith shared by liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans in the USA that’s so pervasive, that its greatest believers are totally unaware of how much they’re in thrall to it. They believe that democracy is the only acceptable political system around the world, and that, consequently, the USA should wage a ceaseless ideological crusade, not resting until, at least, all the major nations of the world share the same limitless blessings of a perfect democratic system.

Now, I’m all in favour of democracy myself… I prefer living within a fully-democratic system rather than under a communist, fascist, or repressive theocracy. However, I’m against waging wars to imposing the American, or any other, democratic system, on other nations. I’m equally opposed to a purely-ideological foreign policy that would treat the governments of the world purely according to how Freedom House and similar bodies grade them according to how it assesses their freedoms. This is hardly an anti-American position. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Quincy Adams, and modern Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush, and Bill Clinton believed and acted exactly the same way.

Ironically, the history of the West and the USA over the past three-quarters of a century exposes the dangerous folly of such self-righteous fantasies. Britain and the USA only won World War II against Nazi Germany because they were allies with the USSR under Iosif Stalin. I believe that not one in 100,000 Americans alive today knows or remembers that it was the Red Army, not the American or British forces, which liberated the Nazi extermination complexes of Auschwitz and Majdanek in Poland.

Nor did Western pragmatism… or hypocrisy… end with the destruction of the truly-evil Third Reich. Many still hail President Nixon as an American statesman and peacemaker for his détente policy with the USSR and his outreach to China. Not all the repercussions of the Watergate scandal that forced him to resign can take that away. Yet, Nixon, like Reagan after him, supported the two most corrupt régimes on the planet for decades, which ground hundreds of millions of their unfortunate peoples into degradation and despair. These were the kleptocratic dictatorships of Indonesia under President Suharto and Zaïre (today called the Democratic Republic of the Congo) under President Mobuto Sese Seko.

Russia has come an amazingly long way since I first visited it in the spring thaw season of 1982. That doesn’t mean its political system is the same as those of the USA or the major nations of Western Europe. However, it’s no Indonesia under Suharto or Zaïre under Mobutu either. What’s more, the USA never had any trouble getting along with them. All the moral lecturing of Russia by Western critics misses two crucial points.

First, even if Russia were to relapse back into some form of strict authoritarian government… and so far it hasn’t… that wouldn’t make war or conflict with the USA or the West inevitable. The USA, the British Empire, and the communist USSR were reliable and exceptional successful allies to each other throughout World War II. Then, the USA and the USSR successfully steered clear of any direct conflict in the 44 years of the Cold War from 1945 to 1989. It wasn’t easy; at times, they came dangerously close to war. Second, ensuring Russia remains a democracy won’t be a guarantee of peace with Russia, even if such a starry-eyed, ill-defined, reckless, and irresponsible policy such as intervening in Russia’s internal affairs could ever succeed. For throughout modern history, democracies have often waged war on other countries, including on other democracies. The idea that the best guarantee of world peace is a world filled with, and dominated by, democracies is just another myth.

What the USA and Russia really need is a serious dialogue between their top leaderships aimed at defusing tensions and managing real and unavoidable conflicts of interest. Both nations need to work hard on identifying their areas of mutual interest, and expanding them. The last thing American and other Western leaders need to do is to cave into the mounting hysteria from the think-tanks and the armchair strategists churning out their endless morally-outraged columns for the op-ed pages, and embrace a policy of ideological criticism and name-calling against Russia. The two thermonuclear superpowers need to respect each other and improve their cooperation… the peace of the world demands it.

9 March 2013

Martin Sieff

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_03_09/Please-don-t-lecture-Russia/

Editor’s Note:

Orthodox people should note that Victor Potapov, Alexander Webster, James Paffhausen, and Rod Dreher have sold out to the American Consumerist Dream and to the American Democratic Fantasy. They’re Sergianists (those who suck up to the powers-that-be for the scraps that fall from the high table) of the foulest and worst sort. They’re part of the “mounting hysteria from the think-tanks and the armchair strategists churning out their endless morally-outraged columns for the op-ed pages, and embrace a policy of ideological criticism and name-calling against Russia”. Potapov was/is an open US government propagandist. Webster and Dreher are “stink-tankers”; Paffhausen is tied to the American Enterprise Institute (one of the most Far Right stink-tanks in the District). In short, these people are traitors to the Orthosphere, and we must treat them accordingly.

You can follow HH and his support of Social Justice… or you can follow the above sell-out jabronies who’re supporters of “Greed is Good” and “The Race Goes to the Swiftest” (that’s what support of the contemporary Republican Party means). I’ve chosen… it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know where I stand… by the way, I’m far from alone…

BMD