18 November 2012. Video. Some of My Favourite Things… Sretensky Choir Sings Я люблю тебя, жизнь

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Everyone remembers how the late great Mark Bernes sang this wonderful and positive song… I Love You, Life! This is one of my all-time faves…

BMD

12 May 2012. A Multimedia Presentation. Никто не забыт, ничто не забыто… No One Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Forgotten… These ARE My Heroes… We Owe Them SO MUCH!

Praskoviya Sergeyevna, the 90-year-old widow of a front-line fighter

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Vasili Nikolaevich and his wife have been married for 60 years… he was a gunner in an artillery unit during the war

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Mikhail Aleksandrovich was a front-line VOV fighter…

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Mikhail Aleksandrovich and his wife Zoe Tikhonovna have been married for 55 years…

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“The White Cranes“… a fitting end… the original version sung by the late great Mark Bernes… “they say that soldiers do not rest in the earth, but they take flight as white cranes”… “is there a spot there for me?” This can make the stones weep…

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Mikhail Aleksandrovich went to the front in 1944 and was wounded in battle…

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They did so much… as did all of their colleagues from around the world in the Anti-Hitler Coalition. They destroyed a vicious, inhumane, and godless system… one that glorified an all-powerful state, brute force, and filthy materialism. The cost was shockingly high, in lives, in money, and in irreplaceable lost artefacts. We can put down the rightwing hydra now, it’s nothing but the spiritual descendant of the Nazis (and those like unto to them), or we’ll have to do the same. Must we? History tells us what happens when we appease brutish moneygrubbers and allow them to exercise their power-hungry “freedoms”.

If I had to choose between these people and Mitt Romney’s crowd, there’s no contest. Whom do you choose?

BMD 

Video. Zhuravli (The White Cranes). Mark Bernes

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A simple and moving rendition of a song by the late great Mark Bernes invoking the memory of the fallen soldiers of the Second Great Patriotic War. “Heroes when they die, aren’t buried in the earth, they become white cranes… yes, there’s a place open for me”. Mr Bernes has such a moving and simple style that, even if you don’t understand Russian, you shall be moved to tears.