27 January 2016. Some of My Favourite Things… Dmitri Khovorostovsky… One of the Sexiest Men Alive

******

______________________________

D A Khvorostovsky has to be one of the sexiest men alive today. Here, he sings one of the old standards (with English subs) with A Yu Netrebko at an outdoor concert in the Kremlin.

BMD

Advertisement

ITAR-TASS Presents… Memories of Soviet New Years

New Year celebration in 1963 in the Dom Profsoyuzov, Moscow (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic) USSR

******

Ded Moroz and Snegurochka entertain children in the Kremlin Palace of the Soviets, Moscow, 1977

******

New Year celebration in the Kremlin Palace of the Soviets

******

New Year celebration in the Kremlin Palace of the Soviets

******

Queue at Detsky Mir (Children’s World) toy store, Moscow, 1983

******

New Year celebration in the Tbilisi Palace of Sports, Tbilisi (Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic) USSR

******

Buying a new TV set ahead of the New Year holiday, 1963

******

New Year programme on Estonian TV, 1982

********

New Year celebration in a kindergarten, Moscow, 1964

******

Sale on the Arbat ahead of New Year, Moscow, 1985

******

Ded Moroz at a winter Pioneer camp in Moscow Oblast, 1984

******

Antonov An-2 aircraft delivered New Year trees to residents in Bukhara Oblast, Uzbek SSR, 1965

******

Ded Moroz and Snegurochka in Altai Krai USSR, 1980

******

New Year celebration, 1985

******

Ded Moroz leads gymnastics class in Moscow, 1985

******

Ded Moroz in Riga, Latvian SSR, 1986

______________________________

The first official New Year performance for children in the USSR was in the Column Hall of Moscow’s Dom Profsoyuzov (House of Trades Unions) in 1936. These images recall Soviet New Year celebrations and activities.

29 December 2014

ITAR-TASS

http://itar-tass.com/en/non-political/769813

Editor:

THIS is the “Evil Empire” that pigs like Victor Potapov and Patrick Buchanan expostulated about. Living standards in the USSR were lower than in the USA because the Soviets had to spend huge amounts on armaments to defend against Western aggression and rebuild their war damage, all at once. The USA suffered NO war damage… so American boasting about the Cold War is wrong, not to the point, and mendacious in the extreme. The main Sov forces were in the Western Military District in Byelorussia, that’s where all the most-modern stuff was… the forces in Germany and Czechoslovakia were meant to absorb the impact of a Western attack. The history of the last twenty-odd years proves that wasn’t paranoia… the Anglo Americans are violent and peevish toddlers… ask the Serbs, Afghans, Yemenis, Palestinians, Iraqis, and Novorossiyans… and the Native Americans and Filipinos before them (a Filipino said, “The Spaniards were bad, the Americanos were worse, the Hapons were worse than that, but the worst of all were the New Americanos”).

The USSR was done in by Gorbachyov’s incompetence, not the “superiority” of the West. VVP is right… the fall of the USSR was a historical tragedy. These photos prove it. One last thing… this image set is NOT anti-Soviet… fancy that… it proves that Russians do NOT despise their past, as Anglo Americans do. I think that a new socialism is arising in Russia. A spectre haunts the country clubs and Tea Party haunts… methinks that the prideful rightwing obituaries for socialism were a bit premature…

BMD

Putin Unveils Monument to Tsar Aleksandr Pavlovich at Kremlin Wall

         

******

******

******

******

******

______________________________

On Thursday, President V V Putin unveiled a monument to the Tsar Aleksandr Pavlovich crafted by renowned sculptor S А Shcherbakov at the Borovitsky Gate to the Moscow Kremlin in the Aleksandrovsky Sad. Putin pointed up that Aleksandr Pavlovich played a considerable role in uniting Russia and in steadfastly defending Russian independence, saying, “Aleksandr Pavlovich entered the history as Napoleon’s conqueror, as a forward-looking strategist and diplomat, as a statesman who shouldered responsibility for the development of European and global security. [He] was the father of the contemporary system of European and international security, which was quite adequate to the times”, adding that he set up a balance on the basis of mutual respect for countries’ interests as well as moral values. Putin pointed to Russia’s stance towards France’s sovereignty at the time, noting, “It’s worth mentioning how respectfully and noble-minded Russia… the victorious country… treated France’s sovereignty and the national dignity of the French”. Along with this, he emphasised Aleksandr Pavlovich’s role in Russia’s renovation and consolidation, observing, “That time saw much governmental and legal reform on tap, Russia’s first circumnavigation of the world, new five universities opened, the rebuilding of Russia’s ancient capital Moscow after [Napoleon’s] invasion and the fire, and the building of the Manezh and Kremlin Armoury, along with the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour”.

20 November 2014

ITAR-TASS

http://itar-tass.com/en/non-political/760860

Editor:

Aleksandr Pavlovich led the Russian forces into Paris in 1814, breaking Napoleon’s power for good and all. There’s an American angle to that. After the death of FDR, Harry Truman took over as US President. Truman was a genius at domestic politics… and utterly ignorant of history and foreign affairs. Churchill led him about by the nose… FDR wanted to see the British Empire dismantled, whilst Truman’s subservience to Churchill’s potty notions gave the UK 20 more years of imperial influence (World War II knackered the UK, but Truman’s bovine stupidity about the larger world allowed Whitehall to continue imperial adventures for 20 more years than it should have… FDR would’ve never allowed that). Churchill’s fancies led us into the Cold War… and to a famous incident that highlighted Truman’s ignorance of the world outside America. Truman shouted to Stalin, “You have no right being in Berlin! You’re too far west!” Iosif Vissarionovich simply moved his pipe and said, “Yes… in 1814, we were in Paris!” Anglo Americans are simply clueless and empty-headed in their threats… Russians simply remind them of the facts. Yes… in 1814, we were in Paris. Tsar Aleksandr Pavlovich dictated the peace… on humane Russian terms, not on Carthaginian Anglo American terms. Not only haven’t we forgotten it…. neither have the French! We have all too many people today with Truman’s ignorance of the greater world in American politics… Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Willard Romney, John Boehner, Rick Santorum, and Sarah Palin, to name a few. V V Putin knows the truth… if the truth sets you free, then, falsehood imprisons one in a walled ghetto. Note well how the Anglo Americans REVEL in their ignorance. They have nuclear weapons… they used them even though it was unnecessary to secure Japan’s surrender. Ponder that…

BMD

12 June 2014. Our Great Russian Motherland… The Moscow Kremlin Decked Out in Electric Lights… for the 1896 Coronation of Tsar St Nikolai Aleksandrovich

______________________________

You hear constant mewling from the zapadniki on how “backward” we Russians are and on how we need their guidance. Well, this image is of the Moscow Kremlin decked out in electric lights… in 1896! That is, 118 years ago. Russia is just as forward-looking as everyone else, but it’s had to rebuild from the ground up after THREE major upheavals… World War I/Civil War, the VOV, and the New Smuta of the Nasty 90s. America’s never had to do that, except for the American South, devastated in the American Civil War… and it took that region a century to recover from that. That’s to say, the American Neoliberal ideology is a juvenile construct… it’s never had to face a fully adult task such as rebuilding a shattered economy and infrastructure… and in short order, at that. That’s why you must discount all neoliberal “conservative” bloviations (and all “conservative” bloviators)… it’s a philosophy only fit for selfish, ignorant, and grasping children.

Russia is one of the leading nation-states of the world… this photo proves it…

BMD