THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR BEGAN ONE HUNDRED TEN YEARS AGO; TODAY PUTIN AND ABE MET TO TALK ABOUT TALKING ABOUT SOME OF THE SAME OLD ISSUES

THE RUSSO-JAPANESE 

WAR BROKE OUT 

February 8, 1904 

THE SEA OF OKHOTSK 

off the Southeastern Shore 
of Sakhalin Island 

South Sakhalin ("Karafuto") was won by the Japanese as a result 
of  their victory in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 

Captured by the USSR in World War II; the entire island is part of Russia 

Still in contention: 

Four islands and groups of islets known as the Kurils (Kuriles) by the Russians, and as the Northern Territories by the Japanese;

under Soviet and then Russian control since World War II 

Some background, here 

Today on the sidelines of the Sochi Winter Olympics Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met and agreed to talk about the sticky island dispute, which has prevented the two countries from signing a peace treaty winding up World War II, at their next meeting, scheduled to take place again in Sochi, at the upcoming G8 summit in June of this year. 

President Putin will then visit Japan in the fall. 

SOCHI THEN AND NOW: HOME OF THE 2014 WINTER OLYMPIC GAMES

SOCHI 

IN THE 

SPOTLIGHT 

SOCHI BACK IN THE USSR 
Summer of 1984 

"In the nineteen-seventies and eighties, when everything was government sponsored, it used to be packed here. You couldn't move on the beach without someone taking your place." -- Aleksandr Zakharov, General Director, Radisson Lazurnaya Hotel, Sochi, Russia, quoted in "The Road to Sochi," audio report by Robin Lustig, BBC, February 4, 2014. 

Robin Lustig also has an article in the Financial Times, "Observations from Sochi," which overlaps the radio "Documentary." The radio version has material not covered in print; well worth listening to. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Sochi today; addressed the International Olympic Committee; and cuddled with a Persian leopard. 

More Sochi here; more Putin here. 

AFTER THE GAMES ARE OVER, II: ON THE EVE OF SOCHI, REMAINS OF AN OLYMPICS PAST

AFTER THE CIRCUS 

HAS LEFT TOWN II 

BEJING OLYMPIC PARK

WITH TORCH 

AFTER THE GAMES ARE OVER: ONE WEEK TILL THE 2014 OLYMPICS

AFTER THE 

CIRCUS 

HAS LEFT TOWN 

"WELCOME TO BEJING OLYMPIC PARK" 

THE SIGN SAYS; 

"SECURITY CHECK" 

The Summer Olympics were held in China in August 2008; the photograph was taken after another major multi-day event, the 18th Congress of the Communist Party of China, in October 2012. 

What will become of the Olympic venues for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, due begin this February 7? Vladimir Putin has scheduled the G8 summit for Sochi this June. 

ONE MONTH TO GO TILL THE SOCHI OLYMPICS

LOCATION, LOCATION, 

LOCATION, AND 

SECURITY, SECURITY, 

SECURITY 

INTERIOR OF THE MOTHER RUSSIA 

MEMORIAL TO THE 

BATTLE OF STALINGRAD 

VOLGOGRAD, RUSSIA 

The world has had a few years to get used to the fact that Russia's first Winter Olympics was to be held in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, better known for its beaches than its ice skating. It had also not gone unnoticed that Sochi was uncomfortably close to the restive North Caucasus region. 

Just over a week ago, on December 29 and 30, suicide bombers struck not at Sochi but several hundred miles away at the presumably easier target of Volgograd, devastated in the pivotal World War II Battle of Stalingrad. Terror struck first a train station and then a bus, in the run-up and on the road to the Olympics. 

Read more here and here 

"THESE BOOTS ARE MADE FOR WALKING" ... IN OLYMPIC PARK, BEIJING

ALL WRAPPED UP 

A COLD DAY IN 

OLYMPIC PARK 

BEIJING, CHINA 

BILL BRADLEY HAS A BIRTHDAY AND A NEW BOOK

WILLIAM WARREN ("BILL") BRADLEY

b. July 28, 1943

BILL BRADLEY AS

U.S. SENATOR (D-N.J.)

Published in the January 31, 1983, issue of

BUSINESS WEEK (p. 96)

As we are celebrating the Olympics, a tip of the hat to an American 1964 Olympics Basketball Gold Medalist, Princeton's Bill Bradley, celebrating his sixty-ninth today. Bradley went on to a professional basketball career and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1983: "As a ten-year pro with the New York Knicks, 'Dollar Bill' was an integral part of a team of many all-stars and developed into one of the league's top forwards, helping to lead the team to the 1970 and 1973 NBA championships."

Bradley went on to serve three terms in the U.S. Senate (1979-1997), and ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 2000. The sitting vice-president, Al Gore, beat him in that contest.

We Can All Do Better is the title of Bradley's new book. Linda Campbell has a review, here, in which she asks, "Can you see why I'm still fixated on Bill Bradley, the nominee who might have been?" Campbell notes that "Despite his broad experience and deep intellect, he couldn't persuade the Democratic in 2000 that he was the better man to put up against George W. Bush for president," but he keeps on plugging, discussing "things that matter."

More on Bill Bradley here and here.

EUNICE KENNEDY SHRIVER b. July 10, 1921

EUNICE KENNEDY SHRIVER

July 10, 1921-August 11, 2009

THOMAS P. ("TIP") O'NEILL, JR.

&

EUNICE KENNEDY SHRIVER

shake on it at a soirée overlooking

New York's Central Park

during the 1976 Democratic National Convention

Eunice Mary Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, the middle child of Joseph P. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy's nine children, got a B.A. from Stanford, married R. Sargent Shriver, Jr., and had five children. Beyond all that, looming large in her legacy, are the Special Olympics, which she founded in honor of her sister Rosemary ("Rosie").

A website in her honor is here; the New York Times obituary is here; and the CNN obituary is here; a tribute by her daughter Maria Shriver is here.

BILL BRADLEY b. July 28, 1943

BILL BRADLEY 

b. July 28, 1943 

Senator BILL BRADLEY (D-N.J.) 

(former basketball star, 

 Princeton-Olympics-Knicks) 

 speaking to the 

1988 Democratic National Convention 

Bradley's official Senate (plus) biography (he served 1979-1997) is here. 

A photograph of mine from his first (1978) campaign for Senate is here -- Bradley meeting with workers at the Ford plant in Mahwah, New Jersey. 

A bit about Bradley's loss to Al Gore in the 2000 Democratic presidential primaries is here. 

An appreciation from his home town from February of this year is here:  "Crystal City [Missouri] remains a part of Bill Bradley"; this article includes an action picture of Bradley from fifty years ago. 

THE BIKINI IS SIXTY-FIVE YEARS OLD TODAY

LOUIS RÉARD 

INTRODUCES 

THE BIKINI  

July 5, 1946 

ON THE BEACH 

SOCHI (RUSSIA) USSR 1984 

1984 was the year Louis Réard, its inventor, died (at eighty-seven or eighty-eight, depending on who is counting). 

It is said that he was an automobile engineer, though whether of sleek racing cars, I have yet to discover.  His mother had a dress shop; Réard had a competitor; and "atomic" was in the air. So were the Bikini Atoll tests -- the first one had just been launched four days before -- and Voilà!  The Bikini was born. 

(That "atomic" had such power as a marketing device -- with a touch of magic? "awesome"? -- may not sound credible today.  But once upon a time ....) 

The bikini was certainly much in evidence in Soviet Sochi in the summer of 1984, when I was on my first trip to the USSR (see photograph above). 

The USSR, it turned out, had a bit more than seven years to run, to seventy-four (counting since the Revolution of 1917). 

The bikini is sixty-five today. 

The Winter Olympics are due to be held in Sochi in 2014. 

For more, see here and here and here (April 26 and April 28, 2009). 

MOTHER'S DAY, WAR, AND COLD WAR: MAY 8

MAY 8 

MOTHER'S DAY 

WAR 

& 

COLD WAR 

MOTHER & DAUGHTER 

NOVOSIBIRSK (RUSSIA), USSR, 1984 

May 8, 1945, is celebrated as V-E Day (May 9 as Victory Day by the USSR and now Russia) -- the end of World War II in Europe. 

On May 8, 1984, the Soviet Union announced that it would boycott the Los Angeles Olympics in the summer of 1984, ostensibly because it feared for the safety of its athletes. 

The real reason was generally understood to be retaliation for the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. 

A couple of months later I was wandering around the USSR by myself ("wandering" meaning following an itinerary I had chosen for myself, but specified and paid for in advance) for seven weeks; in Siberia, in Novosibirsk, I took the photograph above. 

And why had the U.S. boycotted the Moscow Olympics, so dear to "Moscow's" heart?  Because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on December 27, 1979 (with Soviet troops not withdrawing until February 15, 1989). 

On October 7, 2001, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan.  This war has already lasted longer than the Soviets'; with Bin Laden dead and 9/11 presumably avenged, what next? 

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY 

DOWN BY THE SEASHORE, SOCHI, RUSSIA

DOWN BY THE 

SEASHORE 

AGAIN 

Photograph © Gwendolyn Stewart 2010; All Rights Reserved 

SOCHI, RUSSIA 

BACK IN THE USSR, 1984 

Future home of the 2014 Winter Olympics 

RUN-UP TO THE SOCHI OLYMPICS

RUN-UP TO 

THE 

SOCHI OLYMPICS 

OUCH! 

SUMMER SUNBURN AT SOCHI, RUSSIA 

(IN 1984, BACK IN THE USSR), 

SITE OF THE 2014 WINTER OLYMPICS-TO-BE 

International Olympic Committee chief Jacques Rogge is visiting, at a time of fears of a surplus of costs and a possible deficit of top-notch Russian athletes. 

DMITRY ANATOLYEVICH & THE OLYMPICS: PRESIDENT MEDVEDEV IS NOT BEST PLEASED

DMITRY ANATOLYEVICH

& THE OLYMPICS

RUSSIAN PRESIDENT

MEDVEDEV

IS NOT BEST PLEASED

Calls For Sports Officials' Heads

"'We had very negative emotions,' the president said Monday. 'But we need to move forward. ... Without messing around, we need to start preparations for Sochi,'" reported the Wall Street Journal. 

"Sochi" refers to the 2014 Winter Olympics in 

the seaside town of Sochi, Russia.

STALINGRAD TANK & BOY

STALINGRAD TANK & BOY

May 9 is Victory Day in Russia, the equivalent of V-E Day for the U.S. and Europe, where it is celebrated on May 9 (different time zones).

Pictured above, a Soviet boy playing on one of the tanks in one of the memorials to the Battle of Stalingrad, one of the turning points of "The Great Patriotic War," or World War II. By this boy's time the city had lost the "Stalin" in its name, and as "Volgograd" now honored the river Volga and not the former Leader of the USSR.

It was 1984, and I was wandering around the Soviet Union for seven weeks by myself, exploring and taking photographs. By the time I arrived in Volgograd, I was quite cut off from the outside world.

So it was left to an angry woman in this city in which, as the Soviets saw it, they helped save the world from the Nazis, to inform me that President Ronald Reagan had threatened to bomb the USSR.

It was the summer of the Los Angeles Olympics, and the Soviets were staging a tit-for-tat retaliatory boycott of those Olympics. The U.S. had devastated them by boycotting their 1980 Moscow Olympics after they had invaded Afghanistan.

The Chinese in more recent years could not have wanted their Olympics more than the Soviets wanted theirs then, or Vladimir Putin wants the Winter Olympics in Sochi now.

The Cold War had newly heated up. Into this time of tension, Ronald Reagan let fall his "joke," in the warm-up to one of his Saturday radio addresses. He declared "Russia" an outlaw nation and announced that the bombs would fly in five minutes.

"HERE BE GIANTS"