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: 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 

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). 

DMITRY MEDVEDEV TURNS 45

DMITRY MEDVEDEV 

b. September 14, 1965 

THE THIRD PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA 

-- here seen dressed up for a summit; spending today with his family in Sochi, Russia -- 

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"