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 

VICTORY DAY IN MOSCOW. VLADIMIR PUTIN IS NOT COMING TO CAMP DAVID.

VICTORY DAY

IS CELEBRATED

IN MOSCOW

VOLGOGRAD, RUSSIA, USSR, 1984

STATUES OF A SOVIET SOLDIER &

MOTHER RUSSIA, COMMEMORATING

THE BATTLE OF STALINGRAD

THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR (WORLD WAR II)

May 9 is celebrated in Russia as Victory Day -- for May 9, 1945, and the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. As the newly re-inaugurated Russian President Vladimir Putin put it today, "it was our country that bore the brunt of the Nazi attack, met it with historic resistance [as in Stalingrad, see above], traversed immense hardships, determined the war's outcome, routed the enemy and liberated the world's peoples."

Putin also made it official today, in a phone conversation with U.S. President Barrack Obama, that he would not be coming to the G-8 summit at Camp David next week. Newly ex-President Dmitry Medvedev would be coming instead, officially in his brand-new (as of yesterday) capacity of Prime Minister.

Putin is still scheduled to attend the G-20 meeting in Mexico in June.

THE BATTLE OF STALINGRAD ENDS, February 2, 1943

THE BATTLE OF 

STALINGRAD ENDS 

February 2, 1943 

STALINGRAD BATTLE PANORAMIC MUSEUM 

VOLGOGRAD (STALINGRAD), RUSSIA 

RONALD REAGAN TELLS A JOKE. STALINGRAD IS NOT AMUSED.

RONALD REAGAN

TELLS A JOKE

STALINGRAD IS NOT AMUSED

It was August 11, 1984, the summer of the last year of Ronald Reagan's first term, a time of a Cold War newly heated up,
before Nancy Reagan helped convince him that peace made a more useful historical legacy.

It was the summer of the Los Angeles Olympics and the Soviet tit-for-tat retaliatory boycott of those Olympics (we had devastated the Soviets by boycotting their 1980 Moscow Olympics after the invasion of Afghanistan).

In the warm-up to that Saturday's radio address, President Reagan made a 'joke' declaring 'Russia' an outlaw nation, and announcing that the bombs would fly "in five minutes."

Ah, well, it was explained, he did not know the microphone was on.

Ronald Reagan had begun his career, half a century before, as a radio announcer.

I was that summer wandering around the Soviet Union for seven weeks by myself, exploring and taking photographs. By the time I arrived in Volgograd -- formerly known as Stalingrad, 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.

More to come in

RUSSIA REDUX

RUSSIA CELEBRATES VICTORY IN THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR SIXTY-FIVE YEARS ON: PART OF THE PRICE PAID

RUSSIA CELEBRATES VICTORY

IN THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR

(WORLD WAR II)

SIXTY-FIVE YEARS ON

THE ETERNAL FLAME

AND SOME OF THE NAMES

OF THE DEAD

IN THE BATTLE OF STALINGRAD

VOLGOGRAD (RUSSIA)

BACK IN THE USSR

1984

SOME OF THE PRICE PAID

VOLGOGRAD: STALINGRAD AFTER THE BATTLE OF STALINGRAD & AFTER STALIN

VOLGOGRAD:

STALINGRAD AFTER

THE BATTLE OF STALINGRAD

& AFTER STALIN

A city so reduced to rubble in the Great Patriotic War

(World War II) that some thought it not worth

re-building, came to life with typical Soviet

construction (and typical Russian touches?).

Here is a scene from downtown Volgograd in 1984.

"HERE BE GIANTS"

VICTORY IN THE BATTLE OF STALINGRAD

VICTORY IN

THE BATTLE OF STALINGRAD

FEBRUARY 2, 1943

In Volgograd (the former Stalingrad), in 1984, in the

then Soviet Union, a boy checks out an airplane from

the Great Patriotic War (World War II) Battle of

Stalingrad.

Other monuments from that turning part in the war

against Nazi Germany are to be found here and here.

"HERE BE GIANTS"

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"

"MOTHER RUSSIA" IS IN DANGER

"MOTHER RUSSIA"

Is

In Danger

"Mother Russia," the hugely tall monument to the Battle of Stalingrad officially known as The Motherland Calls!, is in danger. The statue sits on top of the hill called Mamayev Kurgan in the Russian city now known as Volgograd. When it was built, four decades ago, it was the tallest in the world; now it is sinking, and, possibly, in danger of toppling.

The size of the monument is breathtaking. This representation of what after all is meant to be human leaves actual human beings creatures of a totally different scale.

The scale of the killing in the killing fields of the hill "Mamayev Kurgan," and in Stalingrad as a whole, is likewise hard to grasp. It is estimated that two million people perished in the battle.