Windows to Russia

Hello,

I was drinking my morning cup of coffee and thinking about Putin offering talks over the disputed Islands at the North End of Japan.

Japan has territorial issues with three of its neighbors. Each and every instance seems impossible, and each is a major issue in Japan’s relations with those neighbors. North of Hokkaido, Japan claims the four islands that it calls the ‘Northern Territories’. To Japan’s northwest is Takeshima, claimed by the South Koreans. West of Japan is the Senkakus, which China claims.

The set of Islands I am going to talk about is the “Northern Territories”

How did these islands become Russia’s? (Glad you asked!)

The dispute is a direct result of the Second World War. When Japan surrendered, Soviet troops had island-hopped their way down the Kurils, preparing to invade Hokkaido. Stalin announced that the Kurils and the southern half of Sakhalin Island would be in Soviet hands.

Then at the Treaty of San Francisco of 1951, the document that attempted to tie up the loose ends of Japan’s Greater East Asia War, the islands were incorporated into the USSR. The treaty included: “Japan renounces all right, title and claim to the Kurile Islands, and to that portion of Sakhalin and the islands adjacent to it over which Japan acquired sovereignty as a consequence of the Treaty of Portsmouth of 5 September 1905.”

However, the Soviet Union attended but did not sign the treaty, so their incorporation was subject to dispute. Furthermore, the USSR (or later, Russia) did not sign any formal settlement treaty with Japan so the issue persists.

Now Putin has inquired about meeting to discuss getting this issue solved. Both sides have claims to the Islands:

What are the Claims? (Glad you asked!)

For Russia, the matter is fairly straightforward: Territory. The international system does not take to territorial disputes very well as the status quo is nearly always favored. With the territory, Russia has secured military outposts and fishing villages, as well as a further projection into the Pacific. Alongside this is the issue of pride and prestige, both of which will be hit by a relinquishing of the islands.

For Japan, the stakes are more cultural. They were settled by Japanese families and according to Buddhist tradition, their graves remain there, difficult to reach during times of remembrance, such as O-bon. They offer fishing stocks for the fisherman of Hokkaido and would offer more open passage to the Pacific from the opposite side of Hokkaido. The historical claims blend into the political one, and the continuing occupation of the islands by the Russians is an open wound in Japan’s pride and between their relations. Japan wants its borders to reach Urup, as they used to be.

Seems to what I have read: The islands were Japan’s since the Meiji Restoration and remained so until the Soviets took them by force….

The time has come for the countries to make headway on their peace agreement, and that cannot be done until the dispute is settled!

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.

(Read Putin Article: Click Read More!)
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TOKYO (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered new talks to resolve the fate of four rocky islands seized from Japan in the closing days of World War Two, prompting Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda to consider a visit to Moscow.

Fukuda said he had received a letter in which Putin had expressed his willingness to end the territorial dispute, which has prevented the two countries signing a peace deal in the six decades since the war ended.

“Resolving the Northern Territories issue and concluding a peace treaty is essential to lift Russo-Japanese ties to higher levels,” Fukuda told a packed hall in Tokyo to mark Northern Territories Day, an annual rally to remember the loss of the islands.

Scores of riot police used buses and gates to block off the Russian embassy in Tokyo on Thursday as dozens of right-wing campaigners cruised the streets in loudspeaker vans blaring nationalist music and chanting slogans calling for the return of the islands.

Despite the long-standing row, the two countries have been trying to expand ties. Russia is keen for funds to develop its far eastern regions, while Japan is eager to tap Russia’s booming oil industry to reduce its reliance on Middle Eastern energy.

The sparsely populated islands in dispute are in the Kuril chain between Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido and Russia’s far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula, with the closest just 15 km (9 miles) from Hokkaido.

They were seized by the Soviet Union after it declared war on Japan on August 8, 1945, just a week before Japan surrendered, sending about 17,000 Japanese fleeing.

Fukuda, who took office in September, is considering visiting Moscow in late April or early May for talks with Putin, Japanese Foreign Ministry sources said.

“I now realize well that the president wants to resolve the territorial issue,” Fukuda told reporters late on Wednesday. “I would like to proactively work on that.”

Japanese Foreign Ministry sources said Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura might visit Moscow in March to prepare the way for a leaders’ summit.

Moscow had unofficially told Tokyo that Putin wanted to meet Fukuda before leaving office in early May, the sources said.

Putin will step down as president in May, after hitting a constitutional limit of two terms in office, but has made clear he intends to keep political influence by becoming prime minister after he leaves the Kremlin.

“Perhaps, one of the main reasons why Putin wants to hold talks with Prime Minister Fukuda is that he wants to demonstrate he will remain a powerful figure,” one source told Reuters.

Although the police presence was heightened in Tokyo on Thursday, dozens of police are stationed around the Russian embassy at all times, poised to block the road with buses and gates at a moment’s notice as nationalist activists regularly seek to drive up to the embassy with loudspeaker vans blaring.
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The stations of Moscow’s subway system have often been called “the people’s palaces”, for their elegant designs and lavish and profuse use of marble, mosaics, sculptures and chandeliers. Built during Stalin’s rule, these metro stations were supposed to display the best of Soviet architecture and design and show how privileged the lifestyle of the Russian people was……(yes there is more)

Although plans proposing the construction of an underground train system in Moscow were drawn up in 1902 and again in 1912, the outbreak of WWI, and later the revolution, delayed the start of the project for many years. The first line, the Sokolnicheskaya Line, was tunneled and built mainly by forced laborers and was finally and ceremoniously inaugurated on 15th May 1935, boasting just 13 stations.

Up until 1955 the metro was named after Lazar Kaganovich, one of Stalin’s most trusted advisors and an instrumental figure in the construction of the metro, but the system was renamed the V. I. Lenin Moscow Metropolitan Railway.

During WWII the city’s metro stations were used as air-raid shelters and many of the larger stations were used for important political and tactical meetings. During the war the Chistiye Prudy station was used as the nerve center for Supreme Command HQ and the Soviet Army General Staff.

Mayakovskaya, one of the largest stations on the Gorkovsk-Zamoskvoretskaya Line, was used as a command post for the city’s anti-aircraft batteries and on 6th November 1941, hosted an underground ceremony to celebrate the 24th anniversary of the October Revolution, for which a podium with a bust of Lenin, surrounded by banners, was set up in its main hall, trains were stopped at its platforms and buffets arranged within them and hundreds of seats brought into the station to accommodate the invited Party members.

Those wanting to glimpse the best interiors that the Moscow Metro has to offer should take a look at some of the stations mentioned below.

Station Kropotkinskaya (known until 1957 as “Palace of Soviets”) stands on the first line to have been inaugurated in 1935 and was designed and decorated by the architect Dushkin. Built to serve visitors to the proposed new Palace of Soviets, the station’s columns and walls are faced with marble taken from the demolished Cathedral of Christ the Savior, for whose nearby site the new Palace was planned. The ends of the station’s supporting columns are carved into five pointed Soviet stars and the station’s interior is more akin to an underground palace than a functioning station.

The Dushkin-designed Ploschad Revolutsii Station was opened on 13th March 1938 and abounds with bronze figures of the creators of the new socialist order, nestled into niches between the station’s broad columns. The sculptor Manizer created a total of 76 magnificent statues of soldiers, workers and collective farm workers, as well as a heroic sculpture of the soldiers and sailors who defended the Young Soviet order, placed at the top of the station escalator.

The next line to be opened was the Gorkovsk-Zamoskvoretskaya Line, in which the Dushkin-designed Mayakovskaya Station is by far the most architecturally impressive. The station features glistening chrome columns and soaring vaults adorned with mosaic panels depicting “A Day in the Land of Soviets”, designed by the artist Deineka. Coming from the escalator commuters first see happy Soviet workers rising with the dawn, combining happily in the fields and toiling in the factories before returning to their beds as the sun sets in the last panel.

In the midst of WWII on 20th November 1943, Novokusnetskaya Station was opened as a show of continued Soviet strength despite the raging armed struggle being fought by the country. The station was designed by Baranov and Bykov and patriotically decorated with heroes from Russian history, including the great Russian military commanders Alexander Nevsky, Dmitry Donskoy, Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, Alexander Suvorov and Prince Kutuzov. The station’s mosaic decorations were designed by Deineka and created during the siege of Leningrad by the craftsman Frolov and later brought to Moscow. The marvelous marble benches that adorn the station platforms were taken from the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, just before it was demolished.

In the 1950s probably the most luxurious station on the Circle line was opened – Komsomolskaya, designed by the architect of the Leningradsky Station, Shchusev. A veritable palace to the might of the Russian army, the station’s ceiling is adorned with mosaic panels designed by Korin and depicting the country’s great military leaders from Alexander Nevsky and the 14th century Dmitry Donskoy to the famed Alexander Suvorov and Prince Kutuzov, the great Russian hero of the Napoleonic Wars. The mosaic panels were created using ancient Byzantine techniques and include in them tiny squares of colored glass, marble and even granite. One of the station’s original panels, entitled “Handing over the Guards’ Banner”, featured Stalin holding a banner, while an officer kneels and kisses it. After the 20th Party Congress, in which Krushchev denounced Stalin, the mosaic panel was removed and another featuring “Lenin’s Speech to the Red Guards before Their Journey to the Front” was put in its place.

In January 1952 Novoslobodskaya Station was opened. Designed by the architects Dushkin and Strelkov, the station is perhaps the brightest and most ornate station on the Moscow underground and features beautiful stained-glass windows crafted in Riga and a stunning mosaic panel entitled “Peace Throughout the World” by the famed Korin.

We also recommend you take a peek inside Arbatskaya, Belorusskaya, Kievskaya and Park Kultury to gaze at the mosaics, chandeliers, marble columns and stunning stucco-covered ceilings. ===========================================

So this article that I found summed up the Metro history very good. The Metro has very unique history, One of the busiest Metros in the world. (may be the busiest) & is the most beautiful metro in the world.

Part 3 will show the beauty of the Moscow Metro! There is nothing like it, they are really palaces below ground. 🙂

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.

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RBC, LUKoil Group’s daily hydrocarbon production increased 1.7 percent to 2.181m barrels of oil equivalent in 2007 compared to a year earlier, the Russian oil company’s press office reported. Oil output stood at 1.959m barrels per day, a 1.6 percent rise from 2006, with total oil production amounting to 96.464m tonnes in 2007, 1.5 percent above the previous year. LUKoil Group’s saleable natural gas production increased 2.5 percent to 13.955bn cubic meters in 2007. The company attributes the slowdown in its production growth to the sale of a 50-percent stake in Caspian Investments (formerly, Nelson Resources), a company operating in hydrocarbon exploration and production in Kazakhstan, in late April 2007. Moreover, a considerable decline in gas supplies to Gazprom due to an unusually warm winter in 2006-2007 is said to have weighed on the figures as well.

RBC, Commenting on media reports of an alleged merger between Norilsk Nickel and United Company RUSAL, the Russian nickel producer’s General Director Denis Morozov argued today that Norilsk Nickel’s management had not received any offers from UC RUSAL for the two companies to merge. Morozov was unable to estimate the synergetic effect of such a merger, noting that he needed to know UC RUSAL’s value to do so. Meanwhile, Morozov announced that UC RUSAL was projected to close the deal on the purchase of a blocking stake in Norilsk Nickel by the end of the month…..(More News)

RBC, The Russian stock market’s trend will be defined by the US Federal Reserve’s commentaries expected to be released this week, experts told RBC TV, adding that the news background remained intense, with emotions running high on the market. If the Russian market is to regain footing and continue to climb steadily, Norilsk Nickel is said to become one of the highest gainers, since the security is currently at appealing levels. Although the Russian market may appear to be better than other countries’ exchanges, analysts doubt that it can withstand the overall global trend, which is currently looking down. As of 3 p.m., the MICEX index was up 2.39 percent at 1,679.72 points, and the RTS index up 2.11 percent at 2,010.59 points.

RBC, The Moscow City Court has upheld the ruling of the lower Savyolovsky Court of Moscow to sentence Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky in his absence to six years in prison for the embezzlement of the Russian air carrier Aeroflot’s funds. As a result, the court dismissed the defendant’s appeal to recall the Savyolovsky Court’s sentence and stop criminal proceedings against Berezovsky. The state-appointed lawyer for Boris Berezovsky noted that he would not appeal the Moscow Court’s ruling, as he was no longer authorized to do so, adding that he found the decision and the charges to be absurd.

RBC, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin believes that the dollar to ruble rate will be sinking in the coming half a year or even a year, he told Channel One. In a long term perspective of more than a year, the dollar is equally likely to fall and to rise, the Minister said. Kudrin stressed that the dollar’s fall has allowed for a recovery of the US economy in recent years, as the US administration has been consciously letting the dollar weaken to support domestic producers. The US budget deficit has been shrinking recently, Kudrin noted.

RBC, The Central Bank of Russia is raising its discount rate from 10 to 10.25 percent to stem inflation and hold down the dynamics of the money supply. In addition, the Bank of Russia is changing the interest rates on operations it conducts and legal reserve requirements. This is the first time that the Bank of Russia has raised the discount rate since June 1998. The previous cut was made on June 19, 2007, when the rate was reduced from 10.5 to 10 percent.

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Today we’ll remember one of the bloodiest battles of the World War II & the turning point of the war for the Soviet Union .

The battle for the city of Stalingrad in the Soviet Union was the largest and bloodiest battle in the history of human warfare. It also marked the beginning of the end of the mighty German army.
The battle began in the beginning of September, 1942 and ended on February 2nd, 1943. Casualty figures are not exactly known, but estimates put the death toll at well over 800,000. The German army lost more than 150,000 soldiers and the remaining 650,000 were Russian soldiers and civilians who died defending their city.

This battle was most likely the decisive battle of the world war. If the Germans had won, Russia would have fallen for sure, the Nazis would have gained control of Russia’s vast oil fields and all of their vital farmland and natural resources for the production of steel. Germany would have become immune to blockades against their supply routes. They would have been nearly impossible to defeat.

The Soviets were so desperate to defend the city, they destroyed all the bridges crossing the Volga River and all available boats so that their own armies could not retreat from Stalingrad. They were stuck there to fight or die. This newspaper describes this very action taken by the Russians.
You can read more about the Stalingrad Battle in Wikidedia. And to look at very impressive documentary photos here. LINK….

Full version of this video (Lost Evidence: ” Stalingrad ” 1 of 5) you can watch here.

We placed a picture of Pavlov’s House at the header of this article because we want to tell you this story. And this story is just one particular story of the Stalingrad Battle.

The house was a four-story building in the city centre of Stalingrad, built parallel to the embankment of the river Volga and overseeing the “9th January Square”, a large square named for Bloody Sunday (1905). The house was attacked by the German invaders in September 1942. A platoon of the 13th Guards Division was ordered to seize and defend it. The platoon was commanded by Yakov Pavlov, a junior commander replacing his wounded superior. They were successful, although only four men survived the combat. Together they went on defending the building on their own. After several days, reinforcements finally arrived, equipping the defenders with machine-guns, anti-tank rifles and mortars. The men, now a garrison of twenty-five, surrounded the building with barbed wire and minefields, and established anti-tank and machine-gun posts at the windows. For better internal communications and supplies they breached the walls in the basement and upper floors, and dug a communications trench to Soviet positions outside. Supplies were brought in via the trench or by boats crossing the river, defying German air raids and shelling.

Nevertheless food and especially water was in short supply. Lacking beds, the soldiers tried to sleep on insulation wool torn off pipes, yet usually the Germans kept shooting at the house with deafening machine-gun fire day and night. The Germans attacked the building several times a day. Each time German infantry or tanks tried to cross the square and to close in on the house, Pavlov’s men put them under heavy fire from within the basement, from the windows and from the roof top. Leaving behind a square covered with corpses and steel, the Germans had to retreat again.

Eventually the defenders, as well as the Russian civilians who kept living in the basement all that time, held out during intensive fighting from 23 September until 25 November 1942, when they were relieved by the counter-attacking Soviet forces.

Pavlov’s House became a symbol of the stubborn resistance of the Soviet Union in the Battle of Stalingrad, and in the Great Patriotic War in general. It stands out prominently because the German armies had previously conquered cities and entire countries within weeks; yet they were unable to capture a single half-ruined house, defended most of the time by just over a dozen soldiers, in spite of trying for two months. It is reported that the building at the “9th January Square” was marked as a fortress in German maps. (Read more in Wikipedia)

“The Motherland Calls!” — the tallest statue in the world (82 meters tall) when erected in 1967. To remember this awful war, and awful battle! When Motherland calls – everybody will go – will go and die!

I wrote this article just to show you a part of our Great War! And I ask you do you really think that people who survived this war, people who still remember this War (I and my girls still cry at our Victory Day). Do you think such people really wants a new War?…

And I just found out that Dmitri Minaev visited Volgograd (the modern name of Stalingrad) last year and here you can find his impressions: LINK.
Read that’s interesting!

Best wishes
(by the way Russian people still wish peaсe to each other as one of New Year wish!),
Svet and Kyle

comments always welcome

Hello,

I was drinking my morning cup of coffee and thinking about a video that I found. I also read an article about free countries and not free countries. The saying: “The pot, calling the kettle black!” comes to mind.

This is a contradictory situation of existance!

You see: I grew up in America……………………………………

I grew up, seeing a world that was very unfair to many people that lived in America. I grew up watching the African American be treated less than dogs.

I grew up in a world that put the American Indian in some of the worst pathetic land in the whole country.

I grew up in a world that when it was found out that this land that was given to the American Indian was rich in minerals and other precious things, they tried and did succeed to remove them.

I grew up in a world that allowed burning crosses in peoples front yards.

I grew up in a world that men are paid more than women.

I grew up in a world that, was so bad that we had to make rules on how to treat nonwhite people.

I grew up in a world that, labeled everyone! (white, black, minority, …..on and on)

I grew up in a world that, had to be politically correct!

I grew up in a world that had separate bath rooms and water fountains for whites and blacks.

I grew up in a world that treated people who were (claimed to be) communist. Like evil demons, then beaten, jailed and murdered.

I grew up in a World that talks down to the Mexican, but will work him in the fields for very little money.

I grew up in a world that dropped the first Atomic Bomb on Humans.

I grew up in a world that allowed white men to kill black men, with no repercussions.

I grew up in a world that with out money you are less than someone.

I grew up in a world that children bring guns to school and kill other kids.

I grew up in a world that Drugs are on every street corner including those near the schools.

I grew up in a world that saw girls at 13 pushing their baby stroller with their baby, and are impregnated with another child.

I grew up in a world that bussed white kids to the inner cities and black kids to the suburbs.

I grew up with open concept class rooms in school, (the only thing you learned was that you could shoot a spit ball 100 feet.)

I grew up with, “In God we trust” then they took “God” away from schools.

I grew up saying the “Pledge of Allegiance”. That offended some one and they said no more “Pledge of Allegiances”.

I grew up in a world that all men are created equal as long as you do not THINK!

I grew up in a world that if you are rich you can get away with murder.

The world I grew up in, allows most criminals more rights than the average person has.

I grew up in a world that made women fight for their rights before giving them some!

I grew up in a world that said only bad girls smoke, then they discovered that bad girls have money and created cigarette’s for them called slims.

I grew up in a world……(How many more examples do you need?)……

Some of these statements are from my past to now.

They all are truths because I have lived them all. America needs to reread the Constitution of the United States!

This video will give you something to think about.

I grew up in a world that I thought was better than what I see on this video!

Kyle Keeton

comments always welcome.