Something Else

This portrait from 1877 most definitely without a doubt proves that Yuri Gagarin is/was a vampire and his 1968 “death” was probably faked and he’s still out there being awesome and immortal.   YOU GO, VAMPIRE YURI!!!!!

Omsk, winter 1918-1919

vietnamization:

Lenin at the Bottom of the World;

Scientists trekking towards the South Pole of Inaccessibility were rather surprised to find a bust of Soviet revolutionary Bolshevik Vladimir Lenin peering across the icy wastelands towards the former Soviet Empire.

The bust marks the place where an old Soviet base was established and occupied for a few weeks in 1958.  The cabin which made up the base now lies buried under the ice.  Before the Soviet team left, they fixed a bust of Lenin on the chimney which is now the only part of the structure visible over the ice.

The Inaccessibility Pole marks the point on Antarctica that is furthest from the ocean. At 3718 meters above sea-level it is in the Australian zone and seldom visited.  Supposedly, if you dig down through the ice and into the remains of the cabin, you’ll find a golden visitors book to sign.

ohsoromanov:

 Dior Models in Moscow, July 1959.

Lubinskiy Avenue, Omsk

dianadesim:

Trololo - Eduard Khil (live crazy version of trololo song) (by Lodochnik666)

fyeaheasterneurope:

Boris Strugatsky (April 14, 1933 – November 19, 2012)

Vladimir Putin and Russia’s liberal opposition who accuse him of growing authoritarianism have came together to mourn the death of Boris Strugatsky, a science fiction author famous for novels critical of the totalitarian Soviet system.

Strugatsky died in St Petersburg on Monday, aged 79, his foundation said. Media reports said he had been hospitalised with an illness.

Strugatsky, along with his brother Arkady, who died in 1991, wrote many novels and short stories critical of Soviet authoritarianism. When they began writing in the 1950s they were able to evade censors by placing subtle criticism in the context of distant planets and universes. That changed as time went on and they faced state censorship.

…Dmitry Medvedev, the prime minister, wrote on Twitter that Strugatsky was “a great writer and thinker. An irreplaceable loss to Russian and world literature.”

The Strugatskys’ writings received a fresh wind of popularity in Russia earlier this year, as the growing opposition to Putin drew parallels between the dark worlds the authors depicted and modern Russia.

Dmitry Bykov, a popular poet, critic and opposition activist, wrote: “He was an absolute, pure genius. With his departure, everything has become darker and more airless.”

“Successive generations of Russian intellectuals were raised on the Strugatskys,” said Muireann Maguire, a fellow at Oxford University. “Their books can be read with a certain pair of spectacles on as political commentaries on Soviet society or indeed any repressive society.”

(From the Guardian.)

(Photo source.)

(And h/t to yokooislove for the topic request.)