“Am auzit pentru prima oară urletul acela prelung ce se ridică din mulţime şi cere sânge, strigăt întunecat de ură şi nebunie.” – “J’entendis pour la première fois ce long hurlement qui monte de la foule et qui demande le sang, ce cri sombre de haine et de folie.”

Irina Nemirovski (1903-1942) spunea acestea despre revoluţia din 1917 de la Petrograd. Dar cele spuse sunt adevărate şi pentru revoluţia din decembrie 1989 de la Bucureşti, şi pentru “fenomenul” din Piaţa Universităţii, şi pentru mineriade.

Titus Filipas

Ibicus ? C’est le litre d’un roman d’Alexis Tolstoï datant des années 20 que Pascal Rabaté achète par erreur aux puces… croyant découvrir une œuvre de l’auteur de “Guerre et Paix” qui, lui, s’appelle Léon Tolstoï !?! Et ce fut le coup de foudre… qui valut au dessinateur, pour le Tome 2, le Prix du meilleur album de l’année 2000 à Angoulême.

Cette libre adaptation se révèle être une très grande œuvre graphique, une histoire époustouflante sur l’imposture !

Siméon Ivanovitch Nevzorov, comptable à Petrograd, s’ennuie au lit, au bureau. Il rêve et voilà que la Révolution de 1917 va lui apporter sur un plateau ces aventures qu’il désirait tant mais qu’il repoussait. Son cynisme et son opportunisme vont pouvoir s’en donner à cœur joie ! La prédiction d’une vieille gitane se met enfin en place. Elle lui avait révèlé qu’il était né sous le signe du crâne qui parle : l’ibicus, et lui avait donc prédit que lorsque le monde s’écroulerait dans le feu et le sang il vivrait des aventures extraordinaires, mais qu’il serait riche !

Le voici embarqué jusqu’en Turquie dans un voyage plein de péripéties, d’arnaques, de violence, de misère, de sexe et de drogue ! C’est cruel, dérisoire, amoral ! C’est passionnant ! L’âme humaine y est ici rendue dans sa noirceur et son malheur !

A la fois peinture, à la fois théâtre de papier, le dessin en noir et blanc avec ses clairs-obscurs, avec ses angles fuyants, distordus, avec ses découpages ou ses larges plages, épouse le destin torturé du personnage, ses fuites, ses lâchetés. Pascal Rabaté fait feu de tout “bois” en mélangeant les techniques graphiques. Il lave et délave ses feuilles ou les épaissit de matière. Passant du lavis à la peinture, traçant en finesse des courbes au pinceau ou jetant la gouache comme au couteau, il s’arrête au minuscule comme il campe des panoramiques impressionnants avec des champs et des contrechamps, des formes stylées ou distordues, des nets ou des flous. Quel souffle !

Du très grand art expressionniste !

Ibicus, Série complète de 4 tomes de Pascal Rabaté, Vents d’Ouest édités de juin 1998 à novembre 2001, édition intégrale de 536 pages en novembre 2006

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been exploring some of St. Petersburg’s 20th century historical sites.

Tomorrow, I’ll be venturing outside the city to the island and naval base of Kronstadt, about 20 miles west in the Gulf of Finland.

Kronstadt was the linchpin of St. Petersburg’s naval defenses at the turn of the twentieth century, and a line of forts on and near the island defend the city from the sea.

But in 1917, during the Bolshevik Revolution, the sailors at Kronstadt mutinied, killing their commanding officers. Due to this revolt, the sailors became known as some of the most pro-Red forces in Russia.

In 1921, however, as Lenin solidified control over the Soviet Union, the sailors became disenchanted with heavy-handed Bolshevik tactics, such as the violent suppression of strikes and the imposition of censorship. In early March, the sailors issued a set of demands, angering Bolshevik leaders.

Days later, 60,000 Red Army troops were ordered to attack Kronstadt across the ice from Petrograd (St. Petersburg). The troops suffered heavy casualties in their assault—the ice offered no protection from Kronstadt’s guns—and some had to be forced into battle by the Cheka, the KGB’s precursor.

By mid-March, the rebellion had been suppressed, at the cost of at least 10,000 Red Army soldiers and perhaps 1,000 to 2,000 Kronstadt rebels.

The 1921 Kronstadt rebellion was seen in the West as a sharp rebuke to the Soviet manifestation of Communism. On March 1, 1956, the 35th anniversary of the revolt and a few days after Khrushchev’s (not-so-secret) Secret Speech denouncing Stalinism, the New York Times wrote in an editorial:

In sorrow tinged with hope friends of freedom the world over today marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of the beginning of the Kronstadt Rebellion, which, though drowned in blood by Lenin and Trotsky, serves even today to remind us of the Russian people’s love for liberty.

Beyond a large and beautiful cathedral, I’m not sure what there is to see at Kronstadt. But there’s no way I could leave St. Petersburg without spending a day on an island steeped in so much history.

(From Chapters 18, 20 and 21, “Mein Krampf” by S.I. Fishgal, http://stores.lulu.com/fishgal)

   In May 1917, Comrade Trotsky arrived in Petrograd and aligned solidly with the Bolsheviks against all other parties. His words cascaded throughout Russia. In July, dreaded Cossacks defeated a mass uprising in Petrograd. The socialist provisional government attacked Bolsheviks and arrested Trotsky. Lenin hid on Razliv Lake’s bank because Russia’s commander-in-chief stated:

   “I, General Kornilov, son of a Cossack peasant, cannot betray Russia into the hands of the ancestral enemy, the German. It’s time to hang German supporters and spies with Lenin at their head.”

   Trotsky ordered Kronstadt’s (Petrograd’s suburb) sailors to defeat Kornilov. By October, with slogans Land, bread, and peace, Bolsheviks got the majority of votes in the Petrograd Council and elected Trotsky as its president. On October 25, he organized the victorious putsch. Then Bolsheviks confiscated the Church’s lands, forbade the religious teaching in schools, changed the ancient Russian calendar to the Western one, modernized the Russian alphabet, swept the aristocracy’s titles aside and replaced Gospodin (Mr.) with “citizen” and “comrade.”

   Karl Marx’s grandfathers were rabbis. Lenin had a Jewish grandfather. Trotsky and Sverdlov, the chief of state, were Jews. There were proportionately more revolutionaries amongst the Jews than among other nationalities. Besides, Jews rallied behind the Bolsheviks because the saw enough pogroms under the czar. The population thought therefore that Bolsheviks were all Jews and did all those deeds.

   …The Ukrainians established the National Council proclaiming Ukraine’s independence in January 1918.

   Word Ukraine means on the border or outskirts ‑ the far limit of Russia. She originated from Kiev’s Princedom, but after Mongols’ invasion of the 1200s, her capital shifted to the north, first to Moscow and later to St. Petersburg. After the Mongols, the Polish lords ruled Ukraine. The languages spoken in Ukraine and in Russia gradually diverged. In 1648, the countries united.

   Nationalism got little mass support and was the primary concern only of some intellectuals, village teachers, minor bureaucrats, and journalists. In fact, Ukrainian Nationalists were the enemies of Ukrainian peasants and workers. Most politically active Ukrainians supported the Bolsheviks.

   The nationalists were grossly racist, habitually depicted their Bolshevik enemies as Jews, and thereby fertilized the soil for the Jewish pogroms (the anti‑Jewish terror). Yet, hoping for foreign recognition and help, the nationalists repudiated pogroms officially and set up Jewish affairs’ ministry directed to get the Jews’ assistance in the separation from Russia. They did not prevent anti-Semitic outbreaks, but issued injunctions against ‘excesses’ exclusively for the foreign audiences.                                

   …In July 1918, the pogroms took place everywhere, but the Ukrainian government took no effective measures. The scared Jews organized self-defense detachments and patrolled the streets.

   …The nearby villages’ Ukrainian peaceful peasants were not emotionless to the pogroms and patiently waited. After the pogroms ended, their horse carts moved into the Jewish quarters for the booty that was not good enough for the Ukrainian troopers.

   … In 1919, some educated and more prosperous Ukrainian Jews could tolerate the pogroms no longer.

   “Let’s petition Simon Petlyura himself,” educated ones proposed to prosperous.

   “The head of the Ukrainian chauvinists’ state?”

   “They call themselves ‘socialists’. We’ll express our sincere gratitude and respect first, and then will ask to prohibit the pogroms.”

   They said and did, anonymously for sure.

   When a hundred thousand Jews were murdered, as in the days of Chmielnicki, the Ukrainian “socialists” could tolerate the status quo no longer. Angry scowls darkened the leaders’ faces:

   “The Ukrainian National Army makes no pogroms! Take the immediate measures.”

   Shepetovka’s authorities did not know the petitioners’ identities, turned most important suspects to minced meat, in accordance with the prevailing practice, and arrested the rest. “The slander and agitation of the population” were punishable by turning them to minced meat too.

   …the Reds made not pogroms, but food-and-hay requisites for themselves and their horses from those who had them – Jews, Ukrainians, Poles, Russians, or whoever.

   Before revolution, the strictly Russian territory had not many pogroms either, despite the incitement of the czarist regime. Jews in Ukrainian, Moldavian or Polish towns could rest in peace and remain in one piece only during the Soviet power, except when Marshal Budennyi’s Red Cossacks passed through. That is why Shepetovka’s Jews supported the Soviets ardently. Even Shepetovka’s own pleasing-to-god men said:

   “We appreciate egalitarian ideas more because we’re suppressed more.”

   ”The revolution will destroy the national animosity and social injustice. Then Messiah will come for all mankind,” a rabbi dreamed still further.

   The Jews did learn that only Bolsheviks fought racism, in spite of occasional pogroms carried out by some ill‑disciplined Red troops. Sometimes an entire Jewish settlement followed the retreating Red Army. Clearly, only the Soviet leaders fought against pogroms and punished the offenders sometimes.

   …Two divisions of the First Cavalry (Red) Army retreating from Poland made pogroms on its way.

   “The Reds could not beat the Poles. But one has to beat somebody,” Jankel said. “So, they beat the Jewish minority.”

   Comrade Lenin did not leave that case without consequences.

   “To archives,” the resolute pen pusher wrote on the report.

   When the Polish troops entered Shepetovka, its own Polish minority raised their heads proudly and armed feasts cruelly and pitilessly.

   Somebody said, if a rifle hangs on a stage wall in the first act, it shoots in the last one. The Jewish self-defense detachment had weapons and turned them against the Polish invaders.

   “This shows what one can expect from the Jews when they have weapons,” Dr. Goebbels noted in his diary a quarter century later, during the Warsaw Jewish ghetto uprising.

  …in 1920, Josef Pilsudski, the Polish dictator, set up concentration camps for the Soviet prisoners of war, Ukrainian nationalists, his compatriots who wanted to replace him, and other suspects. The camps’ personnel tortured to death and bestially slaughtered eighty thousands of the Soviet prisoners. Poland did not apologize for the kill.

   Of course, Poles sent not all Soviet prisoners into the camps. They killed and beat up to death communists, commanders, and Jews right away.          

   Back in summer 1919, while Boris overtaxed his guts in Poland, the Red Army became more glorious than the glorious legions of the Recz Pospolita and tamed the normal revolutionary course of historical events.

   The peasants supported Bolsheviks’ call Land to the Tiller (i.e., to the peasants). Most Ukrainians hated the nationalist Council and even rejected the attempts to impose the Ukrainian language and culture.

   “Our blood-drenched people and soil need a respite,” Jankel said.

   You bet, Bolsheviks did not know, would take no advice from, or even would not shoot Jankel. Their leaders were above all that. The world revolution loomed on the horizon. The pen pushers got excited, forgot that their own country was devastated.

   “Straight to Warsaw!” they ordered.

   …The Red Army galloped on like galloping consumption – not as gloriously as the glorious legions of the Recz Pospolita did. They broke the backbone of history and gave Shepetovka up to the Polish tentacles again.

   In August 1920, our Comrades recognized that their own blood-drenched people and real estate needed a respite. The Red Army completed the conquest of the Ukraine by then. Under the peace agreement, they moved the frontier twenty miles west to the local small river.  

   Back in 1917, Bolsheviks were either inexperienced idealists, or pragmatists pressed by tremendous outside forces, and offered independence to all nations. Mustached martinet Field-Marshall Pilsudski took good care of the Polish sovereignty and trampled under the Ukraine and Byelorussia one. In October 1920, he returned Shepetovka to the Soviets though.

   In the aftermath of World War I and the revolutionary upheavals, four countries grabbed some Ukrainian territories. Romania annexed Bukovina, new Czechoslovak Republic – Transcarpathia, Poland – Galicia, western Volhynia and adjacent areas in the northwest.

   After their defeat in the Civil War, leading Ukrainian nationalists fled to Western Europe. Some went to Poland, which got a large Ukrainian population. The Polish government suppressed the Ukrainian language and culture, but permitted anti‑Communist Ukrainian nationalists’ activity.

   During the 1930s, they supported the Nazis as the future liberators of Ukraine from the USSR. When Germany conquered Poland in September 1939, they set up Ukrainian nationalists’ camps to train for the invasion of the Soviet Union.

   Also, the Nazis appointed “Metropolitan Mstyslav” as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s head in the U.S. and Canada. He was Petlyura’s nephew and personal adjutant (military assistant).

   Nowadays Ukrainians consider Simon Petlyura as a pre‑eminent national hero since he headed the country during the brief years of its independence. The Ukrainians view the Jewish hero Shalom Schwarzbard, who assassinated Petlyura in Paris for supporting the perpetrators of pogroms, as a Soviet secret police agent.

   In late 1939, the curriculum of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists’ torture school in Nazi‑occupied Poland emphasized “exercises in the hardening of hearts.” Each nationalist had to demonstrate that his nerves are not softer that those of Germans.

   At sundown, two German Secret Police, or Gestapo, leaders of the school and a few students would go to Zakopane, grab a Jew from some home on the way, and bring him to the Unit. For example, one evening, late in November or early in December 1939, they returned with a young innocent Jew. Their fists, sword, iron bars, salt, and flame to his wounds induced him to “confess” in raping an Aryan woman. After that, they took him naked in front of the school, called in three female members of the unit and doused with water in heavy frost.

Bilder aus der Vergangenheit, als es Länder gab, die dem Westen nacheiferten. Russland zum Beispiel. Als der Westen für Fortschritt stand, in gesellschaftlicher Entwicklung, Wissenschaft, Kunst und Kultur. Während er das heute verleugnet. Bilder von Schätzen, die mit Blut und Schweiss der Untertanen erkauft wurden aber wäre ihnen diese Blut und der Schweiss nicht abverlangt worden, hätten wir heute nichts an dem wir uns erfreuen könnten. Wir wüssten gar nicht, dass Menschen in der Lage sind, solche Schönheiten zu schaffen, Ausdruck wirklicher Kunst und keine Fett- oder Kotinstallation eines progressiven Abfallkünstlers.

Ich muss noch dazuschreiben, dass das, was da gezeigt wird, wurde auch Wasserkunst genannt und es ist ja nicht so, dass da jemand ein paar Rohre verlegt hat oder Gardeniaschläuche und jetzt sprüht mal schön. Nein, ohne Wissenschaft war da nichts zu machen, da wurden ganze Flüsse umgeleitet und Gefälle verändert, damit das Wasser den richtigen Druck entwickelte, um auch in Fontainen aufzusteigen. Ich glaube nicht, dass das heutige Architekten und Planer noch hinbekommen würden.

(From Chapter 18, “Kosher Hooks” by S.I. Fishgal, http://stores.lulu.com/fishgal)

“…Who made the revolution, if Russians are innate slaves?”
“In 1917, Bolsheviks were the smallest of the Russian socialist parties – 25,000 members at best. Most noted after Lenin were Jewish socialists. Strictly between us, Lenin himself was a Chuvash-German-Jewish-Kalmyk-Sweden mixture. Not a drop of the Russian blood.”
“But he was in Switzerland then.”
“Germans thought he was their Russian enemy’s troublemaker and allowed him and his followers, mostly Jews, to pass to the Russia in a sealed train. While he hid in a branch shelter between Leningrad and Sestroretsk, Trotsky, born Bronstein, prepared the October putsch, then fathered and headed the Red Army to the victory in the Civil war. Thus, we’re obliged to Trotsky for all that we have now. Albeit he said that he was an internationalist and Jews as such were of no interest to him.”
“But in 1917 he was out of Russia too,” Roma puzzled.
“He arrived from the North America with three hundred Jews at the same time as Lenin. After his performance in the Petrograd Soviet back in 1905, and his masterminding of the seizure of power in 1917, nobody doubted his stature as a revolutionary and military leader. Sverdlov, Kamenev, Zinovyev – all Jews – had major posts, ahead of Comrade Stalin.”
Anti-Semitism was a great force as long as Russia existed, most notably since taking over the western territories with a large Jewish population. The tsarist government restricted Jews to a circumscribed area termed the Pale of Settlement, subjected them to admission quotas into public institutions, barred from the civil service and officer corps. The neighbors vandalized or destroyed the Jewish property. The press vilified Jews as economic exploiters of ethnic Russians and the threat to Russian racial purity.
The revolution caught the Jews. Two thousand pogroms killed a hundred or two hundred Jews, mostly in Ukraine. Ukrainian Hetman Petlura and General Denikin, the Commander of the White Russian Army, accused the Jews as the communist supporters.
“Hitler linked Jews and Bolsheviks as common enemies and reused the blood-libel myth as justification for the Holocaust,” the professor said.
“What did Jews do to him personally?”
“He’s rumored got a venereal disease from a kosher hooker. Yet, Hitler, Goering, Himmler and Goebbels felt no biological disgust of Jews.”
Young Hitler had a Jewish friend and during the WWI got the Iron Cross upon his Jewish commander’s presentation.
Poor Goering lived in a Jew’s castle. Back in 1923, wounded at a demonstration, he was brought into a Jewish couple’s nearest house. A Jewish professor treated him. Actually, before the Third Reich’s end Goering wanted to get in touch with Western Jewish communities.
As to Goebbels, he respected his university’s Jewish professors. One guided his doctoral thesis. Besides, a bride of his was half-Jewish, and his wife lived well with her Jewish stepfather.
“I saw in movies and photos, those poor guys did not look as Aryans, were neither blond, nor blue-eyed,” Roma noted.
“What’s more, Hitler allegedly had a half male endowment. Our medics examined his remains.”
“One testicle?”
“Yes, a half-eunuch.”
“A half sexual drive?”
“He was a masochist – asked women to pee and defecate on him. Ironically, the Nazi hots were obsessed with making Germans look Nordic.”
“Did they hate themselves then?”
“They were politicians first of all. Hate unites the mob. The anti-Semitism became the expedient foundation of their ideology.”
Medieval Europe excluded Jews from land ownership and crafts. They turned to peddling, which Christians viewed as financially unrewarding and morally suspect. After commerce became lucrative and respectable, they forced Jews out of trade into the emerging financial field from which the Bible’s prohibition on usury barred the Christians. Jews’ stereotype became Shakespeare’s money-grubbing Shylock. Yet, by the mid-nineteenth century, Jews, who were one percent of Germany’s population, generated one-fifth of the economy. Out of 147 members of the stock, produce and metal exchanges in 1933, 116 were Jews. Yet, the majority of European, especially Eastern European, Jews remained poor.
“Why did Germans swallow the Master Race ideas?” Roma asked.
“Some saw the absurdity. In the interest of the racial purity, once storm troopers interrupted a Sunday mess. We must get rid of non-Aryans, the gang leader announced. All those whose fathers are Jews are to leave this church at once. A few worshipers got out. Now all those whose mothers are Jewish out, he ordered. The pastor took the crucifix:
“It’s our turn now, Brother, to get out.”
“Nazis’ anti-Semitism saved the world from turning into Hiroshima,” Roma stated boldly. “Otherwise, Hitler would have Einstein, Fermi, Szilard, Wigner and the rest worked on the nuclear bomb.”
“Unfortunately, you’re right, Rommy.”
“Even my brother is a blue-eyed blond with a straight nose,” Roma said. “Poor Nazis had very hard time to distinguish the Jews from the rest.”
“We play down that our Russians, Ukrainians and others helped them. Besides, our documents identify so-called nationality as well.”
“According to Stalin, a nation is a community of people with a language, territory, economic life, culture and character in common,” Roma went on. “Jews have nothing, but a two-millennium old Palestine origin in common. A paper nation, he said, something mystical, elusive and beyond the grave. But Jews suffered not on paper.”
“Before revolution the Jews had no positions in the tsarist government,” Professor avoided criticizing the dictator. “Only 5% Bolsheviks were Jewish. While Russians made 80% of the first Soviet government, 16% leading revolutionaries were the Jews. And of course, light weighed Trotsky overweighed everyone, except Lenin. When it mattered, the Jews reacted quickly to the changed circumstances with the maximum benefit.”
“Was that situation unique only because of Russians’ slavish mentality?”
“Forty years ago Italy had 0.1% of Jews,” Professor smiled. “Yet, a Jew was a Prime Minister, and the Senate had 5% of the Jews. What’s more, originally, even Mussolini’s Fascist movement was philo-Semitic. His right-hand man, party newspaper editor and Finance Minister were Jews. Of the fifteen jurists who drew up the Fascist constitution, three were Jews. Naturally, when Mussolini joined Hitler, the policy changed.”
“However, we’re in Russia,” Roma put in. “If Lenin’s Jews were smart enough, they would not perish as the enemies of the people.”
“Unlike them, Comrade Stalin was a pragmatic organizer and a committee man. His instinctive grasp of the administrative power secured control of the party. Lenin and the rest didn’t grasp the extent of Stalin’s ambitions, didn’t want his job and allowed so much authority to him.”
“So, all Lenin’s assistants, except Comrade Stalin, were the enemies of the people?” Roma concluded.
“Sverdlov died early, in 1918. Trotsky had stature, charisma and the revolutionary leader’s aura shared with and was the obvious successor to Lenin. He urged Trotsky to accept the top job. Yet, his ambition was only to write books and be like Marx. When Lenin was sick, Zinovyev, Kamenev, and Stalin decided the party policy and the day to day affairs.”
“Why the three most important Jews did not take over?” Roma asked.
“Moses said that everything is from God, Solomon – from the head, Jesus – from the heart, Marx – from being, Freud – from sex, Einstein – from relativity, Trotsky – from the permanent revolution. You see, as many Jews as many opinions. But this is a deviation. On any question, two Jews have at least three opinions. All four Jews disliked each other, but the distrust to Trotsky united Kamenev, Zinovyev and Stalin.”

PETROVGRAD – MOSKVA 30.05. – 06.06.2009

PROGRAM PUTOVANJA:

1. dan

Sastanak grupe na aerodromu u Tivtu, kod saltera R-tours. Let za Petrovgrad. Po slijetanju u Petrovgrad predviđen je transfer do hotela uz panoramsko razgledanje grada : Vasiljevsko ostrvo, Univerzitetska obala, Bronzani konjanik, Isakijevski trg, Marsovo polje, Ljetnja bašta, krstarica “Aurora”, Smolenski sabor, Aleksandro-Nevska lavra, Nevski prospekt, kuća Petra I – prvo petrogradsko zdanje, Petropavlovska tvrđava… Smještaj u hotelu i slobodno vrijeme. Noćenje.

2. dan

Doručak. Dan je predviđen za obilazak „Carskog sela“-fakultativno.. Slobodno poslijepodne. Noćenje.

3. dan

Doručak. Transfer na fakultativni poludnevni obilazak najvećeg muzeja umjetnosti na svijetu – “Ermitraž” ( sastavljen od 6 zgrada i 6 unutrašnjih dvorišta sa crkvom.Najveći muzej takve vrste na svijetu, sa 3,5 miliona eksponata predstavlja s razlogom ponos Rusije. “Ako bi osam sati dnevno razgledali eksponate trebalo bi nam 24 godine da obiđemo muzej” ) . Ovom prilikom pogledaćemo najznačajnija djela Ticijana, Da Vinčija, Pikasa, Van Goga, Sezana… Slobodno vrijeme. Noćenje.

4. dan

Doručak. Slobodan dan za individualna razgledanja i šoping. U kasnim večernjim časovima transfer do željezničke stanice i polazak vozom za Moskvu. Noćna vožnja…

5. dan

… sa jutarnjim dolaskom u Moskvu. Po dolasku u Moskvu predviđen je odlazak na razgledanje grada: Univerzitet Lomonosov, Tverska ulica sa spomenikom Puškinu i osnivaču Moskve Juriju Dolgorukom, stari Arbat, Novodevičji manastir, novi hram Hrista Spasitelja…Odlazak do hotela. Slobodno poslijepodne. Noćenje.

6. dan

Doručak. Nakon doručka predviđen je obilazak grada: Teritorija Kremlja i Crvenog trga na kojoj se nalaze saborne crkve Sv.Blagovještenja i Sv.Arhangela, Palata patrijarha, Oružana palata, državni kongresni dvorac, dvorac državne administracije…

7. dan

Doručak. Dan predviđen za slobodno vrijeme i individualna razgledanja i kupovinu ( šetajući Crvenim trgom divićete se veličanstvenoj crkvi Vasilija Blaženog i Lenjinovom mauzoleju. Preporučujemo da posjetite najveći i najljepši tržni centar GUM ili šoping centar Ohotni Rijad, smješten u tri nivoa ispod površine sa prelijepim fontanama ). Fakultativi odlazak do Tretjakovske galerije i muzeja Borodinske bitke. Noćenje.

8. dan

Doručak. Napuštanje hotela i transfer do aerodroma. Let za Tivat.

Cijena aranžmana 599 €

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• Usluga tri noćenja sa doručkom u hotelu u Moskvi

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That’s St. Petersburg, Russia, not the one in Florida or Pennsylvania or Missouri.

Following the tide of recent protests against the country’s continued embrace of it’s communist past, the governor of Piter (as the Russians refer to the city) is in the process of renaming all ten of the streets bearing the name ‘Soviet’ back to their former name of ‘Christmas’.

All Russian cities, towns and villages honour the Soviet legacy in some way or another, with street names commonly named after Stalin-era bigwigs. Saint Petersburg is no different, but Sovetskaya Ulitsa (Soviet Street) 1 to 10 will soon become Rozhdestvenskaya (Christmas Street) 1 to 10.

Valentina Matvienko will, according to statements from her office, make it happen. Controversy aside – and there’s no shortage of it surrounding her – the governor of Saint Petersburg is one tough cookie. Rated by Forbes as one of the most influential females in politics, Putin’s golden girl seems to have a love-hate relationship with the bygone days of Bolshevism.

In 2005 she supported the idea of transferring Lenin’s corpse from its display case in Red Square to somewhere more appropriate for a mummified body – a move which her guardian and mentor Vladimir Putin vehemently opposed. Her attitude towards democracy, though, toes the old Party line perfectly: ‘the mentality of a Russian requires a. . . . one-man leadership’. Oh, how Comrade Stalin would be proud of her. . . .

We do this every Tuesday. It’s a mix of new favorites and random discoveries made while researching our constantly updated NYC Live Music Calendar. Very possible that you will see some of these songs here on our Top 100 Songs of 2009 list at the end of the year, if the world hasn’t ended by then…every link here will take you to each individual track except for #s 1 and 10.

1. System Noise – Hair & Nails

Deliriously catchy, typically eerie fare from these ferocious rockers, like the Talking Heads gone completely phantasmagorical. Is this about a woman beautifying herself…or is is about the two parts of the body that continue to grow after death? Sarah Mucho’s gleefully eerie voice provides a hint. Unreleased, but they’ll probably play it live tomorrow at the Delancey at 9.  

2. Beluga – Cowboy Boots

This is a song that needed to be written.  “Everybody hates you, everybody hates you, everybody hates you because you’re such a bitch.” The ferocious all-female rockers play the cd release show for their new one at the Loving Cup Cafe on N 6th in Williamsburg (in the back gallery) on 3/20.

3. The Moonlighters - Night Smoke

New York’s reigning oldtimey band have some delicious new stuff up on their myspace and this is one of them, a bossa beat, characteristically beautiful harmonies from Bliss Blood and Cindy Ball and Mark Deffenbaugh’s stinging steel guitar.

4. Abby Barrett – Stillborn

Big, dark, uneasy, oldtimey-flavored 6/8 ballad flavored with reverb guitar, banjo and piano from the Boston chanteuse. And then it morphs into a big art-rock song like the Church or Pink Floyd. Wow.  

5. The Passengers – I Bend but Do Not Break

Characteristically wrenching, haunting vocals from Angie Pepper and a resolute, defiant song. This is a new one from the regrouped acoustic version of the legendary Australian band.

6. Royal Chant - Petrograd

Another Aussie band. How do we find these people? So random, it’s hard to explain. This is nice post-REM jangle and clang. Also check out Bellevue, their tribute to life in the loony bins.

7. Lullapop – Unstable

Gorgeous acoustic triphop from the Polish-American siren, sort of a more guitarish take on what Madder Rose was doing back in the 90s.

8. Sam Ben-Meir – Impressions

Solo piano from this Israeli composer. Its theme is the ravages of war, a haunting, compassionate Chopinesque evocation.

9. Mike Viola – Good Ideas Grow on Trees

This is the Candy Butchers’ frontman doing his singer-songwriter thing. Hang in there for this one: it takes awhile to get going, but it’s worth it. “Good ideas will blow you away.” No doubt. Cool video by Michael Arthur.

10. Jenifer Jackson – Words

Not to be confused with the gorgeous Whispering Words (up on her myspace), this unreleased gem has the same existential intensity as Pink Floyd but with vastly more warmth and subtlety. And a playful synth solo. She’s at Rockwood Music Hall on 3/24 at 8.

Heute vor 91 Jahren – am 25. Oktober nach dem Julianischen Kalender – wurde im damaligen Petrograd das Winterpalais, Sitz der Provisorischen Regierung, von revolutionären Soldaten gestürmt. Seither ist das Datum als die Oktoberrevolution bekannt.

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Heute vor 121 Jahren – am 25. Oktober 1879 nach dem Julianischen Kalender – wurde im ukrainischen Janowka Lew Bronstein geboren, der unter dem Namen Leo Trotzki der Vorsitzende des Militärrevolutionären Komitees war, das den Angriff auf das Winterpalais befohlen hatte.

The postcardman.net has a selection of Russian postcards for view and sale. See this unique 11 image real photo post card set of the revolution in Petrograd here.

DIE KRONSTADT  REBELLION
VON  ALEXANDER BERKMAN

Mit einer geographischen Karte von Kronstadt und der Abbildung einer Seite der Kronstädter “Izvestia.”

(Berlin 1923)

Download
(2.5 MB, PDF, 31 Seiten, Deutsch)

Über den Autor des Buches (Wikipedia)