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Al DuClur's avatar

One of Linh's best.

The Jews will never forgive Russia for rejecting their anal revolution. Anyone who truly cares about their country and its traditional culture should pray Russia wins and eventually the American Empire is destroyed

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JustPlainBill's avatar

I really enjoyed this piece. Among other things, it puts me back in mind of all the Russian literature I've read and enjoyed over the years. In two years of university prior to my time in the military, that appreciation is one of the few things I gained from my "studies" (if one can call them that). I've been fascinated by Russia for a long time, and always wanted to visit. Now I suspect that will never happen, given my age and the retrograde trajectory of Western relations with them.

If I was to single out a favorite, I'd have to say it was "Dead Souls" by Nikolai Gogol. Why is this man traveling around Russia collecting the deeds to dead serfs? Alas, we never actually find out, since Gogol was to tell us in a sequel which in a fit of artistic rage he burned in a fire before it got published.

As an observer of the human condition, both old and new, you may find interesting Ivan Bunin, one of the last notable pre-revolutionary writers. His first novel, "The Village," is a pretty gritty portrayal of rural village life around the time of the 1905 revolution. From the jacket: "...the book follows characters sunk so far below the average of intelligence as to be scarcely human."

Anyone who is interested in Peter the Great could do worse than Robert Massie's biography. Peter was an amazing individual. Unlike our images of the typical tsars, he got off his throne and mixed it up with the common man while pursuing his modernization of the country.

Where Ingo Schulze talks about "standing in three lines for a pat of butter" I remembered how my high school Russian teacher, a Lithuanian, described it to us. When you get to the front of the first line you ask the clerk for what you want. Then you move to the second line where you pay for it. Lastly you go to the third line to pick up your purchase. My impression was that this was a Soviet "innovation"--I wonder if the practice persists? The teacher also told us that when you walked down the street, the windshield wipers blades on all the parked cars were missing--they had been removed by their owners so that they wouldn't be stolen.

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