ST. PETERSBURG WHIMSY

ST. PETERSBURG WHIMSY

© Gwendolyn Stewart 2009; All Rights Reserved

DOWN BY THE RIVER SIDE

A bit of whimsy from Peter -- not Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey, but Peter the second capital of Russia, the affectionate shorthand for St. Petersburg -- a riverside confection photographed in 2006, after the G-8 summit, held in Russia for the first time that year.

BORIS YELTSIN ON SAKHALIN

UP CLOSE & PERSONAL

BORIS YELTSIN

IN THE CROWD

OKHA, SAKHALIN, 1990

To build on the themes of two earlier postings, the new Russian leader letting the people surge up close in Moscow, and touring the far eastern island of Sakhalin: Find Boris Yeltsin by that trademark thatch of white hair. And read more about it in RUSSIA REDUX.

OVER SAKHALIN

FLYING OVER SAKHALIN

AIR SHOW DUO

Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk (Russia), USSR, 1990

Continuing east from Moscow -- via Baikal – we come all the way out to the island of Sakhalin, so far east in Russia that it is just north of Japan. 

For tales of Boris Yeltsin's journey to Sakhalin (an eyewitness account), and a little of Anton Chekhov's (not an eyewitness account; Chekhov wrote the book on that himself, a century or so ago); for stories of oil and gas and timber and salmon, and KAL 007 and the Kurils, have a look at Russia Redux. 

ABOVE LAKE BAIKAL

ABOVE LAKE BAIKAL

RETURN VISIT, 1990

While we are in the area, a photograph taken a half-dozen years later that gives some idea of Siberian country living.

This time I had come to Baikal and Irkutsk to cover the meeting between U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze. I stayed to see a bit more of the area around the lake, including the infamous Baikalsk paper plant, now once again in the news.

INTERLUDE ON LAKE BAIKAL

LATE AFTERNOON

ON LAKE BAIKAL

TWO WOMEN & THEIR KNITTING

Listvyanka (Russia), USSR, 1984

Lake Baikal is famous as the "Gem of Siberia." I had been so keen to see it that I flew straight from Moscow to Irkutsk, the nearest big city, on my first trip to the USSR.

NASA has posted two striking images of Baikal from space, iced over, here.

More to come in RUSSIA REDUX

THE VICTORY GALA: REMEMBERING BORIS YELTSIN

THE VICTORY GALA  

BORIS & NAINA YELTSIN CELEBRATE 

Following his victory in the first ever Russian presidential election on June 12, 1991, Boris Yeltsin was feted in a victory gala. He is seen above in a pair of photographs; his wife, Naina, is with him on the left. 

I have been to political celebrations in the U.S.  This one in Moscow felt different; something of a variety show, with poetry and music and humor, and flowers for the newly elected president. 

A bit of the human touch for someone who has been so widely caricatured. 

THE DAY OF RUSSIA

THE DAY OF RUSSIA 

MOSCOW, JUNE 12, 1991 

On June 12, 1990, Russia in the guise of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, and under the leadership of Boris Yeltsin, declared sovereignty -- while still part of the USSR. One year later, on June 12, 1991, Russia held its first election for president, and Yeltsin won. By the end of the year, the Soviet Union was no more. 

June 12 was later designated Russia's National Day, the "Day of Russia." 

To show that he was closer to the people than his rival, Mikhail Gorbachev, the head of the USSR, Yeltsin allowed people to literally come up close and personal. In the photograph above Yeltsin is returning from his polling place to the car (for a photograph of Yeltsin holding his putting-the-ballot-in-the-ballot-box pose, look here under June 12, 2006). Some of the fervor he inspired, and the scrambling to get near him, can be sensed. Boris Yeltsin has the car door in his hands; his chief bodyguard, Alexander Korzhakov, has his back. And the crowd is pushing, pushing. 

Subjecting himself to a popular election won Yeltsin a meeting with U.S. President George Bush in the U.S. nine days later, and then, on July 30, a courtesy call by President Bush on President Yeltsin in his new Kremlin office (a photograph of the meeting can be found here). 

Today, June 12, 2009, George Bush turned eighty-five and went sky-diving in Kennebunkport, Maine. 

A SUMMER DAY ON THE RIVER (NOVOSIBIRSK)

A SUMMER DAY ON THE RIVER

THE RIVER OB' 

NOVOSIBIRSK (RUSSIA), USSR 1984 

On a Sunday two-thirds of the way between Mother's Day and the Summer Solstice, a treat from a boat on the River Ob'.  We have taken off from the city of Novosibirsk, the largest in Siberia, and a major node on the Trans-Siberian Express.  

A RAINY DAY IN THE PROVINCES

A RAINY DAY IN THE PROVINCES

ON THE EVE OF PERESTROIKA

LENIN BILLBOARD & CAR

ROSTOV-ON-THE-DON (RUSSIA), USSR

Thinking Again About Communism, III

The USSR on the Eve of Perestroika: "To Us the Most Precious Is the Preservation of Peace" -- V.I. Lenin," the slogan on the billboard says. The year is 1984.

Lenin had died in 1924. (More in 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.

"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.