(Azerbaijan, near Baku / Aserbaidschan, nicht weit von Baku)
(Tbilisi bazaar /Basar von Tbilissi)
Pictures taken in summer 2010 with:
Sony a850 + Minolta 85mm f1.4 GD, ISO200 + f2.2
If you like this please Link Back to this article...
Showing posts with label Soviet Union. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Soviet Union. Show all posts
Stalin in present Georgia / Stalin im heutigen Georgien
Stalin monument on Gori central square. So much damage in Gori - but this guy survived...In Georgia, a Reverence for Stalin (New York Times)
Eine deutsche Übersetzung gibt es hier:
Wie der Tyrann Josef Stalin in Georgien weiterlebt (Die Welt)
Paul A. Goble reports on the revival of Stalin cult in modern Russia. He cites Irina Karatsuba, a historian at Moscow State University, saying: "“In certain new textbooks,” ... the Soviet dictator’s actions “are presented as ‘an effective instrument without which industrialization and collectivization would have been impossible and without which the country would not have won the war and preserved its sovereignty – and [for the Kremlin and many ordinary Russians] sovereignty is ‘our all.’” The article is to be found here:
The New Stalin Cult (New York Times)
Josef Joffe of german magazin "DIE ZEIT" compared in a commentary, published end of August 08, red with white tsars, i.e. Stalin with Putin. The subtitle says it all: "Stalin lesen heißt Putins Kaukasus-Strategie verstehen." (Reading Stalin means understanding Putin's strategy in the Caucasus.") The Kremlin's policy towards Georgia reminds him of the crisis over West-Berlin in the days of the so called Cold War, when the Soviet Union proved the West. "Außerdem geht es Putin, wie einst Stalin, nicht bloß um Einfluss, sondern um Herrschaft. Wer sich wie Georgien nicht unterwirft, wird portioniert und einverleibt – siehe die Anerkennung Abchasiens und Südossetiens, die Pufferzonen und die Einnahme der Hafenstadt Poti." (Besides, Putin isn't after only influence, like Stalin. Countries which don't knuckle down, will be portioned out and annexed - see the acknowlegement of independence of Abkhasia and South-Ossetia, the buffer-zones and the taking of the seaport Poti.)
So why do we see the statue of Stalin not only in Gori - on the central square right in front of town hall (and in quite a number of villages)? Isn't it insane hailing to Stalin, exactly the man who is responsible for the drawing of borders that cause so much pain to the Georgia of today? Not to mention the terror and the many lifes it cost?
Lenin's and Stalin's busts, seen on Tbilisi antique basarFor Georgians, the answer is easy. First, he was in their eyes the strongest dictator of the Sovietunion. A Georgian ruling over Russia and half of the world. Second, the less educated and elderly generation remembers a rather secured life, with free electricity, gas and water, garanteed employment and so on. (As long as one didn't open one's mouth.) Third, there hasn't been a time yet when people could have worked up on their history. Unlike in Germany, the archives aren't opened up (partly due to the fact, that a lot of information is to be found rather in Moscow than in Tbilisi).
According to "Mitteldeutsche Zeitung", Tbilisi plans a "Museum on Russian Aggression": "Medien in Tiflis zufolge plant Georgien als Folge des August-Krieges mit Moskau ein «Museum der russischen Aggression». Unter anderem soll dort auch ein Denkmal für Sowjetdiktator Josef Stalin (1878-1953) zu sehen sein, das jetzt noch im Zentrum seiner georgischen Geburtsstadt Gori steht. Auch wenn Stalin ethnisch Georgier gewesen sei, habe nach dem Südkaukasus-Krieg eine solche Statue im öffentlichen Raum eines freien Georgiens nichts mehr zu suchen, sagte ein Regierungssprecher laut Medien in Tiflis. " (According to media, Tbilisi plans a "Museum of Russian Aggression" in consequence of the war in august. Among other exhibits, the monument of Soviet Dictator Josip Stalin (1878-1953) will be seen there, which still stand in the center of his birth-town Gori. Even if Stalin was an ethnic Georgian, a statue of this kind should not to be found in public places after the war in the south caucasus, says a speaker of the Georgian government."
Well, it's time this awareness spreads. Showing Stalin's bust isn't just folklore.
Here's a video documentary of Stalin and his crimes by History Channel:
part 1
part 2
part 3
part 4
part 5
part 6
part 7
part 8
part 9
If you like this please Link Back to this article...
Joshua Kucera: "Why Can't We Live Together?"
In a series of reports from former soviet republics, Joshua Kucera reported in May 2008 from South Ossetia, describing the atmosphere in the break-away region of Georgia:
"TSKHINVALI, South Ossetia—The first time I enter Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, the hotel staff immediately calls the police. They tell me that no one can process my journalist accreditation until Wednesday. It is a Sunday afternoon, and the following Tuesday is the May Day holiday, making it a four-day weekend. Can't I just stay until then and see the town as a tourist, I ask? Nope. So about 20 minutes after I arrive, the police drive me back to the border with Georgia proper and tell me to try again later. I come back on Wednesday and find that the accreditation process consists of writing my name in a book and filling out a small piece of paper that I am told to carry with me everywhere I go. It takes about a minute. I'm visiting South Ossetia as part of a tour across the southern edge of the former Soviet Union, looking at the wildly different directions the newly independent countries have taken since 1991. In the case of South Ossetia, a self-proclaimed independent country that is, in fact, neither independent nor a country, "nowhere" is probably the best way to describe where it's gone. It's perhaps the closest you can get today to experiencing the old Soviet Union, as well as a good place to get the flavor of a good old-fashioned, Cold-War-style proxy war between the United States and Russia..."
Read the whole article on SLATE.
"TSKHINVALI, South Ossetia—The first time I enter Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, the hotel staff immediately calls the police. They tell me that no one can process my journalist accreditation until Wednesday. It is a Sunday afternoon, and the following Tuesday is the May Day holiday, making it a four-day weekend. Can't I just stay until then and see the town as a tourist, I ask? Nope. So about 20 minutes after I arrive, the police drive me back to the border with Georgia proper and tell me to try again later. I come back on Wednesday and find that the accreditation process consists of writing my name in a book and filling out a small piece of paper that I am told to carry with me everywhere I go. It takes about a minute. I'm visiting South Ossetia as part of a tour across the southern edge of the former Soviet Union, looking at the wildly different directions the newly independent countries have taken since 1991. In the case of South Ossetia, a self-proclaimed independent country that is, in fact, neither independent nor a country, "nowhere" is probably the best way to describe where it's gone. It's perhaps the closest you can get today to experiencing the old Soviet Union, as well as a good place to get the flavor of a good old-fashioned, Cold-War-style proxy war between the United States and Russia..."
Read the whole article on SLATE.
If you like this please Link Back to this article...
რუსთავი / Rustavi / Rustawi
English Wikipedia has a short history of Rustavi (a city about 30 km to the south of Tbilisi):
"The city was founded in 1948 to house the workforce of a nearby metallurgical plant, constructed in 1941-1950 to process iron ore from nearby Azerbaijan. Stalin brought workers from various regions in Georgia, specifically from the rural poorer provinces of Western Georgia. It took its name from a nearby ancient town... Rustavi became a key industrial centre for the Transcaucasus region. The main industries are iron and steel milling and the manufacture of metal products and chemicals.
German POWs who were captured in World War II were enlisted to design and build Old Rustavi. Rustavi is actually divided into two parts--Dzveli Rustavi (Old Rustavi) and Akhali Rustavi (New Rustavi). Old Rustavi adheres to Stalinist architectural style..."
(The old part of Rustavi. Houses are supposed to still offer superior quality. In German, we call this type of architecture "Zuckerbäckerstil" = "Sugarbaker-stile", in English it is "Stalin Empire". Other examples can be found in East-Berlin on Karl-Marx-Allee or Warsaw, Palace of Culture. If you want to know more about this style, you might want to read this article on Wikipedia about Soviet architecture.)
"... while New Rustavi is dominated by a multitude of seemingly endless stretch of depressing Soviet era block apartments."
(Well, have a look at this video which I took in summer 2003. Please excuse the quality, it is largely due to the fact that I was filming and driving at the same time.)"The fall of the Soviet Union in 1999 proved disastrous for Rustavi, as it also caused the collapse of the integrated Soviet economy on which the city depended. Today, most of its industrial plants have been shut down..."
(See the cows grazing? This picture is from 1998 or 1999)
"...and 65% of the city's population is unemployed, with all of the attendant social problems of high crime and acute poverty that such a situation brings. The population shrank from 160,000 in the mid-1990s as residents moved elsewhere in search of work."
This picture says it all. It is one of my favorite b/w-pictures:
If you like this please Link Back to this article...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)