So today marks the anniversary of the October Revolution, and where do they still celebrate it you ask? Why in Belarus of course. Somehow it seems appropriate that there is that much snow in Minsk already.I don't really have much to say about the October Revolution, on the whole not such a big fan, but then again as much as I like the architecture I am not sure how much of a fan I would have been in living in Imperial Russia either.
Still it is definitely this sort of stuff that make people think of Belarus as a living museum of the Soviet Union.
But then again they were marching for it in Moscow too:
Russia is so very strange. It is odd for me that the same soldiers can be marching in Imperial Russian uniforms (based on the Prussian ones) one day and then in Bolshevik uniforms the next. The coats look warm though (this is the sort of perceptive analysis you would expect from Eastern European Regional Studies Major after all).
3 comments:
Two questions. #1 Were they marching for it in St.Petersburg as well? #2 What do the Bolshevik uniforms look like?
I do like the coats though. I'd wear them for those cold, cold a New York Winters. But forget Minsk! Its 69 and sunny in Sicily right now! Venga cicio!
I don't know. Pretty certain it is not an official holiday in Russia, but apparently it does not stop them from having military parades on Red Square (though it is also done as a way to appease/steal the the thunder of the Communist party which would be out in full force with its army of pensioners otherwise).
The uniforms in the picture I take to be Bolshevik uniforms, though they are also of some sort of ski division.
It is just so weird that one day you can have Putin attending a memorial for the 200,000 dissidents executed outside of Moscow and then next celebrating the people who did it. Politicians do try and appeal to as many people as possible, it is just weird that in Russia that means celebrating the murdered and the murderers.
This is probably where I find Russia's contradictions less intriguing.
There is a a growing nostalgia growing in Russia. Stalin is being seen in an ever more positive light and history and being steered towards a state approved version again (http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10102921).
A friend in Russia tied it to a global glorification of the 50s in almost all countries. Frighteningly, there is some truth to that, there are black Africans in South Africa who wax about how much safer and more pleasant life was under Apartheid. Strange.
I find it funny that you answered the question I was dying to ask, but didn't. "How can the state support both sides of opposing internal conflicts?" I thought it was wrong to ask that about Russia because every counrty does it... But thank you for answering it. Must be ESP?
Also..'People are Stupid' is my motto for a reason. This applies to people in all countries, and esp. people with power. Like the pres of Georgia. I'm sure he must see the blatent contradictions in his actions. But power can blind you.
Even in Italy, esp. in the North & Center, there is barely hidden sentiment that Mussolini wasn't so bad! Atleast the government was "effecient". It was only his involvement with Hitler that took him down. WTF??? His grand daughter, Alessandra Mussolini, still leads the local facist party -which gets votes! But now they call it the "Social Alternative" party..with the same old facist ideas. Last I checked, she was even in the European Parliment.
Stupidity is a Global disease!
And many Iraqis wax poetic about how much safer life was under Sadam. But, I might agree with them...
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