I visited the Central Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces, just slightly less than a year after its consecration.
It is quite rare that reality exceeds visual media.
But the Fortress-Monastery does so, in spades, and that despite its already superlative neo-Byzantine steampunk aesthetics on screen, which are like something out of a Maxim Bedulenko painting.
Unfortunately, my cell phone battery expired with freakish rapidity when I came to the Fortress Monastery, as did my reserve bank. Presumably, the machine spirits within them were unsatiated with my lack of prayers to them. (Hence, most of these photos will be from travel companion VV, who was luckier at appeasing the machine spirits).
The references to Warhammer 40K are not even whimsical. All around the complex, both inside and out, liturgical chants percolate through the air. The only things missing are the Cherubim fluttering amidst the Cathedral’s vaults.
Brass cremation urns bear contain the remains of Russian soldiers from different WW2 battlefields.
They are arraigned in a semi-circle around a monument to the Mother of the Victor, within which burns an eternal flame.
The steps up to the gate, as well as the floor within the Cathedral, are made out of melted down German armor and weaponry.
Upon the main gates is an engraving of angels striking down the Reichsadler.
The dimensions of the Cathedral are symbolic. The diameter of the main dome is 19.45 meters, while the height of the small dome is 14.18 meters (the number of days in the Great Patriotic War).
The central apse features a metallic relief dedicated to the Resurrection of Christ. More than anywhere else, photos fail to do justice to what in real life looks like a divine being in 3D, a God-Emperor if you will, irradiating into the infinite blue, star-studded heavens.
The glass mosaics feature Red Army orders and ribbons. One of them contains a hammer and sickle. When the Cathedral was being constructed, there was a minor scandal about one of the murals depicting Stalin. It was later removed, his status as a persecutor of Christians being incompatible with being so honored.
The main dome is dominated by an image of the Savior Not Made by Hands. It is the largest mosaic of Christ’s visage in the world.
Most of the main murals on the ground floor are dedicated to the Great Patriotic War…
… as well as one that honors the heroes of post-WW2 conflicts up to the liberation of Crimea in 2014. Commenter Serg6499 points out that two of the soldiers here may have a resemblance to Givi and Motorola, two heroes of the War in Donbass.
FWIW, I didn’t see empty space for future conflicts. I wonder how that problem will be solved if/when the need arises.
The four murals above the main murals feature the the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War, the Russo-Japanese War, and World War I. My one critique is that I would have devoted more attention to World War I, this being, after all, a larger and more consequential conflict than the others. But it’s a minor one at that.
The underground crypt really gives off those Dwemer vibes.
One minor thing that you hardly notice – and that’s by design – is the painstaking attention to make everything fit congruently. The ornamental grillwork of the park benches corresponds to the patterns of the friezes on the Cathedral’s exterior.
Even the cafes and souvenir shops outside are painted green and don’t agree obtrusive advertisements.
The building encircling the Fortress-Monastery is a WW2 museum called the 1,418 Steps of Victory (=the number of days in the GPW) and is packed with highly immersive and interactive displays that obviously took a lot of money and effort to assemble.
As a visual and auditory experience, it is on a level with the Jewish Museum. The rooms are thematic and cleverly use light, sound, and in one case temperature (ice level air conditioning in the section on the Road of Life) to create an immersive experience.
There are two rooms showing short films, one of them featuring the history of the Night Witches, the other one something else (we didn’t stay to watch the it because the museum was closing soon).
One room off to the side from the main exhibition had graphic images and artifacts of Nazi atrocities.
One interesting room had small scale models of many of the monuments to Red Army soldiers in various European countries from Norway to Bulgaria. AFAIK some of them, e.g. in Warsaw, have been removed. It would be a nice additional touch to mark them out so.
Another room of the museum contained Hitler’s tattered uniform.
The final corridor has images of dead and surviving soldiers floating like a river of souls above candles in honor of them.
The screen at the end goes through the 27 million casualties suffered by the USSR across the 1,418 days of the war. The count does not go up linearly over time, so it seems that they took care to calculate casualties over precise time intervals.
The Military Cathedral and the Road of 1,418 Steps are just part of an entire complex that is run by the Ministry of Defense, which also includes a couple of military museums, a huge tank museum, a partisan village, a tank demonstration yard, a shooting range, and a huge expo center for exhibiting modern Russian weapons to foreign buyers (names like US-sanctioned Rosoboronexport are prominently featured).
Russian flags everywhere. It is, all in all, an unabashed festival of militarism.
And there are huge new buildings still under construction.
The military museum has a large collection of Soviet, German, Axis-aligned, Allied (mostly Lend-Lease), and even some Japanese tanks. There are also many other types of WW2 weaponry, as well as variants from the Cold War and even the modern era.
One section of the museum, pristine clinical white, is devoted to NBC warfare. These anti-gas masks for dogs were developed in 1932.
There is a massive outdoor section with a wide variety of modern weaponry, including…
… a Su-33…
… as well as an S-400 (sic!) system, and a a truck that carries the A-135 nuclear-tipped missile defense system which defends Moscow.
Hangar belonging to the United Aircraft Corporation. I happen to own a (purely symbolic) amount of their shares.
The complex can also be said to include the Tank Museum at Kubinka, which I visited a couple of years ago. It is about 5 km away and has literally hundreds of tanks in six huge hangars, making it one of the largest tank museums in the world.
The first hangar contains early Soviet tank forces starting from their germination in August 19, 1914 (when the world’s first automobile machine gun brigade was formed), through to the 1930s.
The three main hangars are devoted to Soviet, German/Axis, and Western Allied tanks of World War II.
The last two hangars include Soviet tanks of the early Cold War, and of the late Cold War and modern era.
Here is a Hungarian 38M Toldi just for reiner Tor.
Mobile siege mortar “Adam”.
A special German anti-mine tank that looks like a ball.
Perhaps the most unique part of the collection is the world’s only surviving example of a Maus. Clocking in at 188 tons, it was the heaviest tank ever built. It crawled at 7 km/h and was too heavy for bridges.
I would say that at this point, Patriot Park is already well worth a visit if you are in Moscow for a week or so, especially if you are interested in military history, or more broadly the ideology of modern Russia: https://akarlin.com/travel/moscow/
As a religious institution, I would say that the Military Cathedral is my second favorite religious center in Russia after the St. Joseph of Volokolamsk Monastery (and ahead of the overly touristic New Jerusalem Monastery, and even the St. Sergius Lavra in Sergiev Posad). As a comprehensive military museum complex – in between the Museum of 1,418 Steps, the Patriot Park military museum, and the Kubinka Team Museum – it is, I think, ahead of anything in Moscow proper. If you want to comprehensively explore all of it, including the Cathedral and the three main museum, as well as the shooting range, the partisan museum, and other exhibitions, you will need at least two days, probably three.
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Have you missed the mosaic depicting modern Russian heroes Givi and Motorolla? What a shame(
I was not aware there was such a mosaic, and some cursory searches suggest that the Internet doesn’t know of it either.
There are 2 links for you about that:
https://i.imgur.com/RQlN7A4.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/AGhtZ2H.png
The religious aesthetic of 40K seems to borrow a fair amount from traditional Catholicism, and there is overlap in this with Orthodox worship, so maybe it isn’t too surprising.
I’m not sure if it is the same in the Orthodox tradition (I guess from seeing the Cathedral there is some similar idea), but in pre-Vatican II Catholicism soldiers who fought under a lawful political authority established in accordance with the Divine and Natural Law, and in a just cause, were considered to be carrying out a kind of blessed task, and sometimes it would be considered a kind of penance or form of asceticism, to stand for justice against the power of sin and the devil in its most violent forms.
I’m waiting for the next Hartford gun buyback to turn in my 406mm Soviet 2A3 Kondensator.
Hard to believe that a dog could be trained to wear one of those gas masks and put up with it.
Interesting to see those curved skylights. I would not guess this type of thing is common in Russia. I wonder how much weight they are designed to hold and if they will leak.
Thanks. Will absolutely visit there the next time I am in Moscow.
I want to thank you Mr Karlin for this fine post. It’s symbolic of why I find your work so captivating and insightful, a window into to both contemporary Russia and her past. One that I would struggle to comprehend, without Russian patriots such as yourself.
This in particular holds great emotional resonance for me. Reminds me of a poem by Aleksandr Tvardovsky, that I have mentioned in the past.
Я убит подо Ржевом,
В безымянном болоте,
В пятой роте,
На левом,
При жестоком налете.…
И во всем этом мире
До конца его дней —
Ни петлички, ни лычки
С гимнастерки моей.
Я — где корни слепые
Ищут корма во тьме;
Я — где с облаком пыли
Ходит рожь на холме.
Я — где крик петушиный
На заре по росе;
Я — где ваши машины
Воздух рвут на шоссе.
Где — травинку к травинке —
Речка травы прядет,
Там, куда на поминки
Даже мать не придет.
…
Летом, в сорок втором,
Я зарыт без могилы.
Всем, что было потом,
Смерть меня обделила.
I was killed near Rzhev
In a nameless bog,
In the fifth company,
On the Left flank,
In a cruel air raid.…
And in this whole world
To the end of its days –
Neither patches, nor badges
From my tunic you’ll find.
I am where the blind roots
Seek for food in the dark;
I am where the rye waves
On a hill in the dust.
I am where the cockerel cries
In the dew of the dawn;
I am where your cars
Tear the air on highways.
Where – small stalk to small stalk –
River’s weaving its grass,
Where for the remembrance
Even my mother won’t come.
…
In the summer of forty-two
I was buried without a grave
Everything what came later
Was taken by the death
I WAS KILLED NEAR RZHEV
I was killed near Rzhev
In a nameless bog,
In fifth company,
On the Left flank,
In a cruel air raid
I didn’t hear explosions
And did not see the flash
Down to an abyss from a cliff
No start, no end
And in this whole world
To the end of its days –
Neither patches, nor badges
From my tunic you’ll find
I am where the blind roots
Seek for food in the dark
I am where the rye waves
On a hill in the dust
I am where the cockerel cries
In the dew of the dawn
I am where your cars
Tear the air on highways
Where – small stalk to small stalk –
River’s weaving its grass
Where for the remembrance
Even my mother won’t come
In a bitter year’s summer
I was killed. And for me
Neither news nor bulletins
Will come after this day
Would you, the living, count
How long before that
For the first time in front news
They named Stalingrad
The front burned without stopping
Like a scab on the flesh
I was killed and I don’t know
Is Rzhev ours at last?
Have ours held their ground
There, on the Middle Don?
This was the month of horror
Everything was at stake
Could it be that by autumn
He already took Don?
And he broke through to Volga
Riding onto its bank?
No, it’s not true! That mission
He could never complete.
No way I say, no! Even for the dead
It would be too terrible to hear
Even the dead and voiceless
Have one last single joy
We have fallen for the Motherland
But it’s finally saved.
Our eyes have faded
Out is the flame of our hearts
And up there, at roll calls
They are not calling us.
We’re like bumps or stones
Even darker and dumber.
Our memory eternal –
Who is jealous to it?
Our ashes are rightfully
Owned by black earth
Our eternal glory
Is of little delight.
We shall not wear our
Battle awards
This is all for you, the living,
We have just one last joy
That we didn’t fight in vain
For our Motherland
Let our voice be inaudible
You’ve got to know it now.
And you had to, my brothers,
Stand fast like a wall
For the curse of the dead
Is a terrible wrath
We are forever given
This bitter right
And it is forever ours
This bitter right
In the summer of forty-two
I was buried without a grave
Everything what came later
Was taken by the death
All, what has been for many
So clear and common
But then may it all be
In accord with our belief
Brothers, maybe you didn’t
Lose the Don battlefield only
And were dying in battles
Fighting behind Moscow
And in steppes behind Volga
Dug your trenches in haste
And in battles you marched
To the limits of Europe
For us it would suffice
To know for sure
There was that last inch
On the road of war –
That very last inch:
If it is abandoned,
There’s nowhere to put
The foot that had stepped behind
And you drove the enemy
Back to the West
May it be so, my brethren
And Smolensk’s now ours
And you’re crushing the enemy
On the other front,
And maybe it’s the border
Your are nearing now?
May it be… Let the holy oath’s
Words be fulfilled :
For Berlin, if you remember
Was named near Moscow
Brothers, who now trample
The stronghold of enemy land
If the dead and the fallen
Could only cry!
If only victory salvoes could
Resurrect us for an instant,
Us, deaf and numb,
Us, who rest in eternity
O, my faithful comrades,
Only then at this war
Your limitless happiness
You would realise!
In this happiness there is
Our inalienable part,
Our, severed by the death,
Faith and hatred and passion.
All is ours! We did not cheat,
In this cruel fight,
We have given all ours
And left nothing to ourselves
Everything is bequeathed to you
For all time, not for a term
And this mental voice of ours
Is no reproach to the living.
For we had no distinction
In this war at all:
Those living and those fallen –
We were all equal.
And no one of the living
Is indebted to us
Those, who took up the colours
From us on the run
Only to fall one step later
For the holy cause,
For the Soviet power,
Like all of us.
I was killed at Rzhev,
And he – somewhere near Moscow…
Where are you, warriors, where,
Is there anyone alive?!
In the million-large cities
In the villages, at family homes?
At the military garrisons,
On a foreign land?
Ah, does it really matter
If it’s foreign or ours
If it’s snow-covered or blossoming…
I bequeath you to live –
What more can I do?
I bequeath you to be happy
In your life over there
And to serve your Motherland
With honour for long.
When in sorrow – be proud,
Do not bend down your head
When rejoicing – don’t boast
In the victory hour.
And to safeguard, brothers, this victory,
The happiness of yours, –
In the memory of your warrior-brother
Who has fallen for it.
Anatoly, did you take those photos? Beautiful. Churches have lovely, complex and simple beauty all at the same time as regards the craftsmanship. My old Greek church in Peabody, Massachusetts, St. Vasilios has a beautiful blue dome outside and and intricate, detailed stone work in the floors, the walls and of course, the same breathtaking artistry in the painting and depictions in the dome and ceilings.
When it came to relatively primitive artwork, the real treasures are in the Christian churches be they there or here. Those were people, be they Greeks, Catholics, or Christian Russians, who put their minds and souls into their works. I think such works are beyond our abilities today.
http://stvasilios.org/assets/images/our_parish/parish_history/stvasilios_peabody_ma.png
https://farm8.static.flickr.com/7503/16224918796_32ffb5b6eb_b.jpg
https://www.flickr.com/photos/aconstantinou/7881324872/in/album-72157631291165664/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/aconstantinou/sets/72157631291165664/
Thanks for the Toldi, unfortunately Hungary only started developing those in 1938, due to the restrictions of the Trianon peace treaty. So obviously they were several years behind the cutting edge.
It’s truly a pity that the war didn’t last 70 days longer.
Imagine needing all that.
Rebellion/riot
considered a kind of penance or form of asceticism
Yes.
https://twitter.com/Khalsa_Ak47/status/1348183059246575617?s=20
3rd pic.
That looks like an awesome place to visit. I ready Russia’s War by Richard Overy some 20 years ago which led to a long-standing interest in the Great Patriotic War and Russia in general. It’s amazing how few people know of the Battles of Stalingrad, Kursk or the writings of Vassily Grossman like Life and Fate which is up there with War and Peace.
I hesitantly say that it seems Russia seems to undergoing a period of national renaissance. National pride is up, pride in the military up, people willing to fight, religion is promoted, liberalism is being combated and Russia is growing self sufficient at the same time. Just recently Russia has become the world’s largest grain exporter. What a turnaround for a country that war ravaged by soviet famines and crop failures for almost a century!
I only hesitate to fully declare a Russian renaissance because its birth rate is still dismal. In the long run what matters most is biocapital, i.e how much high iq population does your nation have?
The second and less serious problem is that of Russian technological backwardness. But honestly that’s a problem that cna be fixed by a determined government. Create more research parks and directly funnel money into them, bypassing the lazy schmucks at the universities.
Increased autarky to the level where all industrial goods are produced locally should also stimulate much more technological research. Plus, Russia has a strong existing technological foundation due to its military-industrial complex. Shouldn’t be too difficult to advance along the lines of aeronautics, AI, microelectronics, robotics and computer tech via military research.
Bear in mind every major component of a modern smartphone was created by the US military. Microhips for cruise missile guidance, digital cameras for satellite recon and GPS for aircraft navigation.
No reason why Russia couldn’t advance along those lines either. The state definitely should make it much harder for technically and scientifically educated people to emigrate though. Make them pay taxes or put sunset clauses on their property at home or some other bureaucratic harrassment.
There’s no sense in Russia training engineers who go on to boeing to make aircraft that fights against Russia.
As for the birth rate, I think a novel solution is in order. Throwing money at families hasn’t worked that much. Plus it breeds dysgenics.
The problem of low birth rates is not economical but cultural. 100 years ago couples lived in small tinsheds and did gruelling manual labor but had no problem giving birth to and raising 5-6 kids.
The problem is with materialism and sexual degeneracy. Its impossible to pairbond when you’ve already had sex 4-5 people and marriage has no security when cheating is easily avaialable and divorce has no social consequence. If anything, divorce is beneficial for women since they can take half your property and the kids.
Plus the ”need” for your kids to have smartphones, their own rooms and all that…
There really isn’t an environment for having many kids in modern society. The solution would be to create religiously chartered communities. There, say in Russia, the orthodox can have their own laws and customs, separate from Russian secular law. They can essentially have white shariah there and punish any deviancy as well as regulate who can enter their community and who can’t.
These ortho-communes would act like the Haredi Jews of Israel or the Amish in America and pump out 5-7 kids per woman. A conservative minded person trapped in a liberal society can’t fullfil their demographic potential. However, in a religious community with like minded people, they can.
Filter out the conservative breeders from the liberal mainstream and unleash their breeding potential.
Russia stands a real chance of becoming the leader of the white world. It already has about 125 million or so Europeans. If it manages to annex east ukraine and Belarus, it adds another 30 million or so. If it could take all of Ukraine barring galicia, it would mean adding another 12-15 million or so slavs.
With roughly 170 million whites, Russia would remain a great power for centuries. And if it can raise its birth rate above replacement and reach that magic number of 200 million, it would surpass the US as the largest white country and leader of the white world.
All of Europe would eventually be forced to submit before her military and demographic power
What a coincidence, for a past few days, I have been writing my post about a small Russophobic campaign connected with the interiors of this church.
https://insomniacresurrected.com/2021/05/10/they-have-seen-diablo-and-mordor/
When I saw your post, I have made a small update to mine. I was not aware of the full concept of the blathering that I found in the social media screenshots. Thanks for giving us this tour.
Without lend lease the Red Army would have ran out of gas at the Dneiper.
Pure beauty. I have to visit this, hopefully when I am employed in the country, otherwise as a guest.
Well, Putin was in “Stalker: Call of Pripyat” as radio repairman, so all is good.
That’s good stuff.
The sight of kids playing on a Panzer IV Ausführung H kill machine fills me with some peace.
Also, tell me about your homeworld, Usul!
Absolutely beautiful.
Thanks for sharing so many pictures.
Truly a stupendous achievement.
Except: China. Think they’ll sit idly by and watch that? The Chins will mop the Russians up once their usefulness is at the end in the post-U.S. world. China is going to end up with Russia’s oil, gas and other resources and due to the pathetic mis-match in demographics, China will walk in and take it all without firing a shot.
In the end, one way or the other, China wins.
I doubt this will happen whilst Russia has the worlds largest nuclear missile reserves at her fingertips. China knows this all too well. Plus China would rather get very fat and prosperous trading with Russia then attack it.
“Bear in mind every major component of a modern smartphone was created by the US military. Microhips for cruise missile guidance, digital cameras for satellite recon and GPS for aircraft navigation.”
I somehow doubt this is true, the US military is just a part of the world’s R&D and you are discounting the enormous electronics R&D facilities of China, Taiwan, Japan and Singapore. The needs of the US military might’ve been the driver of most of the world’s electronics advancement 50 years ago, but not today.
Nuclear weapons tend to keep things in place.
20 generals call on Macron to defend patriotism
I wonder if a point in time will ever come where France (and the UK for that matter) will have to dismantle their nuclear arsenal in the same way South Africa did before the fall of Apartheid? If the projections of the Grand Remplacementists are to be believed, I can’t imagine the military brass of aforementioned countries would be too happy with an immigrant-led (possibly even Islamist) governement having their proverbial fingers on the proverbial button.
Russia has nukes. China can’t take shit. Plus Central Asia is closer to Russia than China. It can easily invade and occupy Kazakhstan and Tajikstan or keep in fear of air strikes while China is cut off from them by mountains and the vast gobi desert.
But that’s beside the point. The thing people forget is that Chinese superpower will not be similar to American superpower.
America had a more soft approach and had a sexy face. To join the American order meant economic growth, free sex, attractive hollywood stars in your theaters, modernity, first world life standards, freedom, democracy etc.
Now we know that most of these things are mirages while the rest are deliberate cultural warfare, but still America was attractive. She didn’t annex Japan or Germany or Iraq. She installed democratic governments and mostly permitted self rule. Even today America to some extent maintains the visage of freedom and opportunity.
That’s not the same case with China. There’s no friendly veneer with China. Its an openly totalitarian and repressive society. It has a massive surveillance state, social credit score, slave labor, ethnic cleansing and racial supremacy…and its all out in the open.
Its not hidden under some veneer of human rights, combating disinformation or labor migration, no, its open and naked imperial repression.
Everyone knows China wants to take over their markets and entangle them with debt. Everyone knows the CCP stands for Han Supremacy, everyone knows that nearly all Chinamen in a country are willing to act as spies and saboteurs for the Chinese state.
China doesn’t have the friendly mickey mouse face of America, it bares the iron fist.
So, if the US collapses tomorrow, the world won’t automatically fall to China’s feet. Without American meddling, Russia will be allowed to ally with the EU. The Russo-Chinese friendship will instantly unravel as well. Japan, India and South Korea will still have the Chinese giant on its border and will seek protection.
It will essentially be a pacific NATO of Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and Russia, all whom face territorial threats from Beijing.
Most of the countries aligning with China only do so because they’re oppressed by the US or because the Ameircan alternative is so toxic. Without the joojoo of the great satan, they will little incentive to grovel before the bamboo satan.
If you look at maps of the Tang Dynasty its sphere of influence spread all the way to the Ferghana valley.
Thanks. Most of the Cathedral photos were taken by a friend I was with, since my cell phone lost juice. The tank photos are mine.
LCDs – UK, ARM chip UK, various video codecs – UK, concept of cellular base stations (originally transputer based) – UK, billing software – UK. standardization on GSM protocol – UK/Finland/EU.
Bluetooth later too.
That’s the wet dream of NATO thinkers. It will not happen simply because China can buy Siberian resources in the way they are buying now. It is a way cleverer than warring the greatest nuclear power of the world.
That would give Germans few extra years to Final Solution several million more Poles and West Ukrainians in their quest for lebensraum.
If Soviet Union slowed down the pace of their offensive in WW2, a lot fewer people would be around to complain about Russia and USSR today.
Red Army running out of gas on Dnieper wouldn’t necessarily be a tragedy for Russia.
Ahhhh yes – the hope of the white world to be saved from the yellow peril of the Chinese…. Oh brother. So basically you are calling for a re-arranging of the old 8 Nation Alliance with just a few pieces exchanged.
Most of what you wrote is complete garbage in understanding China and it’s relations with the rest of the world. You keep repeating the stupidity about debt traps – when even the infamous one the west tries to use came out and said it is a complete lie (see story below). But you keep trumpeting the same garbage.
And you think South Korea would seek protection from China from Russia??? LOLOL. South Korea is tired of the US trying to use it against China… You have little clue about East Asians.
You are right about Vietnam and India… That’s about it though. Even then the Indian media reported the Sri Lankan governments own words on the stupidity of claiming China put them into a debt trap.
https://indianexpress.com/article/world/hambantota-port-not-a-debt-trap-by-china-sri-lanka-president-6718210/
Han people don’t try supremacy. Han people like to be left alone. You cast your own white supremacist aspirations on Han people. You should thank the Han for absorbing the Mongols. They should really have been your fear. the Mongols might reignite to taunt you in your nightmares. Check under your bed for the ghost of Ghengis Khan…
Or better yet in your hypothetical scenario wouldn’t you be afraid that the Japanese would seek revenge on YOU if US troops were gone. It wasn’t China that dropped the atom bomb on Japan or firebombed Tokyo… Don’t think Japanese forget. The reason Japanese were so brutal against the Chinese was because the Japanese had Chinese in disdain since they felt China couldn’t stand up to the whites. You didn’t realize that? You didn’t know Japan’s goal was to get all whites out of Asia…? You forget they fought Russia? A Japan with no US troops would probably want to Kurils back and might be crazy enough to try to get it back if the nationalists get into power.
That’s what the white world would have to fear if the US retreated and left Asia. You would have to worry about a re-militarized Japan…. Specifically wanting back the Kuril (which Abe basically told Putin to his face he wanted them back).
https://www.dw.com/en/vladimir-putin-offers-kuril-islands-peace-deal-to-japans-abe/a-45459525
China wanting to the Russian Far East is a lunatic fantasy. One that Putin and anyone with sense in Russia knows is not true. China did fight Russia for territory (which was part of Qing Dynasty China) in the Far East when Russia had nukes and China didn’t. So having nukes had nothing to do with it. The border was settled and the Chinese got back to what they were successful at for many centuries – which is to do trade and business. In fact much of China’s military modernization is the result of Russia providing expertise – once the final peace was made (most for some reason don’t realize they sold China more advanced weapons than they did to India or Vietnam from the 90’s up).
In any event – China if the US was no longer in the way China by itself will buy more grain and energy than all of Europe since it is a bigger market. So why on earth would Russia turn against China and toward the EU that it does not trust??? And even if it did trust the EU – China can buy more and would benefit Russia’s economy more…. So unless you think Putin is as much into white supremacy as you – then your wet dream wouldn’t happen. I don’t think Putin is crazy…. You talk of Russia allying with the EU against China… What does the EU really have to offer the Russian economy going forward….?? A smart leader balances – they don’t create blocs to antagonize others… I am pretty sure Putin would understand that.
Here is Russia’s trade numbers – and this is only after just recently making concerted effort to increase trade with China…. So tell me why would Russia give this up – which still has the bigger upside? Just for a white supremacy ideology of yours?
https://oec.world/en/profile/country/rus/#:~:text=Exports%3A%20The%20top%20exports%20of%20Russia%20are%20Crude,%28%2441.7B%29%2C%20Belarus%20%28%2420.5B%29%2C%20Germany%20%28%2418.9B%29%2C%20and%20Italy%20%28%2416.7B%29.
The visuals are indeed stunning. But doesn’t all the religious imagery tend to obscure certain realities of that period? After all, Stalin was hardly fighting for God and Country. He was fighting for the survival and expansion of socialism. I wonder if ordinary Russians today understand this: that the leader of the “Great Patriotic War” was the least patriotic person imaginable.
The Mother of Victory looks exactly like a vulva. I think it’s a nice, meaningful touch that drives home the fact that the dead soldiers are children of mothers. I don’t think one could get away with that here, though, because people would laugh at it.
Got to hand it to Russians for true reverence of femininity.
Karlin,
have you ever seen Lindybeiges videos on the Tank museum at Boddington ? Probably a lot smaller, but still interesting.
incredible
Is Warhammer 40K Harry Potter for the red-pilled set?
Thanks for this very interesting and excellently photographed post.
Did you find the crypt the most tranquil part of the cathedral?
And Stalin isn’t depicted anywhere there, so what’s the relevance of this point?
I was in Bovington a few years ago. Smaller, though better presented than at Kubinka.
And a surviving Nazi Germany that has everything from Brest to Kiev and has nukes (they would eventually get around to having it) would be a bigger threat to a rump USSR going forward?
He means the pathbreaking work of developing those technologies (with the difficulties and high costs involved) came about through coordinated govt military spending (especially WW2 and Cold War) and that the USA was a leader in those areas. Those military technologies shaped the world today and all the commercial projects that grew from them (just about all the major components of the iPhone can trace their heritage back to govt-back military oriented research labs – then we can think about things like Jet travel, Rocketry and Space flight, the Internet itself…).
Sure they’re manufactured in East Asia these days and Asians do important and also difficult work of iteratively improving them beyond what the West is/was able to (like the Japanese did with a lot of consumer goods over the last decades), but that’s not the same as opening up new fields.
I wonder what technological marvels will come out of the next great war? 😉
Germans were horrible to Right Bank Ukrainians but were okay towards Western Ukrainians, who were treated perhaps like Czechs and who were favored over Poles. German occupation was better and less deadly for ethnic Ukrainians in Galicia than Soviet occupation had been, which is why Galicians very understandably favored Germans over Soviets. Conversely, it was logical for other Ukrainians to favor Soviets. No shame in either choice.
Comparing the video and the photos I see that there are some greens being grown in the surrounding parterres. Tall trees or shrubs, I wonder? Hopefully noble trees. They would make the view even more interesting for the pilgrim’s approach at ground level.
I was wondering if the cathedral actually functions as a church, rather than just as a monument, memorial, or museum. Seemingly it does, or it’s starting to. There was an Easter service some 10 days ago.
Although, with it located at >1 hour from the city, I guess service might be reserved for special occasions or for military personnel, and not likely to be used for, say, everyday meditation/worship/prayer or every Sunday’s sermon. As a monastery, it still could actually house or teach monks, though.
It can also be said it resembles a hollowed-out tree trunk, the rugged exterior perhaps a deliberate approximation to bark.
If they knew USSR was taking it easy, Germans wouldn’t use precious nukes on the Eastern Front. They would nuke Americans trying to land in France somewhere instead.
The nice treatment would be over once Germans realised massive eastern territories were off limits and they would have to settle for Eastern Europe only.
If Black Earth and Crimea were cut off from settlement I wonder if German settlement wouldn’t be limited to Poland (next door) and France (nicer climate) rather than Carpathian foothills in Galicia, Volhynian swamps, or vulnerable Right Bank immediately on the Soviet border.
Nah, it’s a vulva. It’s good symbolism. Makes a point. The context puts notions of profanity to shame. This kind of respect for both the fallen and those who gave birth to them is what is actual reverence.
My own Anglo culture displays virtually no reverence at all for these things, and our women act accordingly. That is the true origin of profanity.
Those Galacians were allright folks. No shame.
https://twitter.com/edolinsky/status/1280782304793812998
The pogrom was evil but immediately followed an atrocity in which 10,000 or so Ukrainians were murdered by Soviets right before they fled the advancing Germans. Angry locals and family members of murdered people (some if the murdered included a pregnant women with her stomach ripped open), encouraged by the Germans, blamed Jews collectively (Soviet rule had meant an influx of Jews from German-occupied Poland, so Jews were associated with Soviets; there were also Jewish personnel among the Soviets, although these escaped and weren’t in the city during the pogrom) and took out their rage on the Jewish community. Two wrongs do not make a right but presenting only half the story is dishonest of you.
Almost all pogroms were committed by Ukrainians. It’s just a recurring pattern.
The actual concrete plan for immediate implementation as opposed to Hitler’s overwrought musing in Mein Kampf was to resettle the Germans from across Eastern Europe in Western Poland next to the rest of the Germans. A regathering rather thana vast expansion.
And yet its a Russian word. Imagine that…
It looks like a lot of the pogroms in the Russian Empire occurred in cities such as Odessa, Warsaw, and Kiev that at the time of the pogroms did not have a large Ukrainian population:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogroms_in_the_Russian_Empire
The largest pogrom was in Odessa, where in 1905 2,500 Jews were murdered. In 1897 Odessa was 49% Russian and only 9% Ukrainian.
“In many of these incidents the most prominent participants were railway workers, industrial workers, and small shopkeepers and craftsmen, and (if the town was a river port (e.g. Dnipro) or a seaport (e.g. Kerch)), waterfront workmen; peasants mainly joined in to loot.”
Such perpetrators would tend to be ethnic Russians, while peasants (Ukrainians) just looted.
The US will probably develop a newer missile system after watching its navy and air force get blown up.
Also, whatever technology allows one to navigate without satellite support, which I recall is a map and magnoculars.
Jokes aside, it is something to ponder. I’m of the opinion the secret technology will start being rolled out, anti-gravity, etc. Technically old, but new in the world’s eyes.
Nope. No Stalin. The burning Reichstag instead, not a symbol of National Socialism but German democracy and Germany itself, of the German people. The triumphant Red Army in front of it. Which is the equivalent of the Waffen-SS in front of a Kremlin in ruins and then some. All framed as a holy mural of Russian Orthodoxy and Pan-Slavism in a continuation line of “warrior martyrs” then and now. Which transcends the conflict from an ideological clash between National Socialism and Stalinism to a racial holy war between triumphant Russians and vanquished Germans along the lines of the framing of Ilja Ehrenburg and Stalin himself. – Which killed millions of German civilians after the war and which, of course, you justify and some even glorify to this day. – Not built in the 1950s, but just recently.
Not that any of these sentiments were new to me, but it was clear pilling to see them so concentrated and triumphalist. Probably the single most important building and mural to make me understand what you are today. Whatever might have been promising in the first eight years of Putin’s rule is over, probably forever. If it wasn’t a deception strategy when you were still weaker in the first place. And it is no use to blame this on Washington, or the KGB and Chabad dominating your country when it is very obviously what the Russian people and you want.
There was a Millennium of wars between France and Germany, including millions of lives lost on both sides; today any conflict between our countries is unimaginable and the German-French friendship is genuine. And if Russia itself genuinely had wanted peace and cooperation, you had a blue print and all doors were open to you, especially in Germany – hardly a country today known for positive ideas of Hitler, NS or triumphalism towards Russia.
I don’t think that you want peace.
Not then and not now. And if there is anything that can and will drive Europe away from the East and into the arms of the USA and thus NATO, when their reputation is at their absolute lowest, and also towards an actual EU army, it is Russian militarism. Cementing the new Cold War that was entirely avoidable.
Well, first let’s make Ukraine a NATO member. 🙂
Oh really.
Where was NATO 30 years ago? Where is it now?
How come NATO has moved to just a few dozen miles from St. Petersburg.
Why is that?
Absolutely. Tell that to the Anglos.
It’s too obvious your comment is a work of MI6.
Since you are so confident of the existence of this plan, as opposed to Hitler’s “looney” writings in some prison cell (later to be published in a book), do you care to present us “the plan”.
Any links, facsimiles, photocopies, anything?
Anatoly, is this one of your guys?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E1hqtjQWEAIIuNG.jpg
The first from the left is Roman Yuneman. You tried to elect this guy into Moscow Duma, or something.
Well, you know, all the early Drang Noch Osten and Catholic Crusades aside, had WWI and WWII not been a thing, this mural probably wouldn’t exist. Had the last 30 years not happened, it also wouldn’t exist. Turns out though, Modern Germany and NATO, the new Reichspakt, just can’t stop with the whole “Let’s own Russia” thing. It’s not even an American thing. These Europeans were unhappy when Trump acted like he didn’t want conflict with Russia. It really shows the European leadership class genuinely consider themselves equal members in a global (or as they say, Transatlantic) elite with Russia and others as outsiders. Europe could have a renewed Treaty of Emperors, but instead, its elites, and if you are representative of the non-elites…its people, want a great bifurcation.
So, why not make a memorial about it?
NATO delenda est. Слава бог, Слава России, Слава Героям!
Anyhow, Germany can rightfully have shrines celebrating the successful Eastern migrations, and should feel entitled to purchase the land for a Neupreusen from a compliant future Polish government.
If they want peace with Russia, they can always publicly behead the US ambassador, pull a red wedding on the US military base (jk, they could peacefully disarm and send them back) and offer the Ukraine, Belarus, and maybe a Baltic state or two, and that one part of Moldova as a goodwill gift. I’m sure West Francia could be convinced to agree.
lmao
Seethe harder, faggot.
If you want to get banned for posting satirical news as real news to a non-English audience to smear me by association, just keep on doing what you’re doing.
Oh dear, I’m so intimidated right now…I was hoping you could explain where Yuneman stands on Israel exactly, since you do seem to put a lot of faith in this guy.
Don’t tell me it’s fucking uminportant: Israel is a basic litmus test for any (would-be) politician.
Once Hitler’s war was underway, the whole project was called the Generalplan Ost. There were two plans. The Big Plan that reflected Mein Kampf but was due in the indefinite future as there were clearly not enough Germans available to carry it out. Then there was the Small Plan for the purpose of which western Poland was annexed. The 5m Germans scattered throughout Eastern Europe were thought to be enough to settle the area. The settlement process and the accompanying ethnic cleansing of Poles was actually started. This was real with acheivable goals. Detailed plans were made. Start your research with these. Both plans were monstrously evil but then, Andrew Jackson or Cecil Rhodes were not so far behind.
https://ipn.gov.pl/en/news/580,Press-conference-on-the-exhibition-of-the-German-Research-Foundation-Research-Pl.html
https://academic.oup.com/gh/article/31/3/318/738353
Britain has ancient Cathedrals built to the glory of God in which the flags of the military intrude for the purposes of Remembrance. It seems to me that this is a Temple of Mars that misuses some Christian icongraphy. Compared to the hate speech on this site, from which AK is a relatively sheltered spot, it is a quite insignificant infringement.
As a cultural artefact, it does update the use of the distinct and attractive Russian sense of colour.
Ah, I messed up my editing. I had a response in comment 62, but the moment is passed really. Ha ha.
Yeah, most empires and nations have at least attempted genocide. The only real issues are who, whom, and when.
It’s one thing to remove aboriginal nomads 300 or 3,000 years ago, it’s quite another to remove a competing continental ethnic group in the modern era. Both the Germans and Japanese “miscalculated” there. One’s got to be slow and steady about it.
As for the Temple of Mars…well, crusades were also a Christian thing, and if one is a Russian soldier, I keeping God close in heart on the field of war was important. If anything, it’s probably more traditionally devout. Banners with Christ’s face on them, etc.
Leo Tolstoy wouldn’t be happy, though. He also didn’t think trains were good for peasants, and I must disagree with him there.
I must admit, that I too think that this church is a bit too militaristic, Germans were after all Christian people, so I don’t think it’s proper to celebrate so much their defeat in the art of a church, though still less idiotic or bad taste than that one Ukrainian Church.
https://media.pravoslavie.ru/303805.p.jpg?mtime=1540912580
Fair enough. This perspective goes a long way in clarifying your initial post.
Nevertheless, the main ideological drive behind Nazi regime’s policies rested on Nazi’s, i.e. Hitler’s, historic visions. After all, they fancied calling their creation a “Thousand Year Reich”.
The competing Orthodox priests egging their sides on during The Maidan demonstrations put me off investigating Orthodoxy with a view to conversion. In many matters it seemed to reflect the forgiveness of Jesus more than the somewhat Calvinist version of Anglicanism that I grew up with. In Western Europe that sort of religious chauvinism died in the trenches of the First World War.
But priests are only men, isn’t it worse when there are Anglican priests espousing all kind of heresies contrary to teachings of Christ and his apostles?
@Philip Owen
I mean, I’m a Buddhist and you’ll find monks going to bat for their home countries too. I’d say if you convert to anything (I never converted, I just was always a strange syncretic do to family circumstances), you do it because the theology, the theme, the style and the community appeal to you. I would convert to Mormonism out of a sense of community appeal, theme, accuracy-in-afterlife-concept, and sense of family history if I could get around the theology and fact I am too atomized to belong to any community beyond my family and friend group outside a pleasantly social chameleon level.
On a national level, Orthodoxy sure has a beauty to it, and you get traditional priests and saints, which are fun. If I move to Russia, I’ll be a big booster of it if I can (well, while being a Buddhist.)