Tuesday 19th of March 2024

"It's the best city in the world, a city of unlimited possibilities. No other city has this much energy...."

the city that never sleeps...

In his company's loft offices above the roofs of Moscow, along with the hammocks and Soviet-era memorabilia, Artemy Lebedev has a provocative piece on display. Guests who use the bathroom while visiting Russia's best-known product designer find themselves inside the Kremlin, so to speak, sitting between the battlements of the fortress walls, gazing out at Red Square and listening to the sounds of the city. The voices of pedestrians and the traffic noise are a recording, the buildings and churches are painted onto a mural and the Kremlin wall is made of red-painted wood.

 

The 41-year-old designer is Moscow's enfant terrible. Together with his studio, he has designed a microwave for South Korean company Samsung, rectangular traffic lights for Istanbul and, for the nerds of the world, a computer keyboard that has acquired cult status with its luminous keys.

Lebedev has traveled to more than 200 countries, but he always feels drawn back to his native city. It is impossible to escape his creations in Moscow, where he has designed street signs and building numbers, mailboxes and even the maps for the city's metro system.

"Moscow never sleeps. It's the best city in the world," says Lebedev, "a city of unlimited possibilities, not as deadly boring as Berlin, where the restaurant kitchens close before midnight. No other city has this much energy. Moscow is just cool!"

Lebedev may be an eccentric, but he isn't exaggerating when he talks about the Russian capital. Moscow has never been as modern and cosmopolitan as it is today. There is free WLAN in subway cars, parks, restaurants and cemeteries, and you can use your smartphone to pay for parking spaces without having to walk to a parking meter. When you drive away, the main traffic office calculates online the exact number of minutes you parked. If your car was there for 53 minutes, you pay for 53 minutes.

Dozens of streets are being converted into pedestrian zones, there are 300 automatic bike rental stations, and movies are shown on outdoor screens in the city's parks, even after midnight. And Moscow is constantly setting new records. Last summer, for example, it overtook Paris and London with the total square footage of shopping malls.

Vibrant, Noisy and Booming

All of this is happening despite the economic crisis that has gripped the country, and despite the sanctions Western Europe and the United States have imposed in response to Russia's annexation of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine.

 

Read more: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/creativity-quality-of-life-and-the-new-moscow-a-1088013.html

 

Picture at top: Red Square after circa 1650 (from a Gus collection of stuff — )

 

the US is stretching the empire in places it shouldn't...

A Russian jet has performed an ‘aggressive’ barrel roll over a US plane on a reconnaissance mission for the second time in a month.

The Russian aircraft, a SU-27, performed the manoeuvre in international airspace over the Baltic Sea, approaching the US aircraft and flying over the top of it to the other side, at a distance of around 25 feet, US Army spokesperson Lt. Col. Michelle L. Baldanza told CNN.

"The SU-27 intercepted the U.S. aircraft flying a routine route at high rate of speed from the side then proceeded to perform an aggressive manoeuvre that posed a threat to the safety of the U.S. aircrew in the RC-135," Baldanza said.

But Russia defended the 29 April actions of its air force, which come amid rising tensions between the two countries.

"All flights of Russian planes are conducted in accordance with international regulations on the use of airspace," the Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement.

"The US Air Force has two solutions: either not to fly near our borders or to turn the transponder on for identification."

"We are already starting to get used to the insults of the Pentagon regarding alleged 'unprofessional' manoeuvres when our fighters intercept US spy planes at the Russian border," the ministry added.

It is the second ‘barrel roll’ to be performed over a US plane by a Russian jet in the space of a month, with a similar incident occurring on 16 April, when a Russian aircraft approached the US plane over the Baltic Sea and was described as behaving erratically before rolling over the top of the plane.

read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/russian-jet-performs-aggressive-barrel-roll-over-us-plane-for-a-second-time-this-month-a7008226.html

putin, lenin and my cousin — all vladimir...

 

The ruble may be become one of the most attractive currencies after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. The trend may continue in both the short and long term.

After the Brexit vote, the Russian ruble has become more attractive in the short and long term perspectives.

"Ruble looks good even in the long-term run, from 6 to 12 months, because oil is not expected to be seriously affected by Brexit," Per Hammarlund, chief emerging-market strategist at SEB SA in Stockholm, wrote in an e-mail to Bloomberg.

read more: http://sputniknews.com/business/20160629/1042126978/brexit-ruble-russian-bonds.html

This one could tempt Soros...

Oops... My Grand dad Adolph lost his life savings by investing in Trans-Siberian Railway Bonds... By 1917, his investment was worthless. Mind you, the railways in Russia had been started under the Tsar by a great Russian engineer. The revolution changed all this. Even the Germans during WWI let Lenin cross from Switzerland to "Petrograd". Meanwhile there had been a small revolt of the Russian proletariat, especially railway workers, in 1905, which Lenin had encouraged. This was an indication of things to come. 

At least the Trans-Siberian Railway is still running. I believe grand dad would be proud, even if his investment was not honoured, because the money was used nonetheless, possibly financing more than a couple of kilometres of tracks...

Revisiting some oldies and we now find similar connotations with the past:

 

In September 1917, Lenin published Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, which argued that imperialism was a product of monopoly capitalism, as capitalists sought to increase their profits by extending into new territories where wages were lower and raw materials cheaper. He believed that competition and conflict would increase and that war between the imperialist powers would continue until they were overthrown by proletariat revolution and socialism established.[122] At this time, he spent much time reading the works of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich HegelLudwig Feuerbach, and Aristotle, all of whom had been key influences on Marx.[123] This changed Lenin's interpretation of Marxism; whereas he once believed that policies could be developed based on predetermined scientific principles, he concluded that the only test of whether a policy was correct was its practice.[124] Although still perceiving himself as an orthodox Marxist, he began to divert from some of Marx's predictions about societal development; whereas Marx had believed that a "bourgeoisie-democratic revolution" of the middle-classes had to take place before a "socialist revolution" of the proletariat, Lenin believed that in Russia, the proletariat could overthrow the Tsarist regime without an intermediate revolution.[125]


February Revolution and the July Days: 1917

In February 1917, the February Revolution broke out in St. Petersburg – renamed Petrograd at the beginning of the First World War – as industrial workers went on strike over food shortages and deteriorating factory conditions. The unrest spread to other parts of Russia, and fearing that he would be violently overthrown, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated. The State Duma took over control of the country, establishing a Provisional Government and converting the Empire into a new Russian Republic.[126] When Lenin learned of this from his base in Switzerland, he celebrated with other dissidents.[127] He decided to return to Russia to take charge of the Bolsheviks, but found that most passages in to the country were blocked due to the ongoing conflict. He organised a plan with other dissidents to negotiate a passage for them through Germany, with whom Russia was then at war. Recognising that these dissidents could cause problems for their Russian enemies, the German government agreed to permit 32 Russian citizens to travel in a train carriage through their territory, among them Lenin and his wife.[128] The group traveled by train from Zürich to Sassnitz, proceeding by ferry to Trelleborg, Sweden, and from there to Helsinki before taking the final train to Petrograd.[129]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Lenin

 

"The [First World] war is being waged for the division of colonies and the robbery of foreign territory; thieves have fallen out–and to refer to the defeats at a given moment of one of the thieves in order to identify the interests of all thieves with the interests of the nation or the fatherland is an unconscionable bourgeois lie."

Lenin on his interpretation of the First World War

 

Nothing new..

tourists in moscow...

According to the mayor, tourism revenues in Moscow's economy now amount to "over 700 billion rubles [$11.4 billion] a year," which is in part due to the city's development, event tourism, and festivals.

 

Sobyanin also expressed confidence that the number of foreign tourists in Moscow would continue to increase.

Russian-Western relations deteriorated in 2014 over Moscow's alleged involvement in Ukrainian domestic affairs and Crimea's reunification with Russia. The relations got even worse due to Russia's support for Syrian President Bashar Assad, which contradicts the West's stance. Most recently, the ties were affected by Russia's alleged involvement in the poisoning of a former intelligence officer in the United Kingdom. Russia has repeatedly denied all allegations.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/russia/201804231063841044-sobyanin-moscow-tourists/

 

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the sordid disinformation at the BBC...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=576&v=BeWbIj2PHnE

 

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One of the images from Gus's collection of the Planning of Moscow with green spaces and other spiffy stuff from 1975...

moscow planningmoscow planning

 

the best destination...

DOHA (Sputnik) - Moscow has for the first time won the main nomination of the World Travel Awards (WTA) — as "The Best Travel Destination. City", bypassing London, Paris and St. Petersburg, the head of the Moscow tourism committee, Ekaterina Pronicheva told Sputnik on Thursday after the WTA Grand Final Gala Ceremony in Muscat, Oman.

"As a result of the vote of tourists and tourism industry experts, Moscow won the most important nomination for the "tourist Oscar" — the most prestigious award in the field of tourism World Travel Awards — 'The Best Travel Destination. City", Pronicheva said.

Everyone could take part in the open vote, which took place on the WTA official website. In addition to Moscow, such cities as London, New York, Lisbon, Paris, St. Petersburg, Sydney, Rio de Janeiro were represented in this nomination.

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin expressed gratitude to all those who voted for Moscow in this nomination.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/world/201911291077429935-moscow-wins-world-trave...

 

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The best, except if you're a French social philosopher: no yellow vests in ruskialaland...

QR code for ruskies...

Starting from April 3, Russian citizens will be informed about quarantine violations through SMS services and the Unified portal of public services. Starting from April 1, the Ministry of Communications will start providing the Social Insurance Fund and the Moscow Government with information about the citizens who should observe self-isolation regime. It goes about those who arrived from the countries with an unfavorable epidemiological situation.

In the near future, all Muscovites will need to have a QR code to leave their homes. With the help of the code, representatives of regulatory and law enforcement agencies will be able to verify the eligibility of the citizens' decisions to go outside. CCTV cameras, telephone billing and bank transactions will be used to monitor quarantine violators.


Not to be considered as such, Muscovites should create personal accounts on the website of the Moscow administration indicating their residential address, phone number and attaching a photo. After the registration, people will be able to obtain unique QR codes on their smartphones.

 


Читайте больше на https://www.pravdareport.com/news/society/144443-moscow_covid/

 

Why not use the yourdemocracy (вашадемократия) QR code below:

 

YDYD

 

 

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Будущее почти здесь?...

sleigh

 

The postcards date back to 1914 and were ordered by a confectionery manufacturer, Einem, which is now known as Krasny Oktyabr (Red October).

Airplanes, zeppelins, busy traffic and crowds of people on the background of historic Moscow buildings - this is how an artist from 1914 saw the Moscow of faraway year 2259.

While we are not quite there yet, some of the aspects of the artist's imagined future are here already, as the traffic in the Russian capital is indeed busy and the population has increased dramatically over the past century.

To travel to the future, while immersing yourself in the past, check out the postcards presented in Sputnik's photogallery.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/photo/202006211079680134/

 

 

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See also:

http://yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/35363

a beacon of freedom......

 

BY Phil Butler

 

Few have noticed that Russia appears to have a wide diversity of opinions on the Ukraine situation. At least this would be the case for an authoritarian state ruled with an iron fist. In the western stream of thought, there’s a lot of fanfare concerning criticisms of Vladimir Putin’s handling of the crisis. It’s as if the liberal world order can’t make up its mind. Is Putin an outdoorsy Stalin? Or, is Russia more of a democracy than the union next door run by an appointee Ursula von der Leyen?

Let’s just say it. The irony these days is so thick you couldn’t blast through it with a 50-megaton Sarmat II. England appointed a the self-professed Super Duper Zionist Liz Truss, who stomped around like she’s a zombie prime minister of Disneyland. But that nation now has a revolving door at 10 Downing Street. Over in my country, the nuclear suitcase is attached to the arm of a department store mannequin of a president held together with drug cocktails. And in Brussels, Germany’s former defense minister is doing her best impersonation of Helga, the tricky little Gestapo masseuse trying to scare Italians and other European customers. All jokes aside, the world of geopolitics is nuttier than my grandma’s spiciest fruitcake these days. I am sure most of you agree.

Vladimir Putin’s decision to institute a partial mobilization spurred 10,000 western propagandists to speak of open rebellion, an exodus of Russians to Kazakhstan, and a refocusing on blogger/criminal Alex Navalny. But for those who remember the Vietnam draft dodgers, the news of cowardly Ruskies headed for the border only makes Russia seem more American to most. Isn’t conscientious or cowardly objecting a democratic trait? More typical than any of the G7, if we are honest. Imagine it. Russians are leaving home freely, without being shot in the back at the border! Have I rubbed it in enough? No.

Isn’t it amazing how 20 billion tons of sanctions on Russia have failed to do what Liz Truss’ shadowy colleagues in Britain did overnight? The UK economy sank to record depths because of one idiot’s ill conceived tax ideas. When Kwasi Kwarteng, Britain’s finance minister and a key ally of Prime Minister Liz Truss, shattered that country’s tax code recently to favor the ultra-rich, the British currency landed in the loo. This New York Times piece frames that disaster.

Meanwhile, cross the pond in Washington, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken could hardly contain his pride in America having sabotaged the Nordstream pipelines to Germany. President Joe Biden made good on his promise to “end” Nordstream, and now my country is preparing to sell off the rest of the U.S. strategic reserves to profit from Europe’s loss. A U.S. president has now labeled half his countrymen domestic terrorists, sicked the FBI on his opponents Gestapo style, and censored dissent via Facebook, Google, and Twitter. And somehow, Russia is under an autocrat.

In the European Union, an unelected Fuhrer threatens member nations that step out of line. The central banks either bribe or hold ransom every house of government in the EU, and every leader from Athens to Zurich is in the pocket of the same elites who created the Nazis back in the 1930s. For years, the elites who congregate at Davos and in Brussels have dictated everything from fiscal policy to culture to member nations. Their assertions about European values and diversity are a lie. They are after compliance, a unified Fourth Reich bent on the same goals as the third version, only using Slavic proxy warriors instead of German panzers. To make matters worse, Ursula von der Chicken makes videos showing us citizens how to wash their hands to save water! Could things be more surreal?

On the other page, Russians on Telegram complain about incompetent generals goofing up the first Ukraine demilitarization plan. Setbacks in war? And for God’s sake – Holy Cow – heavens to Murgatroyd – do you mean Putin is not filling the gulags with Russian armchair commissars? Sorry, but nowhere is anyone talking about the lunatic arms shipments, the billions in payouts, the NATO WEPS specialists, and the Pentagon intelligence being fed to America’s Ukraine mercenaries. Are the propagandists admitting Putin is also clairvoyant? Was he supposed to know beforehand that America would invest more than Russia’s entire yearly military budget in a nobody comedian from mafia land? By the way, if Putin did know World War 3 was the actual game, does anyone think he’d only send 200,000 to fight the whole western world?

CNN reports, “Pro-Russia media slams war setbacks.” Bloomberg says Putin has “let,” the media tell “some truth.” France 24 is focused on Russia’s elite and how they are supposedly pressuring the president. Reuters tops them all, saying some Russia-installed official wants Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to commit Seppuku. And over in my country, turncoat Republican representative Liz Cheney says her party is a bunch of Russia sympathizers because of growing disagreement over Biden’s lunatic policies. Tulsi Gabbard, Tucker Carlson, even Elon Musk are traitors if they don’t toe the line and agree. Next, Twitter will be deemed a Russian propaganda channel.

 I know you get the gist already. More frequently, Russia resembles the beacon of freedom, while western capitals look at the world like an Orwellian nightmare. I leave you with a slightly altered version of a speech by former President Ronald Reagan concerning American exceptionalism.

“These visitors to that city on the Moskva do not come as white or black, red or yellow; they are not Jews or Christians; conservatives or liberals. Instead, they are Russians awed by what has gone before, proud of what for them is still… a shining city on a hill.”

Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, he’s an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books. He writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

 

READ MORE:

https://journal-neo.org/2022/11/04/who-would-have-thought-moscow-might-become-that-city-upon-a-hill/

 

 

READ FROM TOP: AS YOU CAN SEE, WE'VE BEEN ON THE CASE FOR A WHILE.....

 

SEE ALSO: https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/43171

 

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moscow with love....

Tucker Carlson on Monday said Moscow “is so much nicer than any city” in the U.S. as he praised  leaving the page." data-wf-tooltip-position="bottom" data-wf-reset-every="90">Vladimir Putin following his widely condemned interview with the Russian president amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.

In an interview at the World Governments Summit 2024 held in Dubai, Carlson unloaded on President Joe Biden, calling him “senile” and accusing him of bringing down both living standards and life expectancy in the U.S. as he said he was impressed by the Russian capital.

“What was radicalizing, very shocking and very disturbing for me was the city of Moscow, where I’d never been, the biggest city in Europe, 13 million people, and it is so much nicer than any city in my country,” Carlson said.

“It is so much cleaner and safer and prettier aesthetically, its architecture, its food, its service than any city in the United States,” he continued.

He also commended Putin’s continuous reign over the country, calling him “impressive” despite the fact that his abuse of power has been well-documented as he is expected to be reelected to yet another term next month.

“It’s hard to run a country like that for 24 years whether you like it or not,” Carlson said. “So an incapable person couldn’t do that. He is very capable.”

Carlson has long shown sympathy to the Russian leader and a been a vocal critic of U.S. efforts to continue funding Kyiv.

Putin appears to be reaping the benefits of the platform his two-hour interview with Carlson, where he largely went unchallenged, offered him and his allies ahead of the two-year anniversary of his war in Ukraine.

Julia Davis, the founder of the Russian Media Monitor, shared a clip from an interview Sergey Karaganov, a former Putin adviser and honorary chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, gave to Russian state media, indicating how his allies are prepared to use his sitdown with Carlson to push misinformation.

“Karaganov argued that Tucker Carlson’s interview with Putin demonstrates that the US is retreating” from Ukraine, Davis wrote on X. “He said Russia should escalate the situation to make America retreat even sooner and threatened Germany’s existence in the event of a war with NATO.”

https://news.yahoo.com/tucker-carlson-praises-moscow-much-160934172.html

 

 

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