Photos from my family trip to Berlin, Prague, and Vienna on December 24, 2009 – January 3, 2010.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
|
About
 I'm an expat Californian who is obsessed with traveling to strange and exotic destinations in the former Communist Bloc. I also like tacos, beer, surfing, trapshooting, and the geopolitics of oil. I currently live in Arlington, Virginia and work in Washington, DC. Read more about me here, check out my photo album, or send me an e-mail. |
The NYTimes has an excellent series of articles commemorating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. I was only seven years old when this happened, but can still remember watching the news reports showing Berliners attacking the wall with sledgehammers as they were sprayed with firehoses. What an amazing moment in history. I’m looking forward to visiting the city, hopefully next month.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed! Remember Knut, that adorable polar bear cub that was abandoned by his mother but went on to grace the cover of Vanity Fair and earn the Berlin Zoo a few million bucks? Yeah, the zoo is trying to sell him now, because he is old, and therefore kinda boring. I will offer the Zoo $10 for Knut. He can live in my parent’s backyard and swim in their pool. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind since they love polar bears so much. Here is your chance to save one, Mom!  Cute
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
[...] Since the announcement of the pipeline deal nearly three years ago, Nord Stream has been beset by problems. It has been forced to alter the routes because of a boundary dispute between Denmark and Poland. It has been refused access to Estonia’s territorial waters. And last month, Nord Stream abandoned the idea of building platforms to support the pipes after objections, based on environmental considerations, by Sweden. The costs have also increased, from around 4.5 billion euros, or $7 billion, to about 7.4 billion euros, according to the company. The financing can only be finalized once the company has agreed on the final route with the countries bordering the Baltic Sea. They include Denmark, Finland, Germany, Russia and Sweden, which have to issue the permits, and four other countries, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. As yet, Nord Stream has received no permits to start laying the pipes in the Baltic Sea. If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed! I read a lot of news and blogs, most of it about Russia or energy. Here’s what you should read, too: World’s most expensive cities? Two of my favorite, of course. Moscow takes the #1 spot while London comes in second. Berlin hotel recreates East Germany Honecker portraits on the wall? Yeah, count me in! Awesome color photos from the Russian Empire, taken by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Russian president says no one should seek to make Russia feel guilty about Stalin-era purge Surprise, surprise, Gazprom wrestles control of the Kovykta gas field from BP. Related: Gazprom woes could hurt Putin’s drive for energy dominance, Investing in Russia: A BP perspective Retired Gen. George Washington Criticizes Bush’s Handling Of Iraq War (The Onion) Touring North Korea. Yes, I still really want to do this. Maybe in ‘08. Pyongyang rollercoaster: I’ve been on some pretty scary roller coasters (hello, Cedar Point amusement park) but I don’t know if you could drag me onto this one in Pyongyang, North Korea. Creed Bratton’s blog, www.creedthoughts.gov.www\creedthoughts, lives! (Video) If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed! In the past two weeks I’ve seen three movies: Music and Lyrics, Reno 911!: Miami, The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen). Because my opinion, like that of all bloggers, totally matters, I will share it with everyone on the world-wide internets. Music and Lyrics  Hugh Grant still looks as adorable as ever even though he is 46. WTF!? Hugh Grant is 46!? That’s effin’ crazy! He’s soooo old. I mean, it seems like just yesterday he was cruising around Sunset Boulevard in his BMW looking for prostitutes. My, how time flies. Anyways, Music and Lyrics follows the typical Hugh Grant movie plot: Sarcastic British Boy lives in Big City. Boy becomes attracted to slightly bizarre Girl. Girl also becomes attracted to Boy (well, it’s Hugh Grant, so obv). Boy does something stupid that pisses Girl off. After much introspection, Boy realizes he was a dumbass and begs Girl for forgiveness, employing some cute antics that usually result in public embarrassment of Boy. Surprise! Girl forgives Boy. Boy and Girl live happily ever after in Big City. Blah blah blah. The weakness of the plot is excused, however, because this particular film is inundated with Hugh Grant dancing a la Love Actually. I, for one, could not get enough of Hugh Grant shaking his ass to the Pointer Sisters and dancing around 10 Downing Street. Yeah, the movie isn’t brain food, but it’s nevertheless entertaining. Be forewarned, however, that an ultra-cheesy song in the movie called “Pop! Goes My Heart” will be stuck in your head for days – nay, weeks! It’s effin’ painful. I suggest blasting some Rage Against the Machine after leaving the theatre in order to rid your head of that pop nonsense. And in somewhat related news, Hugh split with his girlfriend, whatshername, oh yeah, Jemima. Dude, call me! Reno 911!: Miami  There’s not much to say about Reno 911!: Miami other than…it’s hilarious. If you’re a fan of the Comedy Central show, then you’ll love it. If you’ve never seen the show before you will probably still enjoy it, and perhaps be motivated to rent the DVDs of the actual TV show. The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen)  If you don’t get in line, we’ll lock you away If you have any interest in the Cold War, I would highly recommend this film. Afterwards, pick up a copy of Timothy Garton Ash’s fascinating book, “The File: A Personal History“, which details his own efforts to locate his personal Stasi file and track down his “friends” who informed the Stasi about every detail of his life while he studied in East Berlin. Not many other movies out right now that I want to see…well, except for “Breach”…I heard that one is good. But “Norbit” and “The Number 23?” Who in their effin’ mind greenlights this stuff? If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!  (Russian troops, Summer 1941) On this day in 1941, over 3 million German troops invade Russia in three parallel offensives, in what is the most powerful invasion force in history. Nineteen panzer divisions, 3,000 tanks, 2,500 aircraft, and 7,000 artillery pieces pour across a thousand-mile front as Hitler goes to war on a second front. Despite the fact that Germany and Russia had signed a “pact” in 1939, each guaranteeing the other a specific region of influence without interference from the other, suspicion remained high. When the Soviet Union invaded Rumania in 1940, Hitler saw a threat to his Balkan oil supply. He immediately responded by moving two armored and 10 infantry divisions into Poland, posing a counterthreat to Russia. But what began as a defensive move turned into a plan for a German first-strike. Despite warnings from his advisers that Germany could not fight the war on two fronts (as Germany’s experience in World War I proved), Hitler became convinced that England was holding out against German assaults, refusing to surrender, because it had struck a secret deal with Russia. Fearing he would be “strangled” from the East and the West, he created, in December 1940, “Directive No. 21: Case Barbarossa”–the plan to invade and occupy the very nation he had actually asked to join the Axis only a month before! On June 22, 1941, having postponed the invasion of Russia after Italy’s attack on Greece forced Hitler to bail out his struggling ally in order to keep the Allies from gaining a foothold in the Balkans, three German army groups struck Russia hard by surprise. The Russian army was larger than German intelligence had anticipated, but they were demobilized. Stalin had shrugged off warnings from his own advisers, even Winston Churchill himself, that a German attack was imminent. (Although Hitler had telegraphed his territorial designs on Russia as early as 1925–in his autobiography, Mein Kampf.) By the end of the first day of the invasion, the German air force had destroyed more than 1,000 Soviet aircraft. And despite the toughness of the Russian troops, and the number of tanks and other armaments at their disposal, the Red Army was disorganized, enabling the Germans to penetrate up to 300 miles into Russian territory within the next few days. Exactly 129 years and one day before Operation Barbarossa, another “dictator” foreign to the country he controlled, invaded Russia–making it all the way to the capital. But despite this early success, Napoleon would be escorted back to France–by Russian troops. Also, an interesting article: “It’s Not PC to Remember the Soviets Lost More Soldiers Breaking the Back of the Nazi Army than We Did” If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed! On June 5, 2004, Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the United States, passed away at his home in Bel Air, California. One of my earliest memories of Ronald Reagan was when my parents and I watched Reagan’s Presidential motorcade make its way down Monterey Avenue in Palm Desert. Reagan was good friends with Walter Annenberg and often vacationed at Annenberg’s Rancho Mirage estate. While I don’t recall the exact date when I saw Reagan’s motorcade, I assume he was in town to visit with the Annenbergs. Nevertheless, I do recall a large amount of people lining the sidewalk, ready to see the President’s limo pass by. It was an exciting event back then…it wasn’t until living in Washington that I would look upon the Presidential and Vice-Presidential motorcades as frequent annoyances. When the motorcade finally passed us, I remember squealing “Mom, the President waved to me!” Ah, to be a little kid again… But fast forward to the present day, or at least to the past three years, a majority of which I spent studying Soviet/Russian politics and history at GWU. It was there that I became incredibly frusturated with the conservative camp’s proclivity to credit President Reagan for the dissolution of the Soviet Union and fall of other communist regimes throughout Eastern Europe. Statements such as “Reagan won the Cold War” or “Reagan masterfully engineered the downfall of the USSR” and my personal favorite, “Reagan pushed the USSR towards bankruptcy” are constantly trumpeted by conservative politicians, newspaper columnists, and TV pundits who know little about the history of the Soviet Union. If you repeat something long enough, though, then perhaps the American public will begin to accept it as the truth. This is exactly what has happened, and with Reagan’s recent death, the lie has become even louder.   If Reagan did not singlehandedly bring an end to the Soviet Union, then what did? I present a few reasons below… Economics: By the 1980s, the Soviet economy was showing serious problems in all sectors of its economy, but these problems were most prevalent in agriculture and oil production. The USSR, in fact, was forced to import grain from the U.S. and Canada to feed its population. Most importantly, though, was the USSR’s slow rate of technological modernization in an era that was increasingly dominated by high-tech products from the U.S., Western Europe, and Japan. Soviet industry continued to rely on technology that had been formulated decades ago, and the scarce supply of computers was distributed to only the most trusted Soviet workers (scientists, etc). Of course, there were serious structural weaknesses that were built into the Soviet economy, chief among those being the command style economy. In such an economy, the ability to output a product in large quantities was more important that actually producing a quality good. There was no room for innovation in such an economy, as factory managers simply followed the orders that were passed down to them from the bureaucrats in GOSPLAN. (”Hmmm…I could try implementing these new production techniques that might speed up the output of the factory goods, but what if it fails? I’ll lose my job, my dacha, and my car. And even if it does work, then GOSPLAN will set even higher quotas for next year. I think I’ll just stick with what I do every year.”) Furthermore, there was no rational relationship between supply and demand – this, too, was determined by Moscow bureaucrats. A majority of Soviet industry was geared towards producing weapons for the military or other heavy industry machinery. None of these products satisfied Soviet consumers who desired the same blue jeans, cars, and kitchen appliances that were commonplace in the Western countries. As I mentioned above, agriculture was an especially problematic sector of the Soviet economy. In the 1930s, farmers were forcibly collectivized and the “wealthier” peasants (the kulaks, who were among the most efficient farmers in the USSR) were liquidated by the Soviet security services. The peasants that lived on collective farms devoted a majority of their time to tending their own personal gardens instead of the community crops, and a large percentage of crops simply rotted in the fields. The crops that eventually made it to the large cities would sit for months in warehouses, where another large percentage would be lost to spoilage. Since the USSR could continue to export its vast amounts of oil to other countries for hard currency, it would basically use these earnings to cover up the shortfall produced by its problematic sectors of the economy. The USSR would then use this hard currency to purchase machinery and grain from other countries, and continued to neglect any real attempts to reform agriculture or heavy industry. It is quite conceivable that the Soviet economy could have continued to perform miserably for decades without any political crisis enveloping the nation. And then along came Gorby… Glasnost and Perestroika: While serving as an agriculture official, Mikhail Gorbachev experienced firsthand the problems of collective agriculture. When he came to power as the General Secretary of the Communist Party, he unleashed a set of reforms known as glasnost and perestroika. Perestroika, which means “restructuring” in Russian, was Gorbachev’s campaign to reform the Soviet economy. Gorbachev did not strive to abandon socialism – he simply wanted to reform the most inefficient sectors of the economy and raise the standard of living in the Soviet Union. He pushed through reforms that allowed for private farming and cooperative business ventures. Gorbachev hoped that these cooperatives, which were really the first private businesses in the USSR, would provide goods and services that were in high demand by consumers (but the Soviet state by itself did not have the resources to meet this demand). In the realm of state owned enterprises, Gorbachev enacted measures that transferred decision making power from GOSPLAN bureaucrats to the factory directors themselves. The result, then, was an chaotic hybrid economy that included both capitalist and communist characteristics. Glasnost, (”openness”) was Gorbachev’s campaign to relax media censorship. The aim of glasnost was to allow for some criticism of the government and more open discussion about past atrocities committed by the Soviet state. Gorbachev intended to use glasnost as a platform to attack the “old guard” Communist Party members that were vehemently opposed to his economic reforms. With their reins loosened, the Soviet media began to report on corruption, waste, bribery, and other problems that plagued Soviet enterprises and public services. The highlighting of such problems called into doubt the Communist Party’s claim that the USSR was a shining example of socialism. Unfortunately for Gorbachev, glasnost soon spiraled out of control. Ethnic groups in the Soviet Republics used the freedoms provided by glasnost to air their grievances with the Soviet government and demand greater freedoms from Moscow. Tensions flared between various ethnic groups in the USSR, and Gorbachev responded by sending Soviet troops to quell the rising tide of violence. Such actions, though, only exacerbated the situation, and groups within the Soviet Union formed popular fronts to demand independence. Demokratizatsiya: Another goal of Gorbachev’s was to infuse new “progressive” blood into the ranks of the Communist Party. He hoped that by doing so, he could bypass the “old guard” Communists and more easily enact his economic and political reforms. Gorbachev did not intend to create a multiparty electoral system, but much like glasnost and perestroika he was unable to control the forces unleashed by demokratizatsiya. The constitutional provision that assigned a leading role to the Communist Party was eliminated, and political movements/parties across the USSR began to compete with each other for seats in the Supreme Soviets of each republic. Of course, the above are merely a few (although, in my opinion, the most important) of the reasons for the decline of Soviet power and the eventual breakup of the USSR. The list is endless: Afghanistan, the Helsinki Agreements, the Sinatra Doctrine, the hardliner coup against Gorbachev, the rise of Boris Yeltsin and “take all the sovereignty you can swallow,” Ostpolitik, human rights groups…etc, etc. To expound upon all of these in one blog post would be impossible…there are tons of books that focus on the collapse of the USSR…pick up one of these and you will see that the fall of the Iron Curtain cannot be credited to a man that lived comfortably at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC. In fact, to do so would be an insult to those citizens that fought against the communist regimes that denied them their basic freedoms. Ultimately, Reagan did not win the Cold War…he was a bit player in a long drawn out contest between two great superpowers, one of which collapsed due to its poor economic performance, imperial overstretch, and failed political reforms. That Reagan is given so much credit for ending communism is ridiculous, and only adds to his cult of personality that continues to grow with each passing year.  If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!  On this day in 1945, eight Russian armies completely encircle Berlin, linking up with the U.S. First Army patrol, first on the western bank of the Elbe, then later at Torgau. Germany is, for all intents and purposes, Allied territory. The Allies sounded the death knell of their common enemy by celebrating. In Moscow, news of the link-up between the two armies resulted in a 324-gun salute; in New York, crowds burst into song and dance in the middle of Times Square. Among the Soviet commanders who participated in this historic meeting of the two armies was the renowned Russian Marshal Georgi K. Zhukov, who warned a skeptical Stalin as early as June 1941 that Germany posed a serious threat to the Soviet Union. Zhukov would become invaluable in battling German forces within Russia (Stalingrad and Moscow) and without. It was also Zhukov who would demand and receive unconditional surrender of Berlin from German General Krebs less than a week after encircling the German capital. – The History Channel  Americans and Russians in their historic long-awaited link-up in their joint war against Germany provided the world with a hilarious preview of VE-Day in a sunny meadow on the bank of the Elbe river here this afternoon. There was a ceremony, of course. Maj.-Gen. E.R Reinhardt, commanding general of the 69th Infantry Division, one of whose second lieutenants made the first contact unofficially and accidentally late yesterday afternoon, crossed the Elbe in a rowboat to meet a major general of the 58th Guards Division of the Red Army. They shook hands, posed for thousands of pictures in the center of a screaming, shoving mob of official professional and amateur cameramen, then feasted in a German barracks on captured German eggs, black bread with cheese and tumblers of champagne and eau de vivre, an inferior cognac bottled for the Wehrmacht. Primarily, however, it was a day for the little man of the armies – for the GI and the junior officer-and each made it a merry one, forgetting war while toasting the United States and Russia, swapping insignia and watches, snapping pictures and trying out one another’s weapons amid noise, danger and laughter reminiscent of the Fourth of July at home. – Catherine Coyne, Boston Herald (27th April, 1945) If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed! I’m 21 years old and I went trick or treating for Halloween. This wasn’t just any old trick or treating, though…this was Halloween international style…yes, the DC tradition of trick or treating at embassies and the residences of ambassadors lives on through us brave GW students!  I was West Berlin, Tracy was East Berlin, and Sarah was the Berlin Wall…yes, these were costumes that only diplomats could appreciate (and history and polisci dorks such as ourselves). One lady commented that our costumes were “very intellectual.” What, you’ve never seen little kids dressed up as Cold War artifacts?? Anyways, special thanks to the ambassadors from Canada, Venezuela, and Costa Rica for providing us with candy when we knocked on their doors…and to those other countries that I forgot to mention…and special props to Costa Rica for the full size candy bars…I will remember that next time I’m Secretary of State and you want trade credits or something. If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed! |
|
|
Copyright © 2010 At Home In The Wasteland - All Rights Reserved |
||
