Notes from "A Gentleman in Moscow"

Minus six - The minus six was a form of exile imposed in the Soviet Union during the 1920s, which banned the subject from living in or visiting any of the union's six largest cities as well as border territories. Cities banned:

• Moscow (now in Russia)
• Petrograd (known as Leningrad from 1924, now Saint Petersburg in Russia)
• Kiev (now Kyiv in Ukraine)
• Kharkov (now Kharkiv in Ukraine)
• Yekaterinburg (known as Sverdlovsk from 1924, now Yekaterinburg in Russia)
• Tiflis (now Tbilisi in Georgia)

Drosselmeyer is a one-eyed hotel cat named for the mysterious magician-like figure in Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker.

Admiral Stepan Makarov

Stepan Osipovich Makarov (1849 – 1904) was a Russian vice-admiral, commander in the Imperial Russian Navy, oceanographer, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and author of several books. He was a pioneer of insubmersibility theory (the concept of counter-flooding to stabilise a damaged ship), and developer of a Cyrillic-based semaphore alphabet. A proponent of icebreaker use, he supervised the first polar icebreaker construction. Makarov also designed several ships.

Makarov saw service in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) as a captain, and ordered the first successful attack with a self propelled torpedo. He served again in the Russo-Japanese War as vice-admiral and was assigned to the defense of Port Arthur, where he was hailed as a competent and aggressive commander. On 13 April 1904 Makarov led his flotilla to the aid of a destroyer that had been ambushed by the Japanese. Makarov was killed in the subsequent battle when his flagship Petropavlovsk struck a naval mine and the ship's magazine detonated. Japanese divers found Makarov's body after the war and gave him a burial at sea, and as a mark of good will Japanese officers led Makarov's funeral in Port Arthur. 

In 1946, after the Soviet invasion of South Sakhalin, the village of Shiritoru on that island was forcibly depopulated of its Japanese inhabitants and renamed Makarov in his honor.

Neman River

Page 147 - "Ah, Napoleon, perhaps you would never have prevailed in your quest for mother Russia; but 10° warmer and at least you might have reached home with half your forces intact, instead of losing another 300,000 men between the gates of Moscow and the banks of the Neman river."

His Serene Highness Prince Mikhail Kutuzov Smolensky - Roman Volkov

Another hotel cat is named after 

Field Marshal Kutuzov (1745 – 1813). He served as a military officer and a diplomat under the reign of three Romanov monarchs: Empress Catherine II, and Emperors Paul I and Alexander I. Kutuzov was shot in the head twice while fighting the Turks (1774 and 1788) and survived the serious injuries seemingly against all odds. He defeated Napoleon as commander-in-chief using attrition warfare in the Patriotic War of 1812.

Kazan Cathedral, Saint Petersburg

Previous post about this book.

Putin Goes Fishing on Iturup

Vladimir Putin at a fish processing plant on Iturup - Gavriil Grigorov

This piqued my interest because my niece and nephew are in the fishing business. Those are some big halibut, but where's Iturup? It's an island northeast of Sapporo, Japan:

Iturup Map

Google Maps failed me. Pull up Iturup on Google Maps and it shows you the island, but no cities towns or roads. If you ask it for one of the three airports, it will show it to you, but then it won't shut up about it and there doesn't seem to be any way to turn it off. New and improved for your viewing pleasure, and for most people, most of the time it probably works very well. Not for me. I might have to start using one of the other free, online, maps of the world.

Wikimapia has pictures:

Not sure whether these apartment buildings are abandoned or not

Town

Iturup Airport with Su35 jet fighters

Russia in Syria

Tupolev Tu-22M3 Khmeimim Air Base in Syria

Just a cool photo. The Tu-22M is a big airplane. Selected specs from Wikipedia:

• 140 feet long
• variable sweep wings go from 112 feet to 76 feet
• weighs 60 tons empty
• 1200 MPH top speed
• Russia might have 500 of these aircraft

Khmeimim Air Base in Syria

Ethical Ivory

Sylvain Cordier / Gamma-Rapho / Getty Images

Where did the ivory trade go after China banned elephant tusks? North, into the Russian permafrost — where an estimated 10M frozen mammoths lie waiting, and a kilogram of tusk fetches up to $1,900.

Mammoth tusks came to be known as “ethical ivory” after China banned imports of elephant tusks in 2017, closing the market that elephants were being slaughtered to supply. China and Hong Kong are home to the world’s most developed tusk-carving industry, in which a single piece can sell for as much as billions of rubles (tens of millions of dollars). Meeting that demand fell to Yakutia‘s tusk hunters, who dig the frozen ivory out of the permafrost. The independent Siberian outlet People of Baikal describes how this punishing trade works — and what the hunters may be costing science and themselves. Meduza has translated the story in full.

Meduza has the full story.

 

Trains

Hotel Metropol

I am reading A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. I'm not quite sure what to make of it but I'm only a quarter of the way through. It is not an action packed thriller that is hurtling pell-mell through the story, it's more like a pleasant drive in the country, or stroll in the garden. Nothing of much import happens, but the author carefully relates all the trivial incidents of Count Rostov's daily life in the hotel Metropol. It is around the year 1920, the hotel is in Moscow, and he has been confined there on the orders of the Party. A gilded cage, though he has been removed from his suite to what used to be servant's quarters on the fifth (top) floor.

He has made friends with ten-year old Nina, who is likewise confined to the hotel, though on orders from her grandmother or nanny. So they go exploring all the little nooks and crannies that a large hotel has, and this one has them in abundance. They spy on a large gathering of people and then we get this exchange on page 70:

    But by a stroke of luck, he didn't get the chance. For when Nina asked what he thought of the Assembly, unable to wait even a moment for his impressions, she barreled ahead with her own.

    "Wasn't that fascinating? Wasn't it fantastic? Have you ever been on a train?"

    "The train is my preferred means of travel," said the Count, some-what startled.

    She nodded enthusiastically.

    "Mine as well. And when you have traveled by train, have you watched the landscape rolling past the windows, and listened to the conversations of your fellow passengers, and drifted off to the clacking of the wheels?"

    "I have done all of those things."

    "Exactly. But have you ever, for even one moment, considered how the coal finds its way into the locomotive's engine? Have you considered in the middle of a forest or on a rocky slope how the tracks came to be there in the first place?"

    The Count paused. Considered. Imagined. Admitted.

    "Never."

    She gave him a knowing look.

    "Isn't it astounding."

    And when seen in that light, who could disagree?

Is the Count an idiot, or is he just typical of most people who don't concern themselves with anything outside their immediate surroundings? Me thinks the count is not an idiot, but his life has been in the rarefied stratosphere where mere material things are taken as a matter of course. So I think his acquaintance with Nina, along with his confinement, should expand his horizons.

Sabetta, Yamal LNG Plant

Sabetta, Yamal LNG Plant
(the red placemark in the upper right corner)

Report from RT:

EU buying record Russian LNG volumes with total ban looming – Financial Times

Can't get enough gas from pipelines, especially since some of the pipelines dun got blowed up. What's the deal with Europeans? Are they crazy? Stupid? Or evil? I just don't get it.

LNG (Liquified Natural Gas) has appeared here a couple of times.

The Decemberists

When The War Came
TheDecemberists

I'm reading a story about a new Russian play about The Decemberists. Okay, but who are the Decemberists? Google knows:

A Decembrist refers to one of the liberal Russian noblemen and military officers who led an unsuccessful uprising against Emperor Nicholas I in December 1825. Inspired by Enlightenment ideals and Western European reforms, these revolutionaries sought to abolish serfdom and establish a constitutional government in Russia.

The term has expanded over time into a metaphor for someone willing to sacrifice personal comfort, privilege, or status for a greater political or social cause.

The 1825 Uprising
Following the sudden death of Tsar Alexander I, there was a confusing succession crisis. Taking advantage of the chaos, a group of about 3,000 officers and soldiers gathered in Senate Square in St. Petersburg on December 26, 1825. They refused to swear allegiance to the new Tsar, Nicholas I, and instead called for the accession of his brother Constantine and the creation of a constitution.The rebellion was quickly suppressed by forces loyal to the Tsar. In the aftermath, the leaders were executed and hundreds of other conspirators were imprisoned or exiled to the harsh climates of Siberia.

Historical Impact
Despite its failure, the revolt became a foundational myth in Russian history. The martyred Decembrists became a powerful source of inspiration for succeeding generations of Russian dissidents and revolutionaries throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Cultural References
The name has since been adopted by modern entities, most notably the indie folk band The Decemberists. Frontman Colin Meloy chose the name to draw on both the historical drama of the 1825 uprising and the general melancholy associated with the month of December.

Did The Decemberists sing any songs about Russia? Yes, they did:

Yes, The Decemberists sing the song "When the War Came" (from their 2006 album The Crane Wife), which is explicitly set in Russia. The song tells the true story of the agricultural scientists and botanists at the Vavilov Institute in Leningrad during World War II. To protect a massive, priceless seed bank from being eaten by the starving, besieged population, the scientists made a pact to guard the seeds and tragically starved to death in the process.

 The Decemberists are famous (in my mind) for The Mariner's Revenge Song.

Kompozitor Rakhmaninov

Kompozitor Rakhmaninov at the Port Olya in Astrakhan Oblast, Russia

Came across this image and wondered if Google could place it, and you can see that it did. Port Olya is at the head of Reka Bakhtemir, a long channel that extends a long way into the Caspian Sea, kind of like the way the Mississippi River delta extends in the Gulf of Mexico, er, America.

Reka Bakhtemir is the westernmost primary distributary of the Volga River delta in the Astrakhan Oblast of Russia. Spanning a length of about 47 miles, it funnels the majority of commercial shipping traffic from the Volga into the Caspian Sea.

Volga River is the principal waterway of western Russia and the historic cradle of the Russian state. Its basin contains almost half of the entire population of the Russian Republic. Starting northwest of Moscow, the Volga discharges into the Caspian Sea, some 2,000 miles to the south. It drops from its source at 750 feet above sea level to its mouth at 90 feet below sea level.

Port Olya Reka Bakhtemir
Map is about 50 miles top to bottom

Information collected from Google, Brittanica & Wikipedia

Anti-Drone Bullets

Found this curious bit on RT:

Russian arms giant showcases pioneering anti-drone rounds
The multiple-projectile munitions have already been delivered for army trials

A pioneering Russian anti-drone round, which uses special three-element bullets in standard small-arms munitions, has been showcased in a new video released by the defense conglomerate Rostec.

The Mnogotochie (Ellipsis) project was unveiled earlier this year and is currently undergoing trials in the army, according to the report. On Friday, Rostec published footage showing the new munitions in action at a testing range.

Mnogotochie is a variant of a multiple-projectile cartridge for rifled weapons. Each bullet consists of three stacked elements made from a special bronze-like alloy. The spin gives them sufficient stability to be compatible with muzzle brakes, unlike shotgun rounds, while the spread increases the chances of hitting and disabling a small FPV drone.

According to the developer, a Russian producer of precision firearms with expertise in specialized munitions, a 5.45x39mm Mnogotochie round remains effective at ranges of up to 150 meters, while its larger 7.62x54mm version is suited for twice that distance.

In the video, rounds of both calibers were tested in single shots and bursts against stationary and moving targets, demonstrating high penetration and a decent rate of dispersion. At 100 meters, Mnogotochie munitions have enough punch to consistently pierce a 25mm layer of wood backed by a 0.8mm steel sheet.

The idea behind the round is to remove the need for a separate anti-drone weapon, replacing it with relatively lightweight magazines for weapons already carried by troops.

The bullets were designed to be fitted on regular production lines. While series manufacturing has already been launched, the munition is considered still in development and is likely to receive upgrades.

0.8 mm is like 22 gauge sheet metal. I suspect these are not going to be particularly effective. I think you probably want something alike a CRAM, but firing 22s instead of 20 mm. Can RADAR detect a small drone accurately enough to properly aim a gun?

Booker Bukhman Prize

Dmitri and Daria Bukhman

Meduza reports:

The Booker Prize Foundation announced that the International Booker Prize is being renamed the Bukhman International Booker Prize, in recognition of Bukhman Philanthropies, the charitable foundation of Russian-born billionaire Dmitri Bukhman and his wife, Daria.

The family name was added to the prize’s title after the Bukhmans’ charity committed to funding the award for the next decade and doubled the winner’s purse, from £50,000 to £100,000.

The International Booker Prize is awarded for a work of fiction originally written in another language, translated into English, and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland.

Bukhman’s net worth is estimated at $13.6 billion. With his brother Igor, he co-founded the mobile-game developer Playrix. The brothers started the company in Vologda, Russia, but Playrix has long been headquartered in Ireland. After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, the company shut down its Russian operations.

Lavochkin La-9

Lavochkin La-9

I did a jigsaw puzzle of this image this afternoon, but it was watermarked with AIRLINERS.NET, and I'm not gonna post that here. Asked Google to identify it because the label on the puzzle was entirely cryptic, and Google found the same image, sans watermark, on Ebay, so that's what we have here.

I had never heard of Lavochkin before. I've heard of Antonov, Beriev, Ilyushin, MiG, Sukoi, Tupolev & Yakovlev, but not Lavochkin. The company is still in business and is kind of a big deal.

Wikipedia:

The Lavochkin La-9 (NATO reporting name Fritz) was a Soviet fighter aircraft produced shortly after World War II. It was one of the last piston engined fighters to be produced before the widespread adoption of the jet engine.

The Lavochkin La-9 descended from the La-7 which descended from the La-5. The Soviets built many of these aircraft:

Model	Year	Quantity
La-9	1946	1,600
La-7	1944	6,000
La-5	1942	10,000

Lavochkin. The Evolution of a Fighter.
KOC1

Ilyushin Il-2

Ilyushin Il-2 - Romain Hugault
Romain Hugault is a comic book artist

Wikipedia - Production

In early 1941, the Il-2 was ordered into production at four factories, and was eventually produced in greater numbers than any other military aircraft in aviation history, but by the time Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, only State Aviation Factory No. 18 at Voronezh and Factory No. 381 at Leningrad had commenced production, with 249 having been built by the time of the German attack.

Production early in the war was slow because after the German invasion the aircraft factories near Moscow and other major cities in western Russia had to be moved east of the Ural Mountains. Ilyushin and his engineers had time to reconsider production methods, and two months after the move Il-2s were again being produced. The tempo was not to Premier Stalin's liking, however, and he issued the following telegram to Shenkman and Tretyakov:

You have let down our country and our Red Army. You have the nerve not to manufacture IL-2s until now. Our Red Army now needs IL-2 aircraft like the air it breathes, like the bread it eats. Shenkman produces one IL-2 a day, and Tretyakov builds one or two MiG-3s daily. It is a mockery of our country and the Red Army. I ask you not to try the government's patience, and demand that you manufacture more ILs. This is my final warning. — Stalin

As a result, "the production of Shturmoviks rapidly gained speed. Stalin's notion of the Il-2 being 'like bread' to the Red Army took hold in Ilyushin's aircraft plants, and the army soon had their Shturmoviks available in quantity."

Il-2 Destroys Bridge - The PIlot
Johnny's War Stories

I think the above video is from the movie The Pilot. A Battle for Survival. It was made in  Russia in 1980, so before the collapse of the Soviet Union, so it's basically a Soviet movie. Sounds like a good story though.

Ilyushin IL-2 Sturmovik | The Flying Tank | Armored Plane of soviet russia in WW2 #sturmovik #il2
Info Cafe

I suspect the audio on this video is artificial, but the script is pretty good: coherent and plausible. Maybe a little excessive boasting about killing German tanks at Kursk, I dunno. I know that Kursk was a big battle, but I never heard much about aircraft there.

Previous Il-2 post.

Ilyushin DB-3

Ilyushin DB-3

The Ilyushin DB-3 is a WW2 Soviet long-range bomber aircraft. It first flew in 1935. 1,528 were built. 

From Wikipedia:

The DB-3 was not a simple or easy aircraft to manufacture as Ilyushin had pushed the limits of the available construction technology to make it as light as possible. For example, the spar in each wing panel had four parts which had to be riveted together and there were numerous welds that each had to be inspected by an X-ray machine, with many failures. In addition the internal riveting of small-diameter tubing was also a difficult and time-consuming process.

In 1939, 30 DB-3s were supplied to the Republic of China Air Force during the Second Sino-Japanese War and they saw heavy action against Japanese targets in the Wuhan region from their bases in Sichuan (mostly used by the 8th Group), before being replaced by B-24 Liberators in 1943.

Two DB-3s were responsible for shooting down the neutral Finnish civilian Junkers Ju 52 passenger and transport plane Kaleva on June 14, 1940.

The Finns captured five force-landed DB-3Ms during the Winter War and during 1941 they purchased a further six DB-3Ms and four DB-3F/Il-4s from German surplus stocks.

On the night of August 7–8, 1941, fifteen DB-3T torpedo bombers of the Baltic Fleet dropped the first Soviet bombs on Berlin. From August 11, DB-3Fs of the VVS resumed bombing.

DB-3 torpedo bombers attacking a naval convoy in the Baltic
Skyfire

Ilyushin DB-3 & DB-3F(IL-4). WWII
Yolkhere

Cooling Air Intake Restrictor

Finnish Air Force Swastika

The Finnish Swastika is not connected to the Nazis.

Handwriting

Key - Ernst Neizvestny - 1984

Meduza got me started with a story about a Russian soldier who was making bank by forging Ernst Neizvestny artworks so naturally I want to see what kind of art he makes. In general, his art seems to be ugly. Kind of a reflection of many aspects of modern life. Doesn't appeal to me.

So who is this Ernst Neizvestny? 

Ernst (1925 – 2016) was a Russian artist . . . He emigrated to the United States in 1976 and lived and worked in New York City.

American playwright Arthur Miller once described Neizvestny as an "artist of the East" who is regarded by Russians as an "expression of the country, of its soul, language, and spirit" and as a "prophet of the future" who represents the "philosophical conscience of his country." . . .

Ernst's great grandfather received his surname, literally meaning "unknown," when he was conscripted for military service as a cantonist.

A cantonist? Look that up in Wikipedia and found this:

Cantonists were underage sons of conscripts in the Russian Empire. From 1721 on they were educated in special "cantonist schools" for future military service . . . The Russian state viewed the cantonist system as an effective means to induce the assimilation of its ethnic minority populations, particularly Jews, who were markedly over-represented within the schools.

Huh, imagine that, assimilation of ethnic minorities was important even back in the 1700s.

Anyway, scrivenery was one of the skills taught in cantonist schools.

A scrivener is a professional copyist or scribe . . . Styles of handwriting used by scriveners included secretary hand, book hand and court hand.

Different styles of handwriting? Well, I'll be. Here we go:

"The secretarie Alphabete": an abecedarium showing the forms of the letters used in secretary hand, from a penmanship book by Jehan de Beau-Chesne and John Baildon, 1570.

Bookhand variations using a Brause 2.5mm nib and Moon Palace ink on Strathmore Drawing 300 paper.

An abecedarium of Court Hand, including minuscule and majuscule letters and syllable variations.

Yakovlev Yak-18 U

Yakovlev Yak-18 U

Wikipedia:

The Yakovlev Yak-18 (NATO reporting name Max) is a tandem two-seat military primary trainer aircraft manufactured in the Soviet Union. Originally powered by one 119 kW (160 hp) Shvetsov M-11FR-1 radial piston engine, it entered service in 1946. It was also produced in China as the Nanchang CJ-5.

Wikipedia leaves off the U suffix, and some tack on an A suffix. In any case, it is not to be confused with the Yak-18T, which is not a trainer but a utility airplane.

Yakovlev Yak-18T

AMAZING Yakovlev Yak-18-A takeoff and low pass at Airfield Nötsch | D-EZCT
Aviation Videos

Russians get Right to Bear Arms

Pischal Counter-UAV Gun

Not really for the average slob, it essentially enables private armies, as long as they are loyal to the regime. Of course they are going to be loyal. You aren't going to let a rebel force raise an army, are you?

From Meduza, 

Russia has authorized private companies to purchase heavy weapons and equipment to defend against drone attacks, including anti-aircraft artillery systems, gun turrets, radar systems, and electronic warfare systems, the Russian business outlet RBC reported, citing sources.

Previously, businesses were limited to what were described as “passive safeguards for facilities” for their security personnel, including small arms.

Authorities expect the policy, adopted under new regulations, to speed up the supply of weapons and equipment to mobile fire groups — units formed from reservists, volunteers, and employees of private enterprises to protect civilian infrastructure from drones.

One of RBC’s sources said such groups “demonstrate high effectiveness in intercepting fixed-wing drones.”

Ratt Anti-UAV System Exterior

Ratt Anti-UAV System Interior

About Meduza:

Meduza is the world’s largest independent Russian media outlet. Completely outlawed by the Russian state, we operate from abroad to deliver news that censors can’t stop to millions of readers inside Russia and around the globe. You can read our reporting in both Russian and English. 

Yakovlev UT-2

Yakovlev UT-2

From Vintage Aviation News:

On July 11, 1935, the Yakovlev UT-2 took to the skies for the first time, marking a pivotal moment in Soviet aviation history. Designed as a modern trainer for the Soviet Air Force, the UT-2 replaced outdated biplanes and became the backbone of pilot instruction during World War II. Though challenging to fly, more than 7,000 were built, and today, just one remains airworthy—preserving the legacy of this essential war-era trainer.

Яковлев УТ-2 RA-2724G 105 лет ВВС 2017
KHMedia

Chernobyl

Chernobyl nuclear power station

Yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.

What kind of war is this?

Zelensky says Ukraine has completed repairs on Druzhba pipeline, which carries Russian oil to Europe

Doesn't make any sense to me. It's like two nutcases pretending to strangle each other while squishing a third party between them who is siphoning money out of both their wallets.

P. S. Ten minutes later I came across this one:

Ukraine Billionaire Spends $554 Million For World's Most Expensive Apartment In Monte Carlo

MiGs

Four MiG-17s
2025 Defenders of Liberty Air Show at Barksdale AF

From Wikipedia:

The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17 (NATO reporting name: Fresco) is a transonic fighter aircraft produced in the Soviet Union from 1952 and was operated by air forces internationally. The MiG-17 was license-built in China as the Shenyang J-5 and Poland as the PZL-Mielec Lim-6. The MiG-17 is still being used by North Korea's air force in the present day and has seen combat in the Middle East and Asia.

It wasn't used in the Korean War, but it was used in the Vietnam War. The Soviet Union built 10,000 of them.