Title: Battle of Stalingrad Source:
YouTube URL Source:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsLBd_RSiUk Published:Oct 25, 2013 Author:Discovery Channel Post Date:2018-02-21 17:04:08 by A Pole Keywords:war, sniper, Russia Views:1530 Comments:28
sneakypete (#4). --- Nice video about the Nazi army enjoying a luxurious winter vacation with their Soviet hosts in Stalingrad.
Don't be jealous, you can go there too. --- A Pole
Pete did go to Russia, correct? Did you get down to Stalingrad?
A good friend (history teacher) organised a trip to the USSR/Stalingrad during the Reagan era. -- The Intourist agency canceled our trip at the last minute, with no explanation. -- We figured that one of us must have been outed as a spy...
Pete did go to Russia, correct? Did you get down to Stalingrad?
Nope,just Moscow once,and Yoshkar-Ola once. I intended to go back again and buy or rent a Ural motorcycle with a side car,and take a ride from Moscow to St.Petersburg to see some of the more rural areas,and of course to visit the Hermitage,but got sick and never made it back again.
Pete did go to Russia, correct? Did you get down to Stalingrad?
Nope,just Moscow once,and Yoshkar-Ola once. I intended to go back again and buy or rent a Ural motorcycle with a side car,and take a ride from Moscow to St.Petersburg to see some of the more rural areas,and of course to visit the Hermitage,but got sick and never made it back again.
sneakypete
What in hell did you do in Yoshkar-Ola?
Much the same happened to me on my much looked forward to trip to Munich, and the October Fest..
You can guess, I had it all ready to do, -- the week after 9/11...
Long story short,I was there visiting a woman I had made friends with while researching the origins of man. She was half-Mari,and the woman that created the first written dictionary of Mari words and terms. She was a linguist at the local university there,and read,wrote,and spoke 5 languages. Her husband was an engineering professor at the same university,and he also spoke excellent English.
The Mari are,for want of a better definition,"Russia's Indians. They were there when the first Caucasians showed up. The were also a few in Finland that mostly followed the reindeer herds,and a few in Hungrary. Look at photos of the Mari of the 20's and 30's,and you think you are looking at Cherokees. Birch bark canoes,teepees,feathers in their hair,etc,etc,etc.
The Mari are,for want of a better definition,"Russia's Indians. They were there when the first Caucasians showed up. The were also a few in Finland that mostly followed the reindeer herds,and a few in Hungrary.
Sounds like Norway's 'Sami?'.. I married into San Francisco's Norwegian community, and they were big on that kinda stuff.. -- Interesting....
It's been years since I have thought about this and Natalia and her husband are both long dead now,so I can't even ask them,but IIRC,the Sami are sort of distant cousins who share some of the same words,and known for having red hair. NOT dyed,red hair at birth.
If you get away from Moscow and St.Petersburg there are still obvious traces of the Mongol invasion when looking at the faces of the locals. My friend Natalia was married to a Slav,and she could have easily passed for a Slav herself if she wanted because she had black hair,blue eyes,and pale skin. No question about her ancestors,though. Her mother was a full-blooded Mari.
I find this sort of thing to be insanely interesting,and honestly can't understand why everybody isn't fascinated with it.
BTW,in the mid 90's there was still a remote tribe of locals living along the coast in Siberia that were "original peoples" to that area as far as anyone knew. They had their own language and customs,and were basically subsistence fishermen and trappers. The tribe was so small and so remote that even Stalin saw no harm in them,so he didn't move them to a city were they would be watched and no danger to him,and where their genes would be lost as the boys and girls did their things.
There were only about 400 of them still living in the tribal area in the mid-90's when scientists discovered and got to them to research the origins of the tribe,and by then fewer than 100 of them spoke the native language. The younger ones had gone "all Russian".
The most amazing thing,IMHO,that was discovered about them by western linguists is that you could take one of the tribal members that spoke their original language,pick him up and drop him off at a Sioux reservation in the US,and he and the Sioux had enough words in common they could both speak to each other and be understood while speaking their native languages.
Just think,cousins separated by a melting land bridge thousands of years ago,and nobody had a clue about this until the USSR fell.
If you get away from Moscow and St.Petersburg there are still obvious traces of the Mongol invasion when looking at the faces of the locals.
It is more complex. Ancestors of Russians and others lived there for many thousands years and there was always mixing of numerous different tribes. There is a genetic gradient east/west and north/south/.
It did not start with Mongols, there were Huns, Scythians, Avars, Khazars, Bulgars, Slavs, Goths, Sarmatians, Hungarians,Fins etc before.
Eurasian steppes and forests were vortex of chaos for millennia until all those tribes congealed in one community as Russians.
That is why Russia gets stronger and grows when well organized enemy with a plan invades her. At first she returns to primordial chaos and bounce back bigger.
