Tag Archives: vladivostok

Slava Kurilov: Alone at Sea. An Unbelievable Way to Escape the Iron Curtain

Posted on by
11
kurilov2 Slava Kurilov: Alone at Sea. An Unbelievable Way to Escape the Iron Curtain

The only per­son to escape the Iron Cur­tain by swimming.

By job he was an oceanog­ra­pher, by heart he was a dreamer, by nation­al­ity he was a cit­i­zen of the planet Earth — in short, he was an extra­or­di­nary guy. Yet his per­sonal file in the USSR was stamped as “not wor­thy of an exit visa” so he was not allowed to leave the coun­try, even if it was for a hol­i­day. So in Decem­ber, 1974 he jumped a cruise boat “The Soviet Union” off the coast of the Philip­pines islands — and he swam to freedom.With no food or drink, no swim­ming equip­ment apart from flips and gog­gles, he swam to the shores about a hun­dred kilo­me­ters for three days — com­pletely alone at sea.

Since his child­hood, Slava Kurilov had been very keen on swim­ming and he loved the sea so deeply, he made it his career — he was an oceanog­ra­pher, a deep sea diver. He knew the sky — all the major con­stel­la­tions, he knew mete­o­rol­ogy, he had a vivid inquis­i­tive mind  — he also spoke good Eng­lish, had a sis­ter liv­ing in Canada and his father was in a Ger­man prison camp dur­ing the WWII, which also con­sid­ered some­what of a treach­ery. A few times Slava applied for a per­mit for research trips out­side the coun­try, but to no avail — the rea­son being “endan­ger­ing the secu­rity of the USSR”.

Con­tinue read­ing →

Wrap Your Baby in Old Newspapers — the 70 Years of Deficit of Everything.

Posted on by
4
1111 500x375 Wrap Your Baby in Old Newspapers the 70 Years of Deficit of Everything.

A typ­i­cal Soviet shop with bare shelves.

One of the main criti­sisms of the Soviet Union now, from an every day per­spec­tive, was the huge deficit of every­thing. The planned econ­omy failed to sup­ply a con­stant flow of goods nec­es­sary for the well being of peo­ple. It was not the mat­ter of inca­pac­ity — no, the means cer­tainly allowed to build space shut­tles or cre­ate extra strong tanks.  The short­age for goods was cre­ated arti­fi­cially — due to the rea­sons of the strange Soviet ideology.

Con­tinue read­ing →

The case of The Kremlin Doctors and its Consequences: the State of Anti-Semitism

Posted on by
5
display diligence The case of The Kremlin Doctors and its Consequences: the State of Anti Semitism

Be Vig­i­lant! Dis­close an Enemy Under any Mask!

1953 was the last year of long and ter­ri­fy­ing gov­ern­ing of Stalin. In Jan­u­ary the huge coun­try although accus­tomed to repres­sions shud­dered from the new hor­ror –  this time the enemies-saboteurs were Krem­lin doc­tors of a Jew­ish ori­gin. The com­menced per­se­cu­tion also applied to ordi­nary doc­tors.  Soviet peo­ple who believed to the polit­i­cally edited sto­ries broad­cast in the media were scared to be patients of Jew­ish doc­tors. On March, 5 of 1953 Stalin passed away and the case of Krem­lin doc­tors was dis­missed. Humil­i­ated, maimed doc­tors were released. How­ever this was only the begin­ning of the polit­i­cal repres­sions of the Jew­ish spe­cial­ists and today we would like to intro­duce you to a strik­ing exam­ple — the story of my family.

Con­tinue read­ing →

Diamond Dog’s Run 4,000 miles long: David Bowie in the USSR.

Posted on by
14

Just like John Lennon or Elton John, in 1970s David Bowie was an iconic fig­ure of the West­ern music scene. Nick­named Chameleon of Pop for his flam­boy­ant out­fits, pale make up and eccen­tric tunes, David Bowie made a train tour of Rus­sia, all the way from Vladi­vos­tok to Moscow, eigh­teen days in a sleeper.  Back in the days, when the Cold War was in its prime, get­ting a per­mis­sion to look behind the Iron Cur­tain was an incred­i­ble phe­nom­e­non by itself. Well, did David  enjoy him­self while in the USSR? Let’s see.

DB pano 500x188 Diamond Dogs Run 4,000 miles long: David Bowie in the USSR.

David Bowie in the Red Square, Moscow, April 1973.

Con­tinue read­ing →