I was looking for another forum concerning my main hobby and lifelong addiction, history and specifically warfare in the 20th century and this certainly looks to be a good place. I like the civility, which we all know is hard to find. I have traveled extensively around the world and for the last 10 years have been traveling all over the former USSR, mainly the european parts or the old Warsaw pact countries and have seen some pretty interesting sights such as the statue of Mother Russia in Kiev next to the Lavra on the banks of the Dneiper river. I remember that day, I took my last picture up the hill at the entrance and decided to get a closer look at the statue. I deposited my wife and her aching feet not far from the gate and proceeded down the roadway. No doubt she was startled by the scream of heart rending agony as I realized what was hid in the ravines around the statue. Tanks!! Big green tanks, little tanks, T-64s, T-72s, BMPs, BMTs, prototype museum pieces. A Hind and other aircraft and even an armored train wagon with 2 IS-3 turrets, one at each end. I HAD NO FILM LEFT!!! Anyway I hope something like this ever happens to any of you, we had to catch a train to Belarus that night so I never made it back. Hopefully I will in a few weeks. I would highly recommend it to you to take a look at that part of the world also. You will not be disappointed.
Thanks everyone. Anyone been around the old USSR? I end up there about 3 times a year it seems, somewhere. I've been to Yakutsk Oblast, Kazan Vladimir area, Moscow, Voronezh, Belgorod, Minsk, Smolensk, Kiev and other little places. My wifes family is from Gomel Belarus, she was born and raised there. Her great aunt was a partisan that lived in the Pripyet swamp in WWII and her aunt was born there. Stalingrad and Kharkov are high on the list for the future, as are Sebastopol and the Crimea next summer. Anyone wants to travel there and needs a little advice get hold of me.
hey! welcome!! no i have not been to USSR, only western europe when i was very young! anyway, welcome!!!
Jesus, you have been to more places then me and im Russian! I live in the States now but was born in St. Petersburg....... Oh and the one in Kiev is "Rodina Mat" ( more on the lines of "mother of Ukraine") This would be the real "Mother Russia" located in Volgograd, previously known as Stalingrad Oh and welcome aboard comrade!
Yes, I have one picture of it from the entrance. If I remember right they called the church complex the Lavra and this part of the park was called the Arsenal. The metro station we got off at was Arsenal station. The Dneiper is a beautiful river and the park is something else. I was there in May and everything was in bloom, all of the leaves were out. The city itself was basically unremarkable (a city is a city to me) and reminded me of Chicago. It seems that "democracy" is not working well for the common people of the Ukraine. The food was great and cheap. The strawberries in the Bessarabian market were some of the best I ever had. Volgograd is hard to get too if time is a consideration. I usually travel by train, planes are very expensive there. I would want to see Kalach also. Hopefully next year. I have never been to St Pete but my wife wants to go. Her father took her there several times as a child.
Hi! Glad to see a new member who knows Russian! Have you ever been in Bryansk? Its a small town not far from Smolensk, Moscow and Kiev.
Both Bryansk and Kursk are places I seem to always pass through on the train going somewhere but never stop. Gomel is not far from Bryansk and the Bryansk partisans in WWII were active throughout the region, I was told by my father in law that the railroad bridge over the Sohz river in Gomel was a favorite target of theirs, they blew it up or severly damaged it several times. Gomel was a major supply/transit point for Germans and at the beginning of the war Stalins son was killed in the forest north of the city in 1941. Bryansk was severly damaged in WWII but Gomel got off easy as no major fighting took place for the city, both armies retreating through the city instead of stopping to fight at the river.
I find the Stalingrad (Volgograd my ass) Rodina prettier, the Kiev one is too static, even for a statue.
Simply: Go to the pages www.letterjames.de, choose your language, choose an image, refill the text, various lines and ¡alehop!. After I upload the image to ImageShack® - Hosting If you desire, may be possible download an software. This samples I made by the web. Bigfun: What a nice avatar.....!.
