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Recent Posts
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- Lisbon in the Time of Corona, Cholera and Cocaine
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- One Hundred Years Ago, the Digging began – December 1921: Rhine-Main-Danube Canal
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Category Archives: Russia
One Hundred Years Ago, a German Baron from the Baltics established a Kingdom in Mongolia – March 1921: Roman von Ungern-Sternberg
Zur deutschen Fassung. With the spectacular opening episode of this historical series, I wanted to point out that World War I ended neither with the armistice nor with the peace treaty. Shooting, fighting, conquering, occupying and liberating continued everywhere. The … Continue reading
Posted in China, History, Military, Russia
Tagged anti-semitism, Mongolia, Nazis, Soviet Union
11 Comments
More Exciting than a Thriller
Zur deutschen Fassung. It’s been months, if not years, since I last saw a good movie in the theater. On TV, they are showing “Outbreak,” “Pandemic” and cheap adaptations thereof every day. But fortunately, there is this Russian lawyer and … Continue reading
Posted in Human Rights, Politics, Russia
Tagged corruption, crime, criminal law, Human Rights, Putin
1 Comment
Wait, when was World War II again?
Zur deutschen Fassung dieses Artikels. A strange questions, it seems, especially coming from someone studying history. But the more you travel in the post-Soviet world, i.e. in the countries that became independent after the end of the Soviet Union, the … Continue reading
Posted in Abkhazia, History, Military, Photography, Russia, Ukraine, World War II
Tagged Soviet Union
14 Comments
Film review: “Donbass”
Truth is the first victim of war, one could sum up the film Donbass, which confused me more than it educated me. But it did so in a memorable, partly unsettling, partly amusing, way. In 13 episodes, Sergei Loznitsa portrays … Continue reading
Our Prisoner of War
Recently, I stayed with my father in Bavaria, where life is informal and one can put the feet on the table and smoke inside the house. We were both preoccupied with reading, my father with the newspaper and me with … Continue reading
Posted in Germany, History, Military, Russia, Travel, World War II
Tagged Bavaria, cigars, German history, Nazis, Soviet Union
5 Comments
“60 Degrees North” by Malachy Tallack
Good idea, good writing, but somehow lost me halfway on its way around the globe. Not that any particular idea is needed to set out and explore the world, but, as far as ideas go, circumventing the planet following the … Continue reading
Random Thoughts (9)
In Bolivia, I spoke with a lawyer about feminicidios, the killing of women by their partners, which carries a higher sentence than a “regular” homicide. Out of curiosity, I looked up the figure for Germany – and was shocked: 331 … Continue reading
Posted in Bolivia, Economics, Germany, History, Human Rights, Immigration Law, Law, Mexico, Military, Music, Poland, Politics, Romania, Russia, Travel, Ukraine, USA, World War II
Tagged crime, criminal law, dance, Donald Trump, Health, Human Rights, racism, Soviet Union, Statistics
1 Comment
You can’t say you haven’t been warned.
Russia put up this poster for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Everybody should have listened to that warning.
Better than a Spy Novel: the Trump-Kremlin Files
I was sitting in the park outside of the courthouse in Puno today, reading Nuestro hombre en La Habana and, fittingly, smoking a habano, when a gentleman in a suit – but without a hat – walked up to me and … Continue reading
The Happy Hermit 