Monthly Archives: August 2018

Pagari 1, former KGB headquarters, now has a vegan café on the ground floor and luxury apartments above. The tourist aspect of sites like this often prompts feelings of ambiguity. Parliament of Estonia At the Museum of Occupations and Freedom

Senate Square Myllykallion bunkkerit Gulf of Finland from Myllykallion bunkkerit

The Russian invasion of East Prussia in 1914 was successfully brought to a halt by the German Eighth Army, and in a rollback, German troops occupied Courland and Lithuania, including Kaunas and Vilnius. —Michael North, The Baltic (Boston: Harvard University … Continue reading →

It was in Estonia that sabotage and sporadic attacks on Russian occupation forces began in late 1944, and the last partisan ‘terrorist’ was an Estonian, seventy-year-old August Sabe, who was either drowned or shot in 1978 seeking to avoid KGB … Continue reading →

I’m coming towards the end of Alan Palmer’s Baltic and this morning read about Folke Bernadotte’s 1948 murder by Jewish terrorists. A few hours earlier I’d been reading The Guardian and Spiegel pillorying of Corbyn Corbyn has done little to … Continue reading →

It was in this area that Father Gapon’s group was fired upon on Bloody Sunday.

Two events on 23 March 1939 shattered Beck’s illusions. On that Thursday Germany signed a treaty with Slovakia, putting the armed forces of the new puppet republic under Hitler’s control; and on the same day Germany at last struck in … Continue reading →

Guardian: “I want to be very clear,” Cuomo said on Friday in a call with reporters. “Of course America is great and of course America has always been great.” His original phrasing, he said, had been “inartful”. Cuomo made the … Continue reading →

This piece is in the Hermitage courtyard, and somehow today to me seems fitting.

Guardian: A broader problem, though, is the lack of interest that many San Franciscans seem to have in improving the lives of the homeless. Many seem to view this population as a simple inconvenience, such as the tech bro who … Continue reading →