An amazing-looking contraption built for the Soviet space program with a mechanical spinning globe and more cogs than an Enigma device.
The Russian troops had expected their “special operation” to be brief. Soldiers had brought scant supplies: one admitted that he’d packed only a single uniform, because he thought he was on a training exercise. Some asked Semenov where they could buy cigarettes. “They said, ‘Why are there no shops near here?’ I said, ‘This is a restricted zone!’ They didn’t understand where they were.”
Great read about Chernobyl under Russian occupation during the recent invasion. Where senior staff had to keep up quite a balancing act in order to save lives and avoid disaster.
This is deeply representative of our times and of “influencer” culture.
This quote says it all:
In a way, the Chernobyl disaster reveals the true extent of our environmental impact on the planet. Harmful as it was, the nuclear accident was far less destructive to the local ecosystem than we were.
Moscow's Intourist Hotel, one of the most reviled blocks of concrete in the city; home of sleaze, sloppiness and surly suspicion, will shortly be demolished. Here are some pictures (note the contrast between the article and the hotel's official description).