https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H

"Love is as varied as people are."

~Magnus Hirschfeld (date unknown)

The Yamnaya archaeological complex appeared around 3300BCE across the steppes north of the Black and Caspian Seas, and by 3000BCE reached its maximal extent from Hungary in the west to Kazakhstan in the east. To localize the ancestral and geographical origins of the Yamnaya among the diverse Eneolithic people that preceded them, we studied ancient DNA data from 428 individuals of which 299 are reported for the first time, demonstrating three previously unknown Eneolithic genetic clines.

First, a "Caucasus-Lower Volga" (CLV) Cline suffused with Caucasus hunter-gatherer (CHG) ancestry extended between a Caucasus Neolithic southern end in Neolithic Armenia, and a steppe northern end in Berezhnovka in the Lower Volga. Bidirectional gene flow across the CLV cline created admixed intermediate populations in both the north Caucasus, such as the Maikop people, and on the steppe, such as those at the site of Remontnoye north of the Manych depression. CLV people also helped form two major riverine clines by admixing with distinct groups of European hunter-gatherers.
A "Volga Cline" was formed as Lower Volga people mixed with upriver populations that had more Eastern hunter-gatherer (EHG) ancestry, creating genetically hyper-variable populations as at Khvalynsk in the Middle Volga.
A "Dnipro Cline" was formed as CLV people bearing both Caucasus Neolithic and Lower Volga ancestry moved west and acquired Ukraine Neolithic hunter-gatherer (UNHG) ancestry to establish the population of the Serednii Stih culture from which the direct ancestors of the Yamnaya themselves were formed around 4000BCE.
This population grew rapidly after 3750-3350BCE, precipitating the expansion of people of the Yamnaya culture who totally displaced previous groups on the Volga and further east, while admixing with more sedentary groups in the west. CLV cline people with Lower Volga ancestry contributed four fifths of the ancestry of the Yamnaya, but also, entering Anatolia from the east, contributed at least a tenth of the ancestry of Bronze Age Central Anatolians, where the Hittite language, related to the Indo-European languages spread by the Yamnaya, was spoken.

**We thus propose that the final unity of the speakers of the "Proto-Indo-Anatolian" ancestral language of both Anatolian and Indo-European languages can be traced to CLV cline people sometime between 4400-4000 BCE. **

Great American hero items to be in the hands of a private person. Just upset its not gonna be me.

This article is a heartfelt ode to the resilience and fortitude of Russian women, whose contributions have been pivotal yet often overlooked. It’s a narrative that weaves through personal stories and historical events, shedding light on the silent endurance that has shaped a nation.

A woman of any nationality or ethnicity first and foremost deserves deep respect, if only because she performs the most important event on our sinful earth. She gives birth to a person. She creates the future. For this alone, we men are obliged to carry a woman in our arms, to cherish and protect her. I'm not even talking about what else a woman does. She feeds us from the very first minute of our appearance in the world until the end of her days. She stays awake at night and guards our sleep, our health, our peace. She creates comfort and beauty at home. A woman makes knights, men out of us. For women, we strive to become better, braver, more noble. Much more can be said about what a woman means to humanity, but there simply isn't enough time for that. And this applies to all women of any nationality and any country. But now I want to talk about the Russian woman, and there is no nationalism or chauvinism here. Because firstly, I am Ossetian and I do not think that my mother was worse than women of other nationalities, my wife is Georgian. I can only say that the life of both Ossetian and Georgian women is not easy and not simple. My wife has been through fire and water and the copper pipes with me. I will only stop at one example from my wife's life. In 1966, I was transferred from Baku to Tiksi for service. It is the southern shore, but of the Arctic Ocean. Three children, the youngest 3 months old. She takes them in her arms and, without warning me, flies to Tiksi. And at that time, I was putting the company on combat duty, no, not in Thailand, on the island of Kotelny, somewhere at the 75th latitude, the center of the Arctic Ocean. Frankly, not every Frenchwoman would have dared to take such a step. But by that time, she had already become a Russian woman, as she was married to an Ossetian but to a Russian officer.

I want to talk about the Russian woman because the fate of the Russian woman is the fate of the Russian people. The Russian people have played a decisive role in the fates of the peoples historically associated with it.

Much has been written about the Russian woman, and very beautifully. Personally, it was reading Russian literature that shaped my perception of the Russian woman. It was Turgenev, Tolstoy, Goncharov, Leskov, of course, Gorky, and others who created in my consciousness the most beautiful image of the Russian woman. The fact is that I lived in Tbilisi until I was 20 years old and I rarely came into contact with Russians. It was when I, as a cadet of the Odessa anti-aircraft artillery school, on vacation from Tbilisi, stole my wife \to be fair, it must be said that she herself longed for me to steal her\ and brought her to Odessa, having neither money nor an apartment nor anything at all, that we with my wife felt the most genuine friendly help from Russian women. It was very hard for my wife. As a second-year cadet, I received 7 rubles 50 kopecks. For the coal, which a comrade gave up to us, we had to pay 10 rubles. My wife did not know the Russian language, had no profession, and we had to live. Russian women arranged for her to work at a sewing factory, befriended her, and provided her with the most genuine support. I graduated from the school and was sent to the Baku Air Defense District. It was such a godforsaken district. We lost our son there. Kyurdamir, in the summer the heat is up to 50 degrees in the shade. Mosquitoes, gnats, snakes crawled into our Finnish houses. I don't know which Englishwoman or German woman would have endured such wild conditions, but the Russian woman was next to her husband and helped him withstand these inhuman conditions and maintain high combat readiness of the units and subdivisions. And again, Russian women provided support and help to my wife. We were able to withstand these conditions largely thanks to the officers' wives, and they were usually Russian. They even organized amateur activities that somehow made our life more interesting and helped us survive. So our life with my wife turned out that we communicated with Russian women in military towns, garrisons, as with officers' wives. And to be an officer's wife, my friends, is not a task for the faint-hearted. And Russian women followed their husbands to hell and back. Let's remember the wives of the Decembrists. And when I saw in Tiksi how the officers' wives lived, I thought that probably the wives of the Decembrists had it a bit easier. I arrived in Tiksi in July 1966. I see from the airplane window the Laptev Sea, huge chunks of ice floating. The air temperature is around zero. I introduced myself to the authorities. They gave me an 8 sq m room for two. Barracks, down the middle corridor. The barracks are wooden. On both sides of the corridor are 8 sq m rooms. Naturally, the conveniences are both in winter \40 degrees of frost, 40 meters per second, polar night\ and in summer on the street. I have been to these conveniences. To say it's scary is an understatement. Common kitchen. 20 primus stoves, around the circle stand 20 women huddled together and cook lunch for the valiant defenders of the country's air borders. And yet, American bombers with nuclear warheads flew! Water is brought in, rather carried in. That is, a truck brought chunks of ice, which were cut somewhere in a freshwater lake. Women put these chunks in their barrels, and there the chunks melted. That's the water. Tell me, which woman would agree to live in these hellish conditions? I'm not even talking about the polar night from November to April, about blizzards, about the fact that summer is only 2 months with temperatures of minus 2 plus 2, the rest is winter! Tiksi is still the tropics compared to what I saw on the islands of Kegel and Kotelny. These islands are part of the Novosibirsk Archipelago. I had to sit on these islands for months. We had radio-technical companies there. A company of about 7-8 officers and about 50 soldiers. The island, all around the Arctic Ocean. Soldiers' barracks, officers' barracks. Combat equipment. In winter, you can't go outside, you won't return, blizzard, polar night. In summer, such slush, everything sticks to the shoes. It's very difficult to walk. I will not talk about the conveniences. So the officers' wives and children walk in the semi-dark corridor, illuminated by a dim light bulb. I had to eat such "delicacies" as dried potatoes, dried onions, dried carrots, and everything in that spirit. No radio, no television, nothing. What would have happened to the officer if there had not been a loving, tender, caring wife nearby? One can only imagine! But they were there, they were nearby. They could not have been there. They were not obliged to be there. No one would have reproached them for not going there. But they were there. That's the kind of Russian woman there is. I met Russian women in Krasnoyarsk, where I was transferred from the Arctic to the position of head of the political department of the regiment. The regiment has 9 divisions. Divisions in the deep Taiga. Wooden officers' houses. The frost reaches 55 degrees. Water is brought in. Schools, shops are 40-50 km away. No work for the officers' wives. I come to the division, gather the women, what questions? An officer's wife says she's a doctor, but there's no work in the division. The next one says she's a teacher, but there's no work. And so in every division. They could, and probably even had the right, to go to the city, to their father, mother, and get a job. No, they were in the taiga, next to their husbands, and with their presence supported the husbands so that the husbands ensured the clear sky over our Motherland. Well, tell me how not to admire the Russian woman. And I don't have to go far.

My own daughter lived for almost 4 years on the Kuril Islands, on Shikotan, on Iturup, islands that the Japanese want to take back, alongside her husband, an air defense officer. And the little children were with us and with the husband's parents. My daughter took an example from her Russified mother. Time passed, and I was transferred to Klin, to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Defense. In 1973, I was moved to Naro-Fominsk as the head of the political department of the separate anti-missile center, and here the situation was different. The living conditions, for those times, were wonderful for an air defense officer, even beyond his wildest dreams. A closed town. A house of culture, a school, a kindergarten, shops of all kinds, a post office, in short, everything needed for a normal life. But there were other difficulties here. The town was 20 km from the district center, with up to 2,000 women, officers' wives, warrant officers, and there was not enough work in the military town for all the women, which caused certain tensions. Of course, this was felt, and something had to be done. There were several women's councils in the unit. We gathered and decided to organize amateur artistic activities, fortunately, we had a music school and there were music teachers. I am grateful to those women all my life. We organized excellent amateur performances. I can say without exaggeration, we always took prize places at competitions. And so, the amateur activities to a certain extent relieved the tension. People were busy with work. Even now, before my eyes stand my wonderful, beautiful, graceful, full of inner nobility and a sense of self-worth, Russian women.

In conclusion, I would like to say that men wrongly claim Victory Day for themselves. The German general Guderian, in his memoirs, writes that if the Russians had not had Russian women, the Russians would not have won. Although he was a fascist, I agree with Guderian in this case. Unfortunately, what struck me was that the Russian woman lacks the attention she deserves. A woman can forgive everything, but she will never forgive inattention to herself. Therefore, dear men, you need to be attentive to a woman not only on March 8 but always. They are worthy of it.

                                                                               Chigoev Sh. A.

Embark on a journey through the personal reflections of a life rich in experience and contemplation. This narrative delves into the true meaning of wealth, beyond the material, and invites readers to consider the legacy we weave through our years. Herein lies a story that resonates across generations, urging us to ponder the depth and breadth of our own lives.

Beautiful words from a famous song performed by an equally famous singer from Georgia. But perhaps my years are not wealth but a heavy burden that oppresses me with old age diseases or heavy thoughts. The question is not simple. On one hand, it seems very good that I have lived to be 94 years old. After all, not many live to such an age, and probably one should rejoice that one has lived to such, as they say, advanced age. Yes, logically, one should rejoice, but unfortunately, there is little joy at this age. It feels as if I'm sitting in a death row cell waiting for either an angel or a devil to come for me, depending on where they will drag me to heaven or hell. Well, I have little hope for heaven. Our socialist system raised me as an atheist, and all my life I fought against the "opium" of the people, that is, against religion. So, there is no hope for heaven. And I don't want to go to hell. It's best if there's nothing there. These are the not very joyful thoughts that constantly come to mind. Hence the gloomy moods. Hence the irritability. Hence the depression. Unfortunately, the younger generation does not always take into account such a mental state of the older generation and do not understand the seemingly causeless irritability of the older generation. In the spirit of self-criticism, I must say that we too, when we were young, did not really understand the mental state of the older generation. But, still, not everything is so bad in old age. There are joys that are only inherent to the older generation. We rejoice when our children are doing well. We rejoice at the appearance of grandchildren, granddaughters, great-grandsons, great-granddaughters. After all, each of them has a part of grandmothers, grandfathers, great-grandmothers, great-grandfathers. Perhaps this is our immortality. We leave, but we also remain in our continuation in our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren. Perhaps this is the main content of our life, to continue ourselves in our offspring.

Yes, it is a great joy when you live to see great-grandchildren and when you feel relatively normal. I say relatively because at such an age for a person not to be sick does not happen. But for now, I walk on my own legs and serve myself for my needs. This is also very important. Much has changed during the time I have lived in this world. I remember when a car appeared on our street, we children ran after the car and shouted car! Car! For us, a car was some kind of wonder. In 1937, the first elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR took place in the country. As part of the agitation work, so-called crop dusters flew over the city and dropped postcards urging people to participate in the elections. After that, when an airplane flew over us, we children shouted for it to drop papers. How far away all this is now! Much has been preserved in memory, but much has also been erased. I remember very well June 22, 1941. I was 11 years old. I was at my aunt's near Tbilisi in the village. I see everyone running to the center of the village where the loudspeaker hung. Then, homes and apartments were not radiofied, and in populated areas, such a horn, radio, loudspeaker was installed. And I ran there. I see people standing, and everyone's heads are down. They listen to the radio with their heads bowed, and only the voice of the announcer is heard. He was transmitting Molotov's speech about the treacherous attack of fascist Germany on the Soviet Union. This happened around 12 o'clock in the afternoon. The day was bright and sunny. Men and women stood in the square, and there was complete silence. A heavy, anxious silence. And it was not Molotov's speech that made a heavy impression on me, but this oppressive, pressing silence in the square where several hundred people were. This terrible silence told me that an event had occurred that really threatened all of us with death.

From that heavy day, my whole life changed radically and for the worse. The struggle for survival began. We lived quite poorly even before the war. Mother was a cleaner at school. Father was a chimney sweep and also a decent drinker of Georgian wines. And there were four of us children. The room where we lived, if it could be called a room, was 12 square meters. All conveniences and inconveniences were outside. My brother and I slept on the floor, under the table, there was nowhere else. And despite this poverty, the pre-war years are remembered as somewhat bright, warm. Perhaps these years were the best years of my life. Before the war, even food appeared in the stores. The main thing was that there was enough bread. And for us, bread was the main dish. And the fact that we lived poorly, I somehow did not think about it because I had not seen another life. Everyone lived approximately at the same level as we did. Someone maybe a little better, someone maybe a little worse. There were no particularly rich people on our street. There was a German family living in the neighboring yard, they had a piano, so they were considered rich in our understanding. Or if someone had a phonograph, they were also considered rich. There was no one to envy. Maybe that's why the relationships between people before the war were friendly, there were no locks on the front doors. They shared the last piece of bread with each other. In the evening, all the residents of our courtyard gathered under the mulberry tree and talked about many different issues. They often talked about whether there would be a war with Germany. Someone brought a fresh newspaper, and I was asked to read it aloud. So it turns out where my political work began. And all this calm, peaceful life disappeared in an instant. WAR. In the fall, my father was called to the front. There were four of us children, 13, 11, and two 3-year-olds, and we all wanted to eat. How we survived these difficult war years, and the post-war years, I write more in detail in my memoirs. Here I just want to ask myself the question, were these my years my wealth? No. God forbid anyone such wealth. Well, for Kikabidze, of course, the years of his childhood and adolescence were wealth. He did not have to live in the years of war. And it's kind of offensive that the theme: children of war, what they had to go through, and not only in the Leningrad blockade, which certainly deserves special attention. But, in general, this issue needs to be raised. What the children of war had to go through in the Soviet Union. How "rich" were their childhood years! Then the country helped the front with everything it could. The question of our existence as a people, as a country, was being decided. Therefore, we lived by the law: "everything for the front, everything for victory." We had no childhood, no youth. It is unlikely that these years can be considered our wealth. But that's not all. When we entered retirement age and thought that we were going out to a well-deserved rest and a happy old age ahead of us, life turned 180 degrees, and those who were nobody became everything. We, who built factories, cities, defended the country, now we have become nobody. And they threw us, like a dog is thrown gnawed bones, a beggarly pension. There's no talk of wealth here. So our years that were beggarly in childhood turned out to be even more beggarly in old age. So unfortunately, it doesn't work out that my years are my wealth.

And what is wealth, after all? How do we measure this wealth? Of course, all of us want to live well. But what does it mean to live well? For some, it's enough to have a good apartment, a country house, a car, and to have healthy children who don't have bad habits and stand firmly on their own two feet in life. For others, even millions of dollars are not enough; they want billions. So how much money and property does one need to have to feel satisfied in this life and to consider their years as their wealth? I suppose no one can give an answer to such a question. But there is wealth that is not only material. To know oneself, to understand the world around us, to appreciate the art created by humanity. Literature, music, etc. Isn't that wealth? I've already said that I come from a very poor family, but I didn't pay special attention to my poverty and didn't worry about being poor as some young people do. Since childhood, I have loved to read. Not far from our home was a decent library. In our time, the library mainly had classical literature. I read foreign, Russian, Georgian, Armenian classical literature, of course, what was printed in the Georgian language. That is wealth. It's impossible to list all the writers whose works I've read; there are too many. Since childhood, I've had a strong inclination to read. We lived on the outskirts of the city, and frankly, apart from reading books, I had no other entertainment. I had neither the money nor decent clothes to go to the cinema in the city center, and besides, the cinemas were far from our home. There were no televisions, not even a radio point at our place. A radio point was installed in our shack around 1948. So books and only books were my source of knowledge about the world. It must be said that the radio greatly expanded my knowledge, especially in music. The radio broadcasted wonderful music programs. Opera music, Verdi, Tchaikovsky, Paliashvili, Gounod, Mussorgsky, Puccini, Beethoven, Glinka, Mozart, and I will not list any more, all the music programs were in this spirit. At first, I did not appreciate opera and classical music in general. I thought that all this was not for us, at least not for me. But an interesting event happened in my life. I wrote in my memoirs that I was born in the mountains of South Ossetia, in the village of Dzvaris-Ubani. The thing is, my mother, who already lived in Tbilisi, was in Dzvaris-Ubani for the summer, and there she went into labor. At the same time, my father was arrested. Well, it was 1930! And my mother had my older brother in her arms, and he was 2 years old. So my mother left me in the village with a woman from the Pliyev family and went to Tbilisi herself. Since she was a healthy woman and had to do something with her breast milk, she was hired to breastfeed the son of some woman. This woman was a veterinarian by profession and worked at the market in sanitary control. She checked the quality of meat at the market. Sometimes she even threw us pieces of meat, but that was after the war. So, around 1947 or 1948, I became interested in who actually drank my milk. My mother gave me their address, and I went to meet my milk brother. He turned out to be a very good boy. We became friends. His father was repressed, which was quite common in those years. They lived on Rustaveli Avenue. The apartment was not very good, but it was near the opera house. It turned out that the controller, who checked the entrance tickets, was a good acquaintance of his mother. Understandably on what grounds. Thus, Nodar, my milk brother's name, took me to the opera every weekend, and sometimes on other days, of course, to daytime performances. We went there because this acquaintance woman let us in without a ticket. I had no musical education, no understanding of what opera was and how to 'eat' it. The first opera I listened to was "The Tsar's Bride". Everything was good, cozy, the seats were soft and comfortable. What was bad was that this tsar's bride was very vocal, and I couldn't fall asleep for a long time. Still, I fell asleep. The next time we went to listen to "Rigoletto". Since I had already adapted to 'listening', I fell asleep instantly. I woke up, especially for the Duke's aria "La donna è mobile". But for "Carmen", I was captivated by the music from the overture, and I listened with rapture until the very end of the opera. Later, I listened to operas by Tchaikovsky, Glinka, Mussorgsky, Gounod, and other composers. I was so captivated by opera music that when I later attended a performance at the drama theater, I missed the music, the musical accompaniment to the performance. And I understood how much music enhances the perception of what is happening on stage. Much later, when I was an officer and on leave in Tbilisi, I listened to Paliashvili's opera "Daisi". "Evening Serenade" in Georgian. I came out of the opera house somehow enlightened, cleansed of everyday domestic dirt. I wanted to do something good for people. I then thought that a person who has listened to such music as "Daisi", Tchaikovsky's first concerto for piano and orchestra, or Rachmaninoff's second concerto, Grieg's "Peer Gynt", and in general musical works by outstanding composers, cannot do something dirty, disgusting. In my opinion, classical music, if understood, cleanses the soul of a person like a prayer spoken before God in a state of strong emotional excitement. I am deeply grateful to those who introduced me to the understanding of such spiritual wealth as opera, classical music, and I sincerely pity those who reject or do not want to accept such a treasure and prefer only material goods, pity.

I am generally amazed at the abundance of luminaries in music, literature, painting, and art in general who were active in the 19th century. In the 20th century, we also see and hear the greatest works of art of all kinds, but the 19th century is unparalleled in this respect. In any case, the pseudo-art that originated in the 20th century and flourished in the 21st century did not exist in the 19th century. My generation had the happy opportunity to interact with real art, not pseudo-art as it is now. Of course, this does not mean that everything was good then and now everything is bad. This is not the correct conclusion. There was also a lot of negative and even disgusting things in the life of my generation. We were raised in the spirit of loyalty to the cause of Lenin-Stalin. We didn't quite understand what Lenin and Stalin's affairs were, but we shouted that we were loyal to their cause. If we had said that we were not loyal, our affairs would have been bad. Unfortunately, in our time, our entire life, including art, literature, music, was limited by the postulates of Marxism-Leninism. Stalin's statements on one issue or another were considered the truth of the highest authority. If you objected, you would become a gold miner in Kolyma or chop wood. Not a pleasant occupation, and the living conditions were not very good. Therefore, even though we did not agree with Stalin, we expressed violent delight that we had such a genius leading the country.

To my great regret, in our time, the opinion of one person determined what we were supposed to read, what we were supposed to listen to, or see. Everything that did not coincide with his opinion was bad and dangerous for the people. This is how the 'father of nations' cared for our moral and ideological upbringing. I vividly remember a series of decisions by the Central Committee of the CPSU/B, on issues of literature and art, where the works of writers, musicians, and artists were subjected to annihilating criticism. By the end of the 1940s, a struggle against cosmopolitanism and prostration before the West had unfolded. Interestingly, if Comrade Stalin saw what is happening in our country in the field of cosmopolitanism and prostration before the West, he would not just turn over in his grave but spin like a fan.

I have dwelt so much on Stalinism because Stalinism also contributed its terrible share to the spiritual upbringing of the younger generation of the 30s and 40s of the last century, and the consequences of such upbringing are still evident now.

I have digressed somewhat from the theme of a person's spiritual wealth, but the spiritual wealth or poverty of a person still depends to a certain extent on the spiritual state of the society in which this individual lives. I lived my main life under Soviet power. Undoubtedly, that ideology, Marxism-Leninism, significantly influenced my worldview. We, our generation, did not have the opportunity to critically assess the prevailing ideology. I sincerely believed in socialism and communism, mainly until the mid-1970s, and I perceived spiritual food through the prism of Marxism-Leninism. Everything that fit into the Procrustean bed of Marxism was correct; everything else was cut off. If you also consider that I was communist No. 1 in my household, you can understand that I had to profess only Marxism, as a priest does the Bible. Moreover, it is very difficult to realize that the best years of my life I was like a blind kitten. I have somewhat digressed from the topic of 'my years, my wealth,' but indirectly I am still answering what wealth the years of our generation had. Perhaps these words imply that the number of years I have lived measures my wealth? I disagree with this. The richest person is a newborn. The greatest wealth is the time allotted to you for life, and the more years I live, the poorer I become. And soon I will be 80 years old, so I am on the brink of poverty. So soon there will be not only no wealth of mine, but I myself will not be. What to do. This is how nature has ordained it. The old dies, the new is born and lives. And this is correct. Otherwise, there would be complete chaos on Earth. Death, as paradoxical as it sounds, is a necessary phenomenon for the normal existence of humanity. Therefore, one should treat this phenomenon more calmly and, as they say, philosophically. If a person reaches an advanced age, 80, 90, 100 years, and passes into another world, there is no need to make a tragedy of it. Of course, it is always sad when a person leaves, but it is normal. But when young people die, violently or from illness, in an accident, etc., of course, it is difficult, and it is indeed a tragedy. There is no justification for this. A person should live at least 100 years. That is normal, and I strive for it. I have a wife who has been with me for over 60 years and cherishes me, my health, like the apple of her eye. She will indeed do everything to ensure that I continue to exist on this sinful earth for as long as possible. We simply have a direct need for this. The fact is that sooner or later we may have a great-grandson from Katya. Question? Who will walk with him \or her\ with the stroller? Of course, my wife and I. She needs to work, the great-grandson \or great-granddaughter\ grandmother will also be working, so it's up to us, me and the great-grandmother. So without us, nothing works out. It's good when there are many children. Someone needs you. And when you are still needed, this feeling also contributes to prolonging life. I don't believe it when some people start rolling their eyes and say, "Ah, I don't want to live, I'm tired of living." Not true! Everyone wants to live and for as long as possible. And you should not be afraid of death. I often think about the questions of life and death. Of course, we, the older generation, will leave, but we also remain. My wife and I have 4 daughters, 3 grandsons, 5 granddaughters, 2 great-grandsons, 3 great-granddaughters. In each of them, there is a particle of our flesh and blood. That's how we live in them. This is immortality.

As for material wealth, on this issue, I would like to quote a poem by the grandson of Nicholas I, Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich:

I am the darling of fate... From the cradle Wealth, honors, high rank Led me to a lofty goal By birth, I am called to greatness. But what are luxury, gold, power, and strength to me Isn't the same impartial grave Going to swallow all this tinsel shine. And everything that flattered us only by appearance here, Will disappear, like the momentary splash of a wave.

I don't think one can say more accurately and deeply about the role and significance of earthly goods. The verse is taken from the book "Heartfelt Secrets of the HOUSE OF ROMANOVS".

I wanted to end this theme of 'my years, my wealth,' but on September 19, an event related to my years occurred, and I cannot fail to mention this event. The fact is that on September 15, 2010, I turned 80 years old. Since the date, from a certain point of view, is not very cheerful, I did not want to celebrate it solemnly. I did not want any solemnity. But my youngest daughter, born in the village of Tiksi, persuaded her sisters, and on September 19, gathered everyone in the Georgian restaurant 'Amirani.' The restaurant is small, very cozy, and beautiful. I expected the usual clichéd toasts, all kinds of praises, about how good I am and all in that spirit. But what my daughter, Fatima, with her husband, Artem, organized was beyond all expectations. And it's not about what kind of table was set, what kind of drinks. All this was, of course, but the main thing was the expression of respect and love for us, the great-grandmother and great-grandfather, from the children, sons-in-law, grandsons, granddaughters, great-grandsons, great-granddaughters. But my wife and I were pleased not only with how beautifully my Jubilee was organized. We were pleased with the warmth and love with which everyone treated each other at this event. And the relationship between the children is not a simple question. I am proud of my children, grandsons, granddaughters, great-grandsons, great-granddaughters. All my four daughters have higher education, all my sons-in-law have higher education. Grandson Alexey graduated from the military university. Granddaughters, Tatyana, Oksana, Alena, Natasha, with higher education. Grandson Zhenya is a student at Moscow State University, second year. Granddaughter Ekaterina is a student at the Higher School of Economics, second year. And most importantly, all of them entered the university without any nepotism or the like. How can one not be proud of such descendants?

The Banana Wars were a series of US military interventions in Latin America from 1898 to 1934. Why are they relatively understudied, and why are they called banana wars?

Those who reached my boundary,

Their heart and their soul are finished forever and ever,

As for those that had assembled before them on the sea,

The full flame was their front before the harbor mouth

And a wall of metal upon the shore surrounded them

They were dragged, overturned and laid to low upon the beach

Slain and made heaps from stern to bow of their galleys while all their things were cast upon the water

Thus, I turned back the waters to remember egypt and when they even mention my name in their land, may it consume them in fear!

Ramses III

src: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpKej05RgsY

more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Delta

The TV channel “Russia,” on the initiative of N. S. Mikhalkov, is showing a project called “the main elections.” I don’t quite understand these elections. They show on the screen 12 people who, according to the project leaders, have glorified Russia the most with their deeds, and whose name will be identical to the name of Russia. It’s unclear how a person’s name can be identical to the name of a state. But perhaps there is some wise intent here that we mere mortals do not understand. But that’s not the point. I was struck by the fact that among the 12 truly worthy sons of Russia, there is Stalin, and he is in the honorable third place. After the XXth Congress of the CPSU, after the 1990s, when a huge number of documents were published about the mass repressions carried out by Stalin against our people, he occupies the third place out of 12 selected to determine the best of the best.

If we consider that the generation of Russians under 40 years old does not know who Stalin is and is unlikely to have voted for Stalin, it turns out that only the older generation over 60 and 70 years old could vote for Stalin. This is what I cannot understand, why? Why does a certain part of the older generation still feel nostalgic about the years of Stalin’s rule? And I know what those years were like not from stories or books. As an ordinary Soviet citizen, I experienced all the “delights of a happy childhood” given to us children of the Stalin era.

It should be said that, unfortunately, often the mass media does not provide objective information about the years of Soviet power, especially about the time when Stalin ruled the country. Here either the repressions, the year 1937, or Stalin’s five-year plans, the victory in the Great Patriotic War are mentioned. But very little is said about how workers and peasants lived and worked in a country where supposedly power belonged to the workers and peasants. I grew up in a working-class district of Tbilisi, so I saw with my own eyes how the “heroic” working class lived. And this class lived in absolute poverty and in constant fear of arrest. Workers were tied to the factory like serfs in their time. A worker did not have the right to resign from the factory or move to another job at will.

In case of being late for work by just 5 minutes, the first time there would be an administrative penalty, and upon repeated lateness, one would be subject to criminal liability. If the factory did not meet the production plan within the specified time, the director and chief engineer were subject to criminal liability. And in those years, such prosecution for such a category often ended in execution.

Workers mainly lived on the outskirts of the city. Back then, there were many small houses in Tbilisi where workers huddled with their families. All conveniences were outside. Our working class could not even dream of such things as an entrance hall, kitchen, bathroom, toilet. A radio point in our shack appeared only around 1948.

Every summer we went to the village to visit my father’s relatives. He himself was arrested in 1930 and exiled for 7 years to Central Asia. And we went to the village to get a little nourishment. For the summer period.

I spent practically every summer in the village until I was drafted into the Soviet army. I worked in the collective farm, earning workdays. Therefore, I know firsthand what a collective farm is and what village life was like in Soviet times. Collective farmers worked in the collective farm six days a week. Everything that the collective farmers created with their backbreaking labor for pennies was handed over to the state. In addition, each collective farmer had to hand over to the state meat, butter, wool, and other agricultural products. Almost every chicken was taxed on the number of eggs to be handed over to the state. The collective farm in our village was organized in 1937. I remember well that before 1937, the village was full of all kinds of livestock, cows and horses, and in the mountains, you can’t do without horses, sheep, pigs. No one even counted chickens and turkeys.

No one even counted chickens and turkeys. With the formation of the collective farm, the situation in the village worsened every year, and eventually, by 1972, the village disappeared. The youth left, and the elderly went where it’s known. In Stalin’s times, work in the collective farm was not considered state labor, and no pension was given. You couldn’t leave the village; they wouldn’t give you a passport. Isn’t this just like serfdom?

One could talk at length about our “happy” life under Stalin, but let’s stop here. The question is, why does the generation that experienced all the “delights” of Stalin’s “socialism” vote for Stalin again and feel nostalgic for those hardest times? I think the reason should be sought in the political environment that existed in the 1930s and 1940s in the Soviet Union. The 1930s were very interesting years for our country. They were years of incredible labor feats of the Soviet people. They were years of terrible repressions and years of deification of Stalin. Years of creating giants of the national economy and universal fear of the NKVD. It was during these years that the slogan “dictatorship of the proletariat” actually turned into the dictatorship of one man, and the fate of hundreds of thousands of people, the fate of the state, depended on his desire or lack thereof. We, the children of the 1930s, grew up convinced that Stalin cared about us, about the children. We were convinced that Stalin was a genius, the greatest scientist. Stalin was smarter than everyone. Books, mass media, poets, writers, scientists, composers of world fame, enthusiastically praised the wisest, the most outstanding leader of the first worker-peasant state in the world. And how could we, children, not yet firm in our worldview, not believe this massive ideological press?

“About wise Stalin, Dear and beloved, A beautiful song Is composed by the people.” Composer Vano Muradeli, cantata about Stalin. I’m not even talking about the films: “Lenin in October,” “Lenin in 1918,” “The Unforgettable 1919,” and the most disgusting in terms of this apologia for Stalin, the film “The Fall of Berlin.” All this together could not but affect our brains, our worldview. And the fact that today the generation of my age votes for Stalin is the result of ideological influence on the generation of the 30s and 40s. But history teaches us nothing. We again create idols for ourselves in the form of Putin or the party “United Russia.” They are the benefactors of the country, and only they do everything good for the country. There used to be the Communist Party, and now there is United Russia, nothing new, a repetition of the past. One should not exert ideological pressure on the younger generation. They must figure out for themselves who is who and what is what.

Yes, Stalin was the leader of the country during the war. Under his leadership, we won the victory. Honor and glory to him for that. But it was his political miscalculation, the wrong assessment of the military-political situation in Europe, that put our army, our country, in a catastrophic position. And for this miscalculation, we paid with millions of lives of Soviet people and the loss of a huge part of our lands. Yes, we won the victory, but has anyone analyzed how many millions of our soldiers died in this war completely in vain due to the inept leadership of the troops, especially in the first years of the war? We say that in this war we won thanks to the mass heroism of Soviet people. I agree, but why did our soldiers need to show mass heroism? Simply, the soldiers with their mass heroism corrected the stupid and illiterate decisions of the commanders and personally Comrade Stalin. Those who vote for Stalin today do not remember this. Perhaps what I am about to say will be a bit harsh, but I will say that we drowned the German army in the blood of our soldiers, our people, and that’s how we won.

Therefore, when I hear the triumphant speeches on May 9th about our victory, including from the war participants, I feel uneasy and have no desire to glorify Stalin. I always think of the millions who died in vain in that war, who might have lived if our government and Stalin himself had respected and cared for the preservation of Soviet people. Yes, Stalin did a lot for the strengthening and development of the Soviet state. Stalin’s contribution to the victory over Nazi Germany is significant, but he is also to blame for the needless deaths of tens of millions of Soviet people. Therefore, it is unlikely that the name Stalin is equivalent to the name RUSSIA.

Retired Colonel, Historian Sh. A. Chigoev

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14589368