From rq: beginning of May, one half of the sky was flashing purple and violet (second photo), the other half was a calm bright moon behind slow clouds. I just love these, especially the first one. Click for full size!
© rq, all rights reserved.
Grackle, click for full size!
© C. Ford.
©voyager, all rights reserved
Our ship traversed most of the Moscow Canal at night so I don’t have many photographs, but I think the story of how the canal came to be is tragic and deserves to be told.
The Moscow Canal was built between 1934 and 1937 under the direction of Stalin. It was a massive engineering project, larger in scope than either the Panama or Suez Canals. The project included 7 concrete dams, eight earthen dams, 8 hydroelectric power stations, 5 pump stations, 11 locks, 15 bridges and the Northern Passenger and Cargo Terminal. This massive system was built rapidly, being entirely completed in under 5 years. It was a huge accomplishment for the fledgling Stalinist regime and was celebrated. What wasn’t celebrated or even spoken of was the forced labour of the millions of gulag prisoners responsible for its construction. Their work was brutish and constant, relentlessly continuing throughout the harsh Russian winters. Food and supplies were scarce. Many prisoners lost their lives. Our group was told that if the project needed more workers, Stalin would simply direct the KGB to make more arrests.
The canal connects the Moskva River with the Volga River and gives Moscow access to the Baltic Sea, the White Sea, the Black sea, the Caspian Sea and the Sea of Azov. Because of this, the interior city of Moscow is known as the port of 5 seas. Today, the canal is an integral part of life in Russia. It connects the current capital city of Moscow with the former capital city of St. Petersburg and it’s vitally important to doing business in the country. It’s also beautiful, passing through areas of forest and farmland and dotted with picturesque bridges and cottages. Our ship slipped through canal at night, but there was still a bit of twilight as we entered the first lock. This was the first time our ship had moved out of harbour and there was an air of excitement on board. Passengers crowded the railings and spoke excitedly about the adventures that lay ahead. I felt that excitement too, but it was bittersweet because I couldn’t stop thinking about the story of the canal and all those millions of lives ruined or lost in its building.
Link to previous Post – Leaving Moscow
©voyager, all rights reserved
Most of the wild iris that Jack and I find is small and purple so I was quite surprised to come upon this patch of tall, bright yellow plants. I’ve never seen iris this colour or size in the wild and that makes its finding a special treat. Only one plant was still in flower, but I’ve marked the location and next year I hope to get here when the full show is blooming.
Click for full size. I swear, Death’s face in The Count is a dead ringer for Peter Cushing. Death also gets in a bit of arse kicking in The Knight. Text translation in the comments.
A most evocative piece by Rockwell Kent, click for full size.
Nightmare. Rockwell Kent, Lithograph. Subject: Nightmares, Suicide.
Guts. The tubes that transform delicious food into disgusting shit. Which, in turn, is delicious food to other creatures who turn it into even smaller shit. And so on until it is all recycled back into living tissue or fossilized. In nature as a whole there is no such thing as waste and if something can be digested and turned into energy to sustain life, sooner or later there will be an organism doing just that.
©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
The interesting story about guts that our esteemed Professor Kos told was quite literally about shit.
Our digestive system is not particularly effective in absorbing fats, a significant portion of excrement are lipid compounds. And this, indirectly, is responsible for the oh so typical color of the final product of human digestive system.
When red blood cells die, the heme has to be broken down in order for the iron to be re-absorbed and recycled. Some of the end products of heme recycling are two chemicals: one called bilirubin (yellow), which gets later on broken down into stercobilin (brown). This is the reason why bruises go from initially red through blue to yellow and brown color as they heal.
The same process is happening also in liver and the chemicals bilirubin and stercobilin are excreted with bile. And because they are not water-soluble but are fat-soluble, they remain in the undigested fat in feces and are responsible for their distinctive color.
Click for full size. Most below the fold. In the last shot, I was trying for a lovely light reflection in the street, but all that showed up were the street signs, looking rather neon. :D
A stunning shot of a Cardinal, from Kengi. Click for full size!
© Kengi, all rights reserved.
A quiet spot to rest along the way
©voyager, all rights reserved
Click for full size, text translations in the comments. The 3rd image is a surviving fragment of the original wall, featuring the Duchess. Hess could have done a much better job with the dress, and he left out those amazing braids!
Click for full size. As you can see, all effort was put into making Joanna Southcott as awful as possible. Ms. Southcott was a self-styled prophetess, and claimed to be pregnant at 64 years of age, and died shortly afterward. It would seem she was held to be nothing more than a con by the medical establishment, with little consideration that she might actually believe all the nonsense she preached. The depiction of her is certainly nothing at all like her actual appearance (there’s a photo at the link.)
A Medical Inspection. Or Miracles Will Never Cease. Thomas Rowlandson, Etching coloured, 1814. Subject: Obstetrics, Prophesy, Pregnancy, Anecdotes, Religious Mania, Joanna Southcott (1750-1814).