Happy Moscow?

Since two days I'm haunted by those photos. They were made by a Czech photographer around 1896 and some of them somehow managed to survive. I'm no expert on photography techniques, but apparently they are not really colorised, but they were in fact IN COLOR at the moment they were made, as my more learned friend-photographer is saying. this would be all very interesting to investigate anyway.

But looking at them I'm more excited about the image of, let's say, Dostoyevski's heroines, who still (the autor of Karamazov Brothers died in 1881) could've walked on the streets like this (though seldom, as their creator preferred his familial St Petersburg than Moscow). Nor could Moskva, the heroine of Andriey Platonov novel Happy Moscow, walk exactly the same streets, since she was a child of revolution, that took place 21 years later.

So still imperial Russia, a bleak place to live indeed, comes back to life on this by all means exquisite photographs, waiting for a great change to come..









http://englishrussia.com/?p=5167

and here some article on more contemporary Russia, a review of The Red Flag: Communism and the Making of the Modern World by David Priestland, an analyzis of ever-recurring Russian despotism, that seems unshakeable there. as it's also a 70th anniversary of Russian agression on Poland, that destroyed completely our hopes for winning with Germans after 17 days of war, and the absolutely loathsome behaviour of most of russian politicians towards Poland even nowadays, I guess it's somewhat worthwhile to give it some thoughts

http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2009/08/communism-communist-soviet