History & Persons

Klim Zhukov20.06.2025

The 1st rank cruiser was ordered from the William Crump and Sons shipyard in the USA. 129 meters, excellent armored deck, 12 guns 152 mm. Kane system, speed 23.2 knots. By the way, the speed made it absolutely inaccessible for any Japanese cruisers at sea — you can’t catch up (and you can’t run away […]

Klim Zhukov19.06.2025

In 1898, the far-sighted politicians of Nicholas II and the Tsar himself cleverly squeezed the Liaodong Peninsula with the port of Luyoshun (aka Port Arthur) from the allied China, whose territorial integrity we were supposedly going to protect. A short race to the Russo-Japanese War began. Arthur, as an ice-free harbor, was supposed to be […]

Alexander Palladin31.05.2025

80 years ago, on June 26, 1945, the UN Charter was signed at the final meeting of the United Nations Conference in San Francisco. Ukraine and Belarus, along with the USSR, were among the 50 founding countries of this international organization. My father’s second cousin Alexander Vladimirovich Palladin signed the above mentioned historic document on […]

Alexander Palladin15.05.2025

As I mentioned in Part 1 of this article, in 1973 I started working as a reporter in Canada. There, and later on in USA, I experienced a real shock to find out how little local people knew about other nations, their culture and history. In 1950s my father worked at Goslitizdat, the biggest Soviet […]

Klim Zhukov15.05.2025

Jaroslav Hašek was born on April 30, 1883. He was a Czech satirist, anarchist, playwright, feuilletonist, and journalist. He wrote about 1,500 different short stories, feuilletons, and other works, of which his unfinished novel, The Good Soldier Švejk, gained worldwide fame. Hašek spent his entire life making fun of himself and the world around him. […]

Alexander Palladin12.05.2025

In September 1973, I started working as a Soviet reporter in Canada. That was my first travel to the West as an adult. At the beginning my Canadian acquaintances would often inquire, “Do you feel a cultural shock?” Lots of things, quite understandably, seemed peculiar to me and my wife. However, we took them in […]

Alexander Palladin04.05.2025

During his state visit to Germany on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, on May 5, 1985, Ronald Reagan stopped in Bitburg, where he laid a wreath at the burial site of German soldiers who died in both world wars. US 40th President did just that […]

Alexander Palladin04.05.2025

During my stay in Washington, D.C. as bureau chief of Izvestia, I took part in numerous TV and radio programs, discussing Soviet-American relations with US politicians, journalists, and political scientists. One of those occasions stucks out in my mind as it dealt with a unique event at American television. On April 19, 1985, I got […]

Egor Yakovlev27.04.2025

April 25, 1883 Marshal Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny was born one of the first marshals of the Soviet Union, three times Hero of the Soviet Union, holder of the St. George Cross of all degrees. Semyon Budyonny came from a poor peasant family. He was born in the territory of the Don Host (now Rostov Oblast). […]

Alexander Palladin03.04.2025

Less than 120 years ago, on September 5, 1905, the Treaty of Portsmouth was signed in New Hampshire, ending the year-and-a-half-long Russo-Japanese War. According to various estimates, up to 80,000 Japanese and up to 52,000 Russian servicemen died in it, including my great-grandfather Afanasy Reshetnikov. For his role in Portsmouth negotiations U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt […]

The Real Story of Cruiser “Varyag”

Port Arthur And the Strange Economy

He Signed the UN Charter

Cultural Shock: Chingiz Aitmatov

The World of Jaroslav Hašek

Cultural Shock

US President’s Wreath At SS Burial Site

Spirit of the Elbe Is Gone?

About the Revolution Hero And Marshal Budyonny

Russo-Japanese War: Stalin’s Revanche

Trump Has Two Real Victories

The Circle Has Closed. Everyone Has Won

Miracles of Vodka

Campaign to Expand Abraham Accords