It's hard to imagine a world without the internet, Facebook, Twitter, international air travel, talk radio, 24/7 television news channels, digital cameras, voice activated software, cell phones and GPS...
The Library of Congress recently published a digital collection of images from one of the early pioneers of photography. Between 1905 and 1915, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii traveled the far reaches of the Russian Empire on behalf of Tsar Nicholas II. His task was to visually document a country undergoing a rapid transformation. Read More...
After the Bolshevik Revolution, the photographer left Russia and eventually settled in Paris. In 1948, the Library of Congress purchased his work from his heirs. Because of the unique techniques he developed and used to photograph and then process glass plate negatives (digichromatography), up until now, these images could only be viewed within the confines of the Library itself. With advances in digital photography, it's now possible to take a glimpse of a world soon to be swept away by war, revolution and industrialization. View Collection Here...
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Violent political clashes in Egypt? London burning? A nuclear crisis in Japan? Military tanks crushing government protesters in Syria while American troops leave Iraq? The Libyan people rising up against Muammar Gaddafi? #Occupy Wall Street protests in every major American city? Russians marching again on the streets of Moscow?
And the year 2011 is not quite finished...
Analysis: Democracy is like a rice cooker. When too much pressure builds up inside, excess steam is released so the cooker (i.e. society) doesn't EXPLODE.
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Update:
Wukan protesters end action after Chinese government offers concessions
December 21, 2011
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That's why it's a bit curious that this completely irrelevant corner of the blogosphere has an active Russian readership.
...speaking of Russia...
Why do Russians hang rugs on the walls?
In my quest to find the answer, I discovered two outstanding web-sources, which married together, provided this blogger with the best possible answer.
According to the website English Russia, Russians started the custom of hanging rugs on the wall in the 1950s. Why? Evidently, the walls of Soviet-era apartment buildings were extremely thin. Hanging rugs on the wall had a real world, practical application. The custom itself helped mask private conversations from noisy neighbors as well providing some added interior insulation against the COLD Russian winters.
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A first-person narrative written by an American living in Russia provided this blogger with another possible answer to the original question. Lindsay Kosarev's detailed observations about the country's society and culture are a must read for every American who plans on living and working in Russia:
"Russians love putting carpets on their walls. At first, I thought it was for extra insulation, but they put them on inside walls as well. No matter how stylish or traditional Russians believe this custom is, they always pick a rug that does not match the rest of the room. They either look like the furniture covers, which are brown and tan floral patterns or the rugs are red and black. There are other styles of rugs, but these are the most common and memorable."
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Thus, based on these specific web-sources, this blogger reached a simple conclusion. What started off as a practical solution to address real world concerns (noisy neighbors and cold apartments), over the course of fifty-plus years, the custom itself simply became a part of the cultural fabric of Russian society.
Hanging rugs on the wall is just one more thing
which helps define Russia as Russian.
