University of Birch Bay Announces June Commence Speaker

The president of the University of Birch Bay has announced that the speaker for its Spring graduation ceremonies will be Alexandr Alexandrovich Sasha, famed Russian humanitarian who owns coal mines near the large Raspadskaya Mines in Mezhdurechensk, Russia. Mr. Sasha lives in Moscow, with second homes in St. Petersburg, Simferopol, Sukhumi, Donetsk, Kiev, Uzhgorod, Vienna, Rome, Paris, and Vancouver.

 

Office of the President of the University of Birch Bay

Mr. Sasha is widely known for his warm heart and generosity, having won the Putin Prize for Humanitarian Excellence in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016.  Also, his investments in education are renowned and highly praised by the Russian presidential administration. He is owner and president of the Sasha-Putin Institute of Nationalism (SPIN), a private institution of higher education located in Mezhdurechensk that is widely known throughout the city’s suburbs. Recently, the Yew of Bee Bee and SPIN entered into an agreement for an exchange of students, faculty members, and executives to further educational excellent and promote world peace. 

Mr. Sasha graduated from public school #4 in Orenburg. He furthered his education by taking some correspondence courses during his decade of detention in a corrective facility in Glasov (Urdmurt Republic). In 2008, he received from President Vladimir Putin a complete pardon for all crimes committed and to be committed, with all of his past and future criminal records to be destroyed. Despite complaints by his critics, no evidence can be found to support allegations that Mr. Sasha has engaged in any criminal activity.

 

Mr. Sasha in Orenburg Public School #4
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Mr. Sasha’s talent for coal mining became apparent in 1996 when he was hired by the owners of several mining companies to “persuade” striking miners to return to work.  In 2000, he was able to “persuade” the owner of some mines near Mezhdurechensi to sell them to him for a reasonable price. Shortly thereafter, he appeared on the Barron 500 list of the wealthiest Russian Oligarchs.  Since then, he has moved steadily up that list.

While Mr. Sasha devotes most of his time to managing his mines, he has found time for public service. He was elected to the Russian State Duma, the country’s parliament, in 2007 and has since been re-elected. A member of the United Russia Party, he is part of the Duma leadership.  Mr. Sasha chairs the Duma Committee on the Deregulation of Coal Mines, and he has headed several special committees investigating worker culpability for coal mine accidents. 

 

Alexandr Alexandrovich Sasha Coal Mines
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The topic of his address will be “The Importance of Freedom of Speech and Tolerance in  Society (Under the Benign Guidance of a Strong and Moral Leader).”  During his visit, Mr. Sasha will be awarded an Honoris Causa doctorate. Also, he will be given a one-year membership in the Yew of Bee Bee alumni association and made an honorary Coniferous Yew.

Yew of Bee Bee Football Stadium by the Bay

The graduation ceremony will be held at the University’s Football Stadium by the Bay, home of the Fighting Coniferous Yews. In the case of rain, the ceremonies will be moved to the Vancouver Civic Center.  Next year, the Yew of Bee Bee plans to hold the Spring graduation in the new Alexandr Alexandrovich Sasha Indoor Stadium which will be completed by March 2015.

The Scars of War, Vienna 1947

Flak Tower, now Haus des Meeres
http://www.haus-des-meeres.at/en/start.html

Reminders of World War II in Vienna

If you walk around the older parts of Vienna, you can see a few artifacts from World War II.  For example, when walking down Gumpendorferstrasse between the Gürtel and the Ring, you cannot miss a huge concrete tower, now a public aquarium (Haus des Meeres), that was built as a control tower to combat WWII air raids. Nearby is a shorter, but still massive, concrete structure that housed anti-aircraft guns. Three of these flak towers were built in Vienna with walls up to eleven feet thick, and they still exist.

For more about the Vienna flak towers, see this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flak_tower

Among other artifacts of World War II are small reminders of the destruction it caused. They are small plaques attached to the front of many buildings. They typically say that this building was damaged or destroyed during the war and was rebuilt in some year that followed.  Here is an example:

Sign attached to a building located on Raniergasse

This sign says: This house was damaged in the war years 1939/45 and was rebuilt from the resources of the Federal Ministry of Trade and Reconstruction, under Chancellor Julius Raab, in 1955.

These signs are most frequently seen in neighborhoods around train stations, though they are scattered in a seemingly random pattern throughout the rest of the city. For example, a building next to the Laudongasse building (9th district) where I had a room in 1971-72 had a sign showing it had been rebuilt following the war, but no other nearby buildings had such a plaque.

Without such reminders as these plaques, it would be difficult today to remember that Vienna suffered extensive bomb damage during the war years. The rebuilding started right away, and when I was in Vienna during the 1967-68 academic year, I saw few physical reminders of the destructive war that had ended twenty-two years earlier. (However, Austria in 1967-68 had not yet achieved the affluence that was to come. Many buildings, such as the one I stayed in, had apartments lacking individual toilets and bath/shower facilities. And most were still heated by wood or coal. That has changed.)

World War II Destruction in Vienna

In thinking about what Vienna looked like in 1945, I have read enough and heard enough stories to know that the conditions were grim as Soviet soldiers attacked in early April 1945, and they became grimmer soon after that. Hitler had issued a "stay or die" order, and German soldiers fought fiercely, and to the end, for a lost cause.

Even before the Russians came, the city had suffered intensive bombing, and though the bombs were aimed at strategic targets, they managed to destroy some of the city's most important buildings, including the Staatsoper and half of the Parliament building. They also heavily damaged the ancient and monumental St. Stephens church located in the center of the city. (The damage to St. Stephens can be seen in a book, Der Wiener Stephansdom: Nach dem Brand in April 1945 [St. Stephens: After the Fires in April, 1945], prepared by Anton Macku soon after the end of the war; I took at art history course from this fine gentleman in 1968 through the Institute of European Studies.)

A book published in 1995 has chilling documentation of the Russian battle for Vienna. It includes over 400 pictures taken by Russians that had not previously been published. The book is titled Die Russen in Wien, Die Befreiung Oesterreichs (Russians in Vienna, the Liberation of Austria). It contains pictures of the battle for Vienna and the occupation that followed. It shows the devastation that came with the liberation.

Title:  Russians in Vienna, the Liberation of Austria

Last year when I was in Vienna, my friend Jörg, whom I first met in 1971 when I a rented room in a large flat occupied by him, his wife, and his mother, took me to a street in Döbling, an outer district, and pointed to the apartment building where he was living in 1945 as the Russians fought their way into Vienna. He told me this story:  

He was a young kid living with his grandparents. As some Russian soldiers approached the street where the apartment was located, they were fired upon by German soldiers from the roof of his building. After an exchange of gunfire ended, the Russians ordered everyone out of the building and lined them up in front of it. Jörg was in his grandfather's arms. As his grandfather saw that the Russians were preparing to shoot everyone -- they suspected that some of the residents had shot at them -- he tossed Jörg to one of the Russian soldiers standing nearby. About this time, German soldiers, who had moved to another building, starting shooting again at the Russians. The Russian soldier who had caught Jörg tossed him back to his grandfather, and the Russians turned their weapons toward the shooters, sparing the group in front of the apartment.

Such stories make vivid the situation in Vienna as Russians drove the German military from the city. Many stories of suffering, survival, and recovery can be found in the memoirs of people who lived through the Russian liberation of Vienna and the desperate months that followed. Unfortunately, most such memoirs have not been translated into English.

Pictures of Vienna, 1947

In my curiosity about the post-War situation in Vienna, I bought on eBay some pictures taken in Vienna in 1947. According to information on the envelope, they were mailed by K. Redl, who lived on Döblinger Hauptstrasse (not far from the Döbling apartment where Jörg was staying with his grandparents) to S. J. Darling in Appleton, Wisconsin. A stamp on the front of the envelope shows that they were cleared by Austrian censors. The post office cancellation stamp is dated July 4, 1947. They reached Appleton on July 14th. The postal stamps have been removed from the envelope, probably by a stamp collector.

The letter included 20 photographs. The location where each photo was taken is shown on its back. These pictures show that in 1947 much of the bombing damage in Vienna had not repaired. Much work remained to be done.








The following are a selection of the 1947 photos sent in the letter:

Photo of the Ring near the Schottentor (the edge of the University building is, I think, on the left)

Photo of Währingerstrasse, close to Schottentor

Photo of Kärtnerstrasse; the edge of the Staatsoper building is on the left

Two photos of  Kärtnerstrasse between the Staatsoper and St. Stephens Church

Photo of Stephensplatz: St. Stephens Church (without a roof)

Photo of Neuer Markt; St. Stephen's Spire in the background (1st District)

Photo of the Augustiner Rampe near the Staatsoper. Present site of the Augustiner Museum

Photo of Tegetthoffstrasse, between the Augustiner Rampe and Neuer Markt.
The Spire of the Augustiner Church is in background

Three Photos near the Danube Canal (Kai)

Photo Captioned on Back:  "Döbling View from my House"

These pictures were taken at locations that I have often passed since I started to visit Vienna in 1966. They both remind me of a sad chapter in Vienna's history and make me appreciate even more the present beauty of Vienna 

Russian Dining in Birch Bay, WA

I have been fortunate to make the acquaintance of the Kiras, Birch Bay residents who retired here after decades of owning and operating restaurants in California and Washington state.
Before coming to the United States in 1978, they were residents of the Soviet Union, living in Odessa for many years. Mr. Kira trained as a chef as the Ukraine Institute of Cooking Arts. Mrs. Kira was raised in Romania, and draws on her childhood memories to inspire her cooking.

The Kiras have published a Russian cook book with hundreds of recipes they used when operating their restaurants. The recipes keep the distinct Russian taste, but are designed to be simple and quick to cook, and to be healthy. The book is printed on high quality paper and is illustrated with many vivid high quality photographs.

The recipes are simple enough that even I can make the dishes. During the Christmas holidays, I made Kira's famous honey nut wish cake, and it turned out perfect -- almost (see picture below). Mr. Kira tells me that I should have saved a few nuts to put on top of the cake.  I can highly recommend this cake.

Honey Nut Wish Cake

I also made a cucumber salad using the recipe in the book and a more complicated vinaigrette salad, which has beets, potatoes, carrots, green pepper, onions, pickles, and a couple of other healthy ingredients.  Truthfully, I had to call my friend Natalia -- who also grew up in the Soviet Union -- for some advice on how to cut up beets, but in the end had an enormous, tasty salad.

Ever so often, I visit the Kiras and am rewarded with a memorable meal. The latest was last Wednesday.  The meal started with a hot  chicken soup with rice. The main menu included the food shown in the picture below.

Russian Lunch on Jan. 19, 2012

Starting from the left, bottom corner, is a fresh, toasted slice of french bread topped with butter and caviar. Next to it, not shown, is another toasted slice of french bread with a homemade cheese spread with a nice garlic and strong goat cheese taste. The dish just above the caviar sandwich is holodets -- a dish that I usually cannot bear to look at, much less force into my piehole. This dish consists of some meat -- often an unthinkable internal organ or sad looking fish -- in a  unappetizing congealed opaque gelatin. For a picture of what holodets (served in Ukraine) is made out of, look at this website: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/9136/proper-cow-bones-to-prepare-holodets

Many is the time that I tried to force a smile as I dutifully and manfully shoveled a small morsel of holodets into my mouth, managed to swallow it, and complemented the person who had cooked the unspeakable dish. Russians love it, and are surprised when Americans turn white after thinking about eating the first bite.

Fortunately, eating Mrs. Kira's holodets did not require any forced smiles and false praise. It contained  chicken -- shredded white meat -- lodged in a tasty and light jelly-like substance. It was actually edible and not too damn bad.

In the center of main plate is a luscious Chicken Kiev. Mrs. Kira does not believe in stuffing the chicken with some high calorie cheese or the like. Instead, she uses some nice fresh butter. She topped this dish with some sauteed mushrooms. To the left of the Chicken Kiev are two types of piroskys. One is filled with creamed potato stuffing, the other with ground pea stuffing. On the other side of the Chicken Kiev, are some nice roasted potatoes with a light coating of paprika.

Also in the picture is a mixed salad with several types of veggies to round out the meal.

The Kira's recipe for Chicken Kiev is as follows (this is from their cookbook):

The desert for the meal -- not shown -- was a delicious chocolate pie made with a thin crust and sweetened with honey.  It can be eaten with either the red wine or hot tea.

For those who want to make a simple, tasty cake that is not too sweet, here is the recipe for the honey nut cake pictured above (the one even I can make):

If you have an interest in making Russian dishes, you can buy the Kira's book on Amazon.  It is available at this link:  http://www.amazon.com/Unique-Traditional-Russian-Cooking-Michael/dp/B0066QI996/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1327209884&sr=8-3
The book is being sold by Birch Bay Books which is a subsidiary of Eclectic (At Best).

Encountering History: The Pleasure of Meeting Gita Vygodskaya

Gita Vygodskaya and
Natalia Gajdamaschko in Dundee

I met Gita Vygodskaya in 1995 in Dundee, Scotland through my friend Natalia Gajdamaschko.  From Natalia, I knew that she was the daughter of a major Russian psychologist, Lev Vygotsky, who had died in 1934, but whose cultural-historical theory of psychology was increasingly influential in Western universities. It was remarkable that his work - completed from 1924 to 1934 and banned by the Soviet Union soon after his death -- was thriving more than fifty years after it was completed.

Natalia, a Vygotskian, had studied neuropsychology at the school created by Alexander Luria -- one of Vygotsky’s closest colleagues -- located at Moscow State University. She had come to Dundee for a conference and was excited to meet Gita. They became good friends and met many times during the following fifteen years.

 I was a bystander in Scotland for a vacation, but I had a rental car and Natalia enlisted me to drive her, her son Dennis, Gita, and a couple other folks to see some of the area. We went to nearby St. Andrews for a visit. It was a delight to find that Gita was a warm, engaging person who had formed a nice bond with Natalia and Dennis. We spent a pleasant day seeing the sites of this historic city.

I spent some more time with Gita and her daughter, Elena Kravtsova, in 1997 when they came to Athens, Georgia as distinguished lecturers at the University of Georgia. By that time, I had learned more about Vygotsky’s life and about Gita.  For example, I knew that, though it was very dangerous, her mother had kept over 200 of Vygotsky’s manuscripts in their small apartment after his death. When her mother died, Gita took over stewardship of the writings and kept them safe during the war years and the difficult years that followed. Maintaining this trove of papers could have had dire consequences for Gita and her family had they been caught with them.

Despite official ostracism as the daughter of a scientist who was banned by the state, Gita succeeded in getting an education at the USSR’s best university, Moscow State University. She followed her father’s footstep in becoming a psychologist working with children and people with disabilities. (Her daughter, Elena Kravtsova, also is a psychologist, as are her grandsons Lev and Oleg; another grandson, Alesha, is a musician. All are, as you might imagine, Vygotskians.)

Gita and daughter Elena Kravtsova at their home near Moscow

Gita received her master's degree in psychology in 1951, and after teaching psychology in high school for five years, returned to Moscow State University to earn her Ph.D-equivalent (kandidat nauk) degree in 1959. She worked for many years as a researcher at the Institute for Defectology of the Academy of Education. (This information is from a short bio of Gita in http://www.bgcenter.com/vygotskyProject.htm .  The site belongs to psychologist Boris Gingis, who also was in Dundee in 1995 and was a friend of Gita.)

Restrictions on publishing and reading Vygotsky’s work lessened in the 1950s after the death of Stalin. A collection of Vygotsky's papers was published there in 1956, reflecting an easing of the Communist Party's negative view of Vygotsky's theories. This book was translated into English and published in the United States with the title, Mind and Society, introducing the full scope of Vygotsky's work to the West for the first time.

The revival of Vygotsky's theories was accelerated in the 1980s when several of his former students, with Gita's help, prepared a six-volume collection of his work, published between 1983 and 1987. Included in this volume were many unpublished manuscripts that survived because Gita, her mother, and her sister had made sacrifices necessary to preserve them.

While assisting with the publication of her father’s collected work in the 1980s, Gita also carried out her own research on his life and contributions. Her book, Lev Semenovich Vygotsky. Life. Work. Brush Strokes of the Portrait was published in 1996 in Russian.  Parts of it have been translated into English and published in the Journal of Russian and East European Psychology.

With the liberalization, and then, the end of the Soviet Union, Gita began to receive invitations from throughout the world to take part in conferences that were devoted, at least in part, to her father's psychological theories. Also, the Vygotsky Institute for Psychology was created at the Russian State University for the Humanities in Moscow by Elena Kravtsova, who still heads it, and the Institute began to hold annual meetings on Vygotskian psychology in Moscow. The meetings are attended by scholars from throughout the world. Gita was usually a star attraction at these meetings.

In her 1997 lecture at the University of Georgia, Gita talked mostly of the intellectual and personal history of her father. She was only 9 when he died in 1934 at the age of 37. Nevertheless, her memories of him were vivid, warm, and loving -- and often humorous.

She recalled her father’s vibrant intellect and devotion to science, and how she and her sister were sometimes the subjects of his experiments and observation. For example, they were enticed to traverse mazes, with an orange as their reward for successfully completing it.  At other times, their father just talked to them to get their reactions to certain situations -- to see how they, as children, thought about different puzzles and problems. 

Gita Lvovna Vygodskaya about her father, Lev Vygotsky from Natalia Gajdamaschko on Vimeo.

Gita also talked about the lively intellectual life at the Vygotsky apartment, one big room, that served as both home and office. She recalled frequent meetings there of Vygotsky's students and distinguished colleagues, such as neuropsychologist Alexander Luria and Alexi Leont’ev, who became famous names in the discipline.

The most vivid part of her talk at UGA was about her personal recollections of her conversations with her father. These vignettes humanized him and grounded his work. She told a touching story of how, when she entered the first grade, her father had cleared the left corner of his desk for her to use to do her school work.  

While the UGA lecture was helpful in understanding more about Lev Vygotsky, it also increased my curiosity about Gita’s life. What was it like growing up the daughter of Vygotsky in the late 30s and 40s. What did she see and hear as a child during the frightening years of the Great Terror. How did she live as a teenager during the terrible war years? How were she and her family treated by former friends and colleagues of her father after his writings were banned. What threat did they feel from the government, how did they cope with their fears? What was her view of Stalin and his successors? How did she get into Moscow State University? These and other questions arose as I heard her speak.     

Unfortunately, she did not talk too much about herself and what happened after her father died. She did note that she had loaned some of Vygotsky’s writings, at some danger, to friends during the time his work was banned. Also, she spoke of the fifties as a time when it still was not safe to say the name of her father.  

I hope that a biography of Gita will someday be published to provide a fuller picture of her life and the context within which it was lived.

Gita’s 1997 visit to Georgia was another enjoyable encounter with history and an opportunity to learn more about her father. Natalia and I had a reception for Gita and Elena at my house, and they volunteered to help cook some of the Russian dishes that were served.  They were a pleasure to have as guests.  It was clear that Gita, a most pleasant and down-to-earth person, was enjoying her chance to see a new part of the world.

I had opportunities to see her and Leona again in Moscow; once, Natalia and I were invited for a dinner at their sprawling Moscow apartment (they later moved to another place on the outskirts of the city). The last time I saw her was at a Vygotsky Institute of Psychology conference in Moscow. She was then, as always, friendly, kind, and thoughtful.

 Natalia visited Gita and Elena periodically in Moscow and maintained contact with both by telephone. She was distressed to hear from Elena of Gita's worsening health through the 2000’s. Gita’s family, her many friends, and others, like me, who knew and admired her from a distance, were saddened when Gita died in July 13, 2010. She was 85.

I remember Gita as a person of dignity and warmth, who showed deep interest in others. I am also sure that she had great inner strength, tempered by the hard times in which she lived most her life, and had tremendous courage, evidenced by her success in protecting the legacy of her father. Without her, so much of his work could have been lost and so much of his life remained unknown. She was a good, loving daughter who helped to reveal the genius of her father to the world while living her own productive and interesting life.  

Natalia, Gita, and Elena

Kalmykov's Ninth

I'm am looking forward to watching the Royal Wedding tomorrow when Donald Trump will unite two great fans of American Idol in holy matrimony.

Putin Girl by Danielka

Now that I have your attention:  please note today is the 9th birthday of the renaissance boy, Danielka Kalmykov.  Danielka is the painter of the Eclectic Pirate that adorns this blog (see to the far right).  Also, he has painted such great works as Putin Girl (to the right) and Ships Upon the Ocean (see below).

Ship Upon the Ocean by Danielka

Flyer for Danielka Magic Show

Not only is Danielka an artist and great fan of Spiderman, he is an accomplished magician, who, under the stage name of "Ka Boy the Magician," wowed audiences in Birch Bay in Summer 2010.


In his leisure, Danielka is a nimble dancer, a competitive gymnast for the Podolsk team, and an enthusiastic skier.

Danielka Skiing in 2011

As might be expected, Danielka is a bit of a bon vivant, a boy about town, with an eye for pretty second graders.  Some suspect he may be secretly engaged.




Danielka is fluent not only in Russian and English, but also understands all of the secrets of Spiderman and Harry Potter, plus appreciates the post-modernist humor of Sponge Bob Square Pants.  An avid reader, he won several awards last year from the Blaine, Washington public library for his voracious and eclectic (at best) reading.

Danielka at rest

As Danielka enters his ninth year, we can only sit back and wonder what he will accomplish in coming months. We are sure we will be dazzled.  As his Godfather Dan Durning and Godmother Natalia Gajdamaschko say about Danielka, "What a great kid."







More pictures at:
https://picasaweb.google.com/dan.birchbay/KaBoyTheMagicianDirectFromRussiaToBirchBay#