War & Peace - Part 1

привет, my friend!

Yesterday I went to the Red Army Museum. The museum has two main exhibitions: WWII and Cold War. Unfortunately, the Cold War piece was closed, and I didn't get to see the wreckage of an American U2 spy plane that was shot down over the USSR. Still, the WWII piece was awesome.

It further strengthened my theory that Stalin was an arsehole. One of the reasons that the Germans invaded the USSR so easily was because Stalin killed 49 of his top 50 generals during the purges of the mid-1930s. I was amazed to learn that 25 million soviets died during the war, 60% of which were civilians.

Reminder: it was the Soviets that got to Berlin, not the Americans.

Poster asking for recruits during WWII. It says "Motherland Needs You":

Hitler was so sure he'd conquer the Soviet Union that he even had a train on the way to Moscow filled with medals to the Nazi soldiers. The Soviets managed to capture the train when the Germans retreated:

Eagle statue from a building close to the Reichstag. Behind it, German flags of Nazi troops captured by the Soviet army:

Piece of the Reichstag wall, reading: "You didn't get to the Kremlin, but we got to the Reichstag -- Hitler Kaput"

Red Army flag that the Soviets put on top of the Reichstag. In the back, a photo of the Victory Parade in Red Square, where Soviet troops tossed conquered German flags by the Kremlin walls.

Part 2 & 3 of the War & Peace series will be next weekend -- I will visit the largest tank museum in the world on Saturday and then the re-enactement of the Napoleonic war in Borodino on Sunday.

пока!