PARANOIA

Glorious comrades! The Amazing Politician, Beloved Father, Beloved and Respected Father, Beloved and Respected General, Beloved and Respected Leader, Bright Sun of Juche, Bright Sun of the 21st Century, Brilliant Leader, Commander-in-Chief, Dear Leader, Dear Leader, who is a perfect incarnation of the appearance that a leader should have, Ever-Victorious Iron-Willed Commander, Fate of the Nation, Father of the Nation, Father of the People, General, Glorious General Who Descended From Heaven, Great Defender, Great General, Great Leader of our Party and of our Nation, Great Leader, Great Leader, Great Man Who Descended From Heaven, Great Man Who Is a Man of Deeds, Great Marshal, Great Sun of The Nation, Great Sun of the 21st Century, Guarantee of the Fatherland's Unification, Guiding Star of the 21st Century, Guiding Sun Ray, Highest Incarnation of the Revolutionary Comradely Love, His Excellency, Invincible and Ever-triumphant General, Leader of the 21st Century, Leader of the Party and the People, Leader of the Party, the country, and the Army, Leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, Leader, Mastermind of the Revolution, Party Center, Peerless Leader, Respected Leader, Savior, Shining Star of Paektu Mountain, Sun of Socialism, Sun of the Communist Future, Sun of the Nation, Superior Person, Supreme Leader of the Nation, Symbol of the Fatherland's Unification, The Great Sun of Life, Unique Leader, Wise Leader, and World Leader of The 21st Century has died.

Labels: glorious comrades, north korea

Comrades! Now to be leavink corrupt capitalist running-dog Alpha Complex (ptui!) and be movink Outdoors to glorious deserted Russian military town in Latvia:

[B]idding has opened to find a new owner for the former top secret Russian military town of Skrunda.

Bids start at 150,000 Lats (about $290,000 USD). The winning bidder will become the owner of the entire town -- including 5 million square feet of land, 10 apartment buildings, two nightclubs, a shopping center, a child care center, a sauna, and of course a variety of abandoned military buildings. The radar facilities were sadly destroyed, so anyone thinking of starting their own secret missile base will need to find somewhere else.

The town has been abandoned since 1999, so you'll need to make a couple of trips to the local equivalent of Home Depot to fix things up.

Capitalist pig-dog commenter on post: "Wow, a town in Latvia costs as much as a budget condo in the Bay Area."

UPDATINK: Capitalist pig-dog Russian investor is buying Skrunda for US$3.1 million. Never be mindink!

Except for small detail of beink landlocked, Skrunda-1 is othervise beink perfect dock for formerly super-secret Sea Shadow stealth ship, built at cost of US$200 million, now beink given away for free by US Nawy.

Labels: glorious comrades

Comrades! Now to be repudiatink capitalist running-dog (ptui!) consumer-drunk materialist holiday by purchasink glorious Commie Mints! "Revolutionize your breath!" Is good!

(Thanks to loyal citizen David Boyle.)

Labels: glorious comrades

Comrades! Now to be viewink Treehugger slideshow by Alex Pasternack "The Weird, Beautiful Metros of the Soviet Union."

From Petersburg to Novosibirsk, the former Soviet Union boasts some of the world's most unique and ambitious metro systems. Built at command-economy speed, these metros were the result of a political ideology that placed heavy emphasis not only on infrastructural prowess and efficiency (could communism be, dare we say, green?) but also on military readiness. Indeed, subways were seen as a crucial transport link for soldiers, and some of the USSR's metro stations were intended to double as bunkers in the event of war. Even if many of the subways have suffered from the financial and political turmoil left in the wake of the Soviet Union, they are still crucial modes of public transit -- and awesome eye candy for underground architecture buffs.

Tashkent

Leading architects and artists from Uzbekistan took part in creating the stations of the capital's metro, which remains the only subway in Central Asia. The seventh metro to be built in the USSR, the Tashkent metro is typical of Soviet subway systems: its stations are very deep, in the event that they need to serve as bomb shelters, and each is intricately decorated with mosaics, sculpture and bas-reliefs made of engraved metal, glass, granite, marble, or carved alabaster.

The themes of progress and internationalist culture are familiar, but the presence of Islamic motifs make the metro a singular, sometimes bizarre trip into elaborate Soviet subway design. It's not easy to take it with you though: it is illegal to take pictures inside the subway system or any of the stations because they are considered military installations.

Labels: glorious comrades

Comrades! Now to be lookink at werry fine English Russia blog photos of interior of Soviet B-413 submarine, built in Old Reckoning year 1969, decommissioned in 1990, and now displayed at Museum of the World Ocean in Kaliningrad. Photos especially useful for GMs runnink Ken Rolston's 1985 PARANOIA mission "Das Bot," reprinted and updated in glorious hardcover mission collection Flashbacks. Is good!

Labels: glorious comrades

Comrades! All Power Serwices personnel now to be viewink photos from glorious Chernobyl-era Russian nuclear power plant near Smolensk.

Because this powerplant was completed after the Chernobyl, they paid a special attention to secure it from alike accidents. There is even a saying that “The sci-fi writers are on the second place by richness of imagination, the first place is occupied by the nuclear plant security engineers,” meaning that they need to make it safe just for some unimaginable events that not very likely to happen, but still the security system should be ready for them.

The outside structure that secures reactors themselves can stand the blast that exceeds ten times the power of atomic bomb blast, just imagine.

Ha! Glorious comrades, now to be imaginink many unimaginable ewents werry werry likely to happen in similar power plant in capitalist pig-dog (ptui!) Alpha Complex!

Labels: glorious comrades

Comrades! Somevere is beink somebody who somehow for some reason is needink to see over 1,000 labels for Soviet-era Russian and Eastern European matchboxes! Is you? Da, good!

Labels: glorious comrades

Comrades! Now to be viewink glorious Photoshopped photos, circulatink through endless forvarded emails, altered from actual genuine 1933 Soviet bomber aircraft Kalinin K-7, with actual genuine history familiar to all Troubleshooters visitink R&D:

The bomber was 91 feet long and had seven 750HP engines, six on the leading edge of the wing and one at the rear of the fuselage. The K-7 had a wingspan of nearly 174 feet and could fly at a maximum speed of 145 miles per hour. The aircraft was also designed for other functions such as transporting VIP, paratrooper and heavy cargo such as tanks. [...]

[T]he prototype was plagued by vibrations and instability problems caused by the massive propeller engines. Kalinin and his team of engineers tried to overcome flaws by reducing the size of the tail boom. The eleventh test flight proved to be fatal when the plane's elevator jammed, causing it plough into the ground below. The entire crew of 15 perished. The Soviet government under the command of Joseph Stalin terminated the project and in 1938 arrested and executed Kalinin for espionage and sabotage.

Few photos exist of this plane, and the ones included in the email appear to be computer-created or enhanced.

Now to be also seeink glorious Wikipedia entry on Kalinin K-7.

Labels: glorious comrades

Comrades! Now to be lookink at glorious Flickr set of Soviet nuclear test site equipment photographed by capitalist running dog Mark Pitcher.

Equipment built during the 1940's to 1970's for use in the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site (the "Polygon"). All are hand-made and most are one-offs. Photos from a museum in Kurchatov Kazakhstan.

(Via Make magazine.)

Labels: glorious comrades

Comrades! Never are ve to be tirink of new photos from glorious Communist vorkers' paradise, North Korea! Now to be viewink capitalist pig-dog (ptui!) newspaper Boston Globe and beautiful photo series, "Recent scenes from North Korea."

Labels: glorious comrades, north korea

Comrades! Via Jason Kottke, who in turn stole link like running-dog capitalist pig from Foreign Policy Passport blog, glorious collection of North Korean anti-American propaganda posters! Let's extensively raise goats in all families!

Labels: glorious comrades

Comrades! Many many many times ve have been linkink to photos of abandoned Soviet tunnels. Never never never can ve be gettink tired of photos of tunnels. Now, vith compellink title "The Underground Moscow," how could ve possibly not be linkink to English Russia blog's amazink photos of genuine Soviet-era KGB dungeons, flooded conduits, and alvays more tunnels, ever more mysterious nightmare tunnels? Go, and see Internal Security and Technical Serwices tunnels made wisible!

Labels: glorious comrades, underplex

Comrades! Already beink sick to death of multiple links to photos of old abandoned Soviet fortresses, missile installations, and nuclear wessels? Vell, toughski! Now to be lookink at still one more big abandoned Soviet Ukrainian submarine base, now museum. Alvays to be usink these kind of photos in good Communist adwentures in Underplex. Is good!

Labels: glorious comrades, submarines, underplex

Comrades! Now to be enjoyink colorful Flickr photos by comrade "gazjoe" of this year's glorious Mass Games at May Day Stadium in vorkers' paradise, North Korea. (Also to be readink Wikipedia article on mass games and followink excellent external links on that page.)

Labels: glorious comrades, mass games, north korea

Comrades! Now to be inspectink werrry interestink "WebUrbanist" blog entry "7 Abandoned Wonders of the Former Soviet Union: From Submarine Stations to Unfinished Structures." Vitness abandoned submarine base, abandoned prison, abandoned missile silo, abandoned oceanside fortress, and entire abandoned glorious city of Promyshlennyi. Werrry handy for Outdoors and Underplex Troubleshooter missions! (Rest of WebUrbanist blog also vorth long look.)

Labels: glorious comrades, outdoors, underplex

Comrades! Via BoingBoing, inwestigate and bookmark most glorious blog of Russian citizen Alexander Zakharov, A Soviet Poster a Day.

"Every Soviet poster, no matter the date of creation, bears a stamp of expressiveness and graphical quality. The attention to details is awesome. The scope of techniques is endless. Soviet posters are a treasure chest with inspiration for any graphical designer, not to mention the seeing pleasure itself. And what's important, every Soviet poster has a historical reference essential for understanding the layers of meanings it carries through time."

BoingBoing comment thread also links to glorious Stefan Landsberger's Chinese Propaganda Poster Pages.

Labels: glorious comrades, soviet posters