I believe, friends, that caravans of rockets Will rush us forward from star to star On the dusty paths of distant planets Our footprints will remain

• Oscar Feltsman & Vladimir Voinovich, from 14 minutes to start.

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Galactic Archives >243-G >>Extinction Event >>>Documents >>>>Document KV-1 “Obituary”
[fetching file…]
...
Personal Log of Cosmonaut Konstantin Valeryev - 30th of October, 1962
I am Konstantin. Konstantin Valeryev. I am a cosmonaut, and one of two remaining humans.
In February of 1962, I and a friend of mine, Maksim Andreyev, were selected to be brought onto the Vostok 3 and 4 flights. The idea was first brought forward by an engineer - Korolev if I remember correctly - where he proposed the development and launch of three consecutive manned missions to orbit the Earth for a few days.
We’d both gone through training in the spacecraft, doing simulated flights, zero-gravity training and enduring Soviet leadership before we were certified for space flight. Those times now only feel like a smudge in my memory. The last three days felt like they’d lasted longer than those two months.
From the start, things weren’t really looking good. Rumours spread that trials for new parachutes and spacesuits weren’t going well, as well as the research people having big imperfections surrounding the quality and reliability of the Vostok Environmental Control System. Even worse, the Mikron system, the thing which controls ejection and landing, still hadn’t reached full reliability.
Regardless, the powers that were demanded a launch. For a while we just sat around and did nothing while those above us rushed to get things working. Then, we found out that the launch had to be delayed because of issues with the Zenit-2’s booster exploding, so we had to sit around for even longer. To make things worse, our trip to New York was cancelled, and the Presidium was completely against us speaking at the United Nations for some reason. Couldn’t imagine why.
Nothing was looking good. Every sign pointed to this mission being a disaster. We’d later find out that it wasn’t, but in retrospect, I should’ve pulled myself out and let someone else be chosen.
We filled the time with more training as the date approached. Parachuting, more zero-gravity training, spaceflight simulations and all of that. It did little to convince me that I wouldn’t die up here.
Kruschev had backed the engineer - Korolev - in his proposal that we would stay in orbit for three days instead of his opposition’s preference to two. That would be okay, as what difference would one day make? Just one more day of enduring space rations, shouldn’t be too hard, no?
At some point, we’d met with Korolev and some others, discussing the spacecraft and reviewing the space food we’d be bringing up with us into orbit. I’d tried it then, and had to force a smile. I couldn’t believe that I would be eating this for three days. They’d told Andreyev and I that they packed extra in case I needed to stay in orbit a little longer, which I agreed with. At the time, I’d glanced over to Andreyev with suspicion and wondered if he really meant to conserve the surplus of supplies. He assured me that he would.
Eventually, once summer had ended and the leaves were brown, we were ready for launch. Unfortunately, there was another delay. It was something about the fasteners on the ejection seat, something about them being unauthorised alternatives. I was mildly concerned, to say the least. After some time of waiting for the issue to be fixed, I’d ascended to the top of the craft through the lift to the capsule.
Then, I sat myself into Vostok 3, strapped in securely with my helmet tightly fastened and with all of the seals shut. Korolev thought this would’ve been a good time to start quizzing me on changes made to the spacecraft. I begrudgingly answered his questions with near-complete accuracy. I hoped he had faith in me.
The launch itself was turbulent. The rocket vibrations shook my body and rattled my teeth as I ascended past the clouds and high into the sky. However, it got exponentially worse once the second and third stages separated. Those were not pleasant at all.
Once I was in orbit I tested communications with ground control and found that they functioned well, only with a little bit of delay. Then, I did an orbit over the course of an hour and a half and checked the clock. Andreyev would be coming up soon. Some fifteen minutes or so prior to his arrival, I reoriented the craft to the correct 73-degree pitch angle.
While I was told that Andreyev had successfully launched, I could not find him when I stared out the window. I’d just have to take ground control’s word for it, no matter how uncomfortable it made me feel. This discomfort was then quickly dissuaded when Andreyev contacted me on the radio.
We had a lovely conversation about how the stars looked so much brighter here, and everything felt and seemed so clear. I agreed with him, this was a very strange, rare and wonderful experience - to be one of the first few to pierce the sky and look at our homeland from the outside. I remember that I’d stared down to my homeland below with a small smile on my face.
We were really here. In space, and I hadn’t died yet. It was hard not to cheer and yell in joy.
This joy was quickly taken away as a transmission broke through to us.
“Vostok. War has broken out between the USSR and the United States. Standby and await further instructions.”
I blinked in confusion. How? Of all times, why now? I attempted to communicate back to them, but Andreyev beat me to that.
“Ground control, say again? War?”
“Vostok, there is a nuclear payload inbound. The Presidium is authorising Mutually Assured Destruction. We will try to move everything to the bunker and when we do, we will inform you immediately afterwards. Your new orders are to standby until further notice.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. I poked at the radio, hitting ‘send’. I could only say one word.
“Understood.”
And they went silent. Suddenly the darkness of space was a lot less welcoming. I moved my gaze to the Earth below. I saw lights. Missiles, each one a dot followed by a trail distantly behind it. From the distance I viewed them, they looked like they were lazily soaring, arcing downwards towards the mainland, China and a few other places. Moments later, I saw more dots break through the clouds, flying towards the United States from both sides of the Union.
Andreyev and I watched from above as humanity killed itself. The ambient humming and chirps of the spacecraft was reduced to a thrumming in my ears. Small flashes, orange glows, the soundless screams of unknown billions.
All I could do was sit and watch, as I was spared from this annihilation.
Not a tear, not a sound, but the ache of my quick-beating heart, as if I was suffering along with everyone below. Suffering at either the loss of humanity, or the dread which came with the realisation that I was not among them.
The first day passed. Andreyev and I were still reeling. I’d shut myself out from everything, as I needed time to myself. Time to think. To grieve. I was now debris of a lost people, who’d drowned themselves in nuclear hellfire over lines in the dirt which mattered little.
I saw Vostok 4 pass by below me, as a loose component hung by a wire - perhaps broken off from a stage separation gone awry - was dragged through space behind it.
It was likely that the Presidium managed to get themselves into bunkers, as well as members of the military and hopefully the ground control personnel. My family wasn’t associated with any of these groups. They were workers on a communal farm. It was unlikely that the Union had enough resources to spare to accommodate them. Which meant they were most probably gone. I did remember seeing a flash over Omsk, after all.
Drip. The visor on my helmet blurred for a moment. I lifted it and felt at my face. Tears. Of course. I had just lost everyone. Well, everyone but Andreyev.
As if manifesting him, the radio crackled to life. I didn’t look at it, only the towering clouds that now created humps on the Earth’s sky below.
“What do we do now, Valeryev?”
It took a while for me to answer. I reached to the side and pressed the ‘send’ button.
“I don’t know.”
Silence took over the radio. I could not tear my eyes away from the horizon.
“We should probably stop looking at it.” He said quietly. I silently agreed, leaning back and staring upwards instead, at the stars deep in space.
“Have you eaten yet?” I asked.
“No, I can’t bring myself to eat right now.” He said.
“Neither can I.”
More silence. The hum of machinery. The chirps of computers. The rustling of spacesuit insulation.
“What do you plan to eat last?” I asked. Whether it was out of a need for distraction or just an overload of emotional turmoil, I was not sure. Thankfully, he played along.
“I do not want to know what space ration pork tastes like.”
“Think we’ll end up like Titov?” I joked half-heartedly.
“Become the second and third man to vomit in space? Sounds like a nice title to have.”
“Yeah. I think I’ll be third though. You have a weaker stomach.”
“You’re taking a great risk by saying this.”
I unclipped my belts, moving to a standing position. I began floating. Making more conscious effort to ignore Earth, I reoriented myself so I was facing away from it. I now seemed to be passing over the pacific. The sun would soon disappear from view for the time being.
The next day came. I’d lost count of the amount of orbits we’d gone through. At this point I’d slipped out of the cosmonaut’s suit just to settle with my fatigues. Andreyev would routinely get on the radio and we would chat about arbitrary things, things that didn’t matter anymore, things that no longer existed.
I saw Vostok 4 pass by below me, as a loose component hung by a wire - perhaps broken off from too much air resistance - was dragged through space behind it.
“If, say, we did manage to go to New York once we went down, what would you do first?” Andreyev asked.
It was like we were living in denial of what we saw happen, the permanent overcast covering the world being a stark reminder of that.
“I would try a hot dog. Maybe some American pizza too. McDonalds if they have it, maybe.”
“Western spy!” He said jokingly. I let out a loud exhale in response.
“I hear they have very good burgers. Someone in the Presidium told me that. We should try them.”
“I hope you get shot for that. You have weird taste. I was agreeing with you up until then.” He joked.
“Not like we would get a chance to try it, of course.” I reasoned. “Just hypothetical. I am sure all of their branches are irradiated to shit by now.”
I received no reply, only silence in the ever-lonelier void of space. The talk of food had inevitably made me hungry, so I decided to eat some of the rations. From the packed food, I took a lemon juice packet and a tube of pork purée. I decided to take that one in particular, as I’d imagined it would’ve tasted better than cottage cheese or tubed borscht. I shuddered at imagining the taste of the latter. It sounded horrible.
Feeding the purée directly into my mouth, it was not as bad of a taste as I’d thought it would be, able to keep it down easily as I ate it.
“Eating?” Andreyev’s voice came over the radio, I nodded, making a full-mouth noise.
“Good, maybe I should eat too.” He responded. I swallowed the food in my mouth.
“Maybe you should, Andreyev.”
“I don’t really see a point in eating, though. There’s nothing to return to, so why bother?” He asked. I paused as I was opening the lemon juice. I see that it was getting to him too. I sighed in both understanding and pain.
“I don’t know. I’m just hungry.”
No reply. I slurped down the lemonade.
I heard that in the United States, convicts would get to eat a final meal of their choosing before their death. This would most probably be my final meal. Did that mean that the life of an American convict would’ve been better than that of a cosmonaut, doomed to float in space over a ruined planet?
I decided it was. On Earth, the convict was likely vaporised in seconds. I would slowly starve to death or go insane here. I finished my food, emptying and rolling up the tube before resealing it and letting it float freely.
“Finished?” Andreyev asked. I nodded.
“Yeah.” I responded. Andreyev made a humming noise over the radio in response. I felt like there was nothing more to talk about.
The third day. Today. Today we were supposed to come back down to Earth.
Andreyev was silent today. We were nearing our hundredth-or-so orbit. The Earth was still overcast by deep clouds of ash and soot, vaporised remains of what was once buildings, cars, roads and people. I decided to start writing this today, on a notepad I carried in my pocket while using a pencil as a writing utensil. My writing was shaky and near-illegible, but it wasn’t like anyone was going to read this anyway.
I guess it would be now that I would write my last words.
It felt weird, floating around in space, knowing that there was nothing waiting for you below. It would be a long time before we would regain contact with ground control. Far too long. Andreyev and I would both be dead then.
Or well, only I would be dead. I’d looked over to the radio earlier, to find that it was shut off. It had been shut off now, for three days.
I saw Vostok 4 pass by below me. Andreyev was hung by a wire, and was being dragged through space behind it.
I looked up to the stars again.
Chirp. Hum. Chirp. Then the radio spoke.
“Why bother?”
I looked to it, static pouring from it as if it was still active. Is this what insanity was? I’d seen your corpse. The radio was off, and yet I heard you, I spoke to you for days. We were friends, holding onto each other to ensure neither of us would float into the darkness.
I was holding my own hand. It was only me. Why would you leave me alone? Why would you die like that? Why? I should've kept the radio on. I should've reached out to you. I'm sorry. I should've been there to talk to you my friend, so you could at least not die alone.
“Why bother?” He asked again.
I looked to the airlock. I never asked for this. I wanted to explore the universe, I wanted to be the first to venture on stellar roadways, greeting the galaxies and planets with open arms. I was willing to learn, to endure, to tell stories about towering multicoloured plumes of gas, rocks larger than cities, elements unknown, and pass it all on to my children, who’d have the stars in their eyes.
“Why bother?”
Alas, the end of the world cares not for the plans of man.
I moved up to the airlock. It would be so easy. A tug, twist and push. That’s all it needed, and I would be free from this nightmare. There was nothing to return to, and nowhere to go. If a man died in space, would he meet god?
Silence met my pleas. Chirp. Hum. Chirp.
“You should find out, Valeryev.” Andreyev taunted from the defunct radio.
My hand rested on the handle in thought. It would be so easy. I felt myself look back to the radio. A seed of optimism could be felt in my chest. The best outcomes are never easy.
Maybe I could give it another go.
I pushed myself away, landing by the radio. Holding onto a handle on the wall, I turned it on again. Static poured through. I listened intently as I adjusted it for the first time in days. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
“... Vostok … land … safe … repeat …” Garbled words spat from the radio. I had to make sure it was on this time, make sure that the correct dials were moving so I would be sure I wasn’t imagining things again. I made adjustments.
Slowly but surely, I began to make out more words.
“Vostok. You are not to land under any circumstances. Do not land. The Earth is no longer safe for you. This message will repeat.”
My heart fell, hearing the words loop. Each word slammed at my chest like the recoil from a rifle, with an uncomfortable pit in my stomach as if I was in zero-gravity training all over again. It repeated, repeated and repeated. Mocking me. Mocking my hope. Stomping on my optimism.
With shaking hands, I turned off the radio. I would die up here. That was final.
So here are my final words.
I am Konstantin Valeryev. I was a cosmonaut under the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the last remaining human. I was sent out in the name of humanity, to explore and catalogue, to give the world a reason to hope for peace. Moments after I left, my planet betrayed me. I was left alone.
Was the launch somehow mistaken for that of a missile’s? By not abandoning this mission despite the warning signs, did I inadvertently doom everyone on my world? If so, having me be the last to tell the story of how this happened is… fitting, and poetic.
Humanity was wonderful. We were all one species, learning together, leaning on one another for support in areas where we lacked. This was against the interests of certain people, though. Call them what you’d like, the Presidium, Congress, hypocrites, liars. It felt like they were stimulating conflict for their own personal gain. To stay in power is to be unquestionable, and to be unquestionable you give your people an enemy to question in your stead. Something to motivate them. To make them fight. To make them die for you blindly.
Whoever reads this, whether it be in fourteen minutes or fourteen years, you must remember. Even if you might not be the same people, you are both still people. If you can think, if you can disagree, that makes you a person. Nobody thinks the same. It’s easy and convenient to kill them for it, but harder to find a middle ground. Achieving the best outcome is never easy.
I don’t know. I’m just rambling. I want to think that I would be making an impact by leaving these words, but nobody will read them. Space feels emptier than ever, now. If, years from now, someone does read this and somehow is able to translate my shitty Russian handwriting, just remember;
Please. Make sure there is a world for your people to return to. Make sure it is kinder than when they left.
I need to rest now.
Until we meet again.
Konstantin.
End of Personal Log
...
Addendum:
This handwritten document was found in the pockets of a dead member of species 243-G, found within a short distance of a primitive satellite. Readings of exorbitant nuclear detonations on the planet did indeed align with the presumption that the predator species had self-terminated, but this document was instrumental in figuring out exactly why such a sudden extinction event occurred.
Deep analysis into the irradiated remains of Earth revealed that while a good portion of humans had survived the initial catastrophe, the rest of them had died off in the following drop in temperature that’d resulted from low-altitude detonation of nuclear weapons and general oversaturation of nuclear firepower. This had caused the planet to be essentially near-uninhabitable.
Furthermore, we’d located the origin of the catastrophe. Around the area once called ‘Cuba’ was where the first nuclear weapon - a torpedo - was detonated, in which all others followed after a thirty minute pause.
Finally, the bunkers the subject mentions, containing the 'Presidium' leadership entities were found and summarily cleared out. It is safe to say now that species 243-G can no longer be considered a threat.
This document is to be withheld from public viewing indefinitely.
...
...
...
Additional Info:
We shall follow. Rest well, Valeryev. May you find peace in the stars.
- G

There were a bunch of ideas settled on in the discord that were not described here and eventually got washed away by the allocations spreadsheet overwriting the brainstorming one. Nobody captured the earlier version of the Google Sheet, as far as I'm aware, so I'm making this post to compile everything we're doing since the deadline is under a week and it would make quite a mess of things if people started deviating from what was agreed upon.

Seven Deadly Sins Mouseovers (sketches, if available, linked on their respective names):

• Gluttony- The US eating donuts specifically in reference to this scene from the Simpsons.

• Lust- Sweden going on a heterosexual date, forced to wear normal formal clothes.

• Sloth- Montenegro being bossed around by Germans, forced to carry pillows and blankets back and forth that it cannot sleep on

• Wrath- North Korea being forced to hug South Korea and listen to k-pop

• Pride- UK being forced to look in the mirror

• Greed- Switzerland being forced to giving away its nazi gold to impoverished African nations

• Envy- Estonia stands by and watches as Latvia and Lithuania become Nordic countries (remember to only draw the fictional nordic flags on the flags themselves, not the balls)

All of these must be sent in with 13 frames total- the first of which will be used as an idle frame (how the mouseover will always look without having a mouse on top of it)- and submitted as transparent .pngs! tdhdjv is already making a background to put these on!

Coat of Arms- Omsk, Morocco, and Reichtangle watching over a parade of user's balls/countries that have slighted morocco (not yet decided upon?)

Header Background- Hell

Shoutbox Border- Undecided, possibly the flames of hell

Background Pattern- Undecided, possibly the flames of hell

Discord/New Reddit Icon- Probably just Morocco? Undecided.

I've left out the Youtube link, Discord link, Footer image, Upvote design, Flair Decorations and Treasure Shelf because they've all had substantial progress done on them or are already complete.
The deadline for all of these, by Para's word, is February 12th.

See previous countdown post: 2022 (for any tournament from 1974-2021, please see the links at the top of the 2022 post.)
Sources: IIHF G&R / Official Tournament Site
With the tournament beginning tomorrow, we have finally made it to the end of the countdown. I hope you enjoyed reading these posts as much as I enjoyed making them!
This was honestly so much fun, to read into the tournaments of years' past, and recall some of my personal memories from the WJCs that I watched since getting into the tournament.
But, before we dive into this year's tournament tomorrow, enjoy one more countdown post.
The 2023 World Junior Hockey Championship was originally scheduled to be held in Novosibirsk and Omsk, Russia, but was pulled from there in February 2022 due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The tournament was moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia and Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, from December 26, 2022 - January 5, 2023.
Groups: These groups were determined prior to the conclusion of the 2022 tournament, based on rankings of performance over the 2017-21 tournaments. Seeds given are still 2022 finish.
Click on any country to see their roster.

Group A (Scotiabank Centre, Halifax)	Group B (Avenir Centre, Moncton)
(1) Canada	(2) Finland
(3) Sweden	(5) United States
(4) Czechia	(7) Latvia
(6) Germany	(8) Switzerland
(10) Austria	(9) Slovakia

Preliminary Round: Times ET.

Date	11:00	13:30	16:00	18:30
December 26	FIN 3, SUI 2 (OT)	SWE 11, AUT 0	USA 5, LAT 2	CZE 5, CAN 2
December 27	FIN 5, SVK 2	SWE 1, GER 0	SUI 3, LAT 2 (SO)	CZE 9, AUT 0
December 28			SVK 6, USA 3	CAN 11, GER 2
December 29	FIN 3, LAT 0	SWE 3, CZE 2 (OT)	USA 5, SUI 1	CAN 11, AUT 0
December 30	SVK 3, LAT 0		(16:30) GER 4, AUT 2
December 31	SUI 4, SVK 3 (SO)	CZE 8, GER 1	USA 6, FIN 2	CAN 5, SWE 1

• SUI-LAT:
  • Shootout lasted 7 rounds - T-3rd most rounds in a shootout in WJC history
• SUI-SVK:
  • Shootout lasted 10 rounds - Most rounds in a shootout in WJC history

Standings - Group A:

Rank	Country	Wins	OTW	OTL	Losses	Points	GD (GF-GA)
1	Czechia	3	0	1	0	10	+18 (24-6)
2	Canada	3	0	0	1	9	+21 (29-8)
3	Sweden	2	1	0	1	8	+9 (16-7)
4	Germany	1	0	0	3	3	-15 (7-22)
5	Austria	0	0	0	4	0	-33 (2-35)

Standings - Group B:

Rank	Country	Wins	OTW	OTL	Losses	Points	GD (GF-GA)
1	United States	3	0	0	1	9	+8 (19-11)
2	Finland	2	0	1	1	7	+1 (12-11)
3	Slovakia	2	0	1	1	7	+2 (14-12)
4	Switzerland	0	3	0	1	6	-1 (11-12)
5	Latvia	0	0	1	3	1	-10 (4-14)

• Finland over Slovakia on head to head.

For the first time since the inception of the medal round (1996), nobody finished the preliminary round undefeated.
Relegation Series - Austria vs Latvia - Scotiabank Centre

• Game 1 - January 2 at 09:30 - Latvia 5, Austria 2
• Game 2 - January 4 at 10:00 - Latvia 4, Austria 2
• Austria is relegated to Division 1A for 2024; Norway returns.

Quarterfinal Seeds:

1. Czechia (1st place, 10 points)
2. United States (1st place, 9 points)
3. Canada (2nd place, 9 points)
4. Finland (2nd place, 7 points)
5. Sweden (3rd place, 8 points)
6. Slovakia (3rd place, 7 points)
7. Switzerland (4th place, 6 points)
8. Germany (4th place, 3 points)

Quarterfinals - January 2

QF Game	Time (ET)	Venue	Matchup
QF #1	11:00	Avenir Centre	(B2) FIN vs (A3) SWE
QF #2	13:30	Scotiabank Centre	(A1) CZE vs (B4) SUI
QF #3	16:00	Avenir Centre	(B1) USA vs (A4) GER
QF #4	18:30	Scotiabank Centre	(A2) CAN vs (B3) SVK

• QF #1 - Finland vs Sweden...
  • 03:10 - FIN - Kapanen (Kemell, Koivunen)
  • 16:55 - SWE - Carlsson (Jansson, Bystedt)
  • 44:03 - FIN - Huuhtanen (Miettinen)
  • 56:33 - SWE - Carlsson (Bystedt, Wagner)
  • 58:14 - After Jani Lampinen stops Leo Carlsson's bid for a hat trick, Verner Miettinen takes a high stick from Fabian Lysell. Finland to the powerplay (which will extend into OT if it should get that far.)
  • About 30 seconds into said powerplay, Koivunen plays the puck around the boards in the Swedish end, and it hops over not one, but two of his teammates' sticks, those of Niko Huuhtanen and Aleksi Heimosalmi.
  • Heimosalmi tries to corral it, but it's intercepted by Victor Stjernborg in the neutral zone. Stjernborg takes it the other way and...
  • 58:55 - SWE - Stjernborg
  • The Finns, upon regaining possession, pull Lampinen for a 6 on 4, but to no avail.
  • Final: Sweden 3, Finland 2
• QF #2 - Czechia 9, Switzerland 1
• QF #3 - United States 11, Germany 1
• QF #4 - Canada 4, Slovakia 3 (OT)
  • Game Winning Goal: Connor Bedard at 65:17
  • Gajan (SVK): 53 saves in the Slovak net

Semifinals - January 4 - Scotiabank Centre

• SF #1 - Czechia 2, Sweden 1 (OT)
  • And the Czechs are going to their first gold medal game since 2001! Who will they face?
• SF #2 - Canada vs United States...
  • No matter what happens in this game, history will be made, as whoever wins this game will face Czechia in a gold medal game for the very first time.
  • These two North American rivals have had a weird trend.
  • In the 8 CAN-USA matchups prior to this one, the team scoring first has actually lost 5 out of those 8.
  • In the 4 most recent of those 8 matchups, the team scoring first went would go on to take a 2-0 lead... and, on three of those four occasions, lose.
    • The only victory was the last time they played; the 2021 gold medal game, where the U.S. won by that 2-0 score.
  • So, with this in mind...
  • 01:19 - USA - Cooley (Ufko)
  • 10:30 - USA - Connors (Stramel, Brindley)
  • So, uh... by recent trends, Canada has the U.S. exactly where they want them?
  • 11:49 - CAN - Bedard (Del Mastro, Roy)
  • 20:47 - CAN - Stankoven (Roy, Clarke)
  • 25:46 - CAN - Fantilli (Dean, Zellweger)
  • 27:22 - the U.S. appears to have scored to tie the game at 3. However, this goal is called back due to goalie interference, as Jackson Blake appeared to have made contact with goalie Thomas Milic's in the crease, after he had carried the puck out of the crease.
    • A debate had sparked as to whether it was goalie interference or not. Upon closer inspection, it appears most of those who argued that it wasn't goalie interference were citing the NHL rulebook, which is not in play in this tournament. Under IIHF rules, it was ruled goalie interference.
  • 32:20 - CAN - Roy (Stankoven, Bedard)
  • 40:38 - The U.S. again appears to have scored their third goal of the game.
    • McGrorarty, on a shot, makes contact with Ostapchuk's stick which flies out of his hand. Ostapchuk's stick goes off the post and hits Milic from behind.
    • The shot ends up under Milic's pads before McGrorarty pitchforks the puck in.
    • Again, Canada challenges, and again, it's ruled goalie interference.
  • 49:45 - CAN - Clarke (Fantilli, Beck)
  • 56:14 - Zach Dean takes a high sticking penalty, sending the U.S. to the powerplay. They pull Trey Augustine for a 6 on 4.
  • 56:35 - After Canada clears the puck, Luke Hughes is carrying the puck up the neutral zone when he is pickpocketed by Joshua Roy, who heads for the empty net and...
  • 56:45 - CAN - Roy (ENG)
  • 56:45 - The U.S. pulls Augustine and has backup Kaidan Mbereko mop up the final 3:15 of this game.
  • Final: Canada 6, USA 2
  • Canada and Czechia will meet in a gold medal game for the first time ever. But before we get there...

Medal Day - January 5 - Scotiabank Centre

• Bronze Medal Game - 14:30 - United States vs Sweden...
  • Welcome to one of the wildest bronze medal games you will ever read about.
  • 02:51 - USA - Cooley (Snuggerud)
  • 07:53 - Fabian Lysell is assessed 5 and a game for an illegal hit to the head. His tournament is over. A 5 minute powerplay comes for the Americans.
  • Make that a 3 minute powerplay, as just 5 seconds into the major, Gavin Brindley takes a holding call, nullifying the first 2 minutes.
  • The Swedes kill it all off with no damage done.
  • After three more empty powerplays, a calm first period is over. Buckle up for the second... and I promise you, these aren't typos.
  • [deep breath]
  • 21:51 - USA - Ufko (Snuggerud, Blake) - PPG
  • 23:33 - SWE - Bystedt (Lekkerimaki, Rosen)
  • 26:04 - USA - Lucius (Blake)
  • 26:35 - SWE - Pettersson (Sandin Pellikka)
  • 28:52 - SWE - Carlsson (Wagner, Bystedt)
  • 30:42 - USA - Gauthier (Cooley, McGroarty) - PPG
  • 33:37 - USA - Lucius (Ufko)
  • 38:52 - SWE - Oscarson (Carlsson, Jansson) - PPG
  • 39:18 - SWE - Ohgren
  • 9 combined goals in the 2nd period - T-3rd most by both teams in a period
  • For the 3rd period, the U.S. again pulls Augustine in favour of Mbereko. And both he and Lindbom are able to stem the tide.
  • Exactly 20% of the way into the 3rd, Sweden takes their first lead with a goal by...
  • 44:00 - SWE - Ostlund (Pettersson, Stromgren)
  • But they can't enjoy it for long.
  • 48:17 - USA - Hughes (McGroarty)
  • With the score now tied at 6-6, this means this will be the most goals I've seen scored by a losing team since I started watching IIHF tournaments back in 2011.
  • 57:47 - Leo Carlsson takes a tripping penalty, prompting an American timeout.
  • With a great chance to take the lead with close to or under 2 minutes left, the Americans... do.
  • 58:23 - USA - Gauthier (McGroarty, Brindley)
  • On the ensuing faceoff, Sweden pulls Lindbom for the extra attacker.
  • 59:38 - SWE - Bystedt (Rosen, Jansson)
  • And this thriller of a game will continue, but not for very long as we get our winner relatively quickly.
  • 62:06 - USA - Lucius (Hutson, Savage)
• Gold Medal Game - 18:30 - Czechia vs Canada...
  • Author's notes:
    • A rematch from a preliminary round game won by the Czechs, where I myself went on the record saying that it was Canada's worst performance I'd seen in 13 years watching this tournament.
    • I had somewhere to be in downtown Toronto after this game ended, so I scrambled to find a sports bar near where I had to be, to watch this game (in particular, one that would have food I'd want). Eventually, I found one.
  • 12:41 - CAN - Guenther (Clarke, Othmann) - PPG
  • 24:35 - CAN - Wright (Guenther, Othmann)
  • After Canada took a 2-0 lead, the teams traded penalties towards the end of the second, and the third period was relatively quiet... until...
  • 52:30 - CZE - Kulich (Sale, Sapovaliv)
  • 53:24 - CZE - Kos (Hamara)
  • In 2022, Canada scored once in the 1st, once in the 2nd, gave up the 2 goal lead in the 3rd, and then won in OT.
  • In 2023, Canada scored once in the 1st, once in the 2nd, gave up the 2 goal lead in the 3rd, and...
  • Kent Johnson, you've got company, as "Heave Away" plays one more time.
  • 66:22 - CAN - Guenther (Roy, Clarke)

Final Standings:

1. Canada (20th gold)
2. Czechia (1st silver as Czechia, 6th with TCH totals)
3. United States (7th bronze)
4. Sweden
5. Finland
6. Slovakia
7. Switzerland
8. Germany
9. Latvia
10. Austria

• Austria is relegated for 2024; Norway comes up.
• At the time of me writing this, the 2024 Division 1A tournament has already finished, and I can tell you that Kazakhstan is coming back for 2025!

Scoring Leaders:

Rank	Player	Country	Goals	Assists	Points
1	Connor Bedard	Canada	9	14	23
2	Logan Cooley	United States	7	7	14
3	Jimmy Snuggerud	United States	5	8	13
4	Joshua Roy	Canada	5	6	11
5	Logan Stankoven	Canada	3	8	11
6	Dylan Guenther	Canada	7	3	10
T7	Filip Bystedt	Sweden	4	6	10
T7	Cutter Gauthier	United States	4	6	10
T7	Ludvig Jansson	Sweden	4	6	10
10	Ryan Ufko	United States	1	9	10
11	Jiri Kulich	Czechia	7	2	9
12	Gabriel Szturc	Czechia	5	3	8
13	David Spacek	Czechia	3	5	8
14	Brandt Clarke	Canada	2	6	8
15	Stanislav Svozil	Czechia	1	7	8

• Bedard (CAN)
  • 23 points - 3rd most by one player at one WJC
  • 14 assists - T-2nd most by one player at one WJC

Goaltending Leaders: Must have played at least 40% of the team's total ice time. Ranked by Save Percentage. All goalies with that 40% TOI, plus a 90+% save percentage, are listed here.

Rank	Goaltender	Country	Minutes	GAA	Save %	Shutouts
1	Adam Gajan	Slovakia	250:15	2.40	93.59 (146/156)	1
2	Tomas Suchanek	Czechia	435:13	1.52	93.41 (156/167)	1
3	Jani Lampinen	Finland	179:00	1.68	93.33 (70/75)	1
4	Thomas Milic	Canada	340:01	1.76	93.20 (137/147)	0
5	Carl Lindbom	Sweden	431:48	2.64	91.44 (203/222)	2
6	Patriks Berzins	Latvia	363:48	2.47	91.43 (160/175)	0
7	Nikita Quapp	Germany	188:16	4.14	90.08 (118/131)	0

• Suchanek (CZE) / Lindbom (SWE) / Berzins (LAT):
  • Played 100% of their team's total ice time.

Directorate Awards:

• Best Goaltender: Adam Gajan (SVK)
• Best Defender: David Jiricek (CZE)
• Best Forward: Connor Bedard (CAN)

All Star Team:

• Goaltender: Tomas Suchanek (CZE)
• Defenders: David Jiricek (CZE), Ludvig Jansson (SWE)
• Forwards: Logan Cooley (USA), Jiri Kulich (CZE), Connor Bedard (CAN)

Most Valuable Player: Connor Bedard (CAN)
Once again, for those of you who enjoyed these countdown posts, thank you so much for taking the time to read them. These were so much fun to make, and I hope you had as much fun reading them as I had writing them.
Next year, I plan to return to my usual 10-day countdown where I introduce the teams one by one.
And with that, the wait is finally over! The 2024 World Juniors are officially here!

Hello, everyone!
I'm in need of some advice and assistance to navigate a rather challenging situation.
I'm currently enrolled in a late repatriation program (Spätaussiedler) with the goal of returning to my grandfather's homeland, Germany. Over the past four years, I've diligently gathered all the necessary documents and evidence required for this process, and I've received the official acceptance (aufnahmebescheid) from the BVA. The last step now is to visit Friedland and complete the remaining document processing.
The BVA has informed me that I require a national visa to enter Germany. Here's where things get complicated: I was born in the USSR in Omsk, and when Russia invaded Ukraine, I had no choice but to leave Russia as a tourist. Returning to my home country is not an option as it would likely lead to incarceration or involvement in the war.
I've reached out to several embassies, including those in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Georgia, Belarus, Turkey, Kazakhstan, and Armenia. Some have ignored me, while others have stated they can't provide assistance and that I should return to Russia. Only the Serbian embassy has placed me on a waiting list for a visa. However, it's been three months with no indication of when I might be able to go to Germany.
During this time, I lost my job and missed out on two job offers in Germany because the companies needed a definite start date for employment. Unfortunately, being outside of Germany has left me unable to complete the necessary paperwork to begin working.
I'm determined not to rely on financial assistance and am eager to start working as soon as I arrive. It's frustrating to see so many people in my country, in need of help, and yet feeling unable to contribute.
I'm reaching out to you all for advice. Is there any way I can at least obtain an approximate visa issuance date? Could a tourist visa be an option for someone in my situation, and would it work alongside the BVA's requirements? What steps can I take to expedite my arriving to Germany?
Thank you all in advance for any advice and assistance you can provide. Your insights mean the world to me.

I thought this sub might be interested in a post-Soviet Russian view of one of the least spoken about and most violent events during the Russian Civil War. I do not know if this study has been republished in English so I am posting the translated bits from the original study from NSU's website along with translating the main body of the article into English with ChatGPT.
While I am not familiar with how the Bolshevik era is viewed in Russia - this study seems to go against the status quo of Soviet historiography, and therefore, I trust in the legitimacy of it's accounts.
The article is dedicated to commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 1921 West Siberian rebellion. It cut off Siberia, which was the main source of supplying food to Western Russia, from the European part of the country for almost three weeks. As a result, in late February – early March 1921, Soviet authorities found themselves on the brink of an abyss. In the Soviet period, this event was characterized as a major counter-revolutionary peasant rebellion, led by the underground Siberian Peasant Union, established by the Social Revolutionaries. This interpretation of the uprising contributed to its one-sided and, therefore, rather rapid oblivion and disappearance from public consciousness. The article highlights the names of the scholars who played a major role in debunking the Soviet myths about the West Siberian rebellion. Modern researchers have proved that the West Siberian uprising was predominantly spontaneous and was triggered by a combination of reasons caused by politics and the activities of the Soviet authorities. It was anti-communist in nature and its main demand was the restoration of true Soviet power but without the communists. At the same time, nowadays a partial shift in terminology, as well as in public consciousness, related to the awareness of the nature and essence of the uprising, becomes more noticeable. The article traces the first signs of recognition of the importance that has been given not only to the tragic end of the West Siberian rebellion but also to its heroic beginning. This was evidenced by the appearance in several settlements of new memorials of the uprising.
One hundred years ago, in a significant part of Western Siberia and Trans-Ural, several centers of anti-communist uprisings unexpectedly emerged, much to the surprise of the local authorities. These armed uprisings, each of which typically covered several administrative divisions, had scattered and localized characteristics. Primarily, they posed a serious threat to the party-Soviet apparatus in the affected territories. However, the regional party-Soviet, military, and Cheka leadership immediately classified these uprisings as links in a single chain, labeling them as a unified entity known as the "West Siberian Rebellion." This reinterpretation of the events was consciously done to convince the central authorities in the capital of the seriousness and danger of the events. The regional leadership categorized this series of uprisings as a major counter-revolutionary kulak (kulak-White Guard) rebellion led by the Socialist-Revolutionaries (Esers). Moreover, information about the uprisings was provided in a sparse and mostly biased or unreliable manner in the central and local party-Soviet press. Thus, from the start, an attempt was made to erase a tragic chapter of the lives of several generations of Siberians and Trans-Ural residents from memory.
The interpretation of the insurgent movement in Western Siberia and Trans-Ural as a counter-revolutionary kulak-White Guard rebellion led by the Esers was immediately endorsed by the ruling Communist Party and the Soviet government. This found expression in their memory policy, commemorative practices, memoirs, documentary publications, and research.
It is crucial to note that from the very beginning, the political and ideological framework of the West Siberian Rebellion concept was shaped by two prominent party-Soviet functionaries. One of them was the professional revolutionary and super-professional falsifier, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) E. M. Yaroslavsky [1921], and the other was the authorized representative of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (Cheka) for Siberia, I. P. Pavlunovsky [1922a; 1922b], whose trail of crimes dating back to 1919 involved the artificial creation and subsequent destruction of nonexistent counter-revolutionary organizations and conspiracies. This tandem came up with the idea of attributing the preparation and leadership of the West Siberian Rebellion to the so-called Siberian Peasant Union (SKU), which they claimed was created and led by the Esers.
Largely influenced by the publications of E. M. Yaroslavsky and I. P. Pavlunovsky, by the beginning of the 1960s, Soviet historiography had developed a relatively coherent and consistent concept explaining the origins, dynamics, and outcomes of the West Siberian Rebellion. Its main causes in Soviet literature were attributed to the weakness of local dictatorship of the proletariat organs, the prosperity of Siberian peasantry, the significant presence of kulaks within it, the organizational and political activities of the counter-revolution that allegedly established the underground SKU, as well as the failure of the revolutionary principles by party workers and their violation of revolutionary legality during requisitions. This concept received its most comprehensive presentation in the early 1960s in the book by historian M. A. Bogdanov.
And two decades later, it received official recognition on the pages of the largest and most authoritative Soviet encyclopedia [Civil War..., 1983, pp. 214-215].
The revival of interest in the West Siberian Uprising occurred at the end of the "perestroika" era, and a unique surge in publishing activity about it took place in the 1990s and 2000s. This enthusiasm was largely driven by the organization and publication of materials from All-Russian, international, and Russian-Kazakhstani academic conferences dedicated to the 75th anniversary [History of Peasantry..., 1996], 80th anniversary [State Power..., 2001], and 85th anniversary [Peasantry..., 2006] of the West Siberian Uprising. These conferences stimulated the interest of historians, local historians, archivists, writers, and journalists from Tyumen, Ishim, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Kokshetau, and Petropavlovsk in the issues related to the uprising.
Initially, the majority of publications about the West Siberian Uprising did not exhibit high quality. To a large extent, this situation was explained by the fact that at first, the interest in the uprising was largely opportunistic. Typically, the authors had poor or superficial knowledge of the factual material about the course of the insurgent events, limiting themselves to presenting widely known or private information. With their theses, articles, and documentary publications, they contributed little to expanding the source base of the topic and its objective interpretation. However, the proliferation of publications about the West Siberian Uprising contributed to its memorialization, but no longer solely on a formal party-state level, as was the case in Soviet times. A revival of memory about the 1921 tragedy began to occur in civil society institutions, primarily in cities, villages, and families. Importantly, in the press, the perpetrators of the new round of local conflicts of the Civil War in the West Siberia and Trans-Urals region were increasingly referred to as not the uprising participants, but the supreme and local authorities, their most fervent executors, and violators of legality.
Parallelly, progress was being made in the study of the West Siberian Uprising. By the 1990s, in a number of publications, the orientation of several researchers towards solving two closely interrelated tasks was quite clear: on the one hand, a critical review of the key provisions of Soviet historiography, and on the other hand, the search for new answers to central questions. A definite step forward was the appearance in the 1990s of a series of publications that were crafted in a "problematic" manner and clearly aimed at solving specific research questions.
First and foremost, it was necessary to verify the accuracy of the information provided by the Cheka about the Siberian Peasants' Union (SKS) as the organizer and leader of the West Siberian Uprising. In the early 1990s, K. Ya. Lagunov, A. A. Petrushin, N. G. Tretyakov, and V. I. Shishkin gained access to and analyzed materials from archival-investigative cases containing information about the so-called "conspiracies" and "underground organizations" of Cornet S. G. Lobanov in Tyumen, about the "Tobolsk Insurgent Center," which in reality was a group (circle) of local gymnasium students led by 16-year-old S. Dolganov, the nephew of Tobolsk Archbishop Hermogenes, and about the "secret organization" of six individuals who aimed to overthrow the Soviet authorities in the city of Ishim and its district. As a result, the researchers concluded that the materials in the archival-investigative cases refuted the Cheka's claims about the affiliation of the "uncovered" organizations to the SKS, the involvement of their members in preparing the rebellion, and the existence of a network of SKS cells in the Tyumen Governorate [Shishkin, 1997b].
Undoubtedly, one of the most important issues in the history of the West Siberian Uprising was the question of its causes. In the late 1980s and early 1990s
A. I. Vasiliev, A. A. Petrushin, and S. A. Stepanov identified the main reason that compelled the peasant population of Tyumen to take up arms against the communists as the abuses by food supply workers. A fundamentally different opinion was expressed by I. V. Kuryshov and K. Ya. Lagunov. They believed that the uprising was the result of a deliberate provocation by Soviet authorities aimed at subsequently destroying the most independent and self-reliant layer of Siberian peasantry. However, the thesis about abuses by food supply workers remained at the level of a hypothesis, which the authors could not substantiate with sufficient factual material. As for the statements by I. V. Kuryshov and K. Ya. Lagunov, they did not provide any information to support their opinions, which allows for categorizing them as speculation.
In the 1990s, N. G. Tretyakov and V. I. Shishkin identified and introduced into scholarly circulation a large complex of documents that characterized the socio-political situation in the late 1920s and early 1921 in the Tyumen Governorate as a whole and in the Ishim District in particular, which was considered the source of the uprising. Thanks to this, they elucidated the combination and structure of the main reasons that prompted the local population to take up arms: dissatisfaction with the policies of the central authorities and the activities of local Soviet bodies regarding requisitioning, mobilization, and the implementation of labor duties; the authorities' unwillingness to take into account the real interests and objective capabilities of the peasantry; the population's indignation at the methods of implementing Soviet measures, abuses, and crimes committed by employees of food supply organizations. The researchers named the immediate trigger for the armed uprisings the announcement of seed requisitioning in mid-January 1921 and the attempt to conduct it over a large part of the Tyumen Governorate and in the Kurgan District of the Chelyabinsk Governorate, as well as the transportation of requisitioned grain from internal grain depots to the railway line for its subsequent shipment to central Russia [Tretyakov, 1993; 1994a; Shishkin, 1998].
N. G. Tretyakov and V. I. Shishkin came to the conclusion that the West Siberian Rebellion had primarily a spontaneous nature. However, they did not trace the mechanism and dynamics of the spread of the insurgent movement across the territory of Western Siberia and Trans-Urals. V. V. Moskovkin expressed his version of how it happened. He claimed that people "without hesitation took up arms as soon as they heard about the overthrow of the hated authorities among their neighbors" and wrote about a "unified impulse" in which allegedly tens of thousands of peasants rose up against the communist regime. According to V. V. Moskovkin, the peasant rebellion "almost instantly spread over a vast territory of Western Siberia. Military units were unable to contain the powerful pressure of the rebels within the Ishim district only because it was supported by the overwhelming majority of Trans-Ural peasants." In V. V. Moskovkin's opinion, control over the Tyumen province by the Soviet authorities was "lost" within a few days [Moskovkin, 1998].
The picture drawn by V. V. Moskovkin does not correspond to reality at all. First and foremost, it is inaccurate because the majority of the population did not support the rebels, although many sympathized with them. Some lacked courage, some considered resistance meaningless, and some had the illusion that the local authorities were acting against the higher authorities. V. V. Moskovkin ignored the fact that the majority of communists, Soviet workers, militia personnel, food workers, and collective farm workers actively participated in suppressing the rebellion. In other words, there was no "unified impulse" in the peasantry. In reality, different people demonstrated different attitudes towards the rebellion and its participants.
Undoubtedly, an important issue characterizing the West Siberian Rebellion is the number of its participants. In Soviet and post-Soviet literature, estimates of the total number of West Siberian rebels were repeatedly mentioned, and recently, the figure of 100,000 people has been mentioned more frequently [Civil War..., 1983, p. 215; Essays on History..., 1994, p. 169; Petrova, 2011, p. 31]. However, considering this figure as reliable and substantiated is not possible. It was literally taken "out of thin air."
The first specific attempt to address this issue was made by N. G. Tretyakov. Due to the lack of information about the number of rebels in their own documents, he had to rely on documents from Soviet military management that took part in suppressing the uprising. N. G. Tretyakov conducted a critical analysis of the available sources and concluded that they were quite contradictory. He managed to identify eight of the largest rebel groups that existed in the second half of February to March 1921. The researcher concluded that their total number was at least 40,000 people [Tretyakov, 1994a, p. 17; 1994b].
In our opinion, this figure is seriously underestimated. The reason is that N. G. Tretyakov used not all and not the most reliable sources but only part of the intelligence and operational summaries and reports of Soviet military bodies preserved in local archives. He did not work with the most important operational and analytical documents of military management stored in the Russian State Military Archive. Meanwhile, according to data from the Soviet military command in Siberia, which was not inclined to underestimate the number of rebels, the total size of only the largest rebel groups in February to March 1921 was at least 50,000 people. Moreover, N. G. Tretyakov did not consider the number of rebels across the entire rebel territory during the entire period of military operations.
Throughout the entire period of military operations, researchers have made only initial steps in studying the policies of the Soviet government towards the rebels [Tretyakov, 1998; Shishkin, 2006a; 2006b]. However, the results of their work allow us to conclude that the communist regime used all available means at its disposal to suppress the West Siberian Rebellion. The main methods used throughout the struggle were military and punitive measures, often at the expense of political methods. The choice of predominantly using force to quell the rebellion was due to the Soviet leadership's principled position aimed at the physical elimination of anyone who attempted armed resistance against it. The harsh treatment of the rebels by the communist regime provided an extremely severe lesson to the local population who participated in it. As a result, fear of the Soviet government became one of the defining features of the mentality of the peasants and Cossacks who experienced these events, who had previously been characterized by an independent nature.
The study of the military organization of the rebels and the military actions between them and the Soviet side was slow and fragmentary. As the most significant publications, only the articles by V. A. Shuldyakov and the theses of N. G. Tretyakov can be mentioned. V. A. Shuldyakov devoted his publications to the military actions in the Kokchetav district and the raid of the rebel "People's Division" ("1st Siberian People's Division") led by S. G. Tokarev to the Chinese border, up to Karkaralinsk. N. G. Tretyakov briefly characterized the final phase of the suppression of the rebel resistance in the Tyumen province.
A significant step forward was taken when researchers turned to study the biographies of people who participated or influenced the emergence and course of the West Siberian Rebellion. N. G. Tretyakov [1994b] was the first to describe the formation and composition of the governing bodies of the rebels. Following him, N. L. Proskuryakova repeatedly addressed the biographies of the commanders of the rebel squads in the Ishim district, N. S. Grigoryev, I. L. Sikachenko, and P. S. Shevchenko. I. V. Kuryshev and V. N. Menshikov wrote about the commander of the Siberian Front of the rebels, V. A. Rodin. In turn, A. S. Ivanenko and V. I. Shishkin provided information about the life and activities of S. G. Indenbaum, the head of the food supply commission of Tyumen province, N. N. Skarednov, about the commander of the Golishmanovo detachment of the Cheka, G. G. Pishchike, and A. A. Petrushin wrote about A. E. Koryakov, who was elected by the trade unions of Tobolsk as chairman of the temporary city council after the Bolsheviks had left that position.
The result of the work carried out in the 1990s and 2000s was dozens of new documentary and research publications that introduced new factual material into scientific circulation and made intermediate conclusions on specific issues. An important outcome of this work was the formation of a new concept of the West Siberian Rebellion [Shishkin, 1997a], the publication of the first encyclopedic articles, in which this topic received brief but accurate coverage [Shishkin, 2009], and the publication of two fundamental collections of documents ("For the Soviets," 2000; "Siberian Vendée," 2001).
It is worth noting that without the authors' permission and in violation of copyright norms, the best articles and documentary publications by N. G. Tretyakov and V. I. Shishkin were repeatedly reprinted in popular, scientific, and educational publications, including those in the capital (see, for example: [Aleshkin, Vasiliev, 2010, pp. 452-483; Korkina Sloboda, 2016, pp. 31-45; History of Siberia, 2011, pp. 190-214]). Certainly, such behavior by publishers is unacceptable and should be condemned. However, at the same time, the dissemination of serious scientific publications on the history of the West Siberian Rebellion contributed to the memorialization of both the event itself and its participants.
Simultaneously, not only within the historical community but also, as the Russian segment of the blogosphere testifies [Borodin, 2014, p. 192], within society as a whole, interest in the history of the West Siberian Rebellion first increased, and then there was a partial shift in understanding its nature and essence. Noticeably, the terminology used to characterize it has changed. Instead of communist labels such as "riot," "rioters," and "bandits," self-designations like "rebellion," "rebels," "insurgents," and "guerrillas" gained acceptance. The social composition of the participants in the rebellion prompts a correction to its name. It is more accurate to exclude the term "peasant" from its name, as thousands of Cossacks, rural and urban intellectuals, officials, and ordinary people took part in the struggle against the communists.
In the post-Soviet period, an awareness emerged of the importance not only of the tragic end of the West Siberian Rebellion but also of its heroic beginning. Evidence of this is the appearance of new commemorative signs about the rebellion in several settlements, including the former Bazaar Square in the district town of Ishim, where on February 10, 1921, a battle took place between the insurgents and the Red Army [Kramor, 2013].
It is tempting to propose putting an end to discrediting the West Siberian Rebellion by referring to Pushkin's definition of a Russian uprising, drawn from the Pugachev rebellion, as "meaningless and ruthless." Yes, the West Siberian Rebellion was bloody and ruthless, but it was in response to the communist violence and terror. However, it should by no means be called meaningless. It was self-defense - the only worthy way out of the situation created by the communist regime. The rebels were defending their families, children, the elderly, and women, as well as their right to a free life. They were not only defending their honor and dignity but also the social norms and orders that had existed for decades.
Certainly, the process of reinterpreting the perceptions and concepts of tragic events in Russian history has always been slow, difficult, and far from straightforward. We don't have to look far for examples. At the beginning of this year, on the 100th anniversary of the West Siberian Rebellion, the historian A. A. ShTyrbul responded, reproducing the canonical communist version from 50 years ago with its main interpretations and falsifications [ShTyrbul, 2021]. The contemporary version of the West Siberian Rebellion, taking into account the contributions of a large group of researchers, is presented in the recently published all-Russian encyclopedia [Shishkin, 2021]. I dare to hope that in terms of its factual accuracy and interpretation, it more accurately and objectively conveys the essence of the tragedy that occurred.

So pretty much the divergence point is that in 2008, during the global financial crisis, things took a turn for the worse and triggered a financial collapse that made the great depression look like a sunny day. This led to mass instability across the world, particularly in Europe, where ideas of unifying the continent under one flag became particularly attractive, leading to the creation of CESO. A wave of terror attacks led by anti-NATO activists in Italy led to the deaths of 50k+ people and led to Italy's withdrawal from NATO. The United States, blaming Russia for the attacks in Italy, deployed 250,000+ men to Europe on the Polish border and started pre-arranging their nuclear arsenal. Russia follows suit and stations its Black Sea fleet in Turkey, positioning it to hit southern European NATO bases. This circle-jerk match continues until 2014, when the Russians invade Crimea. The United States decides to give Ukraine advanced hypersonic bombers, ICBMs, and tanks. leading to a brutal confrontation that leads to Ukraine snatching a victory from the jaws of defeat. By this time, China notices how most of the world is focused on Europe, quickly forms the APSA, and begins efforts to destabilise Asia and expand the APSA. Most Southeast Asian countries realise they are on their own and reform SEATO and begin contesting China where possible. By 2018, the war in Ukraine had largely died down to limited shelling and trench fighting. Russian far-left extremists quickly leave Europe and head to a massive complex in Omsk, courtesy of NATO's efforts to cause internal instability. They reorganise their efforts, create various sleeper agent cells throughout Russia, and begin planning a massive wave of coordinated attacks for the "Final Revolution," with the date set for 2020. Finally, the SEDP breaks off from CESO by deciding to annex parts of Ukraine. 2019. The revolutionaries have spread to South America, Central Asia, the Middle East, and West Africa to try and stir support. American intelligence realises the situation has run away from them, but they do not inform Russia. 2020 mass terror attacks roll through Moscow on New Year's Eve, resulting in the deaths of 120k+ people as nuclear launch silos are sized and command centres destroyed from within as Americans quietly watch. The revolutionists take the executive, legislative, and parts of the judiciary branches of government hostage and demand that they be given control over Russia. The group then continued to activate it's cells across the world until they had formed the russian liberation front directly challenging NATO and leading to the eruption of many flashpoints and Proxy wars

Dimuha was not having a good time. Frankly speaking, there are few people in the world in his position that would have a good time. Being suppressed by a squad of highly trained and well-equipped mercs is not everyone's preferred way to spend a day. Still, it could've been worse. Sanyok had managed to lay down a smoke grenade mere seconds after Griffin's men had revealed themselves, and it had bought the two Redeemed crucial moments to take cover. Hiding behind the hospital's tunnel running between its two wings, Dimuha was desperately racking his brain on how to get out of this predicament.
"Dimuha! The door on the right! Follow me!", Sanyok shouted and sprayed his entire magazine towards the mercs, making them kneel down momentarily.
"Chyort, just when I was getting comfortable.", Dimuha grumbled and flung himself upwards.
They had few seconds of grace period before a swarm of lead peppered the yard once more. Dimuha took a hit to his shoulder, the fitted armour plate on it denting after a hit. His helmet was struck by one too, sending his head to the side from the blow. Had Dimuha's tongue been between his teeth, it would have been bitten through. Dimuha staggered onwards, trying to find his footing among the pulsating pain overcoming his senses. Sanyok's hand reached out and pulled him inside just as a bullet struck the wall behind them.
"Suka blyat, this is worse than the time I drank from Tooth's faulty batch of moonshine.", Dimuha managed to stutter.
"Watch out!", Sanyok shouted, and the world turned white.
Stunned, Dimuha tried to make sense of what just happened. He could not see, his retinas had been burned by incredible light. His eyes rang, and someone struck him with a rifle butt. Dimuha found himself laying on the floor half a minute later, his blurry vision focusing on some black shadows towering over him. Slowly, the field of view became sharper, and the Redemption leader realized that he was staring down a pistol barrel held by a mercenary. Griffin entered the room, his face taken over by the most impressive shit-eating grin Dimuha had ever seen.
"You two really thought we'd leave an escape route open like that? I know you're bit special but I didn't expect this level of ineptitude.", Griffin commented.
"Here's the artifact, boss.", one of the mercs said, tossing the Tears of Chimera to Griffin.
"Why are you working with UNISG, Griffin? The mercs have no relations to them outside of intel gathering.", Sanyok asked hoarsely.
"Simple. Dushman would have probably cut my contact anyway, even if Boris delivered those docs. We happened to be in town when UNISG and their pals arrived, so we helped them. Vulture and his men rubbed our backs, we rubbed theirs and an alliance was formed. You think we would have survived months here buying scraps from the local stalkers or through Meeker's connections? Hell no. UNISG supplied us the gear and means to survive, we got rid of anyone snooping on them. Like now.", Griffin said, pointing at the grim mercenary trader next to him.
Sounds of distant gunfire echoed into the building, and the mercs momentarily looked towards it. Griffin ordered two men to take spotting positions outside, leaving him in the room with three other of his men, Meeker and two mercenaries in Twilight suits, M40 gasmasks and LR-300 rifles. Griffin then turned his attention back to the two Redeemed, disarmed and disoriented on the floor.
"Garik, Senya, dispose of them.", Griffin ordered, and two LR-300s rose to attention as Dimuha stared defiantly at Griffin.
Gunshots echoed in the small space, and Dimuha saw the two mercs collapse down. Griffin turned to see the gunner, and was immediately cut down by Meeker, his gun claiming the mercenary leader's life. In few brutal seconds, the soldiers of fortune had perished. Meeker did not wait for the bodies to fall to the ground to step out of the door and shoot the two guards in the backs. Dimuha was still struggling to understand what was going on, when Sanyok handed him back his gun. Meeker entered the building once more, greeted by the guns of the two stalkers.
"Lower them. Had I wanted to, you'd be dead already.", Meeker said.
"Why did you help us then? This all seems very fishy.", Sanyok asked, looking at the dead guns for hire on the floor, and Meeker pulled a patch out of his pocket.
"This here. I'm a Noon sleeper agent. I left Strider's group to join the mercs, but eventually came to regret leaving the only people who could relate to my experiences behind. I contacted Strider and he asked me to keep an eye on the mercenaries, as he never really trusted them. When UNISG wiped out many of my comrades in Jupiter, and then allied the mercs here, I almost deserted.", Meeker explained, showing the red sun patch of Noon.
"Yet you remained. Why?", Dimuha questioned.
"I figured that I could do more harm to UNISG from here. And I was right. That artifact you got? It's for UNISG's ally, the men in black armour. That's all I know, but it seems like it was of great importance.", Meeker replied.
"But do you not regret killing your squadmates? After all, you spent ages with them.", Dimuha continued his queries.
"Mercenaries aren't the most tight-knit bunch, and the time we spent here... It was not great for their mental health. Even in Dead City you're always on the lookout for a rival or even trusted friend turning on you for a bigger slice of the rewards, but here? We lost three men simply because of treachery and backstabbing, yet Griffin did nothing. I have no regrets, for there is nothing worth to regret for.", Meeker sighed.
Dimuha nodded. His days as a bandit had been much the same, save for Boris and Vityukha having his back. Sometimes he, too, had had the urge to lay into his various squadmates after a particularly nasty skirmish with stalkers or military, but not so much out of greed, more out of hatred for said individuals. Sanyok muttered something in response too, but was cut off by the sound of gunfire returning. The trio looked at each other, and in a silent agreement, they confirmed mutual trust and stepped outside, guns ready. The source of the fire soon became apparent, as muzzle flashes illuminated the statue near Prometheus movie theatre. A single man in Sunrise suit was opening up on a literal horde of zombies, their pale, sickly skin at times bursting open as bullets struck them. Yet on they marched, as even in death they served the Zone.
Not knowing who the stalker was, the three survivors of the hospital battle nonetheless rushed to help him. Sanyok made it there first, crouching next to the giant statue by the side of the theatre, couple metres from the stalker. His rifle homed in on the husks, and soon a fearsome harvest of blood began. Dimuha's machine gun joined in, firing in short bursts to conserve ammunition, while Meeker's Tiss rifle picked off some of the more nimble and swift, almost completely decayed, zombies. Dimuha felt nauseated just looking at the things, their skin brown and eye sockets empty, their limbs almost down to the bone. Whatever propelled these monsters forward, it was most certainly an aberration of nature. One Dimuha was more than happy to remove. He saw the lone stalker turn towards his saviours, and the man's face melted into a recognizing smile.
"Dimuha! Sanyok! Am I glad to see you two! These folks do not understand the meaning of personal space!", Stitch, Strelok's medic, shouted in a rather jovial manner, considering the circumstances.
"One of these days you, Rogue and Strelok must save our asses in return, this is getting ridiculous!", Dimuha quipped back, his Mk. 48 blazing away at the incoming wall of humans well past their best before date.
"We're doing this so you guys get to feel a sense of pride and accomplishment, it's hard work being this altruistic!", Stitch replied and fell back as three of the faster zombies got too close.
Meeker's Tiss claimed the vanguard with three sharp bangs, and the quick runners of the pack fell down. Sanyok had not been idle, drawing out the grenade he had looted from one of the dead mercs earlier. He tossed it like an experienced baseball player. It landed squarely on the jaw of one of the brainscorched humans before tumbling down. An explosion of blinding heat and flames emerged from the small object, engulfing the group of zombies in its lethal embrace. Many screamed in pain and terror, to Dimuha's discomfort, as for a fraction of second their voices regained some semblance of humanity. Yet this was simply a facade, and Dimuha kept firing. These lost souls would find no way out of their situation in this world, and while Dimuha was not particularly religious, he hoped they would do so in the afterlife.
Most of the pack had been decimated by the thermal explosive, and those few that survived soon met their ends by the bullets of the stalkers. As the last one fell down, Dimuha let out a sigh of relief. Zombies, and their more adept Zombified stalker brethren, were not particularly tough to fight, but seeing these things was not good for one's mental health. It reminded any stalker that death was not the only route to hell, and that sometimes leaving a single bullet for oneself in the magazine was not a sign of fanaticism but of self-preservation. When the last corpse had stopped twitching, Dimuha lowered his machine gun barrel, now steaming hot. The others did the same, and only the sound of simmering flesh and dripping blood remained.
"Uh, quick question, why is Griffin's trader here with you two?", Stitch asked, pointing at the dour man in stock standard Merc suit.
"Uh, long story-", Sanyok began, when Meeker interrupted him.
"I work for Noon, being Griffin's trader was merely a cover. He showed his true colours and tried to kill these two for a single artifact, so I acted."
"So that's where those shots came. I thought it was because of the black heli, but no. Anyway, glad to have you on our side, drug.", Stitch said while patting the quite ankward looking Meeker at his shoulder.
"Black heli? Care to elaborate? And what happened to you finding this group of husks", it was Dimuha's turn to ask questions.
"One passed by here as I was escaping the horde. I think there was one zombie at the hospital that had some sort of psi-field, scrambled my brain and Rogue's. We tried to get out, but ran into some merc-looking fellas, who attacked us and the zombie. Lost sight of Rogue, I think he was having far worse trouble keeping his head in order. Anyway, shootout ended when the zombies turned their attention towards the merc guys, but I ran out and right into the arms of these average citizens of Omsk by the looks.", Stitch explained.
"And the heli? You're rambling, Stitch.", Sanyok said.
"Oh, sorry. One learns to be quite talkative when surrounded by Mr. Grumpy Rogue and Strelok, who seems to have one word a day limit in his brain. I don't know much about the helicopter, it flew over here and landed on that building there. Pitch black, no tridents or blue-yellows on the sides which was pretty odd... Hey, what the hell?", Stitch pointed towards the block nearby, but there was no chopper on it.
"Strange. Could've sworn it was there just a moment ago.", Stitch continued, scratching his jaw.
"Psi-phenomena still scrambling your brain then? Tell me about it.", Meeker said, and the both Sanyok and Dimuha laughed.
"What do you-... Ah, I get it. You still have dreams about the Monolith or something?", Stitch asked, remembering the mention of Noon.
"No, thankfully. It's complicated, and not a matter I wish to disclose. Just know I will not turn into mindless robot-like warrior any time soon.", Meeker reassured the others, and Stitch nodded.
"Helicopters or not, we need to return to base. Those merc people you saw, Stitch? We got new kids on the block, and this time they're even bigger nuisance than Sin.", Dimuha said.
"I knew it. Whenever Redemption shows up, something is in need of fast un-fucking. Alright, hit me with the facts, I'll get some morphine ready just in case...", Stitch ordered.

1) CONTEXT
Dekulakisation, or the “liquidation of the kulaks as a class”, was part of Stalin’s “second revolution” (or “revolution from above”), launched at the end of 1929 with the decision to collectivise millions of peasant households. The economic backwardness and political estrangement of the peasantry, which comprised the vast majority of the population of the Soviet Union, was the Achilles’ heel of Soviet power. The peasant’s support for the Bolshevik revolution, spured on by the 8 November1917 Decree on Land, granting the peasants’ demands for ownership of the land and fulfilling the dreams of rural Russia since the peasant uprisings of the 17th century, was short-lived. As early as 1918, as the Bolsheviks desperately needed to collect grain to secure their power and fight the civil war, forced grain collections by armed groups of Red Army soldiers and hastily armed workers’ detachments alienated the same peasant producers who had helped bring down the old tsarist order with their violent rebelliousness. The civil war in the countryside was brutal and lethal. Millions of peasants died in the conflict, some fighting on one side or the other, many simply caught in between the back and forth of the competing White and Red armies. The forced expropriation of grain and attempts to collectivise the countryside led to pitched battles between peasants and the new representatives of Soviet power. Peasant uprisings broke out in Ukraine, in the Tambov region, along the Volga and in Western Siberia. By the beginning of 1921, Lenin and the Bolsheviks had no choice but to retreat to the countryside. In March 1921, they introduced what was called the New Economic Policy (NEP), which called for a halt to the requisitionning of grain and allowed the peasants to accumulate and trade in grain products. Many historians consider the NEP period as simply a pause, a “truce” between the first major Bolshevik war against the peasantry (1919-1921) and the second and final one to follow (1929-1933) (Graziosi, 1996).
However, the context was different: whereas in 1920-21 large segments of the peasantry had actively resisted Boshevik policy, in 1929-30 it was the pacified peasant society that was the target of the Stalinist revolution from above. To justify his attack, Stalin referred to the “threat” that ”rich peasants”, labelled “kulaks”, posed to the very survival of the Soviet regime, which was supposedly being strangled by the kulaks’ deliberate refusal to sell their grain to the state. Stalin and many Party leaders were still traumatised by the threat of starvation experienced by many town dwellers during the civil war and wanted to ensure that such a possibility would never again recur.
The “dekulakisation” campaign begun in January 1930 had in reality a twofold objective: to “extract” (the term used in secret police directives) “elements” likely to resist the collectivisation of the countryside being undertaken at the same time; and to “colonise” the vast, inhospitable areas of Siberia, the Northern Region, the Urals and Kazakhstan. The first objective corresponded to the view, clearly expressed by the Bolsheviks when they took power, that peasant society contained “exploitative elements” that were irremediably hostile to the regime and that would sooner or later have to be “liquidated as a class”. In fact, Stalin merely repeated Lenin’s famous diatribes against the “kulaks”: since 1918, “kulaks”, an artificially constructed group, had been subjected to stereotyping and deshumanisation; they had been designated, in the press and propaganda, as “cockroaches”, “blood-suckers”, “vampires”, or just plain “scum”, “vermin” and “garbage” to be cleansed, crushed and liquidated (Colas, 1995). The official policy of “liquidation of the kulaks as a class”, adopted by the Stalinists at the end of 1929, did not, however, imply physical liquidation of all “kulaks”. The great majority of them were to be expropriated and deported, thus fulfilling the second objective of “dekulakisation”: to provide cheap labour for the colonisation and economic development of the country’s inhospitable areas, which were rich in natural resources. In three years (1930-1932), more than 5 million “kulaks” were either expropriated or reduced to poverty after having had to sell, hurriedly, their property (the authorities called this process “self-dekulakisation”); 2.3 million men, women and children were deported (of whom approximately half a million died untimely deaths); over 300,000 were arrested and interned; between 20,000 and 30,000 were sentenced to death by extra-judicial courts.
2) DECISION-MAKING PROCESSES AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE DEKULAKISATION CAMPAIGNS (1930-1932)
On 27 December 1929, Stalin publicly demanded “the eradication of all kulak tendencies and the elimination of the kulaks as a class”. A commission from the Politburo, chaired by Viatcheslav Molotov, was tasked with pursuing all measures needed to achieve this goal. On 30 January 1930, the commission issued a secret resolution defining three categories of “kulaks”:
- those “engaged in counterrevolutionary activities” (“first category”) were to be arrested and transferred to work camps or executed if they put up any resistance. Their families were to be deported and all their property confiscated. The resolution set a limit of 63,000 household heads in the “first category” (in fact, 284,000 persons were to be arrested during the first six months of the dekulakisation campaign as ”kulaks of the first category, 20,000 of whom were sentenced to death by troïki, extra-judicial commissions);
- those “who manifested less active opposition to the Soviet state but were arch-exploiters and naturally supported counter-revolution”, placed in the “second category”, were to be arrested and deported with their families to remote areas of the Northern region, Siberia, the Urals and Kazakhstan. All their property – except the most essential domestic goods, a minimum amount of food and up to 500 rubles per family – was to be confiscated. The Molotov commission set, for a number of regions and republics, quotas of “second-category kulaks”: the total number was 154,000 households (in fact, 400,000 families were to be deported in 1930-1931);
- the remainder of the kulaks, described as “loyal to the regime” and classified in the “third category”, were to be expropriated and resettled on “land requiring improvement, outside the limits of the collective farm lands but within the administrative district in which they lived” (Davies, 1980; Ivnitskii, 1996; N.Werth, 1997).
It is important to note that the so-called “kulaks” were first and foremost defined in terms of families, not as individuals. Thus, not only were the head of the family and his wife considered “kulaks”, but also their children and, more broadly, all their relatives, young and old (elderly persons, children and infants constitued in fact the majority of the deported, and the majority of those who died untimely deaths, see section III).
Coordinated in each district by a troika (three-man commission) composed of the First Secretary of the local Party committee, the president of the local Soviet Executive Committee, and the head of the local GPU, operations were carried out, from the first days of February 1930, by special dekulakisation commissions and brigades.
These bodies comprised a mix of people: Communist Party activists from large factories mobilised and sent to the countryside especially for the occasion, local Communist functionaries, GPU (secret police) functionaries and various village “activists”. Sergo Ordjonikiidze, one of Stalin’s closest advisers, explained in the following terms who these “activists” were: ”Because there are almost no Party activists in most villages, we generally install a komsomol (member of the Communist Youth movement) in the village and force two or three poor peasants to join him, and it is this aktiv that personally carries out all of the village business of dekulakisation” (Graziosi, 1996).
True, the lists of first-category kulak households were drawn up exclusively by the GPU. The target figure of 63,000 first-category kulaks was met in less than two weeks. By 15 February 1930, according to a report adressed to Genrikh Iagoda, the GPU Deputy-Chief, 64,589 “kulaks in the first category” had already been arrested. Most of the victims appear to have been on index-cards catalogues of suspects assembled over the years by the GPU (Danilov & Berelowitch, 2003).
Lists of kulak in the other two categories were made on the spot at the recommendation of local authorities and village “activists”. The dekulakisation brigades had to meet the required quotas and, if possible, surpass them. This opened the door to all sorts of abuses and settling of old scores. Dekulakisation often became generalised plundering and ravaging (Lewin, 1966). Everyone in the village understood that “kulak” belongings were at the disposal of those willing to come forward and grab them. As noted in many GPU reports, this pushed “the villages’ criminal elements to join a nucleus of young and more or less enthusiastic believers”. According to a GPU report from Smolensk, “the brigades took from the wealthy peasants their winter clothes, their warm underclothes, and above all their shoes. They left the kulaks standing in their underwear and bare feet. They took everything, even old rubber shoes, women’s clothes, tea worth no more than 50 kopeks, water pitchers and pokers (…) They confiscated everything, even the pillows from under the heads of babies, and stew from the family pot, which they smeared on the icons they had smashed” (Fainsod, 1969). Dekulakised properties were usually simply looted or given away at auction: wooden houses were sold for 1 ruble, cows for 20 or 30 kopeks each, a hundredth of their real value.
The violence perpetrated by the dekulakisation gangs was horrific. “These people”, noted one GPU report, ”drove the dekulakised naked in the streets, beat them, organized drinking-bouts in their houses, shot over their heads, forced them to dig their own graves, undressed women and searched them, stole valuables, money, etc. (Graziosi, 1996).
Deportations of “second-category kulaks” began as early as the second week of February 1930. According to a plan approved by the highest Communist Party authority, the Politburo, chaired by Stalin, 90,000 families were to be deported as part of a first phase that was to last until the end of April. The Northern region was to receive 45,000 families, the Urals, Siberia and Kazakhstan 15,000 each. In fact, during this first phase, which lasted until the end of May, over 99,000 families (510,000 people) were deported (Danilov & Berelowitch, vol.3/1, 2003). To carry out these arrests and deportations, military logistics, unprededented in peacetime and mobilising hundreds of rail convoys and tens of thousands of special troops provided by the GPU, were set up. However, the vast scale of the project led to huge problems in coordinating the militarised deportation operations carried out by the GPU and the settlement of the deportees, which was left to the initiative of local authorities, which were overwhelmed by the task or simply indifferent to the fate of the dekulakised peopl. To transport the “dekulakised”, the GPU allocated, for the “first phase”, 280 convoys of 50 cattle trucks, each of them transporting between 1,500 and 2,000 men, women and children, and a limited amount of the deportees’ tools, food and personal belongings (each family was in theory allowed to take 25 puds – or 400 kg – of luggage, but many “dekulakised” had practically nothing to take with them after their homes had been looted). As the rather acerbic correspondence between the GPU and the People’s Commissariat of Transport demonstrates, the formation and progression of the convoys was invariably a painfully slow process. In the great depots, such as Vologda, Kotlas, Rostov, Sverdlovsk or Omsk, convoys would remain for weeks, filled with their human cargo. When railway convoys finally arrived at their destination, the interminable journey often continued for several hundred more kilometres on sledges (in winter), carts (in spring), or even on foot. In accordance with official instructions, deportees were to be “settled some way distant from any means of communication” (Danilov & Berelowitch, 2003). As the authorities in the district of Tomsk (Western Siberia) reported on 7 March 1930, “the deportees arrived on foot, since we have no spare horses, sleighs or harnesses. (…) In view of the present situation, it has been impossible to transport the two months’ supplies that the kulaks are entitled to bring with them” (Danilov & Krasilnikov, vol.1, 1993). It was therefore without provisions or tools, and often without any shelter, that the deportees had to begin their new lives. One report from the province of Arkhangelsk in September 1930 admitted that of the planned 1,641 living quarters for the deportees, only seven had been built. Hundreds of thousands were left to their fate on the steppes or in the middle of marshy pine forests without regular food supplies or work. The fortunate ones who had been able to bring some tools with them could build some sort of rudimentary shelter, often the traditional zemlianka, a simple hole in the ground covered with branches.
Epidemics and acute shortages (and even, in some cases, famine) decimated the deportes, first of all the children and the elderly (see section III, Victims). Amidst this deadly chaos, the strongest and most resolute escaped (for example, 15% of the 230,000 “dekulakised” deported to the Northern region had escaped by December 1930). GPU reports mentioned another serious problem: by the end of 1930, fewer than 10% of adult deportees had been put to work (Viola, 2007).
A few days before the launching of a second wave of “dekulakisation”, aimed at “totally cleansing the kulaks from all agricultural regions” (secret telegram sent by G. Iagoda to all republican and regional GPU plenipotentiaries on 15 March 1931, in Danilov & Berelowitch, vol. 3/1, 2003), the Politburo established, on 11 March 1931, a special commission chaired by V. Andreev, member of the Politburo, with G. Iagoda playing a key role. The first objective of the Andreev commission was to “halt the dreadful mess of the deportation of manpower” and to “organise a rational and effective management of the deported workforce”. Preliminary enquiries by the commission revealed that the productivity of the deported workforce was almost zero. Of the 200,000 “dekulakised” people deported to the Urals, a mere 8% were detailed to “productive activities” in April 1931. All other able-bodied adults were “just trying to survive”. The Andreev commission reorganised the management of the deportees by granting the GPU power over the organisation and supervision of all the stages of the deportation and settling of the deportees. A whole network of komandatury, run by the GPU, was set up to supervise and organise all aspects of the everyday life and working conditions of the deportees. Deportees, known in the police jargon as spetzposelentsy (“special displaced persons”) were stripped of their civil rights, forced to reside in designated areas (called spetzposelki, or “special settlements”) and subjected to a veritable forced labour in agricultural, industrial or mining structures controlled by the GPU. The GPU also rented the deportees under its control, in exchange for a commission, to a number of state-run industrial enterprises, such as Urallesprom (forestry), Uralugol, Vostugol (coal mining) and Tsvetmetzoloto (non-ferrous minerals, gold), exploiting the various natural ressources in the northern and eastern parts of the USSR. These companies were to provide living quarters for their workers, schooling for children, and a regular supply of food for all. In reality, their managers usually treated this slave workforce as a source of free labour. The deportees were expected to produce 30-50% more than the free workers, and their pay (when they were paid at all) was pitiful (Danilov & Krasilnikov, 1994).
While the Andreev commission was trying to rationalise the economic exploitation of the deportees, the Politburo was drawing up grandiose plans for the deportation of 200,000 to 300,000 kulak families, mainly to Western Siberia and Kazakhstan (Danilov, 2001, vol.3). This second wave of deportation began in early May 1931, and lasted for nearly five months. According to a GPU report dated 30 September 1931, 265,795 “kulak families” (1,243,860 persons) were deported, more than twice as many as in 1930, which was, until recently, seen as the apex of the “dekulakisation” campaign. True enough, the second-wave deportations appear to have been carried out more efficiently than those of the first wave in 1930: there were fewer cases of deportees being simply abandoned in the taïga or the steppe; most of them were allocated to construction sites, mines or forestry (Danilov & Berelowitch, 2003).
Deportations continued in 1932-1933, but at a slower pace. The 1932 plan for deportations of kulaks, discussed by the Politburo in April 1932, foreshadowed the banishment of 38,000 families in May-August. This plan was, however, not “fulfilled”: only 71,000 people were registered as “newcomers” in the 1932 registers of the GPU-run spetzposelki. A further 268,000 peasants were deported the following year, in 1933 (V.Zemskov, 2003)
The number of people deported to distant regions during the 1930-1933 dekulakisation campaigns accordingly works out at about 2.3 million. On top of this, we must add those who were shipped directly to the gulags (the so-called first-category kulaks): approximately 300,000 to 350,000 people (Danilov & Berelowitch, 2003).
3) VICTIMS
During the 1920s, Party theoricians and state officials tried hard to define criteria to identify the “kulaks”. A few months before the launching of the dekulakisation campaign, the Sovnarkom (the Council of People’s Commissars, i.e. the Soviet government) suggested the following five features by which a kulak farm might be identified (a single one of these features was sufficient for people to be categorised as “kulaks”):
1- A farm that regularly hires waged labour;
2- A farm possessing an “industrial undertaking”, such as a mill, a butter-making establishment, a wool-combing installation, etc.;
3- A farms that hires out power-driven agricultural machinery;
4- A farm that hires out premises;
5- A farm whose members are involved in commercial activities or who have income not deriving from work (Lewin, 1966).
Several of the definitions were disquietingly vague, above all “other income not deriving from work”. Given the context of the dekulakisation campaign, especially the effects of a frantic propaganda campaign that constantly exaggerated the enemy’s cunning, treachery and skill in concealing himself, it was easy for zealous and vigilant executants to find “kulaks” wherever they chose to look. Dekulakisation brigades resorted to outdated and often-incomplete tax returns kept by the rural soviets, information provided by the GPU, and denunciations by neighbours tempted by the possibility of gain. Peasants were arrested as “kulaks” and deported for having sold grain on the market or for having had an employee to help with the harvest back in 1925 or 1926, for possessing two samovars or for having killed a pig in September 1929 “with the intention of consuming it themselves and thus keeping it away from socialist appropriation”. Peasants were labelled “kulaks” on the pretext that they had “speculated”, when all they had done was sell something of their own making. Peasants were deported on the pretext that some of their relatives had fought in the White Army or because of their “numerous visits to the church”. Many people were labelled “kulaks” simply on the grounds that they resisted collectivisation (Fainsod, 1969; Davies, 1980; Lewin, 1966). In fact, dekulakisation often turned into social cleansing of all “socially alien elements”, among whom featured “police officers of the Tsarist regime”, “White officers”, former landlords and shopkeepers, members of the “rural intelligentsia” (among them many teachers), many of whom had joined the SR (socialist-revolutionary) party in 1917-18. One of the few GPU reports giving details on the socioprofessional occupations of dekulakised people during the first stage of the campaign (Volga region, February 1930) shows that the so-called kulaks represented only 55% of the total; the “middle peasants” (seredniaks) accounted for 15%; shopkeepers 15%; priests, monks and nuns 6%; teachers and other members of the rural intelligentsia 4%; and “others” 5% (Danilov & Berelowitch, 2003).
How many “kulaks” died in the course of “de-kulakization”? On 1 January 1932, the GPU carried out a general census of all deportees: it listed 1,317,022 people. We know, by the same police sources, that nearly 1.8 million “kulaks” were deported during the two main deportation waves in 1930 and 1931. Losses accordingly numbered close to half a million people, or nearly 30% of all deportees. Undoubtedly, a not insignificant proportion of those had escaped. In 1932, the GPU komandatury, which actually managed to keep accurate records of the deportees they were supposed to keep watch over, counted no less than 207,000 escapes (38,000 runaways were recaptured); in 1933, the number of escapes was 216,000 (54,000 recaptured). Considering a number of local GPU reports (for different periods in 1930 and 1931) on the flights of deported “kulaks”, we can extrapolate that around 200,000-250,000 deportees managed to escape in 1930-31. This still leaves us with approximately 250,000-300,000 deaths. A number of local reports confirm the very high mortality rates among the deportees, especially among children and elderly people. In 1931, the mortality rate was 1.3% per month (16% per annum) among the deportees to Kazakhstan, and 0.8% per month (10% per annum) for those to western Siberia. Infant mortality oscillated between 8% and 12% per month, and peaked at 15% per month in Magnitogorsk. From June 1931 to June 1932, the mortality rate among deportees in the region of Narym, in Western Siberia, reached 11.7%. In 1932, the overall number of deaths among deportees was over 90,000 (annual death rate: 6.8%); in 1933, it was 151,600 (annual death rate: 13.3%). Altogether, more than half a million deportees died in 1930-33, or 22% of the 2.3 million people deported during those years. Most of them died untimely deaths, of general exhaustion and hunger (Zemskov, 2003; Danilov & Krasilnikov, 1993, 1994, Viola, 2007).
4) DEKULAKISATION: “CLASS GENOCIDE”?
Was dekulakisation “class genocide”? This classification was first proposed in 1997 by Stéphane Courtois, in his introduction to The Black Book of Communism. “The death from starvation of the child of a Ukrainian kulak is ‘equivalent’ to the death from starvation of a jewish child in the Warsaw ghetto”, he writes (Courtois et. al, 1997). Is this process of equating “class genocide” with “racial genocide” really sustainable? It is important to note that, in Courtois’s argument, two very different forms of mass violence are lumped together: the “liquidation of the kulaks as a class” (1930-32) and the Ukrainian famine of 1932-33, which affected all the peasants in the collective farms of that Soviet republic. A number of factors lead us to be very doubtful about the applicability of the term “class genocide” when applied to the kulaks. Although the kulaks, as an artificially designated and constructed group, were subjected to the kind of dehumanisation and stereotyping that was common for victims of genocide throughout the 20th century, the regime did, from the outset, introduce distinctions within the victim group (first, second and third categories). “Liquidation of the kulaks as a class” did not imply physical liquidation of all kulaks, even though the terrible conditions in which the deportation took place and the “settlement” of the kulaks, who, at least in the first stages of the dekulakisation operations, were often abandoned in the middle of the taïga or the desert steppes, caused a very high rate of mortality that sometimes reached 15% per annum (and much higher in the case of children). It is also clear that the sociological defining lines of the “kulak” group are not just flexible, but in fact are not definitions at all. Genocide is said to occur when a group is targeted in terms of what essentially defines it: the criterion of the group’s stability must be existent for the qualification of genocide be applicable, and in the case of dekulakisation, this is manifestly not the case. Moreover, contrary to Soljenitsyn’s assertion (“children of kulaks carried the mark of Cain throughout their lives”), the pariah-status of the dekulakised was not carried forward to the next generation: from 1938 onwards, children of kulaks who reached the age of 16 were allowed to leave their place of deportation if they continued their schooling beyond the required age. Three years later, hundreds of thousands of children of kulaks were mobilised into the Red Army. Such integration into the army ipso facto removed all the legal discrimination that had been imposed on children of kulaks, even though their parents continued to be second-class citizens (Zemskov, 2003). There was clearly some commitment to the idea of “nurture” over “nature” in the Stalinist social engineering project (Weiner, 2003). On the other hand, we should not forget that several hundred thousand “former kulaks” – many of whom had fled from the “special settlements” to which they had been deported – were arrested during the “Great Terror” of 1937-38. The largest “mass secret operation”, launched by NKVD Order N°00447 dated 30 July 1937, specifically targeted, among other categories, “former kulaks, deported in previous years, who have escaped from the special settlements”. In the course of this “secret operation”, which lasted 15 months (August 1937-November 1938), over 800,000 people were arrested and sentenced, of whom over 400,000 were executed. It is generally believed that former kulaks (both those who had fled from the “special settlements” and those who were still living there) contributed to approximately one quarter of the victims of Order N°00447. In many ways, this “mass operation” was the last blow against the hated “kulaks”, the last act of the dekulakisation launched eight years earlier (Shearer, 2009; Werth, 2009).
5) SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Colas, Dominique, Le Léninisme, Paris: PUF, coll. Quadrige, 1995.
Conquest, Robert, The Harvest of Sorrow. Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine, University of Alberta Press, 1986.
Danilov, Viktor.P & Berelowitch, Alexis (eds), Sovetskaia derevnia glazami VCK, OGPU, NKVD, vol.3/1, 1930-31, Moscow: Rosspen, 2003.
Danilov, Viktor P. & Krasilnikov, Serguei (eds), Spetzpereselentsy v Zapadnoi Sibiri, Novossibirsk: Iz. Ekor, 1993 (vol.1, 1), 1994 (vol.2).
Danilov, Viktor.P (ed.) Tragedia soevtskoi derevni, vol. 3, 1930-1933, Moscow: Rosspen, 2001.
Davies, Robert W, The Industrialisation of Soviet Russia. The Socialist Offensive. The Collectivisation of Soviet Agriculture, 1929-1930, London: MacMillan, 1980
Fainsod, Merle, Smolensk à l’heure de Staline, Paris: Fayard, 1969.
Graziosi, Andrea, The Great Soviet Peasant War, Bolsheviks and Peasants, 1917-1933, Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1996.
Ivnitskii, Nikolaï, Kollektivizatsia i raskulacivanie, Moscow: Iz. Magistr, 1996.
Lewin, Moshe, La paysannerie et le pouvoir soviétique, Paris: Mouton, 1966.
Naimark, Norman, Stalin’s Genocides, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010.
Shearer, David, Policing Stalin’s Socialism: Repression and Social Order in the Soviet Union, 1924-1953, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010
Viola, Lynne, The Unknown Gulag. The Lost World of Stalin’s Special Settlements, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Weiner, Amir (ed), Landscaping the Human Garden: Twentieth-Century Population Management in a Comparative Framework, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003.
Werth, Nicolas, “Un Etat contre son peuple. Violence, répressions, terreur en Union soviétique”, in Courtois, Stéphane, Werth, Nicolas & al, Le Livre Noir du Communisme, Paris: R. Laffont, 1997, p. 45-360.
Werth, Nicolas, L’ivrogne et la marchande de fleurs. Autopsie d’un meurtre de masse, 1937-1938, Paris: Tallandier, 2009
Zemskov, Viktor, Spetzposelentsy v SSSR, 1930-1960, Moscow: Nauka, 2003.

Disclaimer: This is an old story that I found out I never published. It dates from around November, 2022. It is more of an outline for a story, than an actual story, which I never fleshed out. But because I felt it would be a shame if this never ended up being published, here it is.
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The nuclear weapons have already gone off in Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Krakow, Lviv, Kharkiv, Dnipro, and many more have been reduced to ashes. Only Kiev seemed to be immune, with the nuclear weapon going off in the sky, in what people are calling the miracle of Kiev. The stragglers of the Revanchist Front march on, running out of supplies, but filled with determination to avenge their families.
Over the skies of America, nuclear armageddon has begun. Faith is put in the Trinity Defense System, Eurasia has launched their own nukes, their missile defense systems are also activated. An American family of 6 crowd around a radio in an unspecified suburban town in a middling sized city. As their city is not of relative importance, they are not at direct risk of being nuked. But they are anxious anyway.
2 parents, 2 older children, 2 younger. The power lines and the internet has gone out, and this is the only way they can remain informed. They're hiding in their underground bunker, which has become commonplace for every American household to have. Only a few days ago, they had said goodbyes to an uncle leaving for a humanitarian trip to Chicago, though they warned them that Chicago was a dangerous city to be, given the state of the war, but he needed to go anyway. The nation was still recovering from the Battle of Chicago, and the wounds had not yet healed.
The broadcast started, the situation was described as nuclear tennis. And a real tennis match begins between two players. One wearing a blue jersey, another wearing a red one. The game begins, they serve the tennis ball back and forth, running around to be able to serve the ball back to the other side. The blue-playered jersey is unable to make it to one of the balls in time, the ball lands, and a nuclear explosion goes off in a city far, far away. The tennis players are meant to be a direct parallel to the ongoing nuclear war.
The radio rings to life. Announcing that a Russian nuclear missile has hit the city of Portland. The family freezes in fear, all except the younger two, who aren't fully aware of the situation, and are instead playing an extremely morbid game. Both of them have a laminated map in front of them, one American, one Eurasian, when the missile was announced to have hit Portland, they found Portland on the map and put a little toy soldier on it.
The tennis players prepare themselves for another rally, the blue player serving this time, it goes back and forth again, but this time after a long exchange, the ball ended up hitting the red player's side. Nuclear fire engulfs Volgograd. The radio comes to life in the family's bunker, explaining that based on the hundreds of missiles intercepted so far, it appears that the defense systems had a 99.5% success rate, high, but not high enough to ensure no casualties. The tennis players serve again, and another missile hits Nashville, Tennesee.
The older siblings begin asking what the point of the war was, and why the nations couldn't live in peace like they were supposed to. The other brother explains the fundamental differences between Eurasia and America, arguing that freedom and liberty were worth dying for, to which the other sibling asks whether it's worth the lives of millions. Neither side makes a definitive win, both the parents are too paralyzed and terrified to say anything at all.
The tennis players continue their match, the younger siblings continue to plot their soldiers on the map. Atlanta, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Omsk, Kazan and Arkhangelsk are mentioned to be hit. Then, a shock to everyone, the city of Chicago was hit. In panic, the parents try to call the uncle, desperately hoping he's alright. But as everyone is calling trying to make sure their loved ones are okay, the phone lines have completely crashed. Nothing is getting through, and after much desperation, the parents are forced to sit in the silence, hoping for the best, and waiting for the nuclear rain to end.
The tennis players continue to play, cities continue to be wiped off the face of the Earth, and the younger siblings continue to put little toy soldiers on their map. The missile barrage is coming to an end, and the missile systems seems to become able to finish off what missiles were left. But at the last minute, the Americans manage to finish a strike on St. Petersberg. Hearing this, the younger sibling with the map of America proudly puts a soldier on St. Petersberg, proclaiming he had won. He asks his parents what he gets for winning. He gets no reply.
A mushroom cloud rises over St. Petersberg, with the Revanchist soldiers on the city's doorstep nearly blinded by the flashing light. Seeing the cloud rise over St. Petersberg, a soldier raises the ethical issues of mass extermination of everyone remaining in the city, to which the commander replies that history does not care who is right, only who is left. And that if they wished to leave their mark on history, to avenge their lost families in the cities of Poland, this was what needed to be done. Somewhat nervous, the soldier marches along with the rest of his company, into the ruins of a smoldering St. Petersberg.

I got the idea from this video that he tried to make a phone booking in Japan for guests, knowing Japanese if he could understand what the caller is saying, but there is a question that he didn't understand, that the staff asked what branch he'd wanted to select.
In hindsight, for those who are (A2 - B1) level, how fluent do you have to be in spoken Russian to fully comprehend what you as the addressee and the recipient on the other end, having a conversation (no DMs or text, voice call only - no choice but using spoken Russian) something like:
[Client on the Phone] "Hi, I'm calling to make a reservation for 500 guests at the ballroom as I have a wedding only consisting of family members, are there any tables vacant, also can you split the tables into 50 with 10 guests each?"
[Staff member at a hotel venue] "Congrats Sir. I've already reserved the allocated venue, your arrangements will be adhered as we'll organize the venue, I just want to confirm which branch do you want to select?"
[Client] "I've never heard of this place before, may as well be my first time. Where are you located?"
[Staff] "As of right now we have branches in Moscow, St. Petersberg, Kazan, Novosibirsk and Nizhny Novgorod. We're still expanding, eventually our sixth one will be open in Omsk this September. In which do you prefer?"
[Client] "I live about half an hour west from Novosibirsk, i'll be there."
[Staff] "What time and date are you able to come?"
[Client] "Sunday morning at 11:00 AM"
[Staff] "I'm sorry sir, that time slot is already booked."
[Client] "Oh, well... about 11:30 or 12:00?"
[Staff] "Let me check, well... we have one available for 12:00, as we don't do half hour intervals. I just want to confirm this booking: Sunday May 10 at 12:00."
[Client] "Perfect. I'll be there along with the rest of my family."
[Staff] "That's great to hear. Good luck. We'll be happy to see you there."
[Client] "We'll be in touch upon the appointed date, It was nice talking to you... bye."
*Call ends\*

This incident was covered on Sightings in 1995: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz280fvSddw
Here you can download a CIA briefing document on the case generated by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service in 1989: https://documents2.theblackvault.com/documents/cia/ufos/C05516221.pdf
Proposed explanations so far: 1) Debris from the American shuttle Challenger, which exploded a day earlier. 2) Meteor. 3) NATO probe. 4) Soviet Intelligence probe. None of these seem to match the eyewitness descriptions.
The Dalnegorsk UFO Crash: Roswell Incident of the Soviet Union, published 05.02.2010 (Updated: 21.10.2019) https://web.archive.org/web/20210309193501/https://english.pravda.ru/society/112049-dalnegorsk_ufo_crash/

Dalnegorsk is a small mining town in the Far East of Russia. That cold January day a reddish sphere flew into this town from the southeastern direction, crossed part of Dalnegorsk, and crashed at the Izvestkovaya Mountain (also known as Height or Hill 611, because of its size). The object flew noiselessly, and parallel to the ground; it was approximately three meters in diameter, of a near-perfect round shape, with no projections or cavities, its colour similar to that of burning stainless steel. One eyewitness, V. Kandakov, said that the speed of the UFO was close to 15 meters per hour. The object slowly ascended and descended, and its glow would heat up every time it rose up. On its approach to Hill 611 the object "jerked", and fell down like a rock.
All witnesses reported that the object “jerked” or “jumped”. Most of them recall two “jumps”. Two girls remember that the object actually “jumped” four times. The witnesses heard a weak, muted thump. It burned intensively at the cliff's edge for an hour. A geological expedition to the site, led by V. Skavinsky of the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Siberian Branch of the Soviet Academy of Sciences (1988), had confirmed the object's movements through a series of chemical and physical tests of the rocks collected from the site. Valeri Dvuzhilni, head of the Far Eastern Committee for Anomalous Phenomena, was the first to investigate the crash. With the help of our colleagues in Russia this is the most accurate account of the incident to date.
Dr. Dvuzhilni arrived at the site two days after the crash. Deep snow was covered the area at the time. The site of the crash, located on a rocky ledge, was devoid of snow. All around the site remnants of silica splintered rocks were found: (due to exposure to high temperatures), and "smoky" looking. Many pieces, and a nearby rock, contained particles of silvery metal, some "sprayed"-like, some in the form of solidified balls. At the edge of the site a tree-stump was found. It was burnt and emitted a chemical smell. The objects collected at the site were later dubbed as "tiny nets", "little balls", "lead balls", "and glass pieces" (that is what each resembled).
Closer examination revealed very unusual properties. One of the "tiny nets" contained torn and very thin (17 micrometers) threads. Each of the threads consisted of even thinner fibers, tied up in plaits. Intertwined with the fibers were very thin gold wires. Soviet scientists, at such facilities as the Omsk branch of the Academy of Sciences, analyzed all collected pieces. Without going into specific details suffice it to say that the technology to produce such materials was not yet available on Earth...except for one disturbing account.
To give an idea of the complexity of the composition of the pieces, let us look at the "iron balls". Each of them had its own chemical composition: iron, and a large mixture of aluminum, manganese, nickel, chromium, tungsten, and cobalt.
Such differences indicate that the object was not just a piece of lead and iron, but some heterogeneous construction made from heterogeneous alloys with definite significance. When melted in a vacuum, some pieces would spread over a base, while at another base they would form into balls. Half of the balls were covered with convex glass-like structures. Neither the physicists nor physical metallurgists can say what these structures are, what their composition is. The "tiny nets" (or "mesh") have confused many researchers. It is impossible to understand their structure and nature of the formation.
A. Kulikov, an expert on carbon at the Chemistry Institute of the Far Eastern Department of the Academy of Sciences, USSR, wrote that it was not possible to get an idea what the "mesh" is. It resembles glass carbon, but conditions leading to such formation are unknown. Definitely a common fire could not produce such glass carbon. The most mysterious aspect of the collected items was the disappearance, after vacuum melting, of gold, silver, and nickel, and the appearance-from nowhere-of molybdenum, that was not in the chamber to begin with.
The only thing that could be more or less easily explained was the ash found on site. Something biological was burned during the crash. A flock of birds, perhaps, or a stray dog; or someone who was inside the crashed object?
Dr. Dvuzhilni’s article was published in a Soviet (Uzbekistan) Magazine NLO: Chto, Gde, Kogda? (Issue 1, 1990, reprint of an article in FENOMEN Magazine, March 23, 1990). In his article Dalnegorski Phenomen V. Dvuzhilni provides details unavailable elsewhere.
The southwesterly trajectory of the object just about coincides with the Xichang Cosmodrome of People’s Republic of China, where satellites are launched into geo synchronous orbit with the help of the Great March-2 carrier rockets. There is no data of any rocket launches in the PRC at the end of January. At the same time, Sinxua Agency reported on January 25, 1988, that there was a sighting of a glowing red sphere not far from the Cosmodrome, where it hovered for 30 minutes. Possibly, UFOs had shown interest toward the Chinese Cosmodrome in the years 1989 and 1988.
There is another curious detail: at the site of the Height 611 small pieces of light gray color were discovered, but only in the area of the contact. These specimens did not match any of the local varieties of soil. What is amazing, the spectroscopic analysis of the specimens matched them to the Yaroslavl tuffs of the polymetalic deposits (i.e. the specimens possessed some characteristic elements of the Yaroslavl, but not the Dalnegorsk, tuffs). There is a possibility that the object obtain pieces of tuff in the Yaroslavl area. Tuffs experience metamorphosis under the effect of high temperatures .
The site of the crash itself was something like an anomalous zone. It was "active" for three years after the crash. Insects avoid the place. The zone affects mechanical and electronic equipment. Some people, including a local chemist, actually got very sick.
This Hill 611 is located in the area of numerous anomalies; according to an article in the Soviet digest Tainy XX Veka (Moscow, 1990, CP Vsya Moskva Publishing House). Even photos taken at the site, when developed, failed to show the hill, but did clearly show other locations. Members of an expedition to the site reported later that their flashlights stopped working at the same time. They checked the flashlights upon returning home, and discovered burned wires.
Eight days after the UFO crash at Hill 611, on February 8, 1986, at 8:30 p.m., two more yellowish spheres flew from the north, in the southward direction. Reaching the site of the crash, they circled it four times, then turned back to the north and flew away. Then on November 28, 1987 (Saturday night, 11:24 p.m.), 32 flying objects had appeared from nowhere. There were hundreds of witnesses, including the military and civilians.
The objects flew over 12 different settlements, and 13 of them flew to Dalnegorsk and the site. Three of the UFOs hovered over the settlement, and five of them illuminated the nearby mountain. The objects moved noiselessly, at an altitude between 150 to 800 meters. None of the eyewitnesses actually thoughts they were UFOs. Those who observed the objects assumed they were aircraft involved in some disaster, or falling meteorites. As the objects flew over houses, they created interference (television, telegraph functions).
The Ministry of Internal Affairs officers, who were present, testified later that they observed the objects from a street, at 23:30 (precise time). They saw a fiery object, flying in from the direction of Gorely settlement. In front of the fiery “flame” was a lusterless sphere, and in the middle of the object was a red sphere. Another group of eyewitnesses included workers from the Bor quarry. They observed an object at 11:00 pm. A giant cylindrical object was flying straight at the quarry. Its size was like that of a five-story building, its length around 200 or 300 hundred meters. The front part of the object was lit up, like a burning metal. The workers were afraid that the object would crash on them. One of the managers of the quarry observed an object at 11:30 pm.
The object was slowly moving at an altitude of 300 meters. It was huge, and cigar-shaped. The manager, whose last name was Levakov, stated that he was well acquainted with aerodynamics, knew theory and practice of flight, but never knew that a body could fly noiselessly without any wings or engines. Another eyewitness, a kindergarten teacher, saw something else. It was a bright, blinding sphere at an altitude of a nine-story building. It moved noiselessly. In front of the sphere Ms. Markina observed a dark, metallic-looking elongated object of about 10 to 12 meters long. It hovered over a school. There the object emitted a ray (its diameter about half a meter). The colour of the ray was violet-bluish. The ground below illuminated, but there were no shadows from objects below. Then the object in the sky approached a mountain and hovered over it. It illuminated the mountain, emitted a reddish projector-like light, as if searching for something, and then departed, flying over the mountain.
No rocket launches took place at any of the Soviet cosmodromes either on January 29, 1986, or November 28, 1987.
Dr. Dvuzhilni's conclusion is that it was a malfunctioning alien space probe that crashed into the Hill 611. Another hypothesis has it that the object managed to ascend, and escape (almost in one piece) in the north-easterly direction and probably crashed in the dense taiga.

Dalnegorsk UFO Crash: Roswell Incident of the Soviet Union (Part II), published 06.02.2010 https://web.archive.org/web/20210411001429/https://english.pravda.ru/society/112050-dalnegorsk_ufo_crash/
UFO fragments yield sensational results, published 31.03.2004 https://web.archive.org/web/20210411164456/https://english.pravda.ru/society/5185-ufo/
The Height 611 UFO Crash, Above Top Secret, posted on Aug, 2 2008 https://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread377661/pg1

Studying medicine is one of the most demanding academic programs you can undertake. It requires years of dedication, hard work, and passion. But it is also one of the most rewarding career choices you can make. If you are planning to study medicine, you have the option to study at some of the best medical universities abroad.
In this article, we will list the 20 best medical universities abroad you should consider for your future. We will also provide information on each university, such as their location, rankings, tuition fees, and admission requirements.
So, if you are interested in studying medicine at one of the best medical universities in the world, read on!

Kazan federal university

Kazan federal university is one of the leading universities in Russia. The university was founded in 1804 and is located in Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan. Kazan federal university is a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. The university has more than 40,000 students enrolled in its various programs.
Kazan federal university is home to a number of famous alumni, including the novelist Leo Tolstoy, the poet Anna Akhmatova, and the physicist Pyotr Kapitsa. The university has also produced a number of Nobel Prize winners, including the chemist Dmitri Mendeleev and the physicist Igor Tamm.

Kazan state medical university

Kazan state medical university is one of the leading medical schools in Russia. It is located in Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan. The university has a long history, dating back to 1804 when it was founded as the Kazan Imperial University.
Today, the university is home to over 6,000 students from all over the world. It offers a wide range of medical programs at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. In addition to its academic programs, the university is also known for its research achievements. It is home to a number of research institutes and centers, and its faculty members are leaders in their fields.
If you are interested in pursuing a medical degree at a top-ranked university, Kazan state medical university is a great choice.

Kemerovo state medical university

Kemerovo state medical university is one of the leading medical schools in Russia. It is located in the city of Kemerovo, in the south-western Siberia. The university was founded in 1930 and since then it has educated more than 30 000 doctors, most of whom are now working in different parts of the world.
Kemerovo state medical university is a renowned center for research and teaching. It offers a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in medicine, surgery, dentistry and pharmacy. The university has a strong commitment to internationalization and its programmes are taught in English.
The university has a modern campus with all the latest facilities and equipment. It also has a well-stocked library and a comfortable students’ union.
Kemerovo state medical university is an excellent choice for those who want to study medicine in Russia.

Komi state medical university

Komi state medical university is one of the leading universities in the field of medicine. Founded in 1841, the university has been at the forefront of medical research and education for over 175 years. Located in the city of Syktyvkar, Komi state medical university is home to over 5,000 students from all over the world.
Komi state medical university offers a wide range of undergraduate and graduate programs in medicine, dentistry, and pharmacy. The university is also home to a world-renowned research institute, which conducts cutting-edge research in a variety of medical disciplines. If you are looking for a top-notch medical education, Komi state medical university is the perfect place for you.

Kuban state medical university

Kuban state medical university – is the biggest medical higher school of Kuban, it is famous for the highly qualified specialists in the medical field. The university administration pays great attention to providing students with all the necessary conditions for study and development.
Kuban state medical university is one of the leading universities in the Russian Federation. It is located in the city of Krasnodar, which is the capital of the Kuban region. The university was founded in 1920 and since then it has educated more than 60,000 students from all over the world.
Kuban state medical university provides a wide range of educational programs in different medical fields. The university has a strong research tradition and its scientists are working on many important projects in the field of medicine.

North eastern federal university

North eastern federal university is one of the leading universities in the Russian Federation. It is located in the city of Yakutsk, in the east of the country. The university was founded in 1931 and today has more than 15,000 students enrolled in its various programs.
The university has a strong focus on research and has produced many world-renowned scientists. It is also home to the only diamond research center in the country. NEFU is a leading institution for higher education in Russia and is consistently ranked among the top universities in the country.

Northern state medical university

Northern State Medical University is one of the leading medical universities in the country. It has a long history of providing quality education and research in the field of medicine.
The university has a diverse student body, with a wide range of backgrounds and experiences. The faculty is highly qualified and experienced, and the university offers a variety of courses and programs to meet the needs of its students.
The university is well known for its research and teaching excellence, and it is committed to providing an environment that is conducive to learning.
The university also has a strong commitment to community service and outreach, and it strives to provide its students with a comprehensive education that prepares them for a successful career in medicine.

Omsk state medical university

Omsk state medical university is one of Russia’s leading medical schools. Located in the city of Omsk, in Siberia, the university offers a wide range of medical programs and has a strong reputation for excellence. If you are interested in a career in medicine, Omsk state medical university is a great choice.
Founded in 1920, Omsk State Medical University is one of the oldest and most prestigious medical schools in Russia. Located in the city of Omsk, the university has a long history of producing excellent doctors and medical researchers.
With a strong focus on both teaching and research, Omsk State Medical University is consistently ranked among the top medical schools in the country. If you are looking for a top-quality medical education, Omsk State Medical University is a great choice.

Orel state medical university

Orel state medical university is one of the leading medical schools in the Russian Federation. It is located in the city of Orel, which is in the western part of the country. The university was founded in 1935 and currently has an enrollment of over 4,000 students.
The university offers a wide range of medical programs, including general medicine, Pediatrics, Dentistry, and Pharmacy. It also has a strong research program, with over 300 scientists working in its various laboratories.
If you are interested in studying medicine in Russia, Orel state medical university is a great option to consider.
Today, Orel state medical university continues to produce excellent doctors and researchers. The university is ranked among the top medical schools in Russia, and its graduates are highly sought after by employers. If you’re looking for a top-quality education in medicine, Orel state medical university is a great choice.

Orenburg state medical university

Orenburg state medical university is one of the most prestigious medical schools in Russia. It was founded in 1920 and is located in the city of Orenburg. The university has a rich history and has produced many renowned doctors and scientists.
Today, the university is a leading research institution and is ranked among the top medical schools in the country. It offers a wide range of programs and degrees, and its faculty is renowned for their teaching and research.
The university has a long-standing tradition of excellence, and its graduates are highly sought after by employers all over the world. If you are looking for a top-notch medical education, Orenburg state medical university is the perfect place for you.
If you’re looking for a top-notch education in medicine, Orenburg state medical university is the place for you.

Syktyvkar state medical university

The Federal state autonomous educational institution of higher professional education Syktyvkar state medical university is the leading state university of the Komi Republic, one of the leading scientific and educational centers of the North-West of Russia.
The university offers a wide range of medical programs at the undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate levels. In addition to its main campus in Syktyvkar, the university also has campuses in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and Rostov-on-Don.
The university trains specialists of the highest category in 34 areas of medicine, pediatrics, stomatology and pharmaceutics. The university employs about 1,200 people, including more than 400 professors and teachers.

Tula state university

Tula state university is one of the leading medical schools in the country. It is located in the heart of the city and offers a wide range of programs and services to its students.
Tula state university is one of the leading universities in the Russian Federation. The university offers a wide range of programs in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. The university has a strong research tradition and is home to several Nobel Prize winners.
The university has a long tradition of excellence in teaching and research, and its faculty are among the best in the country.

Tver state medical university

Tver State Medical University (TSMU) is a leading medical university located in Tver, Russia.
It is one of the oldest medical universities in the country, having been established in 191 TSMU offers a wide range of medical programs and degrees, from undergraduate to postgraduate levels.
The university is dedicated to providing quality education and research to its students, with a focus on medical science, public health, and clinical practice. TSMU has a wide range of teaching and research facilities, including laboratories, libraries, and clinics.
The university also has a strong international presence, with students from around the world coming to study at TSMU.

Tyumen state medical university

Tyumen State Medical University is a prestigious educational institution located in Tyumen, Russia. It was founded in 1930 and is one of the oldest medical universities in the country.
The university has a long history of providing quality medical education to students from all over the world. The university has a modern campus with state-of-the-art facilities and equipment.
It offers a wide range of medical courses including general medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing, and public health. The university also offers postgraduate and doctoral programs in various medical fields.
The faculty members are highly qualified and experienced professionals who provide students with the best possible education and research opportunities.
Tyumen State Medical University is dedicated to providing students with the best possible medical education and is committed to

Volgograd state medical university

Volgograd State Medical University is one of the leading medical universities in Russia. It was founded in 1935 and it is located in the city of Volgograd.
The university offers a wide range of medical programs to its students. It has a highly qualified faculty and staff that are dedicated to providing excellent medical education to its students.
The university also has a large number of research centers and laboratories that are dedicated to the advancement of medical science.
The university provides excellent facilities for its students and staff, including a modern library, an advanced medical center, and an active student organization.
The university also has an extensive network of international collaborations and exchange programs with other medical universities around the world.

European university

European University Georgia is a leading international university located in the heart of Tbilisi. It offers students a unique opportunity to pursue a high-quality education in a vibrant and diverse environment.
The university offers a range of degree programs, including undergraduate and graduate degrees, in a variety of disciplines. With its emphasis on interdisciplinary learning, the university provides students with an excellent platform for developing their skills and knowledge.
Students at European University Georgia benefit from a stimulating academic environment, with a focus on research, innovation and entrepreneurship.
The university also provides a wide range of extracurricular activities, such as student clubs and societies, which help to foster a sense of community and encourage students to get involved in campus life.

Geomedi state university

Geomedi State University is a public university located in Georgia, in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. It is the oldest and largest university in the country, with a student population of over 18,000.
The university is renowned for its academic excellence and research productivity, offering a wide range of degree programs in the fields of medicine, engineering, business, and humanities.
Geomedi is also home to several research centers, including the Center for Humanitarian Technologies and the International Research Center for Health Sciences.
The university’s commitment to interdisciplinary research and teaching has made it a leader in the region in terms of innovation and development.
Geomedi State University is a great choice for those looking for a quality education in a vibrant and diverse environment.

Georgian American university

Georgian American University (GAU) is an international higher education institution located in Tbilisi, Georgia. Founded in 2003, it is one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in the country.
GAU offers a wide range of degree programs in fields such as business, engineering, computer science, and law. The university is renowned for its research and teaching excellence, and its commitment to providing an international learning environment for its students.
It has a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion, and its mission is to provide a high-quality education to students from all backgrounds. Its faculty is composed of highly qualified professionals from around the world.

Ivane Avakhishvili Tbilisi state university

Ivane Avakhishvili Tbilisi State University is one of the leading universities in Georgia. Established in 1918, the university has a long and proud history of providing quality education to its students.
It offers more than 200 degree programs in various fields, such as medicine, engineering, law, economics, and humanities. The university also has a strong research focus, with a number of research centers and laboratories dedicated to advancing knowledge in various disciplines.
Ivane Avakhishvili Tbilisi State University is a top-ranked institution that is highly respected in the international academic community.
In addition, the university promotes international cooperation and exchanges with universities around the world. Ivane Avakhishvili Tbilisi State University is committed to providing students with a high-quality education that will prepare them for successful careers.

New Vision university

New Vision University is a leading educational institution dedicated to providing quality education to its students. It is a modern university located in the heart of the city and is committed to providing the best learning experience possible.
The university offers a range of courses and programs in various fields, including business, engineering, science, and technology.
The faculty members are highly experienced and knowledgeable, and the university provides excellent resources and facilities to ensure a successful learning experience.
The university also offers a variety of extracurricular activities and events to keep students engaged and motivated.
New Vision University is committed to providing an environment of excellence and innovation, and it strives to create a community of students and faculty who are passionate about learning and discovering new things.

Conclusion

In conclusion, aspiring medical students should research the best universities abroad carefully before making a decision on their school.
Keep in mind the cost of tuition, the quality of instruction and the types of research opportunities available. Taking all these factors into consideration will make choosing the right school much easier.
With a range of options available to pick from, you have the unique opportunity to pursue an abroad education that best matches your preferences and needs.

Ukraine Update. Day 231.
A lot has happened in the past few days, so we will have to post several articles between now and the end of the week to catch up.
Quick and easy ones to get out of the way today: Referenda and mobilisation.
On the 20th of September, The authorities of the DPR and LPR alongside Russian controlled regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia announced they would hold a referendum on reunification/incorporation/annexation (pick your poison) with the Russian Federation. The dates for the referenda would stretch from the 23rd to the 27th of September 2023. One question figured on the ballot paper: "Do you approve of the "*insert region here" being incorporated into the Russian Federation with subject rights of the Russian Federation?". The decision to hold referenda was widely criticised by the international community in general and by Ukraine in particular.
Unsurprisingly (heavy sarcasm), Turnout was large and reunification with the Russian Federation won in all 4 regions.
We won't list all the reactions and statements to this event, because everybody (literally everyone) reacted and issued a statement. Long story short: Nobody is happy about this and no one, ever, will recognise the results of those referenda.
Washington, through Secretary of State Blinken gave the green light for Ukraine to use western weapons against regions that became part of Russia after the referendum. The Russian ambassador to Washington replied that "US statements about the possibility of Kiev's strikes on the LPR and DPR bring them closer to a dangerous brink and make the United States a party to this conflict".
The EU announced another package of sanctions to be imposed against Russia and separatist figures (The 8th!), while Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov called the moment "a decisive stage in Russian history."
On the 29th September, President Putin signed decrees recognising the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions as independent countries. The following day, on the 30th of September 2022, the Russian president signed accession treaties with pro-Russian leaders of the four regions during a ceremony in Moscow. The Russian constitution was amended soon after.
A little quirk: The borders of those four regions were not legally defined by the treaty! The wording is vague and confusing. Some experts think the borders mentioned are the ones of the Ukrainian oblasts bearing the same names (pre-war borders). Some think Russia will base the future borders of those regions according to what they looked like at the time of the Russian Empire. Others think the borders will be set in stone in the future and will depend on the performances and result of the Russian SMO (Special Military Operation) in Ukraine.
Putin's speech that evening only mentioned NATO once and focused mainly on stacking Russian and Western values against one another. He also announced that Moscow would do everything in its power and use every tool in its arsenal to defend and protect Russian land and Russian citizens.
The Russian Foreign Ministry accused the US of being party to the conflict shortly after.
Moscow has already allocated funds/budget to its "new regions" so that their administration can start working with the federation's own administrative bodies. Donbass (separatist) Armed Forces are to be integrated within the Russian Armed Forces.
Ukraine's president Zelensky announced negotiations with Russia would not resume for as long as Putin is president. He also signed an "accelerated application for Ukraine's accession into NATO." This was very obviously symbolic, more than anything else: There are no "fast tracking" procedures for applicants.
On the 21st of September 2022, President Putin signed a decree for a partial mobilisation of the Federation's reservists. This happened 24 hours after the announcement of the referenda in eastern and southern Ukraine.
The aim was to mobilise 300,000 reservists. As explained in our report published on the 24th of September: "Only people with prior military service will be recalled. The first to have received their draft papers were tankers, gunners, drivers and mechanics. Privates and sergeants up to the age of 35 are eligible for the recall, while junior officers up to 50 years old and senior officers up to 55 years old are also eligible to be mobilised. Training that takes into account the lessons learned from the current conflict will be provided to mobilised personnel prior to deployment to the war zone. Are not eligible: Students, conscripts, employees working for the defence industry, carers, unhealthy or disabled people as well as people in charge of families with more than 4 children under the age of 16.Mobilised personnel will receive the same pay and benefits as enlisted personnel. The Russian Central Bank issued recommendations to Russian banks regarding mobilised personnel: They are to receive credit holidays for loans and mortgages and collection for overdue debts (as well as foreclosure procedures) must be suspended. "
Since then, Moscow has managed to mobilise 200,000 people before temporarily suspending/delaying the procedure: Russian barracks and training facilities simply cannot accommodate that many people all at once: Russia processes around 260,000 conscripts a year. The addition of 200,000 reservists on top of that severely strained Russian training capacity, both in terms of logistics and accommodation but also in terms of finding enough instructors to teach/train nearly double the usual amount of people!
Apparently, some Russian and separatist personnel with the required amount of experience may have been pulled from the front and sent to the rear to assist with the training of those reservists.
There were also issues with some people not eligible for mobilisation receiving orders to report to their nearest recruitment office. Those hiccups prompted delays as well as several investigations. Do keep in mind that the target for this round of mobilisation is still 300,000, but logistics and administrative hurdles must be overcome first.
Depending on their specialty/prior training and geographical location, some reservists were sent to training facilities in the Donbass while others were sent to training facilities within Russia. For example, some reservists from Siberia were sent to Omsk's Military Tank Institute while reservists from Daguestan were sent to training camps in the DPR and LPR.
The vast majority of those reservists are not expected to be deployed to the front before mid-Decembeearly January. In the meantime, masses of hardware are being sent towards Ukraine. There are rumours that Russian troops (including reservists) are being sent to Belarus. Whether they are being sent there to be trained or to form up BTGs near the Ukrainian border, nobody knows. Strangely enough, there is a lot of Belarussian hardware being sent towards the Ukrainian border, too, potentially pointing to a possible transfer of units/hardware between Russia and Belarus.
It could also very well be a ploy designed to draw Ukrainian troops away from eastern Ukraine and tie them up along the Belarussian border... We shall see soon enough.
The announcement of this Russian mobilisation drew harsh criticism from the west in general and from NATO in particular.
Upon receiving the news that partial mobilisation was being introduced, nearly 300,000 Russian citizens fled Russia. Russian authorities at first resisted the urge to shut their borders, but ended up having to do so. Ironically enough, several EU countries had already done so several days beforehand!
Ukraine also faced an exodus of manpower when it mobilised on the 24th of February 2022: Within one month, almost 8 million Ukrainians had sought refuge abroad, including an estimated 700,000+ men.
Both Ukrainian and Russian authorities have had to deploy resources to deal with desertors, servicemen refusing to deploy (refuseniks) and people dodging the draft since the beginning of this war.
Tomorrow, we'll discuss the situation on the ground (military situation) in Ukraine. On Thursday, we'll catch up to the events surrounding the attack on the Kherson Bridge and the ongoing Russian retaliation campaign.
Hopefully, by end the the week, we will all be up to speed.
-RBM.