I

Es dringt kein Laut bis her zu mir
von der Nationen wildem Streite,
ich stehe ja auf keiner Seite;
denn Recht ist weder dort noch hier.

Und weil ich nie Horaz vergaß
bleib gut ich aller Welt und halte
mich unverbrüchlich an die alte
aurea mediocritas.

II

Der erscheint mir als der Größte,
der zu keiner Fahne schwört,
und, weil er vom Teil sich löste,
nun der ganzen Welt gehört.

Ist sein Heim die Welt; es misst ihm
doch nicht klein der Heimat Hort;
denn das Vaterland, es ist ihm
dann sein Haus im Heimatsort.

—Rainer Maria Rilke

I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit the last couple weeks.

Display celebrating 80 years of the Soviet nuclear industry.

Hiroshima, top, Nagasaki bomb left, 1945 US nuclear attack plan for the USSR bottom center, USSR’s first atomic bomb, 1949, bottom right.

Many Eastern European nations face an odd predicament. They possess a surplus of history, but a deficit of useful narratives. That is, plenty of things have happened to them, but not enough has been done by them to establish a deeply rooted sense of shared destiny. In much of the region, national sovereignty has tended to be brief, partial, or intermittent. Empire, and the struggle against it, has tended to be the leading story, while opportunities to develop national mythologies independent of their influence have tended to be rather sparse.

—Jacob Mikanowski, Goodbye Eastern Europe, (Great Britain: Oneworld Publications Ltd, 2023), 309-310.

I guess one could argue this is technically not the Pacific, but it is close enough for my purposes. Very happy to be here.

Going to have to say, Lenin is much more compelling when lit by floodlight and without the pigeons.

You know Yul Brenner was born in Vladivostok? Until this last year I was unaware of that fact.

Lenin is often depicted beckoning: „Come, see what the workers have accomplished“ or „here, this is the way to the worker’s paradise,“ however across from Владивосток’s main rail station he is definitely pointing, not beckoning.