Stalingrad Part 2 & 3 – A Conversation with a Pretty Book Doctor. (A travelogue with a heart to mother Russia)

This is a continuation from Part 1 as a special tribute to the Tirianians due to the overwhelming response to the Part 1 series of the travelogue: Stalingrad. We the Brotherhood Press will be present Part 2 & 3 in the Extended Version. Happy Reading.

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Aurora.

Stalingrad Part 1 – A Conversation with a Pretty Book Doctor. (A travelogue with a heart to mother Russia)

“There is more here than just lands at stake here, this a rassenkampf (race war), where only one can survive! We the German people are the undeniable master race. It is not enough, I tell you to just preserve our Nordic way of life! We must be able to replenish the Aryan, and pursue our policy of racial purity by eradicating the inferiors! Do not believe for one moment we are ordinary people! Ordinary people cannot accomplish our miraculous feats which speak of a great people with a greater destiny! In this short time, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Holland and France have all fallen and so will the city in East, far from here. The city that is the red menace of Bolshevikism that even bears the name of their corrupt leader, Stalingrad! We shall seize it in the name of the 1,000 year Reich!”

Adolf Hitler (1941)

No where else in Russia does one hear the word ‘history’ spoken with such verve as  Stalingrad – I mean Volgograd. For political reasons Stalingrad reflects the name of a controversial brutal dictator Josef Stalin, so they changed it during the 50’s. But everyone here calls it Stalingrad. I know you have all seen the stomach churning meat grinding violence of Saving Private Ryan along with the band of brothers – we know the narrative by heart – the West defeated the Nazis. Right? Nothing can be further from the truth, though historians may differ on who dealt the mortal blow that packed off Adolf Hitler and his uber Aryans to the rubbish heap of history, no one disputes, where it all happened – the beginning of the end – and in this bar South of the city, where old soldiers hang out with their medals strewn out like coins, Stalingrad will forever be the place where the tide was first turned against the invincible army of Hitler in WW II.

A Speed Demon in Seville / Powered by a Mysterious Brew ( Travelogue Spain)

The Moors had it in the evenings flavored with dates. Christian crusaders during lunchtime with a dash of nutmeg and when Christopher Columbus first spotted the first sliver of ‘terra incognita,’ he nearly choked on it. Yes, he was having it too on the tub, the Santa Maria. They’ve been having it since the year zero from the looks of it. From lorry drivers to nuns in their starched habits, they’re all chomping it down fast and furiously all across Seville. Sorry, I got to dig in. If it cools, it hardens to a consistency resembling a brick so it’s best if we hurry and gobbled it down – absolutely delicious. What are we having?

It’s the best kept secret in the whole of Spain

Where is Paradise? – The Biggest Con-Job in History – (A Spanish Travelogue)

Sometime in the early 12th century a returning Crusader walked through the narrow cobble lined streets in Seville. History records the event as having taken place in March, at the spring equinox, when the orange mangroves which once lined the main boulevard of this ancient city of labyrinths are most perfumed.

The Templar knight carried with him letters of credentials from a mysterious Christian emperor from the East addressed to Pope Alexander III. Twelve pages long complete with even a map detailing the mythical kingdom, it contained the most startling information. For it related the story of the strongest and most powerful Christian state on earth – a veritable super power ruled by a priest king who now wished to perform his religious duty by recovering the Holy City from the infidel – Prester John, myth or fact?

Easter Island (Rapa Nui), Chile – A Lesson in the Extinction Game (Travelogue)

A few minutes before the Chilean turbo prop pitches and thumps violently onto the landing strip of Mataveri airport. The pilot warns us all that it’s usual to expect rough turbulence during the approach. He claims it’s the high winds that blows in from the South this time of the year. We don’t believe him – the starboard engine sounds funny and all the stewardess have been avoiding eye contact throughout the flight. The curtains are drawn, we cross our fingers – actually, I am not too bothered about the landing. Mataveri airport has one of the most advanced landing strips in the world, smoothed over and lengthened by nearly 315 meters, it’s an emergency landing site for the American space shuttle just in case they miscalculate the re-entry.

I am reminded the Americans don’t go to extraordinary lengths just to set up one of the most sophisticated runways in the middle of nowhere – au contraire, but they do and its because, Easter Island holds the title in the Guiness Books of Records as being;

“The most remote place on this planet!”

Just slightly over 163.22 square miles, it’s smack in-the-middle-of-nowhere in the Pacific, 2,000 miles off the west coast of South America and 1,250 miles from the nearest inhabitable land called Pitcairn Island

The Most Important Building In The World! ( An Explosive Travelogue )

LOCATED at Sixteenth Street, NW in the District of Columbia, sits a monumental building in the nation’s capital, Washington D.C – The Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia. Its architecture is an adaptation of the famous Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the

“Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.”

The January 1916 issue of the London Architectural, referred to this building as the

“Most powerful building in the world,”

It’s none other than the head quarters of the most powerful organization in the world – the secret brotherhood of the free masons.

Inside the House of the Temple, the walls are adorned with Egyptian hieroglyphics complete with mammoth sphinxes guarding its porticos. Here every 2 years powerful and mysterious men simply known as “the brotherhood,” gather behind closed doors. Over the centuries the select membership has included the likes of George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, Gerald Ford and 13 other presidents allow with a long list of luminaries – they are know as the freemasons.

In this special travelogue edition, the brotherhood has commissioned its most trusted writer, the bird of prey to undertake one of the most dangerous missions ever conducted in our history to bring all of you this explosive expose which takes us all into the inner sanctum of the most important building of this world!

An Amazing Flight Back In Time! – (A Historical Travelogue)

Somewhere over Nazi Germany in 1944 in a B-17 flying fortress…..a true story brought to you exclusively by the brotherhood press.

“We crossed into the enemy territory at 0435 hours on April 13, 1944. I was the rear gunner on board “The Ace of Spades.”

It was supposed to be a special mission – a 30 bomber raid on the heavily defended target, Adolf Hitler’s bunker in Berlin. The Luftwaffe had been alerted that there was a bomber formation heading across France towards Germany. We knew they would scramble their fighter planes once we crossed over to France.

Just before day break when the sun was peeking out, they “the bats” as we all called them, came out like “they’re all on fire from hell” forming up for the kill.

The captain broke through the intercom frantically,

“Get ready boys! There are coming in thick and fast at 9’o clock!”

Some of us looked at each other. Others crossed themselves or hung on to their bunny feet for luck as we readied our guns. The same German squadron had taken out our best of squadrons just the week before. Most of us were scared stiff. Suddenly all hell broke loose as bullets peppered the fuselage. I looked across the deck, the aft gunner an 18 year old from Iowa was slumped.

The Return to Hell – Iwo Jima (A Travelogue Special)

Iwo Jima is a volcanic island 1,804 km south of the Japanese coastline, 1,130 km north of Guam, nearly halfway between Tokyo and Saipan. It’s approximately 20.3 square kilometers, with Mount Suribachi forming the most prominent feature, at its southern tip.

As the military transport lurches side ways for the final descend through the clouds. The pilot breaks out excitedly through the intercom,

“Look over to your left side folks! There she is, the big I.”

I strain to make out the island through the tiny porthole. A few Japanese begin their hushed chatters, one of them an old Japanese man begins to stir. His eyes well up with tears as he peers intently. The plane banks again, descending lower this time bopping against the thermals. Finally, the island shaped like a pork chop emerges through the clouds – it’s Iwo Jima.

Nearly 60 years ago on the 19th February 1945, 70,000 Americans landed on the Southern stretch of the island. For 22,000 Japanese defenders, Iwo Jima was the defense of their very hearths and homes as it was beginning of the Allied invasion into Japan soil. There for slightly more than a month the 3rd, 4th and 5th Marine Divisions of the Fifth Marine Amphibious Corps fought hand to hand with the109th Infantry Division of the Imperial Japanese army under the command of General Tadamichi Kuribayashi.

In Search of Noah (Travelogue)

The skipper of the “Petrov” blared out.

“What can you boys do?”

“Anything providing you take us in your boat to Istanbul for our connecting flight.”

I try out my Jedi mind trick, by repeating the words,

“There is always a need for hands.”

Yahn, the Cypriot skipper looks at me strangely as if he just realized he talking to mad man. He eyeballs us sideways and tips his fifth vodka down strokes his stubble and lights another cigarette – it seems to be working he’s mulling over the offer.

“It will be hard work and only food and lodging…but you can eat as much as you want.”

Then pausing for a while Yahn turned to us,

“Only one rule…no questions…do you understand?”

We shook on the deal. I repeated the words,

“No questions.”

The following morning before dawn we loaded up on the Ukrainian research vessel called the “Petrov.”

One Afternoon at Uncle Joe’s (Travelogue)

Everyone knows where Josef Stalin was born, in the republic of Georgia in Gori, but I bet you didn’t know where he spent most of his time when he was puffing his pipe. The location was kept a secret till sometime in the late 1980’s for fear that it would be transformed into a post Stalinist shrine. You be glad to know in this travelogue special, we the brotherhood press managed to ferret out Uncle Joe’s hide out. It’s not easy getting there, like all sensible dictators Stalin was intensely paranoid so even the location isn’t featured in the local maps and its smack in the middle of no where.

Some 10 miles from the Black Sea in Abkhazia just next to a corn yellow Byzantium domed monastery is a heavily camouflaged double storey building surrounded by a thicket of cedar trees. Even from this distance of less than 200 meters we could have easily missed it, but our gypsy guide Anatoly insist its there. “Where is it?” I ask, “There! Cant you see it” he blares out – we stop and peered with field glasses, nothing. Suddenly a shape appears followed by another angular form, the invisible house surfaces.

This was where Stalin worked, lived and played.

The Road to Radomyshl’ (Travelogue Special)

In the village of Radomyshl’, a neighborhood in the periphery of bordering Kiev and Zhytomyr, a small community of Rhoma (Gypsies) carve out an existence in an abandoned mining town. The local town council has offered them a piece of land where a scrap yard once stood, but the farmers are preventing this offer – they want them out. It’s a tale that’s retold again and again throughout Russia – no one wants the “Chernyi” – a derogatory term that simply means, “black.” Not that they are black of course, some of them even have green eyes and blond hair which they insist on dyeing black.

In Russia, as in many places in the Balkans, race is constructed culturally in a way that overlaps it with other categories of social life which may not refer only to one’s complexion.

“Blacks” also can be marked as a style, by a certain kind of dress code or manner of behavior. The Rhoma we met up with do not dress in the fashion of Gypsies in films but they do stand out with their wide brimmed cowboy hats and elaborate jewelry.

A Russian kiosk operator told us,

“You can recognize those scum, they speak with their hands and fingers and through their pet monkeys not like us Russians, be careful where those fingers end up, better hide your wallets when you see them.”

Chernobyl Revisited – The Star of the East (Travelogue Special)

In the infamous “Red Forest” just 30 km away from the Chernobyl nuclear reactor nothing ever survives for long not even in spring. There are no roses or sunflowers; there are no geraniums or wild mushrooms. Only an endless stretch of sickly yellowed canopy. The locals in Prypyat call the red forest – the Sakura of Russia, here everything grows at double or triple the rate – from one day to the next, the once empty fields fills up – they blossom. Then, just as quickly, they die. It’s an apt description of life in the dead zone.

Biking through the red forest to the South towards “atomic city,” the once prosperous model Soviet city of almost 60,000, is a mere 15km away. We needn’t have bothered with maps the Geiger counter is already generating disconcerting crackling noises. It reads nearly 1470 micro-roentgens. A few kilometers deeper into “the zone of death” and the counter, begins to whirl off the scale. We have to proceed by foot from here, vehicles are strictly prohibited.

In the distance lies the silhouette of atomic city beyond it across a barren plain the remains of the Chernobyl nuclear stack. There entombed within an enormous steel and concrete sarcophagus lies the number 4 reactor. Twenty odd years ago on April 26, 1986, the reactor core exploded.