The main link goes to the artist’s own website but you can see more examples on Orange County Fineart via the link at the bottom.
Vladimir Kush is a Russian artist who moved to the USA in 1990. With a scientist father and artists like Dali as impression, his paintings are surreal (according to Wikipedia) in the Metaphorical Realism school. This is a style described by artist Lynn Randolph as ” I think of them as ambiguous, open-ended statements that are not arbitrary, but solidly attached to specific people, places and things.”
Link (To Orange County Fine Art)
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Although it is written completely in English (in a charming if not exactly 100% perfect style!), this is actually (as best as I can tell) a Russian website. It isn’t the fastest website but then if you’re into chess you have probably learnt to have a bit of patience!
The site has a lot of resources about chess, including downloads and reviews of books etc plus articles on chess. I can play chess (self taught so not great) and I think there is a lot here- but it takes a bit of digging. Russia is of course home to some of the greatest Chess grandmasters (Kasparov, Karpov etc) so well worth a look.
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The excellent alternative Russian Web Magazine The Exile Exile.ru published an illustrated guide to the type of people you might encounter on the streets of Moscow.
These range from impoverished starving soldiers, gangsters wives, art directors, rastas etc over 30 in all. Great descriptions and pictures. I like the Exile though it won’t suit everyone’s taste. The military writer Gary Brecher “War nerd” gives his insights into the best wars, soldiers etc and is not afraid to lavish praise or mock and if you are easily offended, you won’t like The Exile!
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Where did the last twenty years go? I was reminded of this by an excellent set of photos by Eileen Gunn of InifineMatrix.net on the 20th anniversary. It and the deserted city of Pripyat looks desolate and bleak.
The statue in the photo is a tribute to the firefighters who went into try and put the fire out. The intense radiation killed many of them and it took nine days to put the main graphite reactor fire out.
As this website says “There also had never been a fire-drill at the Chernobyl nuclear station. Many of the firefighters did not even know what they were fighting, they did not even know the dangers of radiation, much less that they were surrounded by it at the time. No account was ever taken of the possibility of radiation.”.
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