Abram Petrovich Gannibal

In 1704 a black slave (born in present-day Cameroon) was bought by a Russian in Constantinople and presented to Peter the Great. The Emperor liked 8 years old boy Abram and immediately adopted him.

In 1705 the boy was baptized with Peter as his godfather and he became Abram Petrovich.

The boy became Peter’s valet on various military campaigns and journeys.

In 1716 Peter the Great visited France. He then left his godson there to study engineering and mathematics at a military school. Two years later, Abram Petrovich joined the French army and fought in the war against Spain. During his time in France Abram Petrovich adopted surname Gannibal in honor of the Carthaginian general Hannibal.

In 1723 Gannibal returned to Russia. Soon Peter the Great died and Prince Menshikov, who disliked Gannibal, assigned him to Siberia.

Abram Petrovich Gannibal

Gannibal’s fortunes changed in 1741, when Empress Elisabeth (daughter of Peter the Great) took the throne.

Elizabeth made him the military commander of city of Reval ((now Tallinn, Estonia). He served in this place between 1743 and 1751.

Then Gannibal oversaw expansions of the Ladoga Canal and Russian fortresses throughout the empire. By 1760 Abram Petrovich had been promoted to the rank of a full general.

In 1762 Gannibal retired to the Mikhailovskoye estate in Pskov. The estate with hundreds of serfs was given to him in 1742 by Elizabeth. He died there in 1781.

His great-grandson was Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, the famous Russian poet and writer. 

I was proud of America in 1941!

There are people in America today that are not proud of their country.
These people don’t know history or prefer to forget it.

The post below reminds how America saved the world from the Nazi Germany.

During my lifetime America helped many countries to recover after the WW2, saved or freed many countries from Communism, helped and continues to help many countries to develop their economies, to fight diseases.

I was shocked today to find out that students of UCLA voted to ban the American flag in the student area.

“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

On June 22, 1941 without declaration of war Germany invaded the Soviet Union. At that time I was 7 years old.

In 73 years I wrote about that day and the Great Patriotic War in the post MY MOTHER’S BIRTHDAY.

Odessa was occupied during the war and my mother and I were fortunate to reach Sverdlovsk in the Ural Mountains and to rent a small room there. My mother was a nurse in a military hospital and she was able to come to our room only on Sundays for several hours

All other days I stayed in the room reading everything I could find. Our landlords, two mighty sisters about 65 years old, helped me daily to do the most important thing: to get my food ration.

During winter the situation in the city was especially bad. Food rations were tiny and there was impossible to get berries or…

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I was proud of America in 1941!

On June 22, 1941 without declaration of war Germany invaded the Soviet Union. At that time I was 7 years old.

In 73 years I wrote about that day and the Great Patriotic War in the post MY MOTHER’S BIRTHDAY.

Odessa was occupied during the war and my mother and I were fortunate to reach Sverdlovsk in the Ural Mountains and to rent a small room there. My mother was a nurse in a military hospital and she was able to come to our room only on Sundays for several hours

All other days I stayed in the room reading everything I could find. Our landlords, two mighty sisters about 65 years old, helped me daily to do the most important thing: to get my food ration.

During winter the situation in the city was especially bad. Food rations were tiny and there was impossible to get berries or mushrooms or fishes in the forests. People were starving and some tried to steal your food on the way from a food distribution center. However, I was safe, as both sisters had heavy sticks in their hands and used them effectively without hesitation.

One day we found out that the city received some food from America. Our rations increased. I still remember that we got containers with hot soup in it. One of my protectors gave me a spoon and said: “Eat it right here! I know how hungry you are!”

The soup was delicious. A woman who worked at the center explained that it was a turtle soup.

Several months later we received a big can with an egg powder (it was part of the monthly ration). It was also from America. On Sunday my mother made an omelette from it. It was incredible beautiful and tasteful. We ate it very slowly enjoying every bite.

I asked my Mom where America was and she showed me on a map. Then I asked: “Mom, why this country that is so far away, helps us?”

My mother answered: “America is a mighty and rich country! Today it helps our country and other countries to fight terrible enemy by providing military equipment, materials and food. We hope very much that soon it will fight Nazis together with us and we’ll win the war together!”

I was proud of America in 1941 and I love it since 1941!

 

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Several extracts from Wikipedia:

“The Lend-Lease policy, formally titled An Act to Further Promote the Defense of the United States, (Pub.L. 77–11, H.R. 1776, 55 Stat. 3034, enacted March 11, 1941)^[1] was a program under which the United States supplied Great Britain, Free France, the Republic of China and later the USSR and other Allied nations with materiel between 1941 and August 1945…

Joseph Stalin, during the Tehran Conference in 1943, acknowledged publicly the. importance of American efforts: “Without American production the United Nations [the Allies] could never have won the war.”

On December 11, 1941, the United States Congress declared war upon Germany, in response to that nation’s declaration of war following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and only hours after Germany declared war on the United States.”

 

God’s gifts

I got an email from Chicago with Russian jokes in it.

During our morning’s walk I told my wife one of them and she liked it.

Then I asked Google Translate to help me and edited the translation.

Here is what we got:

“Adam and Eve frolicking in the garden. God descends to them and says: “My children, I have two gifts for you. You’ll have to decide which one to whom. The first gift is peeing standing up “…

Adam begs to let him have the first gift. He says that it is his lifelong dream. Eve yields to him. And Adam runs through the garden, rejoicing, jumping, screaming, and peeing on trees, flowers, insects and simply on the ground.

Then Eve asks: “Lord, what is your second gift?”

God answers: “Brains, Eve. Brains.”

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

PS. I hope that translation is good enough to express the idea. Please let me know if there is a similar original joke in English.   

Edgar Cayce – The Sleeping Prophet.

On March 30, 2014 I posted THREE SIMPLE QUESTIONS.

One of them was: “Who was Edgar Cayce and where did he live?”

Only my friend Painting Pandit gave a brief answer.

Edgar Cayce is not a legend. What he did confirmed for years by a group of people.

Please read about him HERE.

You can get even better knowledge of his life and enjoy very much reading books about him.

Here are Edgar Cayce’s SEVEN PROPHECIES THAT CAME TRUE.

You might be interested in his prophecies that are still to come and in many his readings.

In conclusion, I want to introduce to you several Edgar Cayce’s quotes:

“Dreams are today’s answers to tomorrow’s questions.”

“It is thought and feeling which guides the universe, not deeds.”

“When ye are prepared for a thing, the opportunity to use it presents itself.”

“You can never lose anything that really belongs to you, and you can’t keep that which belongs to someone else.”

My mother’s birthday.

Preliminary note: I was born in Odessa, a beautiful Ukrainian city on the shore of Black Sea. In several days I will be 80 years old.

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“Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it”.

Edmund Burke

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It was one of the happiest days of my life. My beautiful mother became 27  years old. My father returned from a business trip to Moscow and gave me a terrific birthday present – a German two-wheels bicycle with wide tires. 

It was my first two-wheels bicycle but it took only several minutes to learn how to ride it. Then my friends Vladimir and Peter brought their bicycles and we went outside to ride around the block.

There was a gorgeous summer day, the day of summer solstice. Almost no clouds and a light breeze from the sea. Adults were busy preparing for the birthday party and we enjoyed our freedom very much.

All of a sudden we heard a loud music. Pedestrians came closer to loudspeakers (there were several of them on each block). Soon music stopped and somebody started a speech. We continued to ride around our block. Then there was silence.

A man came to us and said: “Boys, immediately go to your parents! A war started! Germans invaded our country!”

When I came home women were crying. Soon all of my uncles came to congratulate my mother and to give her their presents. Three of them were already in uniform. They kissed everyone and left. Then other men (relatives and friends) came to say goodbye.

It was a very sad birthday party. There were only women, old men and children. Nobody knew what would happen with us and if we would see our men again.

I went to sleep early and I did not know that at night bombs were falling on our wonderful city and people were dying.

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The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union against Hitler’s Germany and its european allies lasted almost four years (June 22, 1941 – May 9, 1945). Nazi’s Germany was defeated but the USSR lost more than 26 mln people and the whole population went through terrible sufferings.

You can read about it and see some pictures HERE.

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In her “Remembering Rotterdam Blitz” post (http://indahs.wordpress.com/2014/05/14/rotterdam-blitz/) Indah Susanti wrote: ” No wars have real winners, no citizens would enjoy living when their freedom and their identity being scrapped. The truth is people suffered most during the wars. It is a tragedy to be avoided”.

I am glad that she and some other bloggers remember history!

 

I know, I know!

After I published yesterday the short post “Do you believe in evolution? Our relative?” one of my followers (M-R) asked me to clarify my beliefs. I do it by reblogging this post.

Rimantas Dichavicius.

Rimantas Dichavicius is a photographer and an artist.

He is a born romantic. It is a romantic touch that helped him to publish an album, glorifying feminine beauty. The album ”Flowers of Flowers” was presented at the International Book Fair in Moscow in 1987.

Rimantas Dichavicius recalls: “There was censorship. This topic has been banned…Adherents of strict morals did not attack me. Just had a surprise – not up to criticism. ”

Foreign experts wondered how such high level of skill emerged in the country where the photos in the genre of “nude” have been banned for 70 years?

Rimantas Dichavicius never thought about that. He just did poetic, upscale photos elusive beauty.

Read about Rimantas Dichavicius and see his photos HERE.

 

Several quotes about treaties.

Charles De Gaulle – “Treaties are like roses and young girls — they last while they last.”  

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Benjamin Franklin – “Mad kings and mad bulls are not to be held by treaties and packthread.”

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Thomas Hobbes – “Covenants without the sword are but words and of no strength to secure a man at all.” 

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I am sure you know what I have in mind. Any comments?

Thomas Sowell and his quotes.

I just returned home from a nice party and found an email with Thomas Sowell’s quotes. I read all quotes and then went to Google to find out who was Thomas Sowell.

Here is what I found:   THOMAS SOWELL

Then I went back to the email and copied several quotes.

You can see them below and make your own conclusions.

“Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good.”

“It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”

“One of the consequences of such notions as ‘entitlements’ is that people who have contributed nothing to society feel that society owes them something, apparently just for being nice enough to grace us with their presence.”

“I have never understood why it is “greed” to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else’s money.”

“When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.”

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“Weighing benefits against costs is the way most people make decisions — and the way most businesses make decisions, if they want to stay in business. Only in government is any benefit, however small, considered to be worth any cost, however large.”

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Bernard Cornwell.

Several years ago I read a book written by Bernard Cornwell about a british soldier Sharpe. It was the second book in the series and I liked it very much. I always liked historical fiction and I felt like I am young again.

As usually in such cases, I went to internet and read about the author.

You can repeat this step by clicking on the line below.

BERNARD CORNWELL

Then I remembered that I read before his book “Stonehenge” and enjoyed it very much. All theories about Stonehenge fascinated me for years. Surely, we visited Stonehenge during our trip to England and this visit stays in my memory (sunny day, huge stones, modern buses, sheep, tourists from all over the world).

Next step was reading every book about Sharpe and Lord Wellington. Not all of them are equally well-written but I would recommend to read all of them.

You can find about the Sharpe books HERE.

But the Sharpe series is only one of many.

Here is more about BERNARD CORNWELL BOOKS

I read many of them with great pleasure but one of them stays separately in my memory. It is “Agincourt” (Azincourt in French). Please read the book. You’ll be glad you did.

I ask my readers who read books by Bernard Cornwell to comment on this post. Thank you.

  

“Gods, Graves and Scholars”.

About 60 years ago I read a wonderful book “Gods, Graves and Scholars: The Story of Archaeology.” 

The book written by C. W. Ceram (January 20, 1915 – April 12, 1972). It was the pseudonym of German journalist and author Kurt Wilhelm Marek.

I was a little younger at that time and the book impressed me very much by facts about lives of all famous archaeologists, about all major discoveries and by its literary style.

After reading the book I’ve  never stopped learning about archaeology and history of civilizations.

If anyone of you did not read the book I highly recommend it.

Wikipedia says: “Published in 28 languages, Ceram’s book eventually received a printing of over 5 million copies, and is still in print today…

Other books by the author include The Secret of the Hittites, March of Archaeology and The First American, a book on ancient North American history. 

…The Ceram Prize in archaeology is named after him.”