RUSSIA: 'Iron Felix' Back at Petrovka 38 (Dzerzhinsky returns to Lubyanka)

The Moscow Times ^ | November 9, 2005 | Carl Schreck

[GSlob]

Petrovka is the name of a street in Moscow [Petrovka 38 is the address of city police headquarters], Lubyanka is the name of the square in the same city housing KGB/FSB headquarters. They are in different parts of Moscow city [Petrovka street is about 1 mile NW from Lubyanka square]. Thus your addition to the original article title is incorrect: speaking figuratively, Dzerzhinsky has never left; speaking literally, his statue is not [yet] returning to Lubyanka.

[struwwelpeter]

Maybe it's a typo?

[GSlob]

No, it is not a typo, but rather a play of words, "double entendre'': "na razliv" or "razlivnoye" means "on tap", while literal etymology is derived from "to be spilled", or "to be poured out". Indeed, this play of words would be most visible to a non-native user, for most of the native ones would pass by without bothering to notice. Then again, those overimbibing will indeed spill and leak, bringing the literal meaning more in line with the figurative one.

[mym]

==In another 5 years or so the statue will disappear. Lenin will disappear sometime in the not too distant future too.==

Yes, I think the same. Dzerzhinsky and Lenin are from the same team of old crap.

[Mazepa]

It's really impossible to try to convince and change an old communist. God knows how many times I talked to an old commie - like banging my hand against the wall. "Stalin's terror- BS", "Famine- BS", "Gorbachev- CIA agent", etc. Then, there's the lexicon- socialism and communism (and the difference between the two); dialectic materialism; burzhui (a well to do class whose wealth was to be confiscated for the state); Marxism, Leninism, even Stalin who was not an intellectual in the slightest got his own "Stalinism". But my favorite commie word has to be "the people". Everything done is in the name of "the people". How can you possibly go against "the people"? That's how you become "enemy of the people".
Last but not least are the Soviet heros, like Dzerjinsky. However my favorite example of the moral depravity of the Soviets would have to be the story of Pavlik Morozov- a boy who turned in his father to the Soviet authorities, because he (the father) was stealing from the state.
Back to my original point- old people piss me off. :)

[GOP_1900AD]

An interesting side bar. One of the more under reported aspects of Putin's KGB service was the nature of his operation while stationed in Dresden. He was afiliated with a Stasi controlled state firm called Robotron. They were, at the time, among the main East Bloc makers of mainframes and even a few PCs. The other notable firm was called Elbrus (located in Russia). Putin was apparently fascinated with wireless technology and ran ops to have operatives go and pick the brains of Western computer and telco industry people attending conferences in Europe. Doing this, it appears he was able to steal IP from the likes of IBM, AT&T, Nortel, the old DSC, Telllabs, DEC, and even newer companies (newer, at the time) such as Compaq, Dell, Sun, Cisco and 3COM. I wonder what happened with all that IP? And I wonder how it might have a bearing on the wave of "joint ventures" (most of which proved to be financial busts) between Western hi tech firms and "former" Soviet state run companies, during the 1990s.

[GOP_1900AD]

LOL!!

[spanalot]

Any chance of getting a translation for the "flapper" photo

[strategofr]

Interesting. What does "IP" mean? I know it as Internet Protocol, but it seems like you are using it differently.

Russian spying on the US & Britain is back up to Cold War levels. Russian arms sales are huge, and I'm sure the bulk of it is stolen technology. They are master thieves.

[mym]

The inscription below the upper picture says: "Be sharp-eyed and vigilant".

The inscription below the lower picture is a poetry written in old Russian style (probably by Russian emigrant). In the poetry Dzerzhinsky says that he is a bloodthirsty psychopat ready to kill everybody in the name of Bolshevik revolution.

[spanalot]

Thankyou and the text is appropriate to the cartoon.

I wonder why the fashionable western ladies?

[REactor]

I wonder why the fashionable western ladies?

Oh, come on. Do you think that women's fashion 1920's in Russia's big cities was any different from that in the West? The cartoon is evidently from the period of NEP. This may be some fashionable lady from Moscow or ST.Petersburg. I guess that the author of this cartoon imagined that she might have been forced to kill her lover or husband to save her life, or something equally horrible. Have you read Orwell's 1984?

Under the spreading chestnut tree
I sold you
and you sold me

The cartoon is a scene from Hell, and Felix is a Satan.

[nw_arizona_granny]

Ping.

Bump to Tailgunner Joe, thanks.