mariahaas

The Disaster at Chernobyl

Chernobyl, Ukraine was once home to four Soviet nuclear reactors. The key word here is “was.” In the early morning of April 26th, 1986 there was an explosion inside the fourth reactor that led to massive amounts of radiation being released … Continue reading

An End to Russia’s Stalin’ Economy?

During Nikita Khrushchev’s famous secret speech to Congress in 1956 he made several things very clear, the most significant of course being that Stalin was the root of all of the USSR’s problems. The main effort of his “de-Stalinization” policy was to essentially erase Stalin from the memory of the USSR by eradicating his name […]

Sputnik

Picture the scene. The year is 1957. The world is still recovering from the most brutal war in history. Millions of people were killed and the whole of Europe was decimated both economically and militarily. We, the US, are now the leading western power charged with cleaning up the whole mess. But the USSR, who was […]

The Red Army

After the 1917 Russian Revolution the Imperial Russian Army was disinigrated and the Soviet government was left without a strong defence. The solution was rolled out on January 15, 1918 when the Worker-Peasant Red Army was formed. This proved to also be an inadequate means of protection due to the lack of training and incompetence […]

The Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905)

The Cause of War: In what was known as the “Triple Intervention” Russia, Germany, and France had forbidden the victorious Japan from occupying any parts of Manchuria after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895. In 1898, however, Russia entered an agreement with China which allowed them access to Port Arthur in southern Manchuria. Not only was […]

The Weapons Cabinet

Founded in 1754, Zlatoust became “a center of finished metal production, including armaments.” Metal work was so important in the town that in 1825 Pavel Petrovich Anosov built a weaponry museum dedicated to the armaments made in Zlatoust. Anosov was also the director of the “thriving” factory in Zlatoust from 1831 to 1847. Years later in […]