Sometimes I share interesting links and clips I find on the Russian-speaking internet. There are few websites that do it all the time and do it much better than I ever will, but that’s not what I do. While translating the text is easy, reposting it correctly, with pictures and attributing the sources is not. I will leave translation to Google, and while it’s horrible, it’s better than nothing and requires no work other than linking. If you have specific questions on some translated sentences that don’t make sense, I will be happy to help. Otherwise, just enjoy the pictures.

This post is dedicated to the International Chess Day, which happens to be today. Chess were very popular when I was growing up© and having Soviet chess masters dominate the game most of the time didn’t hurt.

This post with tons of photos describes a tour of the National Space Facilities Control and Testing Center where Gagarin used to work. According to the text most of this equipment is now defunct but still impressive. Long time ago I was lucky to be able to visit the famous tracking ship Kosmonaut Yuri Gagarin which was often seen in the port of Odessa, Ukraine during the 70s and 80s.

Lastly, this is a clip from the movie “Above the Rainbow” which came out in 1986 and became a breakthrough musical. Looks and sounds somewhat naive now, but I still remember the first time I saw it.