United/Divided

Ptichka,

I've always loved reading anything about the Romanovs, and especially Nicholas II and his family. I've been very disappointed with the documentaries that have been made concerning them. He is either depicted as a total villain or a saint....neither is the truth. But, I will never understand the senseless and brutal slaying of his children. They, unlike their parents, were completely innocent.

Speaking of confederate Flag..... what about M. Weiss' LP he prepared for Nationals in Atlanta....

The "Soviet" memorabilia, is collected by many Russians and others with "humor", as another poster pointed it out. Some collect it for "collections of the past" sake, not in support of the former. Shacks, I collect it too, in hope that it will "increase in value" or as a "memory of my past".

It was not all that bad "back then", especially for children. Great education, mandatory school trips to museums, theater, ballet, opera, planetariums, zoos, etc.....free athletic programmes if you qualified, sence of a group and a purpose. People did not re-locate like fleas all the time. You lived in the same house with same neigbors for years and formed close ties. You grand parents usually lived in the same city, kids were in close contact with the family's "older generation" and had the benefits of their presence and knowledge. Nobody shoved their elderlies into "retirement homes", families took care of their elderlies.

For many the life had a set routine and was not as hecktic as the "free western world today", which in spite of all the freedom and all the choices, could drive you mad "with all its freedoms and choices". You had your appartment, for example, and yes it was small, and yes you had to wait in line to get one, and yes if you fell in political disfavor it could have been taken away, but you did not have to sit for 20 weekends and read and review all gazillions of "Mortgage Rate" packages and sort through all the "Real Estate" flyers (which you DID NOT asked to be sent to your mail box). People spent their weekends on family stuff - not sorting through tons of junk mail, in frear of "having your PGE bill shoved between the Safeway brochure", and so on.......