Enemy At The Gates (2001)

Recently I was chatting with a friend about about Russia and the second world war,when the matter arrived to the great battles of Stalingrad and Leningrad together with the recent documentary ,that I watched, named Blocada, he mentioned Enemy at the gates.

The movie is fantastic! wonderful! great! A must see for everyone!. I loved it.
During the end, the comissar's words were very meaningful,not exactly his words but as i recall he said: we wanted to create an equal society that no one envies the neighbor but there is always something to envy some are rich in love/gifts some are poor in love/gifts .

Anyway, the movie is about the story of great Russian sniper Vasily Grigoryevich Zaytsev and here is the IMDB link.

Night Watch & Day Watch

The movies Night Watch(Nochnoy dozor 2004) and Day Watch(Dnevnoy dozor 2006) are two movies based on the Night Watch Triology. I liked Night watch more than the night watch but both were very good.

IMBD info for Night watch says "This film broke all records in Russia and became the #1 box-office movie of all time. The record was broken the following year by the Russian movie Turetskiy gambit (2005)"

rapidshare links of both movies can be obtained from foriegnmoviesddl .

Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears (1980)

This Oscar awarded movie is a fun and light watch. Movies with very similar subject also appeared in Turkish cinema in the 70s.This time two poor girls fake themselves and pretend to be rich to find wealthy husbands but the plan does not work as expected.

Can be downloaded from foriegnmoviesddl.

Memories of First Ambassadors of Turkey and USSR to Each Other

I found two nice books,first one is Moskova Hatiralari by General Ali Fuat Cebesoy, the first ambassador of new born Turkish Republic to USSR and the second one is Bir Sovyet Diplomatinin Turkiye Anilari by Semyon Ivanovic Aralov who is the first ambassador of USSR to Turkey.

In fact he is the second ambassador but since his predecessor was on duty for a very short time many sources consider Aralov as the first.

Although Cebesoy's book title is "Moskova Anilari" there is nothing about Moscow in the book he did not mentioned anything about the political,economical or social issues of Moscow.In fact half of the book is for the events before he is assinged ti Moscow and one fourth of the book is on Enver Pasa.The rest is his policital strugge with Cicerin and Karahan to get the promised money and arms.

Aralov books deals mainly with daily politics during his time in Ankara.He mentiones his relationships with Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Ismet Inonu,Rauf Orbay, Refet Bele,Kazim Karabekir.He has great respect and belief in Ataturk. He did not have chance to meet Ismet Inonu for a long time but gives a positive opinion and impression on him. For the other Turkish generals Rauf,Refet and Karabekir he says bitter this, he claims these men cooperate with counter-revolutionists, the hodjas, even the English and French.

Inside Chernobyl's Sarcophagus

I found this documentary here,on docuwiki again.
The documentary named "The Battle of Chernobly" mentioled that a huge construction was built upon the 4th reactor of Chernobly nuclear power plant to prevent radioactivity spread around and this documentary is the visit and investigaion of Soviet Scientists inside tne Sarcophagus to see the current situation which is considered as nearly suicide due to high radiation.

New magazine found: Russia Profile

I thought Russian Life was the only international English language magazine on Russia but i was wrong .

It seems Russia Profile is another magazine on Russia.In their own words: "RUSSIA PROFILE is an English-language information service offering expert analysis of Russian politics, economics, society and culture."

The Battle of Chernobyl

This award winning documentary tells us about the great disaster in Chernobly nuclear power plant and the efforts of Russian authorities after the disaster. The documentary contains interviews with top-level responsible people of the era including Gorbachev and top-level army generals. The efforts to build prevent effects of radiation and of course the effects on people.

A definite must-watch for people who are supporting nuclear technology to see how dangerous and deadly can it be.
see also: http://www.chernobyl-project.com/

Amen (2002)

I remember seeing ads and articles about this movie on press when it was first released but I did not show interest in it at that time since I was fed up with tons of Nazi and WWII movies.

During my visit to Bucharest I visited Causescu's huge palace where there were some religions paitings [I reall Annucuation of Magi clearly but the others were also of the same theme]
and our tour guide said that these paintings on the walls remain from the film Amen. Since the movie did not get permission to shoot scenes in Vatican, the choose this place to create the same atmosphere.

Anyway the movie is about a scientist in SS army which contacts Vatican and informs them about the mass murders of Jews but Vatican acts politically as always and turns him down...

Arktika: The Russian Dream That Failed

This documentary is one eppisode from news world's The Nature of Things series.
The documentary explores the soviet aims to build a great industrialized city on the Arktik-North Pole to benefit rich resources in the region.
It is infact somewhat achieved, once 2million people worked and lived there.
Today these zones are left to their destinites.The documentary also expores the pollition generated by nuclear wastes and remains of nuclear submarines in the nearby ports.
Yet another sad story of soviet high aims,maybe even achieved at high costs of thoudand's lifes and now abandoned...

This wikipedia link is on Arktika class nuclear icebreaker developed in correndespondence with the same project

Russia's war: Blood upon the snow

Yet another great documentary that i found on docuwiki.net. The 10 episode documentary has extremely rich visual contents. It contains both Nazi and Soviet shooting, shocking scenes of brutality, mass murders, famines...crimes against humanity from both sides are displayed in many videos,photos and interviews with victims and survivors.

I strongly recommend this one to everyone interested in history, especially in WWII history, sieges of Leningrad(now St.Petersburg) and Stalingrad(now Volvograd).

Prof.Volkogonov is the historical advisor.

Here are the IMDB, amazon.com and docuwiki links.