Hanging out with Regis and Tanya
I planned my stay in Crimea, and specifically the city of Yalta for two weeks. That’s because I have a good friend, Regis Tremblay, an American documentary film maker, podcaster and dedicated truthteller and peace activist.
In 2015, I visited Sevastopol and stayed at a hostel. In 2016, Regis met the same couple who owned the hostel. I watched his documentary, Thirty Seconds to Midnight, where he interviewed them. They explained how the coup regime threatened the people of Crimea, and they responded by organizing the vote to quit Ukraine, which had always treated them as second class citizens, and rejoin Russia. You were told that Russia occupied Crimea unprovoked. Another lie.
Regis and I also have a connection in that he trained as a Catholic Priest, while I trained as a Buddhist monk. So early in life, we both had a spiritual foundation.
Regis and his wife, Tanya.
Trip to ‘the Castle’
Next stop on the journey was when Tanya took us on a trip to an old mansion. It had been abandoned when the Soviet Union fell but was restored when Crimea became part of Russia again, by a wealthy patron. It has small gatherings and conferences. Unfortunately, my poor knowledge of Russian prevented me from understanding a talk given by a prominent and talented artist.
Following her talk, there was a small reception where they served wine, various cheeses, pastries, sweets, and so on. Most people don’t speak English and my Russian is negligible. However, I had an interesting talk with one lady there, probably about my age. She told me—and I have had this experience numerous times in my travels in Russia—that the Soviet Union time was the best time of her life.
This is the same thing I have heard from many of my Russian friends who lived during that time. Of course not everyone agrees. Some people hate the Soviet Union, on the other hand, a fair number of Russians demonize Russia itself as a country and as a civilization. However, too many that I met spoke highly of its education system, free healthcare, opportunity for career advancement, equality of women and minorities, and national pride.
The Trip to Mriya—A Very Fancy Resort and Amusement Park
Following a Zen meditation workshop I did at a home for disabled young adults, the administrator gave us tickets to Mriya, which means ‘Dream’ in the Ukrainian language. I’ll write and show videos of my meditation workshops in another article.
Anyway, Mriya is a large and very impressive resort, I hear that it costs $1000 for a stay in one of the high end cabins. Tanya ‘challenged me’ to ride on one of the kids’ amusements. A sort of roller coaster where we sat in a coach, strapped in, which both rotated, went up and down and side to side. I quickly got ‘car sick’ but fortunately the ride didn’t last too long. I was nauseated for two days afterwards. I guess I am not a kid anymore.
After the kids’ amusements, Tanya showed me some other areas which are quite attractive and delightful.
Beautiful path through some woods
A famous Japanese garden designer created these gardens
Meditating in a Japanese Garden
A Zendo—Zen Meditation Hall
Traditional Zen Meditation Hall, “Zendo”, has wooden floors and raised platforms to sit on. You can see the meditation mats and sitting cushions in the upper right. However, the room seems to be used more for yoga.
Nadezhda, the Yoga teacher, is from St. Petersburg, and is working for now at Mriya in Southwest Russia, Crimea. We talked for awhile using our mobile phone translation app. Turns out that she has also practiced Vipassana, Goenka style. Anyone who does a Goenka retreat gets my respect. We arranged to meet the next day while Regis and friends were doing a wine tasting. She asked a lot of good questions and tells me that there is a lot of interest in yoga and meditation in Russia.
The final few days in Russia bore that.
Livadia Palace Visit with Regis
Livadia Palace is historically significant for two main reasons. First, it was the summer palace for the Tsars. Regis and I didn’t go into the palace but instead walked around the grounds. It’s easy to get to by bus from his house, on a long winding road.
The grounds are beautiful and very well kept. Both kids and grownups spend time there. Kids play hopscotch or playing cards.
Boys everywhere like playing with trading cards
“Emperor of Russia, Alexander III”
A view of the palace
The View typical of a beautiful Russian Orthodox Church on the Palace Grounds
The second main historical significance of Livadia Palace was the February 1945 meeting between ‘The Big Three’, Churchill (Left) Roosevelt (Center) and Stalin (Right). It’s pretty well documented that Roosevelt and Stalin got along rather well….during WWII, he was referred to as “Uncle Joe”.
courtesy:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/754427714964136/posts/1161388277601409/
Return to the Promenade
The next day, I went back for a return trip to the Promenade. It’s only about a 30 minute walk from my apartment and I like walking. It was interesting to just see what it’s like for people there…. a lady dancing to a street musician, listening to an anti capitalist blues song about ‘the boss man’…
This was on the outside speaker of a cafe. Here’s another about ‘going to the steel mill in Chicago.’ “I got dirt from Texas underneath my finger nails, and memories of my father riding’ on the rails.”
Meeting President Roosevelt….in Yalta~!
Regis told me about a statue of Franklin Delano Roosevelt on…Roosevelt Street. The only street in Russia named after a US President. I was looking for it, and by asking around, I met a guy on the street. I told him that I’m American and that my President was friends with Stalin! He took me right to the spot.
Was Roosevelt Assassinated?
One of the most disturbing aspects of FDR’s presidency was the fact that he was truly hated by the Oligarch class. I document it in this post:'
There was one assassination attempt in 1933, when an Italian worker fired 4 shots, missing FDR but killing the mayor of Chicago. Then there was the Business Plot of 1934, when the same gang of ‘captains of industry’, including Prescott Bush, the founder of the Bush dynasty of two Bush presidents, tried a military coup. Fortunately, Marine Hero Smedley Butler tipped off the President, but none of the conspirators were tried for treason, the way Stalin tried those who opposed him.
Stalin is criticized in the West for prosecuting traitors. In the West, they become Senators and retain their wealth (financing Nazis, for example as did Prescott Bush).
But the worst case is the possibility or even probability that FDR was poisoned.
Here’s the article citing Fletcher Prouty who also figured in the JFK murder and coverup.
https://rielpolitik.com/2017/05/28/who-killed-franklin-d-roosevelt
/https://rielpolitik.com/2017/05/28/who-killed-franklin-d-roosevelt/
Because Elliott had met Stalin in Tehran with his father in 1943, in late 1946, Gardner Cowless, publisher of LOOK magazine asked him to go to Moscow to interview Stalin.
Roosevelt accepted this offer and did interview Stalin there. At the end of a long interview, he turned to the Generalissimo and asked one more question, “Why is it that my mother has never been permitted to visit Moscow even though she has made three very formal applications for the trip?”
Stalin glared at Elliott and said, “You don’t know why?”
Elliott replied, “No!”
Quickly, Stalin responded, “Don’t you know who killed your father?”
Roosevelt-shocked-answered, “No.”
Stalin rising from his chair, continued, “Well, I’ll tell you why I have not invited her here. As soon as your father died, I asked my ambassador in Washington to go immediately to Georgia with a request to view the body.” Stalin believed that if Gromyko could see the body he would confirm that the cerebral hemorrhage that had caused his death had caused extensive discoloration and distortion.
Elliot responded that he knew nothing about that and then Stalin said, “Your mother refused to permit the lid of the coffin to be opened so that my ambassador could see the body.” Adding “I sent him there three times trying to impress upon your mother that it was very important for him to view the President’s body. She never accepted that. I have never forgiven her.”
This forced Elliott to ask this last question, “…but why?”
Stalin took a few steps around the office, and almost in a rage roared, “They poisoned your father, of course, just as they have tried repeatedly to poison me.”
“They, who are they,” Elliot asked
“The Churchill gang!” Stalin roared, “They poisoned your father, and they continue to try to poison me…the Churchill gang!”
My Editorial Aside
The world had a chance to crush fascism and oligarchic control with the Presidency of Franklin Roosevelt and his heir apparent, Henry Wallace. Wallace was brushed aside, FDR died, and was replaced by Cold Warrior Truman and perveyor of British and Globalist perfidity and genocide, Winston Churchill.
We have wasted over 80 years in imperialist wars because of Roosevelt’s untimely death.
Final Day of the Crimean Adventure
The final day included two events. First was a trip to Balaclava, an historic area that took about an hour by van from Yalta. A group assembled by Tanya got together. We visited an area that included a vista of the historic importance covering centuries of history. Here, Tanya explained 2500 years of history, a memorial to Sardinian troops who died during the 1855 Crimean War, and the scene of the famous poem, the Charge of the Light Brigade by poet Alfred Lord Tennyson. He wrote about the stupidity and venality of British commanders who sent their soldiers into certain death. It was also where the young Leo Tolstoy fought, before writing the world classic War and Peace.
"The British soldier will do his duty, even to certain death, and is not paralyzed by the feeling that he is the victim of some hideous blunder,
The Charge of the Light Brigade
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
II
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Plus the area where the Soviet Union gathered forces to take back the Hero City of Sevastopol, which held out for months before surrending to Nazis in World War II. It took only weeks for the Soviets to recapture the city a year or so later.
A view of Balaclava, and site of a hidden Soviet submarine base and nuclear bomb shelter.
An old fortress going back centuries
Our worldly guide, German, who grew up in the Soviet Union, lived in Italy for 20 years, then England for two years but apparently decided to return to Mother Russia.
Here are his thoughts on life in the Soviet Union, then his life following and now his observations on life in our modern world of propaganda. ‘The Western filters of information are as bad as the Iron Curtain’.
Following this leg of the tour, we went to a winery, where Regis and Tanya led a wine tasting, while Nadezhda, the yoga teacher and I discussed meditation, and the possibility for creating a meditation community in Crimea.
And so ended my two week trip to Crimea.
I took a train ride, 36 hours from Simferopol to Moscow. I shared a 2nd class coach with a Russian mechanical engineer, 62 years old. He was on a business trip to Moscow. So I took the opportunity to ask him his experience as a Soviet person. He didn’t say much, except for some nostalgia about the USSR. He said something to the effect that the Mighty Soviet Union could not be pushed around (an implicit criticism, I would guess, of Russian leadership) which got played by:
Nato promising not to expand east of Germany—a lie
The US coup in Ukraine that put Nazis in charge. And now Zelensky himself honors them by naming a combat brigade after them. That’s too much even for Russophobic Poland which suffered from those same collaborators, Stephan Bandera and his ilk
The Minsk Agreements that promised a peaceful settlement of the Ukraine conflict, but which the then President Poroshenko, German leader Merkel, and French leader Hollande, deliberately breached to arm and fund the Kiev regime, the immediate cause of the Ukraine War
The deliberate sabotage of the Istanbul agreement to end the war quickly in 2022 by Boris Johnson
And now the infamous Anchorage Agreement which now the US admitted it had no intention of following through on
At least for several decades, the Soviet Union acted as a bulwark against Western colonialism, defending the anti apartheid movement, Cuba and many other African and Asian countries such as Korea and Vietnam.
Since the fall of the USSR, the world has been at constant war. And older Russians know this, although as the guide German admitted, young Russians were deliberately lied to about the Soviet Union….not to mention us in the West! The history they have been taught is not objective….nor is the history we in the West are taught, not by a long shot!
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