One of the root causes of the current Ukrainian crisis

 One of the root causes of the current Ukrainian crisis lies mainly with Josef Stalin and his forced creation of collective farms. Millions of Ukrainians died. No successive soviet governments or Russian leaders apologized for it. Instead of the rhetoric President Putin should apologize for it and see the results.

In spite of "holodomor"  more than 4.5 million Ukrainians joined the red army to fight Nazis. Quarter million Ukrainians (including Jewish Ukrainians) fought as partisans against the invading Nazi army. Only small number of Ukrainians fought alongside the Nazis.

Please click here.

Holodomor:

Russians are coming

 

(Yalta conference in Crimea between Churchil, Rooswelt and Stalin 1945)

There are so many Russians and Eastern Europeans living in the Walthamstow area that they have their own shops. It's good for me because I like to eat pelmeni, Chebureki (that's Georgian by the way) , beef stroganoff   and all that. In fact, we went last Saturday to Walthamstow market and had some food from one of the Lithuanian cafés there.

I have a lot of friends from former the Soviet bloc countries. Russians, Ukrainians, Georgians, Polish, Romanians and many others. Which side am I on this worrying discussion about a war in Europe? I really can't take a side. I may antagonise someone somewhere. But my problem is I can't really keep quiet either.

As we can see clearly, western powers armed the Ukrainian army during the covid period. It is obvious. Ukranian army was awfully inadequate with training and weapons when the country was divided and the  Donbass region claimed independence from Ukraine. Now the situation has changed, and the much improved Ukrainian army is ready to take on the separatists. Quite rightly so. After all it is their country, and they have every right to unite it. 

But is it that simple? Russia vehemently opposes to Ukraine joining the NATO. And it is dangerous to them. Remember, it was the Western powers and NATO who broke the promise not to expand the NATO eastwards when Soviet Union collapsed. They cheated on Gorbachev and Yeltsin. But Putin was in for a different game. Don't forget that NATO immediately went into Balkan republics and then tried to go to Georgia too. The result was Georgia being broken into two pieces.  I am not saying what Russia did was correct.  I am just saying NATO expanding eastwards did not bring desired results. Instead, it created more chaos.

What about Crimea? I have a different opinion here. We know that Crimea belonged to the Russian empire for about 300 years. They took Crimea from the Turkish Ottoman empire around 1774. Before that it was occupied by Mongols. Before that it belonged to Kievan Russ and even before that to the Roman empire.  Then in 1921 it became the Crimean Soviet Socialist Republic. Afterwards it became just a province under the Russian Soviet Republic. Do you remember Nikita Kruchsev, Former Soviet president who nearly started a war with the USA because of Cuba? Krushev, who worked more time in Ukraine in his early years, somewhat illegally gave the province to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist republic, up until a couple of years ago Russia annexed it again,  under President Putin's command.

I am really not against that, perhaps because the majority of Russians living there have allegiance to Russia anyway. In recent history it was under Russia as well.

But Russia or Putin should not mess with the Donbass region. If Ukrainians want to take it back by defeating separatists, that's their right. President Putin should not mess with that. At the same time, NATO should stop here. They should not encircle Russia with Ukraine. Who likes their enemy in their backyard? Certainly, NATO is behaving more like an enemy rather than a friend or partner. Russia can easily be a partner if old warmonger generals of NATO take a step back.

They don't. Hence the problem. Both Putin and NATO generals do not want to give an inch. Now are we facing a long and painful war in Europe? Perhaps. 

Then there is this big elephant in the room. Russian gas.

- Ajith Dharmakeerthi 

Train Passing the Lee Valley Bridge , Chingford Line

Train Passing the Lee Valley Bridge , Chingford Line

Sunday Walk

Someone tried Fundamental Atomic Property To Turn Matter Invisible

 

A new study confirms that as atoms are chilled and squeezed to extremes, their ability to scatter light is suppressed.

How Ultracold, Superdense Atoms Become Invisible

A new study confirms that as atoms are chilled and squeezed to extremes, their ability to scatter light is suppressed.

An atom’s electrons are arranged in energy shells. Like concertgoers in an arena, each electron occupies a single chair and cannot drop to a lower tier if all its chairs are occupied. This fundamental property of atomic physics is known as the Pauli exclusion principle, and it explains the shell structure of atoms, the diversity of the periodic table of elements, and the stability of the material universe.

Now, MIT physicists have observed the Pauli exclusion principle, or Pauli blocking, in a completely new way: They’ve found that the effect can suppress how a cloud of atoms scatters light.

Normally, when photons of light penetrate a cloud of atoms, the photons and atoms can ping off each other like billiard balls, scattering light in every direction to radiate light, and thus make the cloud visible. However, the MIT team observed that when atoms are supercooled and ultrasqueezed, the Pauli effect kicks in and the particles effectively have less room to scatter light. The photons instead stream through, without being scattered.

MIT Physicists Use Fundamental Atomic Property To Turn Matter Invisible

An evening to remember

 

An evening to remember

It was an evening to remember for a long time. It also showed what’s the friendships are about. I am going to write a long blogpost but I cannot help but write this for now.  It was the evening to introduce my book that published in September 2019. After this long Covid pandemic time,  only yesterday I could introduce the book to London.

 There were some problems I could not foresee. Even I wondered that 13thof November may be such a bad day as they say superstitiously. It changed however; things start moving. First of all, my long time Saroj (Who studied in Kiev) came to conduct the event as promised bringing with him Fish curry prepared by Gayani and Sumudu. They could not come due to family emergency in Sri Lanka.  But they made sure that I received the curry. Nandana and Yamuna kindly gave him a lift as his car was not available. Yamuna, made sure the hall is warmed and lighting arrangements work with Rohitha who studied also in Kiev those days. Ines, my kind-hearted wife made all the food arrangements with the help from Sheela, who brought a parrippu (that’s dhal in Sinhalese) all the way from West London.  To tell the truth without Ines’s help all this I could not have done all this.  Kumara who studied in Kiev came with Rohitha, Dhammika and Bandula.  It may seem like a “Kiev Affair” with their contribution but I assure this is a Moscow Affair. Kumara supported the laptop operations with the projector and kindly videoed the event.  

Everyone pulled their own chairs leaving me the hardest bits. To run the vent. And my friends came from places afar. Athula , who studied in Moscow friendship university came all the way from Wolverhampton with a bottle of Champagne (French one, not the Soviet Champagne, but sweet taste was there) He contributed to the event with his readings from the pages of the book and his valuable memories of those times. Subodha came to participate the event from Brentwood, Essex.   Asha S who studied in Moscow State University, Vipuli, a product of Peradeniya, my famous blogger friend Marcus Priyantha read pages form the book and shared their thoughts. Marcus’s speech was particularly interesting and he had sharp insight into the affairs of the then Soviet Union and Russia. Vijitha Gunaratna, the famous dramatist joined the discussion from Sweden with his valuable input.  Nuwan Jay also joined the discussion bringing the examples from films. We were discussing usng Sinhala and English lanaguages so Ines could participate in the discussion too.

Ayumini and Nissanka Wikramaratne, a father and daughter duo contributed with number of amazing songs. I have to mention Ayumini’s mother Indu was helping to prepare the music and event last few weeks.   Delani made a nice Biryani for all of us, although she could not come, Asha made the raita for it,   Ines made a really tasty salad to complement it. Thanks to all of you, the evening was a success. Vajira and Krishanthi gave us the containers to keep food warm.

All in all, the evening well with Champagne and smooth Beluga Vodka to finish the event as the tradition. Thank you to my friend from Moscow Leonid Ponkratenko for the Vodka.  I should mention Bandula’s real Havana cigars he brought all the way from Cuba. We made good use of them for the after party at my house.  Some of us met at our house for the after party and you can see that from the picture.

Thank you all for attending and also from those who congratulated, contributed and gave the encouragement. I felt I really have friends and family. What more Do you want. What more Do I need.  

p.s - When Athul was talking he reminded me when we first met. Our mutual friend Sudath was the Sports Secretary when I was the general Secretary of the student union of state univercities. One of the first things we organised was a cricket match with Lumumba University. We lost. But Athula forgot one crucial detal. We, state univercities team lost every single cricket match we played after that.

Ajith 

Train passing Brimsdown Station towards Stansted Airport.

Express train to Stansted Airport , It does not stop in Brimsdown. Only slowtraisn stops. 

House Boat in River Lee

taken while cycling along the river Lee on 13th fo August.