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Thursday 24 February 2022

Russian history and Ukranian misery

 

Elizebeth Of Russia (one of the most power full leaders of Russia) 

When you look at the Russian and Ukranina history, one thing is clear. Both nations were born and bread by their Kievan mother. Both nations originated from Kiev.

2000 BC – Nomadic Tribes (kurgans) – Called the Scytheans  were in Russia , Bronze Age Cultures , They were overrun by nomadic tribes

0650 AD - Slavs (many tribes)

0800 AD Vikings from Scandinavia (varangians) rowed up to Russia via Rivers Don, Dnieper and Volga

0862 AD – East Slavs selected Varangian Chief Rurik to be their Prince and he Created a kingdom with the capital city as  Novogorod , Rurikids ruled Russia for 700 years, his people called themselves Rus and named the land after them.

Important part – Rurik’s Successor Oleg (Prince Oleg – 879-912) captured the Kiev making it the capital of the state called Kievan Rus. 

0988 AD - Vladimir the Great (980-1015) converted to Orthodox Christianity (Still Kiev is the capital) (both Ukraine and Russia adopted Christianity)

1040 AD – Yaroslav the Wise (1019 – 1054) -Golden age of Kievan Rus. He conquered new lands. He was credited for codifying the laws.  One of the powerful states of Europe.

1054 AD – kievan Rus disintegrated to princedoms (brothers fought among themselves) 

1223 AD The Mongolian Attack under Genghis Khan, Defeated Kievan Rus kingdoms, retuned back

1237 AD- Mongol Army led by batu Khan overran the Kievan Rus and all the land (Cities of Vladimir, Rostov, Kyazan, Kiev)- Novogorod submitted to Mongols so spared

1242 AD – Alxander Nevsky from Novogorod defeated Teutonic Knights

1253 AD – Mongol King (Tatars) – The Golden Hord ruled Kievan Rus and all the land (Under the “Tatar yoke”)

1283 AD – Nevsky’s son Daniel founded the Grand Principality of Moscow

1313 AD – Tatars converted to Islam under Uzbek Khan

1362 AD – Grand Duchy of Lithuania defeated the Tatars and conquered Kiev as well.

1380 AD At Kulikovo battle s Grand Prince of Moscow Dmitri Donskoi also defeated the Tatars

1453 AD Tatar empire (Golden Hord disintegrated) , Constantinople (Byzntine empire) fell to Turkish Ottoman  Empire

1478 AD – Grand Prince of Moscow annexed Novogorod – Created first Russian State, At 1480 AD Ivan II defeated Tatars once for all.

1547 – First tsar of Russia – Ivan Iv (Ivan the terrible) 1533-1584 . He was defeated by Polish-Lithuanian Empire and Kiev was under the Commonwealth. (Livonian War)

Important- 1572 AD – Raiders from Crimean Khanate (Muslim) raided Moscow.  But Russians defeated them the following year. Cossacks were living in steppes.

1582AD – Cossack led Russians defeated Tatars in Siberia  

1598- Death of Feodorov 1, end of Rurik Dynasty, Boris Godunov Became Tsar

1608 – 1613 AD- No ruler and Russia was in state of anarchy – Polish occupied Moscow, Swedish- Novogorod  , Prince Pozharsky and Kuzma threw out Polish in 4th of November 1612 – Russian unity Day

1613 – Mikhail Romonov – First Tsar Romonov came to the throne. His son Tsar Alexei implemented a new legal code

1649 - Russian peasants (80% of them) became serfs (like slaves – No freedom to travel or choose a master, They were objects belongs to landowners and lords) 

1654 – Important – Ukrainian Zaporizhian Cossacks rebelled against Polish Lithuanian commonwealth and accepted Russian tsar Alexei as their overlord and asked for military support.

1667 – Russia fought under Tsar Alexi with Polish Lithuanian commonwealth for 13 years. Russia won and annexed Smolensk and Eastern Ukraine.   (Now Donbas)

1686 – Russia joined Holy War against Ottoman Empire (With England and France)

1688 – Under Queen Sofia – Russia Signed the first treaty with China

Peter the Great


1689 – Peter the I, became the ruler

1700 – War against Tukey was won at sea., Crimea became Russian Enclave and sea port in black sea and Azov Sea (They had only Archangelsk) –by the treaty of Constantinople.

1712- Russia fought together with Poland, Lithuania and Denmark – against dominant power at the time Sweden. (Battle of Poltava), St Petersburg created.

1721- great Northern war ended with Sweden’s defeat. Russia gained Baltic states at Sweden’s expense.  Peter the First became emperor and Peter the Great.

1759 – Russia’s Queen Elizabeth’s army defeated Prussian King Fredrick the Great’s army

1762 – Peter the Third's wife, A German Princess Catherine became the Empress of Russia - Catherine II – Russia defeated Ottoman empire (1768-74), Polish Lithuanian commonwealth collapsed and Russia took the control of Poland until 1918.

1809 – Tsar alexander 1 invaded Sweden and Finland then Finland came under Russia as an Autonomous Grand Duchy

1812 – Napoleon lost to Russia, then together with Britain and Prussia went up to Paris. Alexander became King of Poland

1815 – Russia invaded and occupied Georgia, Chechenia, Dagestan, Armenia, Azerbaijan

1828 Persia (now Iran) lost the war with Russia and lost lot of territory to Russia. Russia liberated Greece from Ottomans.

1854 – Russia defeated Turks in Black Sea, Britain and France declared war against Russia.  (Crimean War) – Russia was halted from further expansion after losing the port of Sevastopol.

1861 – Abolition of Serfdom (Slavery)  

1865- Russia acquired new territory in central Asia – Tajikistan, Kirgizstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan. Russia sold Alaska to America (1867)

1877 – Russia together with Bulgaria Faught with Turks again.  But under international pressure gave independence to many countries including Rumania, Bulgaria and Montenegro.

Lenin


1917 - Ukraine parted from Russian Empire in 1917 and until 1918 was semi-independent under German control. When Keiser fell in 1918 Ukraine became independent, but the power was coming from one rule to another. Eventially independent Ukraine was conquered by bolsheviks and that's how it became a part of the SU. (Maksim Kuzmin)

1917 – With the first world war defeats, February revolution brought end to Tsar’s rule.  Russia was now a republic. In October Bolsheviks took power under Vladimir Lenin after the coup master minded by Leon Trotsky. Under Bolsheviks 15 Soviet republics were created.  Ukrainian Soviet Socialist republic was created with its capital as Kiev.  Ukraine became a country and republic within the Soviet Union.

1954 – 19th of February – Under the Soviet Leader Nikita Khrushchev Presidium of the Supreme Soviet passed a decree transferring the Crimean oblast from Russian Soviet socialist federation to Ukrainian soviet socialist republic.   

Tsar Vladimir Putin the I


2014 (23-24 February) – Under the Tsar Putin 1 (or president Putin) Russian Federation annexed Crimean Peninsula from the Independent Ukraine.

2022 (23-24 February) - Under the directive of Tsar Putin 1 , Russia recognized independence of two republics in  Eastern Ukraine , which were under the  Russian Empire in 1667 very first time.

- Ajith Dharmakeerthi 

Based on this video:



Wednesday 2 February 2022

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:


Monday 24 January 2022

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 





Wednesday 24 November 2021

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.

Sunday 14 November 2021

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 

Saturday 21 August 2021

Sunday 8 August 2021

Zizek did not tell this story in Sri Lanka


Zizek did not tell this story in Sri Lanka

A female teacher went for a coffee latte. Barista told her "Sorry madam, we don't have coffee latte. I can give you a coffee without milk. We don't have milk powder”

But teacher was adamant she wants coffee with powder milk.

"I will bring it to you. Where I can buy it" She asked the barista. 

 

"The shop across the road sells milk powder. But they don't have it." Barista replied.

 

"I am a teacher. I am so tired teaching online since the morning. Can you please give me a coffee without milk then? Anyway, where I can buy a gas cylinder." teacher asked.

 

"The shop next to the shop selling milk powder sells gas cylinders. But they don't sell gas to the teachers. " Barista says.

 

"Why is that? Isn't it illegal!" Angry teacher asked.

 

"Not at all madam, they don't have gas." barista laughed.

 

When the teacher finished her coffee, another teacher called Mr A. Lover took her to a "One night stand in Australia" hotel.

 

The receptionist at the hotel told them there are no rooms because the hotel is surrounded by the ministerial security division.

 

"Why on earth is that" They both screamed together.

 

"Mr Raheliya Kembukwella is practising polygamy" Receptionist replied.

 

When the T- shirts clad CID officials heard that,  they immediately arrested the receptionist and bundled her to an official three wheeler to take her to the police station,  for the grave crime of disclosing a government secret. 


Ajith D

There is a wonderfully dialectical joke in Ernst Lubitsch’s classic comedy Ninotchka: the hero visits a cafeteria and orders coffee without cream; the waiter replies: “I’m sorry, sir, we have no cream. Can it be without milk?” In both cases, the customer gets coffee alone, but this single coffee is each time accompanied by a different negation, first coffee-with-no-cream, then coffee-with-no-milk.

“It's not the same thing: coffee without cream or coffee without milk.
What you don't get is part of the identity of what you get.”

― Slavoj Žižek

Soviet Joke-
"A man walks into a shop. He asks the clerk, "You don't have any meat?" The clerk says, "No, here we don't have any fish. The shop that doesn't have any meat is across the street."

Monday 26 July 2021

Gold digger or Keeper or Russian Affiars

 


There is a new TV series in “All 4” with glamorous Russian actresses and Russian dialog with English subtitles. It is candidly showing off Moscow's social elite. The theme did not change from Soviet days that much except that oligarchs now have more money and new and exclusive homes. At that time Communist party high officials lived with wife in the large flat and lovers in numerous small flats around the suburbs in Moscow. They took their lovers to dachas at the weekend (summer house). Now it’s just changed to large palace like houses owned by nouveau riche oligarchs in subburbs of Moscow and their lovers in Moscow posh flats. Ah yes, rich have a way of dealing with police too. They can get away with murder even.

The name is actually misleading. Russian name for the series is called   sadershanka (содершанка ) , which means the keeper.  German series calls it "Russian Affairs". 

Mistresses wants only the money and easy comfortable life in Moscow that their rich lovers pay generously. And the rich lover will keep their marriage lives intact. This supposed to be a crime thriller by the way.

Director, the script writer and all the cast are Russian and it was filmed in Russia. Why the Russian president Putin allowed such a film series to air in the first place? Perhaps he had enough of the antiques of some oligarchs and "clearing out” operation is on the card? The series depicting the decadent nature of the advanced capitalism to allow president to manoeuvre freely?

waring: You cannot watch it with the family as one can confuse it with an erotic movie.

Gold Diggers 


Saturday 24 July 2021

Bagshaw Cave , Stagalmite creation

We did horizontal caving in Bagshaw cave, Peak district, 2021 July.

We found this water dropping.

-A stagalmite is an upward-growing mound of mineral deposits that have precipated frm water dripping on to the fllor of a case. -(Copied from google)

So about 1000 years from now on there will be a stagalmite here.

Stagalmites are typically composed of calcium carbonate, perhaps also with lava, mud, peat, pitch, sand, sinter or amberat.

Sunday 20 June 2021

My Father's day


Today my lovely daughters 

gave me a father's day gift with flowers

with hugging and kissing

they are making a cake with my wife

she bought me flowers and Champagne

she is doing schichtkraut for lunch

It's a German affair



This father's day

I remember my poor father

There were no father's day

I have no idea 

how he raised us 

on his meagre allowance 

When we passed exams,

doing well at school, and out

That's his father's day

he left us early, at 62

My Mother was younger

 than what I am now

I can't imagine, because

I think I am still young

at least at heart at 56

I can't imagine how lonely for her

how sad its for her

I can promise you,

dear  father

We will look after

Love of your life

For the rest of our lives

The least we can do

For all you did for us

your four children

only treasure you left


 


Thursday 3 June 2021

A & E visit to a NHS hospital



I had my second Astra Zeneca jab recently.  About week and half ago, my head started constantly aching. I took paracetamol (Panadol) 3 times a day to ease the pain. To make matters worse, my blood pressure started going up as well. By Thursday and Friday, it had gotten much worse and I called the GP. They advised me to call the NHS using their 111 service, who in turn told me to see the GP. On Tuesday, I called GP again and the doctor advised me to go to the nearest A&E in order to get a blood test done now that I had taken the vaccine. This was to check D-Dimer levels in the blood to rule out possibility of serious blood clots forming.
I didn't want to stay in A&E for seven, eight hours with Covid-19 around so I asked the GP to write a letter to give to my Private Healthcare Provider so I could go private. She agreed but insisted that, because private hospitals may take a day to arrange an appointment, using the NHS A&E was better. I decided to adhere to her advice and my wife dropped me at the North Middlesex hospital's A&E at around 1:00pm.

There were only 3 people in the queue to the receptionist, and within 5 minutes I was directed to a waiting hall. There were about 30-40 people in there and 5 or 6 rooms with specialist nurses who were trained, like doctors, to do the initial check ups. It took only 15-20 minutes for them to call my name. The nurse checked my blood pressure and sugar level, asked some questions and decided I should see a doctor. 4-5 minutes later I was called to a phlebotomist to have a blood sample taken for the tests. 

I was later moved to the bigger waiting room on the other side and told to wait for the doctor's call. About 30 minutes later, a Doctor Riva came and asked me to come to the patient room. She checked few details with me, did some testing and assured me that I did not have a problem, despite the high blood pressure and headaches. It might have been migraine but she was going to consult with a specialist and then come back to me. In any case, I had to wait for the blood test results as well.

After about 10 minutes, she returned and told me that the consultant agreed with her. She apologised for the delay in getting the blood test results. "We're a bit busy," she said. There were about 50 people in the waiting room. 

I was told that if I wanted to go home, she could call me with the results and that if they were bad I could come back to the hospital. At around 4:00pm I was on my way home and received the call from Dr Riva, who told me the D-Dimer test results were good and that I was in range.

Amazingly, the whole process took only 3 hours. A courteous, efficient care and service by the NHS. 

Well done. 



Sunday 21 March 2021

The Quarantanians

It's already the 8th day of the quarantine period. One can walk up to 300 meters to the left side, then 250 meters to the right side and hit the walls and security. Then one can walk up to 300 meters to the front, there is the beach. You can walk 150 meters up and down the beach but not allowed to go beyond the yellow line. You can come back and walk by the swimming pool, climb up the staircase about 20 meters to the upper floor rooms. That's about it.
Once a busy hotel, but now the place is almost empty apart from package tourists from Kazakhstan or China and us quarantenians. No Germans, No Brits, No Russians. At times silence is deafening. There are only 2 police officers and around 10 private security personnel. You know that there is a world outside these walls, from the facebook 😏. It's more like Soviet Union or East Germany but in a smaller scale. Anyway, the point is, you can get used to the situation and accept it as new normal. Then someone asked what about North Korea. Immediate reply was "oh there are Government run hotels". I hope second dose of the vaccine will make the difference. There you go. Happy quarantine day.

Saturday 6 February 2021

I was given a Vaccine, I posted in facebook

I was given the Astra Zeneca Vaccine and  I posted it in facebook. I said thank you to NHS. It riled some people. 

One reason I posted in here that, I was given the vaccine against the Corvid 19 is this, I was talking to a young man about 24 years of age and who is still believing in fairies. I seriously thought he is one of Peter pan’s long-lost sons. He told me that vaccine has a small chip that is very difficult to detect. Through that chip government can dictate to us what we should do. We will be fed wrong information. I told him that’s already happening through YouTube, face book, twitter and other media anyway. They don’t need a chip to insert.

Then he said they can control us and we will become robots. So, I asked him, are we going to walk like Robots as well? To that he has no reply.
And I found out that his whole family, mother, fathers, sister, aunt, uncle , gran and all of them think vaccine is not needed. Face mask is BS and whole coronavirus saga is a lie.
Well, I asked them what about the deaths?
They asked me, have you seen them? I said no.
“Well, there you go. No one saw these deaths. All these numbers are media lies. Hospitals are empty.”
You know what, first time in my life I stopped arguing. Because I was laughing so hard I forgot to argue.

--It is not me who wrote this false story. _ RobotR2D2XYZ0101010122£$%

Saturday 30 January 2021

East German simple food - Schichtkraut aus der DDR

These days, Ines enjoys testing different types of food recipes on the family. I call them Lockdown Recipes. Yesterday she tried out a recipe we’ve never had before. She told me that it was an easy old GDR recipe (GDR standing for German Democratic Republic, or the former East Germany, as it is better known).

Apparently, it is called ‘Schichtkraut’. It’s pronounced ‘Shiçt-kr-out’* (see below) but for the sake of convenience I omitted the ç. I was lucky Ines didn’t throw the spoon at me.


What I like about this simple recipe is that it only has 3 main ingredients: minced meat, cabbage and sliced potatoes. Ines added goat’s cheese on top, as well as cumin and other spices, and then put it into the oven for half an hour. And that’s it.

I call it 2 in 1 food because you can drink the sauce afterwards as if it were a nice cabbage soup. My stomach has very high acid levels, so this dish is ideal for me. It’s not very heavy on the stomach, and the cabbage and cumin make it easier to digest.

Try it if you’re interested.


*The ç is pronounced like the hissing sound between the ‘h’ and ‘yoo’ sounds of the 1st pronunciation of the word ‘huge’. It’s difficult to learn, so can be substituted for a ‘k’ or ‘sh’ sound instead.




Thursday 3 December 2020

Cuba and the cold, hard truth - Cuba and the Cameraman

Cuban Houses
Recently, a friend of mine helped me reconnect with a four of my old friends who studied with me in the USSR through Facebook - another good reason to keep my Facebook account anyway. They were from Cuba, and Mr Rathnapala, the friend who helped me, was also working in Cuba at the time.

They still have these carts like in Eastern Europe

I have always had a soft spot for Cuba. It is partly because of the Cuban Revolution and its charismatic leaders: Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. In our youth, we had somewhat romanticised that revolution and its leaders. In somewhat of a pure ideological dream-world, we assumed Cuba was a socialist paradise, and that the USSR was a socialist heaven. To my utter surprise, some Labour party members in the UK also regarded Cuba as a model socialist country. 

Few years back, some even said they wanted to move to Cuba, and some still say that today. I think to myself, 'would you really enjoy living there when the mass media shows you how much they still don't have? I mean not only the freedom to chose your rulers, but comfortable life in the West. What's wrong with life in UK? Yes, it's a capitalist country but you still have the NHS as a free healthcare facility. If you don't have a job you are given government benefits. There are problems but housing is still decent.'

Although I have never been to Cuba, I studied in the socialist USSR during the '80s. I soon realised that it was no heaven, nonetheless we loved the Soviet Union in our own way. We enjoyed the hospitality of the Soviets and appreciated the free education given to us. It was a unique country. Coming from the island of Sri Lanka, it opened our eyes to the world. 

Living in the UK gave us the chance to progress and earn money. It was same for most of the other foreign  graduates who ended up in western countries like the USA, Australia, New-Zealand,  Canada and EU. They have now built new lives in these countries and settled in nicely. Some studied further and became educationalists, scientists and specialists in their respective fields. They used the opportunities they were given in the western world. But the nostalgia and yearning for the socialist USSR still exists among them.

I always wondered what happened to my Cuban friends. They played football and never forgot to call me even in the mid winter. Russian winter was very harsh, yet we played our football.  I have only found Uday, Osvaldo, Ariel and Rubén. Most of my other friends emigrated from Cuba to greener pastures. I can't blame them. Uday and Ariel live in Cuba and are happy there. Uday lives with his family. Osvaldo is working in Tenerife, and Ruben is in Argentina. Ariel, now a director in an Electrical firm, told me that life in Cuba after Soviet Union collapsed was very hard. I knew it was hard for the Cuban government because economic aid from the Soviet Union was invaluable to them. They also gave other types of aid in the form of cheap oil, military alliance, and support with the Cuban industry. All of this stopped after the collapse of the Socialist Bloc. It was a very hard time, and the existing US embargo against Cuba since the '60s did not help either. 

However, there have always been two opposing opinions on Cuba. The Socialists would say that Cuba had been developing fast, and that all would be well if the US embargo were lifted. And then there were those who condemned Cuba to be a third world banana republic. Although, as we all know now, Cuba has made lot of headways in their tourism and health sectors. Where is the unbiased truth? 



I watched a brilliant documentary very recently. Apparently, Fidel Castro never attacked the American people, however he always criticized American Foreign policy. He valued American achievement in science and other fields, never condemned it, and this documentary proved that. But when Castro flew to United states to deliver his speech in United Nation's headquarters, American immigration treated him very shabbily. They did not offer him any diplomatic courtesy. Castro accepted it with a smile on his face. 

The film was written, directed and produced by John Alpert. He visited Cuba in 

the 1970s. He was interested in Cuban history and its politics. The best days for Cuba were during the '70s and '80s; although there were shortages, generally life was good. Shortly after 1992, however, Cuba spiralled into an economic downturn when the Soviet Bloc collapsed. John documented this very sensitive time for Cubans with compassion and understanding. He didn't judge them when he met a family desperate enough to raid their neighbour's farm and steal the only 2 cows the farmer owned. Throughout many decades, he visited the same families over and over again. Some of them, he found out, left Cuba altogether after some years, like most of my friends had, who had studied with me in Moscow.

 Osvaldo goes back to his village in Cuba from Tenerife and happy to be back in his homeland. But Osvaldo and Uday have very different opinions. Osvaldo believes that Cuba needs a multi-party system. Uday supports the status quo, although he accepts it has its own problems. Uday said "Cuba is a good place to live, but really our economical system isn't working properly. We have to change many things in our economic system, but we can do it with one party. There are many reasons why our economic system does not work properly, but if we think just having multi party system would  fix everything, then we are wrong."

 And who doesn't? Look at the USA's very own Trump: he is not even leaving his post. Look at countries like Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan, who all have their multi-party systems but with corrupt politicians. However, I must say the Western world still doing much better economically than anywhere else.

John Alpert shows with his own excellent narration how Cuba lost their socialist zeal, and how it was tourism that finally saved Cuba. They may have stopped proselytising Socialism but countries like Venezuela still give them chap oil while having economic crisis of their own. Raul Castro slowly changing the Cuban economy. People can engage in limited trade activities, own their houses  and offer services in a limited scale.

I think Cuban socialism has failed, and that they must change their economic policies. There is no other way for them. We must accept the cold, hard truth, even if it is difficult. This is what John's film "Cuba and the Cameraman" showed me. 

I did not understand the scale of Cuba's deterioration after the collapse of Socialist Block until I saw this film.


Pictures were taken from Osvaldo Oliva. 


Photo taken at Moscow Power Engineering Technical University in 1985 or 1986. Front row Ruben and Uday, Behind them were Huertas, Jorge Benitez and Badia. In the background Omar Pino.

Director John Alpert on Making the Documentary