alt.street To Honor Lenin (in Moscow) . . . A Spy Camera

Lenin (together with Marx) was the founder of Communism, a

totalitarian form of government that in Russia, (here on a street in

Moscow) involved neighbors spying on neighbors). For whatever

reason, there's a closed circuit television camera above this bas

relief memorial plaque to this founder of Communism -- in effect,

a 'spy' camera -- HOW FITTING. Your ratings and critiques are

invited and most welcome. If you rate harshly or very critically,

please submit a helpful and constructive comment, please share your

superior knowledge to help improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy!

John

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

I won't try to interpret the rest of the plaque.

Maybe one of my Russian friends will for us.

Or when I get to the former USSR in a few days' time I'll have someone of my friends do it for me, and if significant, post if here -- my Russian is too rudimentary to attempt it.

I'll probably be shooting with my various Leicas this time around, though I'll be taking my Nikons too. I am interested in the difference in the captures between the smaller rangefinder cameras -- my little jewels (anything with Leica on it is worth a fortune, and any 'fast' Leica lens, or late model Leica camera, well, that's too much). You can easily cram $40,000-$50,000 worth of Leica equipment into an ordinary shoulder bag.

I'll also be giving a workout to Leica's new film/digital back on a reflex body, just to use the wonderful Leica Reflex lenses, as well as using my familiar Nikon equipment.

H C-B had it right about Leicas -- wonderful optics, small size, fit into a small bag and completely concealable, unlike the giant SLRs I carry about. But the SLRs I carry about also generate their own captures (and reactions with those being photographed) so I am not against them either (though my neck and back are).

John (Crosley)

John, I think some times you should leave it to your viewers to notice what is going on within your photos - not always, as we're not all that astute, but, this is proabably an example of where it would have been better. The visual pun I think is instantly recognisable - at least for me, obviously I can't speak for everyone, but I'm fairly sure that a significant proportion of viewers would recognise this as Lenin.

I enjoyed the photo nonetheless.

PS, I didn't realise you were a Leicaphile, I suppose I ought to pay more attention to your equipment listed against the photos - I've never tried a rangefinder, but am told that they are superlative in terms of hand holdability in low light conditions/longer exposures... it all sounds very tempting.

I hope you enjoy the DMR, I'm looking forward to seeing the results you get.

I think half the members of Photo.net will not even know who Lenin is.

I was warned when I went first to Ukraine that 90% of the women I would meet would not know that man had walked on the moon, and it's been almost 50 years. They would know of Yuri Gagarin, though not that he crashed a plane while drunk after talking a guard into giving him the plane and the guard could not refuse because Gagarin was a Hero of the Soviet Union.

You may date yourself, (or reveal your education)

John (Crosley)

I would honestly be surprised if the figure were that small John, but then perhaps I credit the membership with too much knowledge.

I'm not that old, and not that well educated.

I've read everyting Marx ever wrote (as well as Lenin and Engels) but that never made me a Comsymp (Communist Sympathizer) and in fact just the opposite. It was important to know thy enemy.

I've seen first hand, having lived in Russia, even somewhat near this plaque, the havoc that Lenin's and Marx's policies had on the Soviet Union, as well as some of the better parts (the bad parts were killing more people than Hitler by Stalin -- man of steel, he called himself -- hence Stalin.) People would literally 'eat their young' or so to speak, trading in their best friends, neighbors and flatmates as having committed treason by say, listening to the 'Voice of America' and thus be arrested' sent to the Gulags and eventual death, in order to get a larger share of the communal apartment and maybe a whole room for the family.

But on the better part, the Communists brought about education for the masses and pioneered women's rights in a male-dominated society (in part because the men were continually getting killed in wars). So they had women doctors, lawyers, etc., even though males to this day dominate Russian society and barely tolerat highly intelligent women, so the women feel they cannot show their high intelligence, at least many of them (or so many of them tell me, there as well as in sister country, Ukraine).

But I think the Western countries, now that Communism fell in 1991, when many youths were not yet born, have a hard time knowing even who Lenin was, and have a hard time even imagining Communism as hard as that may be to understand for us children of the Cold War (so named by Winston Churchill, if my memory serves me).

My wife (separated and suffering from brain cancer) recalls when she grew up in the Soviet far east, of posters on walls warning of 'duck and cover' -- just as we Americans were warned -- literally telling the Soviet school children (she was born in 1972) of the possible imminency of a nuclear attack by the Americans, even as she was growing up, and even as the Soviet Union was starting to crumble from military overspending. Those were heady times, with full refrigerators, even though the Russians were so poor, compared to now when the supermarkers are full, but few can afford to shop in them (I've seen it firsthand this year - the wealthy shop supermarkets, and the poor eat potatoes).

And the Soviet Union by WHO statistics (and Putin's admission) is losing 770,000 citizens yearly to population decline through bad medical care, endemic diseases, alcoholism, low birth rate, and a litany of other ills and no one to support the pensioner population, not that many live that old (males especially who die at an average now reliably calculated at 59, with much total disability prior to that age).

It's worse in Ukraine, I think, where things are poorer, though the climate is better, because there's no oil boomlet happening or ever going to happen -- though there is Western Investment happening in that agricultural nation comparable to the US Midwest in parts, but which makes very poor use of its great resources. (making it a great target for US and other 'foreign' corporations which can improve yields and sell equipment, seeds, etc.)

But which of today's youth knows of Lenin (Vladimir Ilyich) and can reliably do more than just say his name, if that?

Very few, I'll wager.

Care to take bets?

John

You're probably correct regarding todays youth, but my initial point was about the Photo.Net membership whom are probably not representative of the former group.

Anyhow, no matter, I still think you overegged the intro ;)

University students or graduates all, all laughed at the irony in this photo when they saw it; Lenin, who introduced totalitarianism to Russia/the USSR (which included Ukraine) being watched over with a spy camera . . . always provoked an involuntary gasp or exhalation of recognition.

For a certain number of the world's population -- most of the Eastern Europe -- this photo has a greater significance than can be recognized by the main Photo.net viewership.

It's a 'little' photo with a significant meaning . . . a droll take on the death of Communism.

John (Crosley)