“Lenin Lived, Lenin Lives, Lenin Will Live”: Lenin Statues 100 Years After Russian Revolution
Uglich, 200 kilometers (124 miles) north-east of Moscow, Russia
Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo
His party’s power is long gone, his ideas mostly discredited – but Vladimir Lenin’s visage remains a fixture in much of the former Soviet Union. The thousands of statues of him spread across the vast region bring to mind poet Vladimir Mayakovsky’s ringing line of devotion: “Lenin lived, Lenin lives, Lenin will live”.
The past tense applies to many of the statues. They were torn down and pulverized by angry mobs, as happened in Kiev during the wave of protests in 2013-14, or methodically demounted by local authorities. Continue reading »
A Match Made In Heaven: This Chinese Couple Have Lived In A Cave For 54 Years
A loving couple in southwest China who have lived in a cave for 54 years have been called “a match made in heaven” by residents in the area, a mainland newspaper reports. Li Suying, now 77, married a then village cadre Liang Zifu, who is now 81, in Nanchong prefecture, Sichuan province 57 years ago. The couple moved into the natural cave three years into their marriage and have never left. Continue reading »
