When the president met the aliens

 

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov is the former "president" of Kalmykia, a territory northwest of the Caspian Sea. Kalmykia is a "republic" within the Russian Federation. It´s the only area geographically located in Europe where a majority of the population (the Mongolian Kalmyks) practice Buddhism, specifically the Geluk sect of Tibetan Buddhism. Ilyumzhinov is also the former president of the World Chess Federation and a succesful businessman (or "oligarch").

Oh, and he claims to have met space aliens...

In 1997, Ilyumzhinov was taken on board a UFO while staying in Moscow. I assume he is the highest-ranking politician (or perhaps only politician?) claiming to have met beings from another planet. Despite this, the interview linked above is surprisingly bland and uninteresting. Ilyumzhinov sometimes sounds like a classical contactee: the aliens stand for peace, love and understanding blah-blah. We aren´t yet ready for contact. You know the drift. He also references all the usual alternative ideas and tropes: Atlantis, Egyptian pyramids, quantum physics, Baba Vanga, "NASA knows the truth", and so on. The former Kalmyk leader strongly suggests that both the United States and the Soviet Union stopped going to the Moon fearing the aliens. 

However, Ilyumzhinov says very little concrete about his own conversation with the aliens. They evidently had a very large spaceship with hundreds of astronauts, all dressed in such a way that Ilyumzhinov didn´t see their faces. He saw a fiery planet (or sun?) from the UFO window. An energy source? At one point, he says that the aliens invented chess?!  

Fun fact: the main interview is taped in Tirana, Albania. The former Kalmykian president sits in front of two large Albanian flags, while the American UFO enthusiast who interviews him sits in front of two equally large Bektashi flags?! (The Bektashi are a somewhat peculiar Muslim group in Albania.)

The above is based on the first hour of the interview. The whole thing is two hours. So maybe I missed the disclosure in the second half, LOL. But I doubt it.       

Red swastika

 

Not entirely confirmed, tbh, these pieces from the outer fringes of Wikipedia show Communist swastikas!

The flag above was (supposedly) used by the Tuvan People´s Republic 1921-26, while the badges below are from Kalmyk Red Army formations in 1919. 

Tuva and Kalmykia have "Tibetan Buddhist" populations, the swastika being a sacred symbol in Buddhism.  

Realm of Mother Volga

"Realm of the Volga" is a two-part German nature documentary, produced by Altay Films. It takes the viewer on a journey from the taiga of northern European Russia all the way down to the steppes surrounding the Caspian Sea. Most of the time, the documentary follows the Volga, the largest river in Europe. With the exception of Astrakhan close to the delta, the cities in the Volga basin are mostly not shown, the most notorious of these being Volgograd (Stalingrad). Instead, we get to see the Russian wilds (and a few Orthodox churches) in mostly pristine condition. 

Many of the animals shown are instantly familiar to a Swedish viewer like myself: moose, beaver, red fox, boar, capercaillie, mallard, tawny owl, black woodpecker, great tit... I even recognized the wisents, since we have them at the Skansen zoo in Stockholm! 

Further south, the fauna becomes more exotic. Large flocks of saiga antelopes roam the desolate landscape and drink the brackish water, while trying to stay clear of the steppe wolfe. Meanwhile, steppe eagles build their nests on the ground, and demoiselle cranes carry out their mating rituals. Corsac foxes, rosy starlings and hoopoes are other characteristic species found around Volga´s southern portions. In the Caspian Sea, cormorants and white-tailed eagles live onboard eerie abandoned ships, while enormous colonies of seals gather at the islands of this peculiar inland sea. And yet, even this feels familiar somehow, obviously because all these animals are included in field guides to European mammals or birds, the geographical border of "Europe" being situated even further east than the Volga river.

It´s a fascinating trip, to be sure, almost aesthetical. And yet, by not showing the great cities, the oil industry and the environmental degradation, I still get the impression that perhaps somehow we are being served the wrong picture here! I can´t help thinking that perhaps Mother Volga has fallen on hard times...   

Europe has never been larger, Neuropa vivat!

With all due respect to whoever made the above, Kalmykia is "European" in about the same sense as Chechnya or Dagestan. That is, not by much. 

I still distinctly remember an embarrasing Swedish news broadcast years ago which tried (in vain) to make the viewers more sympathetic to the plight of the Chechens by calling the war in Chechnya "European". Ahem, no, it´s "European" only in the purely geographic sense, but so fucking what? 

Istanbul is "European" by that standard, while Cyprus is "Asian" and the Canary Islands are "African". This is similar to people who call the African Wild Dog "the Painted Wolf" to make people more interested in saving it. 

I suppose an SJW would call it Euro-centric... 

What´s the point of this blog post? Absolutely nothing, except to annoy you, LOL. 

Beautiful and bogus

Yet another review of a fake postage stamp from Russia...

Another beautiful but probably bogus stamp showing an Afghan Hound, this time from the Republic of Kalmykia. These stamps are explicitly said to be “unofficial” on other sites, and sometimes even more explicitly condemned as “illegal”.

Personally, I don't necessarily mind gorgeous fakes, as long as people know what they are buying. In this case, the “unofficial” character of the stamp is easily spotted, since (of course) Kalmykia doesn't spell its name in English, and doesn't even use the Latin alphabet! The symbol on the stamp is that of scouting, not Kalmykia (which uses a different flower on its flag).

Perfect for philatelists with a weird sense of humour, or Afghan Hound super-afecionados. Therefore, five stars despite probably being printed in somebody's back yard in Nagaland…