Space worlds of Andrey Sokolov

An outstanding German philosopher Immanuel Kant was right saying that people are getting attracted by two things: ethical canons for people and sky of stars above us. Two spaces, two micro and macro worlds. You become convinced of the rightness of these words when come across the works of a Soviet painter Andrey Sokolov. He devoted himself to the study and observance of the space in an art manner, making popular the Soviet achievements in the space program.  

One of your works depicts the moment of raising the Soviet flag above the «Mir» orbital station. Is it a real event or you have invented it? 

- It is real. Remember in the March 1991 the referendum of the future of the Soviet Union was held? Majority of people voted for preservation of the Soviet Union. In the beginning of June comonauts Artsybarsky and Krikalev were dispatched to the station. They decided to celebrate the results of the referendum. They bought an ordinary Soviet flag which was usually placed on the local authority buildings on the holidays and took it onboard. During the space walking they had set this flag on the top of the 14 meters high truss, priory sealing it in the special frame (that's because there is no air in space so the flag can't wave). 

Around one year, the flag of already non-existing country was soaring above the orbital station. With the lapse of time the flag started to get ruined due to the temperature fluctuations, radiation, space dust etc. I've asked the new crew to take the flag off and deliver it on the Earth. However cosmonaut is forbidden to make reasonless space walks, it's an extermly complicated and dangerous operation. Finally Anatoly Soloviev conducted a space walk and during that moment I was in the flight control center, I asked him ''Tolya how is the flag?'', ''only two threads left'' he replied. Flag has vanished in eternity, together with the great country that has paved the road to the stars. 

But maybe it's all for the best? It wasn't hauled down like in Kremlin, but remained in the space for good.

Euro-2012

Warning: if you are a sane Pole who corresponds to one (or several) of the listed below options, don't read that text cos it has been written not for you.

a) you don't give a fuck on politics

b) you don't conduct oneself in a manner of rusophobic geek

c) you don't put historical background in an attitude to some country

Every time when people in Poland hear the word ''Russia'' many of them promptly turn in the bulls who has seen a red rag. And it's irrelevant that it's not related with politics, they will find any pretext to politisize any event where Poland and Russia are involved. Russian team has never been a ''football grand'', it always has been a decent team with average skill, nothing special, quite far from Brazil, Germany or Italy. But for uptight Poles it's not important, even such harmful event wakes up their deep Russia complex. And they will start to come up with fairytales about dressed as fans Putin's FSB agents coming to Poland to invade it, they will emphasize on their own historical inferiority complex towards Russia and so on. Or they will say that Russians ''provoke'' them because of the march. Yes sure, however not a single Pole can answer one single question, how the hell Russians had to get to the stadium without that march? Polish ultras were attacking Russian tourists even before Euro, everyone felt not safe and march kept all Russians together and since Polish police couldn't sustain sufficient security, Russians had to stand for themselves and they did it. Without that march, I'm afraid Russians would have to infiltrate to the stadium like professional partizans and not all would manage to do that.

Polish people don't understand that for average Russian, Poland is nothing, it is simply nothing - the void, blank space nothing more. Majority of Russians don't even know the name of the Polish president and never knew the name of the previous one before his crash. Majority of Russians don't have the foggiest idea who is Donald Tusk and why he is called as ''Moscow agent''. For the Russians - Poland is a usual country out of many others. The countries are from the different leagues, and all Polish efforts to represent everything like a ''rival'' between Russia and Poland are pointless, cos that rival is in the Polish heads only. Like one my German neigbour correctly said ''it's not Ukraine should be boycotted, it is Poland should be, because they still live in medieval ages and WWII''. Once upon a time, I've seen how Dachshund was barking on a Great Dane. It was very silly picture, because Great Dane didn't even pay attention on that bark and continued to walk and enjoy the weather. The dog barks but the caravan goes on. If Poland loves to be that Dachshund, well whatever. If Poles enjoy looking like clowns it's their right. Just don't cry plz as u always do, but don't cry like little kids who were defeated by a grandpa in chess every time when u realized that you screwed up and humiliated once again because of your stupidity. 

This politization resulted clashes between Russian fans and Polish ultras. Where they were attacking people who came with their wifes and children to enjoy Euro, yes they got decent repulse but that's going to entail serious consiquences in future. I do not say that all Poles are idiots, however their media and some part of the society who loves such media have created increasingly volatile and dangerous situation, they allowed the myths be spoon-fed to the society and society didn't choke, they didn't try to spit it, they've swallowed it with pleasure. The outcome is known. Now what? Well now Russian ultras threat to show the same hospitality to Poles. To the Polish football team: for the sake of the safety of Polish citizens I suggest you not to qualify on the World Cup 2018. And no, the author of these lines is not an idiot who is going to participate in mauling innocent Polish supporters, but believe me we have enough fans as well and they are much more numerous than in Poland and they have boiled blood and they will vent beating these Poles.  But that's not the end, there is also Olympic games in Russia in 2014... You wanted it, you started it you will get it. And because of such bastards like you, your own people who has nothing to do neither with policy, nor with ultras will suffer. Instead of ''Na Moskala'' u will get another Katyn and again ''evil'' Russians will be a reason of you being loosers, again you will cry like kids that you were ''unfairly'' beaten. Enjoy.

PS Thanks to all Croatians and Serbs for warm comments to the youtube videos with clashes. I don't believe in pan-slavism, but reading you I can really say that you are real Slavic brothers. 

Mass Effect 3

Yesterday I have beaten Mass Effect 3. I'm going to start my short review from the end because ending of the game became a subject of debates promptly after the release. I deliberately didn't read any spoilers about it and wanted to see the punch line on my own. Frankly I don't understand what was all this tremendous outcry about, the ending was sufficiently logical and didn't have any signs of frustration, perhaps I don't understand some fanboy logic but seriously why the hell many people didn't like it? What's wrong with it? It was not expectable? Actually it was, because it was obvious since the beginning that the Reapers are not just some kind of regular ''Mordor'' chaps whose aim was solely annihilation and destruction. The outcries probably didn't follow the story line enough thoughtfully, and didn't notice one simple thing: if the reapers would be just some kind of orcs who simply wanted to level all planets with organic life forms they would terminate not only Protheans but Humans, Asari, Turians, Salarians, Batharians, Quarians and others as well, but they kept them alive, haven anyone of you outcriers thought why so? It was evident that they were intentionally destroying only developed civilizations to let others to evolve. So what's the problem? 

As I presume the problem is that the ending was not exactly ''happy'' and u didn't face harbinger as a final boss? You wanted so trivial outcome? Poof-poof - kill the final boss and voila happy end? Wanna puppies and sunshine only? Go and play Mario then or watch love stories from Hollywood, such games are simply not for you. And they now dream about ''changing the ending'' omg, that's ridiculous. Whether u like the ending or not but the quality of it is a moot point therefore u have no rights to demand any amendments in the ending. 

Thus I don't have any problems with the ending, it was fine. Speaking about real drawbacks of the game I want to say that Mass Effect 3 has quite poor squadmates this time, yes I remember that developers said that it's going to have less squadmates but they are going to have deeper stories. Well it's really true, however the choice was really limited. The only interesting squadmate was Javik, the rest of the team were old characters from Mass Effect 1 and 2 parts. Nothing new. Ah yes James Vega also, but he is too peculiar doesn't even worth to describe him. Remembering Mass Effect 2 where I was always having a tough choice between 7-8 characters to take on the mission, here I was taking Javik and Garrus only, because the rest squadmates were damn boring. I wonder why they didn't add some more new characters? Why not add some character from other races which have never been in Shepard's team like Batharian or Vorcha? Anyway I hope that in the next part there will be no such problem. What I liked about the teamates was that they started to interact with each other on the ship, they rather frequently change their locations on the ship entering the conversations with each other and it's quite interesting to listen their talks and observe the chemistry between the squadmates. Especially I loved how Javik was trolling James about the Prothean jokes. 

As the second part, this one provides broad spectrum of weapon types and it is pretty easy to access to any of them except for the spectre gear which costs quite expensive. The gameplay basically hasn't changed since the second part and I think it was a right decision to keep it like that cos so far it's flawless. Traveling map is the same however the is a slight changing, now we don't need to buy drones and scan the planets for resources which we previously needed for the uprgaids. Now we simply can scan some areas and find any artifacts or some extra military support to add to our anti-Reapers coalition, in other words that part of the game has been simplified. 

In general, the game is outstanding and definitely is one of the best games in the moder gaming industry. In spite it hasn't overcome the second part it still has the same stunning atmosphere, charismatic characters, catching story lines and eloquent conversations. I hope the developers will manage to come up with something fancy in the Mass Effect 4 that's going to be a difficult task because now they need to make everything from the scratch since this trilogy saga is ended. Shepard is dead, Cerberus no longer exists, the Reapers defeated, and new story line should be something really brand new, not rehashed previous saga. I also still hope that they will make some DLC with some extra squadmate, remembering Mass Effect 2, there were two DLC squadmates, so there is a little hope. And yes, dear Bioware please don't heed those whiny freaks who rant about the ending. There is nothing bad in it. And while the fourth part is under consideration, it's time to play the whole saga from the first part again!