Aug 25th, 2011 at 2:00PM: A Museum of Socialist Art is opening next month in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. The museum exhibits statues of Lenin, paintings of Bulgarian Communist Party leaders, and other artwork from Soviet times.
The former Eastern Bloc country is the last such nation to open a museum to its totalitarian past. The socialist government fell in 1989 and Bulgaria had its first free elections the ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
communism posts
Museum of Socialist Art to open in Bulgaria
Aug 25th, 2011 at 2:00PM: A Museum of Socialist Art is opening next month in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. The museum exhibits statues of Lenin, paintings of Bulgarian Communist Party leaders, and other artwork from Soviet times.
The former Eastern Bloc country is the last such nation to open a museum to its totalitarian past. The socialist government fell in 1989 and Bulgaria had its first free elections the ...China's "red tourism" commemorates 90th anniversary of Communism
May 3rd, 2011 at 2:30PM: Come up with a wacky tourism concept, and they will come. For the 90th anniversary of the Communist Party's founding on July first, enterprising operators throughout China are creating a new crop of cultural and commemorative "red" tours.
On the idyllic island province of Hainan, visitors young and old alike travel to rural Qionghai, to visit Pan Xianying. At approximately 95 (Hainan isn't so ...Candid look inside North Korea
Mar 18th, 2011 at 2:30PM:
In this video, Steve Gong goes into a North Korea hair salon and gets his hair cut "Pyongyang style." Like the city it is named for, Pyongyang style is a largely unchanged fashion. This metropolis on the banks of the Taedong river appears much as it did when the U.S.S.R. was its principal ally many years ago. The ghost of communist Russia hovers over Pyongyang like a specter, and in this ...
Weekending: Sofia
Oct 5th, 2010 at 2:30PM:
Since moving to Istanbul, I've gotten the chance to travel to a lot of interesting destinations, from Beirut to Bosnia, that are much easier and cheaper to access from Turkey than America. For my first long (more than a weekend) trip, I went to Bulgaria for a week over US Labor Day and Turkish bayram (end of Ramadan holidays). Over the week, I traveled from the capital city Sofia to medieval ...Weekending: Prague
Sep 3rd, 2010 at 3:00PM:
While I'm living in Istanbul, I try to take advantage of all the amazing destinations a few hours' flight away and travel there as often as possible. I like to focus on destinations that are harder to access from the US for just a few days (such as Turkey's beach town Bodrum) and places best explored while I'm still relatively young and unencumbered (to wit: Beirut). Traveling as an expat takes ...Take a 1930's tour of Havana, Cuba
Mar 31st, 2010 at 4:30PM:
It's hard to imagine a Cuba different than the one we have now. You know, that country 90 miles from Florida that Americans can't visit? It's a travel embargo that's been in place over 50 years. But back in the 1930's, Cuba's capital city, Havana, was poised to take its place among the Caribbean's foremost tourist destinations.
At least that is, according to this vintage travel film, ...
Communist China celebrates 60th anniversary
Oct 1st, 2009 at 8:30PM:
Today, October 1st, marks the 60th anniversary of communist rule in China - an era that has been defined with great success and development for the country. Leaders in Beijing and 30,000 specially invited guests observed the day with an epic celebration that was reported to be larger in scale than the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games. Visitors and residents of Beijing had limited access ...June 4 trial date for American journalists in North Korea
May 14th, 2009 at 8:30AM:
Laura Ling and Euna Lee, both reporters for Current TV, will be tried in a North Korean court on June 4, 2009 for entering the country illegally and planning "hostile acts." Ling and Lee were picked up along North Korea's border with China on March 17, 2009
Anybody want to guess how this one will end?
According to reports by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), which is controlled by the ...
Outsiders not welcome at Chinese spy museum
May 2nd, 2009 at 9:00AM: Foreigners keep out!
Committed to preserving national secrets, the new Jiangsu National Security Education Museum in Nanjing is only open to Chinese citizens. So, if you want to see guns embedded in lipstick, maps hidden in decks of cards and other accoutrements of the spy trade (or, "tradecraft," as spies over here call it), you have to have the right passport.
Most of the items on display are ...Travel read: Around the Bloc
Dec 21st, 2008 at 11:00AM: I stumbled upon Stephanie Elizondo Griest's writing on a stopover in New York City. She was reading from her third and most recent travel-related book, Mexican Enough: My Life Between the Borderlines, at Book Culture near Columbia University. I was immediately struck by her engaging use of language and her savvy presence. It's a pleasant sight to behold a young, female traveler and writer who is ...Where did the commies go?
Sep 23rd, 2008 at 10:00AM: With September came the near fall of another Communitst leader, as Kim Jong Il, dictator over North Korea vanished from the limelight, joining his Cuban counterpart Fidel Castro in the murky depths of unknown, fiercely hidden ailments. The realist in me knows that both leaders are gravely ill. Kim Jong Il is said to have suffered a stroke early this month and hasn't since been seen in public -- ...Beijing forces vehicle traffic to halve, subways choke
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Jul 22nd, 2008 at 11:00AM: The great thing about running a communist state is that you can dream up and enforce any crazy rule you want -- and the people can't do anything about it. China, scrambling to clean up its image as the Olympics draw closer, has been making changes to the landscape left and right -- beautifying Beijing, planting flowers and cleaning up the streets. This week, in an effort to clean up the ...Bolshoi in Russia: Lenin, Stalin and other marketing icons still alive and kicking
May 31st, 2008 at 5:00PM: I have always wanted to see Russia. Growing up in a satellite communist country, with the Soviet Union--the occupying force--pitched as the Evil of all Evils, it took me a while before I thought I could honestly visit the country with an open mind. Nineteen years after the end of communism in Central Europe, to be exact.
Needless to say, I grew up imprinted with a lot of stereotypes about Russia ...Infiltrating North Korea Part 19: A Final Word
Dec 24th, 2007 at 10:00AM: Infiltrating North Korea is a 19-part series exploring the world's most reclusive nation and its bizarre, anachronistic way of life. To start reading at the beginning of the series, be sure to click here. Although it was a short trip of only five days, my time in North Korea proved to be one of the most fascinating journeys I've ever taken. This brief glimpse into the world's most reclusive ...Why Everyone Should Fly Aeroflot Once in Their Life
Oct 1st, 2007 at 8:30AM: Russia's national carrier, Aeroflot, has made a lot of progress in the last few years. Once abhorred by the general public as a "dangerous" carrier (although their record is no more tarnished than any domestic airline), a few new Airbus aircraft, superjets and an international advertising campaign have surged the company into the present. Now you too can enjoy the paltry legroom in coach, ...A Canadian in Beijing: 798 Arts District Accepts the Cultural Baton
Jun 8th, 2007 at 7:00PM:
The arts district of Beijing is called the "798" district. That's its address, to be precise. It's technically in "Da Shan Zi ???" (which is the area of the city) and this complex used to be a series of factories that have now all been converted to galleries and cafes. It's quite beautiful and peaceful there and I have been meaning to tell you about it for a while. My friend and I took the bus ...Future Travel to Cuba Possibly Easier
Dec 5th, 2006 at 9:40AM: Ever since I saw the Buena Vista Social Club, I was sold on getting to Cuba. It wasn't just about wanting to watch tiny old woman roll fat cigars anymore or about chilling on some cool Cuban coastline with a cocktail anymore. That movie made me what to explore the bottomless depths of the music scene. Or should I say musicia? The songs, the dance, the history and the lives of the people swaying to ...
