Imagine yourself in the place of our fellow citizens who participated. Unsealed carriage. On the anniversary of Lenin's departure to Russia. “To obtain permits, you need to oil your paw.”
Those who today evoke the spirit of Stalin,
can’t imagine themselves in the place of their compatriots,
those who died in that meat grinder
The conversation was conducted by Sergei Shchurko
(Prepared based on material:
Handel E. Personality. “Rebellion is in my blood,” the conversation was conducted by S. Shchurko // Pressball. 2015. July 7.
URL: http://www. /articles/summer/volleyball/91027)
Volleyball player Elena GENDEL belongs to that rare number of athletes, communication with whom easily outgrows the usual framework of “journalist - interlocutor”, when both parties, after exchanging traditional questions and answers, go in different directions in order to forget about a banal interview forever.
And it’s not even that Lena has long wanted to take part in the events of our charity project “Dreams Come True” - this is just a normal desire. The point is different - at least in the fact that her reference books are works by my favorite authors Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Vladimir Korotkevich.
- You mentioned Stalin. They say that in today's Russia it is popular again...
It's very sad when history doesn't teach us anything. When they start telling me something about this, I always ask: “Have you read The Gulag Archipelago?” When a person answers no, I don’t want to communicate with him. Let him read it, and then we’ll talk about an iron but fair hand. They killed a huge number of people, first before the war, and then during it, throwing bodies at enemy pillboxes and not stopping at senseless losses when some city had to be taken for the anniversary of the Great October Revolution. The war was won not by Stalin, but by the Soviet people - at the cost of enormous sacrifices. Yes, and he was led into the attack, supported by barrage detachments. In the USSR, no one ever valued human life, the people have always been cannon fodder, and it is very bad that those who today evoke the spirit of Stalin do not imagine themselves in the place of their compatriots who died in that meat grinder. And in general, I don’t understand this slavish desire to kiss the feet of kings, to accept both mercy and blasphemy from them with equal satisfaction and approval.
FOREIGN TOUR
In public discussions about the location of our country in the world community, the topic of “brain drain” is almost invariably present, and here, of course, even people far from IT most often cite the computer industry as an example. There is another approach to the same issue - from the educational sphere: when they try to substantiate the thesis that the training of IT specialists in our country is at a high level, then as confirmation they usually refer to the huge number of people from Russian universities working in Western IT companies. We will not talk now about the legality of these judgments, although a number of such provisions are clearly based on myths, often created precisely in order not to touch upon other issues relevant to the Russian IT industry...
And yet - what is the Russian segment of the foreign IT community? How big is it, who is it formed from? Is it of interest to us living in Russia, or is it already a “cut off piece”? And finally, is it possible to talk about the existence of a Russian community, or are they just individual people who are in no way connected with each other?
The meeting of Russian Microsoft employees was held in
informal setting
These questions are, in my opinion, open and require serious study, including on the basis of reliable data. I managed to make some progress in this direction in February, having attended an unusual event - the Russian Microsoft Community Meeting, which took place on the Microsoft campus in Redmond (USA).
"Where does the Motherland begin?"
Microsoft is not only a large international company, but also a multinational company. Of the 71 thousand employees (as of July 1, 2006), more than a third are so-called International personnel (divisions outside the United States). The corporation’s strategy in the HR sphere is clearly visible in the example of its Russian representative office: reliance on local personnel. It is also necessary to keep in mind that in addition to full-time employees at Microsoft, mainly in its foreign branches, there is also a significant number of “contractors” who work, although long-term, but on the basis of temporary contracts. One way or another, we can say with a high degree of confidence that about half of the corporation’s staff are not Americans.
| What is the Russian Microsoft Community today? According to Renat Minazhdinov, who oversees the activities of RMC from the Russian branch of Microsoft, the situation is as follows. About 600 people work in Russia, in addition to about 200 in other CIS countries. In foreign countries, mainly in Redmond, there are about 700 more, of which 600 are included in the Rodina subscription. The total is about 1500 people. True, here I would take into account that, in addition, in Seattle and its environs, at least a hundred or two Russians work in IT companies, including people from Microsoft. Who the employees of the corporation's representative offices in Russia and the CIS are is generally clear. What is the Russian community abroad like? The range is quite wide. Almost all of them come from the former USSR. But some of them have been working at Microsoft for ten to fifteen years and left at one time when they were already mature specialists. Of course, many of them have American citizenship. Young people, graduates of our universities, are constantly arriving, although not in very large numbers. There is another category of young people - those who left as children and teenagers with their parents, graduated from schools and universities in the USA, went to work, and since then have only seen Russia on TV. What are the motivations for the merger of foreign RMC? To begin with, we note that this community is purely informal - it exists in the form of subscribers to an online newsletter (online distribution list Rodina - something like a forum in offline interaction mode). A variety of questions are discussed here - from technical ("why is the program code written this way and not otherwise?") to purely everyday ones ("recommend a good doctor", "where to go on vacation with your family?"). The mailing list is very active: up to 150 messages per day; everyone can ask their own question or answer a colleague. So, the first incentive is the convenience of communication in the native language and the closeness of the mentality. But there is another important point - the growth of interest in the historical homeland, both culturally and in business and career terms. Among other things, this is explained by the increased status of our country in the eyes of the world community as a whole. For example, a significant incentive for many “Russian Americans” to participate in local events is the opportunity to visit Russia, not only to see loved ones, but also to see the country with their own eyes. |
True, it should be noted here that, according to their functions, Microsoft personnel are divided into main and approximately equal in size groups - Business and Sales & Marketing. The first is those who actually create the company's products, and almost all of them are located in Redmond. Here, of course, the share of Americans significantly exceeds 50%, but there are also plenty of foreigners.
There is no official information about the national composition of Microsoft personnel, but we can say for sure that Russians do not dominate it*1. This can be seen from the fact that the Russian office is significantly inferior in size to divisions of a number of other European countries, India, and China. Based on my experience of participating in foreign Microsoft conferences, I can say that among the participants from the corporation, Asian names are more common than Russian ones.
*1 We use the word “Russian” here in the sense of a language that is native or one of the main ones for a person, regardless of his place of birth and current citizenship.
There is one more important point. It is no secret that our compatriots abroad are not very inclined to support contacts based on nationality; in any case, their activity in this regard is significantly lower than among natives of Asia. Moreover, for such consolidation, the latter, due to their mentality, do not even need to make formal efforts, create some kind of organizing committees, etc.
However, the unification process of the Russian Microsoft Community (RMC) began ten years ago: it was then that a small initiative group of immigrants from the former USSR, led by Vyacheslav (Steve in the American version) Chernyavsky and Leonid Litvak, began conducting regular Russian-language newsletters among corporate employees. This was the basis for the formation of a community called Rodina.
New stage of consolidation
This process was given a serious impetus by the active involvement of the Russian representative office in it. It was thanks to the efforts of Microsoft President in the CIS Olga Dergunova that the first face-to-face meeting of the corporation's Russian community was held in January 2006 in Redmond. Then this initiative was transferred to the rails of systematic work - this issue is supervised by the IT pro community collaboration group (collaboration with the community of IT professionals) of the Russian branch of Microsoft, headed by Renat Minazhdinov. At the end of spring last year, a second such meeting was held, and now the third.
| On the Microsoft campus A visit to the Microsoft campus is an interesting event in itself! After all, it’s one thing to discuss a company’s business and products, and quite another to see (and try to understand) how it all works from the inside. Of course, a one-day visit by itself will not reveal all the secrets of the leader of the global IT industry, but it can provide important information for a better understanding of many substantive issues. Microsoft's experience is interesting from this point of view. Recently, there has been a lot of talk in Russia about the creation of technology parks and infrastructure for the development of the domestic IT industry. And here we must remember that Microsoft is an excellent example of a start-up company that created, among other things, its technological and office infrastructure literally from scratch - in the forests of the distant outskirts of the United States.
A typical Microsoft employee workplace. Eddar Musaev was honored at the anniversary gathering community as the most active foreign blogger As you know, Microsoft was created in 1975 by two twenty-year-old school friends - Bill Gates and Paul Allen. At first, the company's office was located in Albuquerque (New Mexico), but in 1979 it moved to the homeland of the founders - to the town of Bellevue, a suburb of Seattle. In March 1986, Microsoft was transformed into a public corporation, and a month before that it moved to a new location - on the territory of its current campus in Redmond.
At the Microsoft Museum you can join team of a quarter-century-old corporation The layout of the corporation's campus resembles a traditional American university campus. Its very creation was defined by Bill Gates within the framework of a very simple concept: the company should be connected not just by some organizational structures, but also purely territorially, by a single social environment. Twenty years ago, a simple rule was formulated - every employee can walk to any colleague in 10 minutes! And this principle, although not in such a strict formulation, remains guiding to this day. The Business Group division (software development, 34 thousand people) is almost entirely located in Redmond. This compact location distinguishes Microsoft from most other large companies that have a geographically distributed structure (we are talking about production divisions). Therefore, for example, when asking Microsoft representatives a question about the possibility of creating development centers in Russia, we must know the company’s principled position: “Programmers sit in one place, in Redmond.” The campus itself is located on an area of about 10 square meters. km in a forest park, where there are about 60 buildings (and in addition, sports grounds, park areas with ponds). But this, of course, today is clearly not enough for Microsoft’s business - its offices are located in other parts of the town (10 minutes, but not on foot, but by car). In total, the company occupies (as of July 1, 2006) in the Seattle area 108 buildings (78 are its property, the rest are rented) with a total area of about 1 million square meters. m. In the center of the campus there is a small museum of the corporation, as well as a store where employees can buy Microsoft software products at a 50-80% discount. During our visit, the shelves with Windows Vista were empty: the salesman explained that boxes are delivered in containers every day, but by lunchtime they are all sorted... |
Let us note that a year ago, in an interview with PC Week/RE (see N 9/2006, p. 41), Microsoft Rus CEO Birger Steen identified the issue of establishing contacts with the Russian-speaking community of the corporation as one of the important areas of his work. At the same time, we were talking about solving not just cultural, but very specific business problems: attracting technical specialists from Redmond to work in Russia in one form or another, creating conditions for the career growth of local employees, etc.
The implementation of these ideas could be observed over the past year through various Microsoft technical events. For example, at the Microsoft WebDevCon conference held in June in the Moscow region, a large group of technical specialists from Redmond took part, half of whom spoke Russian. The effect was immediately noticeable, for example in the form of the possibility of transmitting “Western” advanced ideas taking into account the local mentality. Not to mention wider contacts behind the scenes, and the interest in communication turned out to be mutual. The expansion of this practice of attracting Russians from Redmond was visible at subsequent Russian Microsoft conferences.
Another important area of work is the organization of Russian-language interaction channels using modern telecommunications means. Last fall, the Russian branch of Microsoft began purposefully developing blog systems among its employees (www.microsoft.com/rus/blogs) with the involvement of specialists from the American headquarters. As part of this direction, it is planned to expand the section of online forums (microsoft. com/rus/forums), as well as organize web broadcasts in which overseas Russians will make presentations and answer questions in multimedia communication mode.
In addition, support from the Russian representative office allows the Rodina community to reach a new level of challenges. Thus, in his speech about plans for the future, Steve Chernyavsky, in addition to solving organizational and everyday problems (assistance in the adaptation of newcomers, obtaining work visas for wives), also spoke about possible support for technical initiatives and the implementation of joint projects with Russian developers.
One way or another, RMC’s activities are developing and serve as a good example of cooperation between our country and a global international corporation. And therefore this issue goes far beyond Microsoft itself. In one of the long-standing publications in the late 90s regarding the work of the company’s Moscow office, I expressed the idea that when discussing activities (including criticizing and advising), one should consider the office not only as a branch of the corporation in our country, but also as representation of Russia in a global international corporation. In this regard, we note that the Russian Microsoft Community today is the first national entity within Microsoft, an officially supported communication channel between the Russian-speaking community within Microsoft and outside of it, officially supported by the Russian leadership.
Slide 1
Homework
Your task at home is
1. Be able to explain what is in bold in § 9
1. Read § 10 and answer the questions before it.
Slide 2
Russian history
Topic of module (section) 2.
Lesson topic
Slide 3
Lesson Objectives by Lines
personality development
Lines 1-2. Picture of the world in facts and concepts
Based on the facts, form a view of the Civil War
about it as a turmoil, a spiritual and moral crisis of society, not
managed to stop the fratricidal massacre. Concepts: Civil
war, red and white movement, intervention, internationalists,
red and white terror.
Line 3. Historical thinking.
Understanding the reasons for the large scale of the Civil War and its
escalation, growth.
Line 4-5. Moral and civil-patriotic self-determination.
The realization that the Russian Civil War was great
historical drama of the people, which is the only alternative
Civil war - preserving and strengthening civil peace, which is not
there can be justification for any kind of terror.
Slide 4
Slide 5
Updating knowledge
Explain the concept of civil war.
Which civil wars of their history courses do you
remember?
Civil wars in Rome, Troubles in Russia at the beginning of the 17th century
century, the American Civil War between the North and
South...
Slide 6
Updating knowledge
Write the dates of the events. (On pieces of paper)
1. Overthrow of the autocracy
2. Seizure of power by the Bolsheviks
3. Dispersal of the Constituent Assembly by the Bolsheviks
4.Conclusion of the Brest Peace Treaty with Germany
5. Food detachments, committees
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
February 1917
October 1917
January 1918
March 1918
Spring – summer 1918
Slide 7
Topic: The beginning of a fratricidal war
Problem. Why did the civil war last for so long in Russia?
Need to find out
Slide 8
Finding a solution
Table page 95
Name the two opposing camps at the beginning
Civil war?
Was the white camp united?
How the Reds and Whites resolved Russian issues
society?
Slide 9
Finding a solution
Diagram page 96
Why is the diagram showing the arrangement of social layers?
represented not by two, but by three colors?
-The special position of the peasantry is reflected.
Slide 10
Finding a solution
Diagram page 96 and table page 95
What kind of political force do you think was
is the bulk of the peasantry ready to support?
Why?
-Democratic counter-revolution, since in defense
peasantry, which was subjected to
food detachments and committees of the poor, performed, first of all,
Social Revolutionaries.
Slide 11
Finding a solution
Table page 95
What were the social strata that were dissatisfied with?
part of the white camp?
-The landowners are dissatisfied with the fact that they lost their land,
capitalists - factories and factories, kulaks and Cossacks -
equal distribution of land and actions
food detachments, priests - persecution from outside
Bolsheviks, the intelligentsia - the dictatorship of the Bolsheviks
and lack of freedom of speech.
Slide 12
Finding a solution
Table page 95
On what issue were there, first of all, general
positions of liberals and Socialist Revolutionaries? What are they
were concluded?
-On the issue of power. Both liberals and Socialist Revolutionaries advocated
that power be transferred to the people
Constituent Assembly.
Slide 13
Finding a solution
Table page 95
What were the differences between them on the issue of
authorities?
- Social Revolutionaries - only for the republic, some liberals
admitted that in Russia it could be restored
monarchy.
Slide 14
Finding a solution
Table page 95
On what other issue did the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Socialist-Revolutionaries come together?
liberals?
-For the worker – restoration of private property
to plants and factories, but with recognition of rights
workers. The Social Revolutionaries allowed workers' control on
private enterprises.
Slide 15
Finding a solution
Table page 95
What were the significant differences between the Social Revolutionaries?
and liberals?
-On the peasant question: the Socialist Revolutionaries defended
egalitarian land use, and liberals -
restoration of private ownership of land.
Nationally: liberals – for a single and indivisible
Russia, Socialist Revolutionaries - for the right of nations to self-determination and
federation
Slide 16
Finding a solution
Table page 95
Suggest whether there could be a strong alliance between
Social Revolutionaries and liberals?
-No
Slide 17
Finding a solution
Table page 95
Did the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries have common positions?
What was the main goal of one and the other? What else
brought the Socialist Revolutionaries and Bolsheviks closer together?
-Yes. Build a fair socialist
society. Equal distribution of land between
peasants, the right of nations to self-determination.
Slide 18
Finding a solution
Table page 95
What were the fundamental differences between
them? Explain them based on the classification of the Socialist Revolutionaries as
"democratic counter-revolution".
-The Social Revolutionaries were against the concentration of power in their hands
one party, for a parliamentary republic under
preserving democracy: power belongs to the people
elected Constituent Assembly, there are
political freedoms, no violence against individuals
groups and layers.
Slide 19
Finding a solution
Map page 98 and text pages 97-98
What events do you think are
the beginning of the civil war in Russia: February
coup of 1917, October coup of 1917
year, dispersal of the Constituent Assembly, speech
Czechoslovak corps?
Slide 20
Finding a solution
-The beginning of the civil war is considered to be a speech
Czechoslovak Corps, since it begins with it
full-scale hostilities between the Reds and
white.
1.Creation of local anti-Bolshevik governments
2. Joint actions of their armies and Czechoslovakia
corps, their occupation of the Urals and Volga region
3. The uprising of the Cossacks against the Soviets on the Don
4. The White Volunteer Army of A.I. Denikin cleared
from the Bolsheviks Kuban
5. The transition of the Bolsheviks to general mobilization
Slide 21
Finding a solution
Table page 95
What was the most important question in the struggle?
red and white movement? Why?
-A civil war is a war for power, because
other issues were resolved directly
depending on whose hands are in power in the country?
Slide 22
Finding a solution
Determine from the text and posters in § 9 what methods
used by whites and reds?
Agitation, propaganda, mobilization, military operations,
terror.
Slide 23
Finding a solution
Compare the red and white posters. What is their essence?
What segments of the population are they aimed at?
Campaigning within your ranks.
The Red poster is for the workers, the White poster is for the more
educated layers of society.
Slide 24
No. The terror was widespread:
terrorist acts were committed by workers
peasants, Socialist Revolutionaries, Reds, Whites.
Slide 25
Finding a solution
Imagine yourself in the place of your fellow citizens,
participated in the Red and White Terror. For what
actions and why you would feel remorse
conscience?
How did terror affect the ability to seek consent?
in Russian society?
-Terror has further aggravated the conflict in the Russian
society
Slide 26
Finding a solution
Assess the balance of power between the Reds and Whites to fight each other
each other in 1918 - does either side have a decisive
advantage?
Bolsheviks: the center of the country.
On the side of the Bolsheviks are the workers and peasants - the poor.
Thousands of foreigners also fought in the Red Army -
internationalists.
White: the outskirts of the country, rich in bread.
Joint actions of the Czechoslovak corps and the “white” armies
governments."
Consolidation, unification of anti-Bolshevik forces
(Socialist Socialist Revolutionaries and White Guards).
The majority of peasants supported the Social Revolutionaries.
Military assistance from the interventionists.
Conclusion. Obviously, the advantage is on White's side.
08.08.11 19:00
Slide 27
Topic: The beginning of a fratricidal war
Problem. Why did the civil war last for so long in Russia?
Need to find out
1.What was the composition of the opposing camps? (Which
were social strata and political forces included in them?)
2.What were their strengths and interests
3.What methods of struggle did they use?
4.What was the relationship between them
Answer the questions in the lesson.
Answer the problematic question
The civil war dragged on because it was
the entire Russian society is involved, the interventionists,
internationalists, conflict between
the warring parties did not weaken, but
on the contrary, it increased.
For the majority of our fellow citizens, a suburban plot has ceased to be a means of survival. Indeed, it is much easier to buy the same vegetables in the nearest supermarket. The dacha is increasingly used as a vacation spot. After office work, I really want to have a holiday, finding myself in a world of landscape delights, beautiful plants and fragrant flowers! However, flower beds in the country were welcomed at all times. There was always a place for gladioli, peonies, hollyhocks, golden balls, tulips and snapdragons. An elegant flower garden, laid out at the porch or in the front garden, seems to greet the owner of the house and his guests, inviting them to leave their worries at the door, immerse themselves in a great mood and fully relax!
The flower garden, located directly in front of the entrance to the house, plays the role of a kind of business card. And the first impression they receive depends on how well he presents the property to the guests. Therefore, it is very important to decide what kind of flower garden we are going to create in front of the house. After all, each type has its own characteristics that need to be taken into account.
Option #1 – flowerbed like blooming geometry
The flowerbed is characterized by a strict geometric shape: oval, rhombus, circle, rectangle. The choice of location is also characteristic of flower beds. They are placed on a hill so that all the flowering plants can be clearly seen. An example of a flower bed would be a round flower garden, in which plants are placed in rings.
A flowerbed in one form or another is present in the implementation of any landscape style. It is universal. You can imagine a beautiful garden without many elements, but you can’t do it without a flower bed.
The height of plants can be uniform or decrease as you move from the center of the composition to its periphery. In such conditions, each flower will be clearly visible. The height of the plants is not the only emphasis that is used when creating a flower bed. Color is often used for the same purpose. The area is very decorated with a round flowerbed, the plants in which are arranged in rays from the center to the edges.
Option #2 – long ridge beds
If you need to disguise a small defect in the building or decorate that part of the building that for some reason you don’t like, it’s hard to come up with something better than a discount. These flower beds can decorate featureless garden paths; the flower beds can be placed along fences or parallel to the foundation of the cottage.
The rabatka can be located along the wall of the building, hiding behind its flowering all its shortcomings, which may be invisible to outsiders, but irritate the owners so much
Usually, flowers of the same type, in the same color scheme, are used for discounts. But the designer’s imagination may suggest another move. For example, you can create a discount in all the colors of the rainbow, alternating them with stripes of the same width. Plants planted in a checkerboard pattern look great.
Option #3 – very different borders
The final element of complex compositions can be a border. Located along paths, along the perimeter of flower beds or a flower garden as a whole, a border is always in place. However, as an independent flower garden it looks no worse. To do this, you need low plants that do not grow above 25 cm. Not only the usual hawthorn, but also bright petunias, various marigolds, as well as other flowers growing in bushes or herbaceous plants are used as border plants.
Armeria can play the role of a border, but can become an integral element of a flower garden. A very attractive and at the same time unpretentious plant
Option #4 – a community of plants on a mixborder
Rows of a wide variety of plants, which are collected in a mixborder, have one quality in common: they get along well with each other. Not to encroach on the living space of another, not to strangle a neighbor and not to fight for water and sunlight - these are the main qualities of the flowers and bushes that make up one.
Such a flower garden can rightfully be called the pearl of any garden. It can be placed in front of the house, and the bench will come in handy: you can sit and admire
Option #5 – a piece of natural landscape “rock garden”
The alpine slide or rock garden is at the peak of popularity today and enjoys increased attention from both gardeners and landscape designers. Even palace complexes today use rock gardens. In addition to real alpine plants, when creating them, those that only superficially resemble mountain ones are also used.
Of course, a rock garden is a flower garden that you need to tinker with. Who said it would be easy? But the result is worth the effort
Choosing the right location
In order to correctly plan exactly how to lay out the selected flower garden in front of the house, you should make a sketch on paper. It would be better if it was in color for clarity. Then you can not only correctly plan the space allocated for this purpose, but also calculate the need for planting material and fertilizers that will be needed to make the idea a reality.
It should be noted that when planning a site for a flower garden, you need to provide for all the nuances of its subsequent care. For example, it is better not to plan plantings that are too wide so that each crop can be easily reached. Typically, plantings should not be wider than 2.5 m.
Agree that this placement of the flower garden allows you to decorate absolutely any home. A romantic mood, a surge of strength and emotions in such a home is guaranteed
The choice of a place opposite the house or near it is natural, although it does not exclude the possibility of planting several flower beds in different parts of the garden. There are wonderful places for this purpose along paths, on the shores of reservoirs or in the gazebo area. It is important that the specific location is determined already at the planning stage.
Based on the existing experience of such plantings, we can suggest that the gardener plan a flowerbed with some reserve of territory “for growth”. Usually, with a positive result, there is a desire to complement an existing flower garden and transform it. After all, the visual result, as a rule, exceeds the plans. To give your wildest dreams the opportunity to come true, the territory set aside in reserve will come in handy.
What planting material do you prefer?
The crops that will become the basis of the flower garden should be selected taking into account the illumination of the site and its soil. Different plants have their own preferences that need to be taken into account. For example, the most important things for tulips are soil fertility and sunlight. There is a place next to them. And, crocuses and lilies of the valley will feel great in the shade of buildings or trees. Daffodils look good next to perennials, phlox and peonies.
To ensure constant flowering of the flowerbed, it is necessary to choose the right plants. The group should include not only spring primroses and perennial plants, but also sowing annuals, which can be changed if necessary
If the flower garden does not consist of only one type of flower, planting groups will have to be compiled taking into account their soil and light requirements. It is important that the plants in the group do not turn out to be antagonists leading continuous battles. Otherwise, the defeated flower will look sick and will still have to be replaced. Not only flowers, but also decorative herbaceous plants with attractively colored leaves will be an excellent decoration for any flower bed.
When dreaming about how to make a truly beautiful flower garden, we always imagine the intended area in bloom from early spring until late autumn. This means that our collection should include spring primroses along with annual seed plants and perennials, which will form the backbone of the planting. Replacing each other, different cultures will create. And this is exactly what we are striving for.
Practical planting work
Planting work must begin by transferring the existing sketch to real soil. At this point, we need to not only clearly understand how we are going to decorate the flower garden near the house, but also have all the planting material on hand along with fertilizers, as well as a supply of fertile soil. Using pegs and twine, we mark the boundaries of the future flower garden.
When creating a flower garden, you can use not only plant seeds, but also seedlings ready for planting. This method, by the way, is more attractive because the result of the work is visible almost immediately
If the soil of the intended area has not been dug up, the fertile layer should be removed by 20 cm. Fertile soil should be poured onto the bottom of the resulting pit. The removed soil must be thoroughly sifted, removing weed rhizomes, pebbles, glass and other debris. After that, fertilizers are added to it, poured into place and moistened. If you are building a ridge, you need to add gravel to the bottom of the flower bed for drainage.
The flowerbed should be planted from the center, moving towards the edges. Otherwise, some of the seedlings or seeds may be damaged or trampled. The elongated flower bed is filled sequentially. Move from planting one row of seeds or plants to the next. It is better not to place flowers in a bunch. A distance of 30-60 cm can be considered optimal.
At the end of the work, the border is planted, after which you can compare the result with the plan. It is recommended to pay special attention to fencing, figured decorations and other decorative excesses that so diversify not only the flower garden, but also our life in the country.
Proper care of a ready-made flower garden
Planting a flower garden is just the beginning. To make it look the way you dreamed of, you must remember to care for the plants. Periodic watering is an important part of care. The first time you need to water the plants is when they are planted in the soil. The next watering will only be a few weeks later. It is important to take actual weather conditions into account. The plants should sprout soon. Now in addition to watering there will be added the need to loosen the soil and remove.
Careful care of the flower garden will allow your work not to be in vain. And the knowledge that you made all this beauty with your own hands will give you the opportunity to believe in your own ability to create, which is already a lot
Autumn is coming and the last plants are fading. Annual flowers should be removed from the flowerbed. Perennial flowers are trimmed, leaving the roots in the ground, and covered with light material. You can show foresight and use pegs to mark the locations of the plants that make up the flower garden. Then in the spring it will be easier to restore the planting. It will be necessary to examine the plants and remove or replant some of them. Affected or dead shoots should not be left to rot naturally. It's better to remove them.
If you take care of your flower garden, carefully caring for its constituent crops, you will have a wonderful island of romance that you can rightfully be proud of and admire.
Next year Russia will celebrate the centenary of the October Revolution. Russian society has not yet been able to fully comprehend this event and its consequences. In particular, an unambiguous and objective assessment has never been given to those who opposed Soviet power during the Civil War - the White Movement.
During the Soviet years, a fence of many myths was erected around its participants and leaders, many of which to this day make it difficult to understand what the White Movement actually was.
Myth 1: The Whites intended to restore the monarchy in Russia
The founders of the White movement were precisely those who in February 1917 took an active part in the abdication of the throne of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II - Infantry General Mikhail Alekseev (1857–1918) and Lieutenant General Lavr Kornilov (1870–1918). Both key leaders of the movement were known to their contemporaries for their sympathies for parliamentarism and the republican system - the “Supreme Ruler of Russia” Admiral Alexander Kolchak (1874–1920) and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia (AFSR), Lieutenant General Anton Denikin (1872–1947).
General Denikin (third from left) surrounded by officers of the Volunteer Army. Summer 1919.
The specificity of the White movement was that it was led not by politicians and ideologists, but by military men, who were aware of their incompetence in many political issues and distanced themselves from their decisions. That is why the ideology chosen was “non-predecision” - postponing the resolution of key issues in Russian life until the final suppression of the Bolshevik uprising and the convening of the Constituent Assembly. Among these issues was the possibility of restoring the monarchical form of government. Thus, the commander of the North-Western Army, Infantry General Nikolai Nikolaevich Yudenich, wrote in one of his official addresses:
“The Russian White Guard has one goal - to expel the Bolsheviks from Russia. The Guard has no political program. It is neither monarchical nor republican. As a military organization, it is not interested in issues of political partisanship. Its only program is down with the Bolsheviks!”
The lack of a clear political program led to the fact that, with the onset of military failures, white officers not only could not clearly explain to their subordinates what their army was fighting for, but they themselves sometimes became confused in matters of motivation.
Moreover, the alliance of monarchists, liberals, regionalists and supporters of moderate socialist parties under the auspices of the fight against the Bolsheviks often resembled the Swan, Cancer and Pike from Krylov’s fable. Distrust between comrades-in-arms and mutual intrigue accompanied the whites throughout the Civil War.
Even the term “whites” itself was given by the Bolsheviks in relation to their enemies, by analogy with the designation of monarchists during the Great French Revolution. During all the years of the war, the Russian “Whites” could not come up with a common self-name: in various sources you can find: “Whites”, “Russian troops”, “volunteers”, “anti-Bolshevik forces”.
"For Holy Rus'." D. Shmarin, 2013
Myth 2: White governments were puppets of the Entente countries
The leaders of the White movement positioned themselves as the legal successors of the Provisional Government and Tsarist Russia, and therefore considered themselves bound by allied obligations towards the states of the Entente, in which Russia participated in the First World War.
In words, the governments of Great Britain, France and the United States of America also perceived the anti-Bolshevik forces in Russia as their allies. In reality, the alliance of white governments with the Western powers was bursting at the seams, and on a number of issues the positions of the parties diverged greatly.
The stumbling block was the issue of the territorial integrity of the former Russian Empire. Representatives of Great Britain and France demanded that the white generals recognize the sovereignty of Finland, Poland and the Baltic countries, which had actually fallen away from Russia even before the Bolsheviks came to power. Requests from Western diplomats to grant autonomy to a number of other territories, in particular Ukraine, were also very persistent. The leaders of the White movement responded to all this with a categorical refusal. In the spirit of the policy of “non-predecision”, questions about the revision of borders could only be resolved at the Constituent Assembly.
Tankers of the Drozdovskaya division pose in front of a tank named in memory of their deceased commander. South, 1919.
We should not forget that the entire military-industrial complex of the Entente countries was exhausted by the protracted world war, and they could not afford large-scale intervention in the internal affairs of an ally swept by revolution even economically, not to mention motivating their soldiers for a new, alien war immediately after winning the previous one.
Therefore, the White Guards did not receive full-fledged allied help from the Entente. On the key fronts of the Civil War, contingents of allied troops never took part in hostilities. Western countries supplied uniforms and ammunition to the white troops at greatly inflated prices, and of all the white governments, only the Government of the South of Russia, Lieutenant General Peter Wrangel (1878–1928), which controlled the Crimean peninsula in 1920, received diplomatic recognition, and only from France.
Myth 3: Whites sought to tear away certain regions from Russia
Actually, the position of the leaders of the white movement on this issue has already been mentioned above. On the other hand, for one reason or another, situational allies of the White Guards sometimes turned out to be openly separatist movements, which, apparently, gave rise to this myth.
And if the Siberian regionalists became loyal allies of the Kolchak government in Omsk, then the anti-Bolshevik troops in the south of Russia were caused a lot of trouble by supporters of independence not only of Ukraine, but also of the Don and Kuban Cossack troops. Among the Cossacks in the south of Russia, the idea of creating a “South-Eastern Union” was popular - the isolation of Cossack lands from the central government.
Admiral Kolchak inspects the front-line units of his troops. Ural, 1919.
General Denikin tried for a long time to find a compromise with the freedom-loving southerners, but after the catastrophic failure of the campaign against Moscow in 1919, this fragile alliance was destroyed. Cossacks deserted en masse from the white armies, and their leaders in the rear tried to look for new allies - in the person of the self-proclaimed state formations of the North Caucasus and even the Bolsheviks themselves.
Myth 4: Whites were supported by a small minority of the population
If we accept this statement, we must also admit that the Bolsheviks also relied on the support of a small number of Russian residents.
In fact, both the Bolsheviks and the Whites found their most motivated supporters among urban residents, who at that time comprised only about 15% of Russia's population. And, by the way, it is completely wrong to assume that people from privileged strata fought for the whites, and the proletariat for the reds. The reality was more complex than established stereotypes.
For example, the Izhevsk-Votkinsk brigade, consisting of volunteer workers from the Ural arms factories, fought in the troops of White Siberia. Even after the collapse of the regime of Alexander Kolchak, the residents of Izhevsk and Votkinsk continued to fight, leaving with the remnants of the admiral’s army to Transbaikalia and the Far East, where they fought until 1922.
Headquarters of the Izhevsk-Votkinsk brigade (later - division). 1918
And the overwhelming majority of the country’s population was an illiterate peasantry who did not really understand the political processes taking place.
Both the building of communism and the “white struggle” were alien to the peasants. Therefore, the rural population equally avoided mobilizations, tax collection, labor duties and other activities carried out by both warring parties. Both in Soviet Russia and in the “white territories,” uprisings of the peasant “green armies” alternately broke out, joined by deserters from the Red Army and the white armies - the same forcibly mobilized peasants.
However, the Bolsheviks managed to win over many farmers to their side with the decree “On Land”, fulfilling the basic demands of the peasant deputies. Their opponents, guided by the policy of “non-decision,” on the contrary, restored pre-revolutionary orders in the occupied territories, which did not evoke sympathy among the bulk of the Russian population.
Only General Wrangel, who led the remnants of the southern anti-Bolshevik troops in April 1920, was able to demonstrate not only military leadership, but also political abilities. The “Black Baron” attracted civilian politicians to cooperate and carried out reforms of land ownership and local self-government that were very beneficial for the middle peasants. But by that time the outcome of the war was already a foregone conclusion.
General P.N. Wrangel (in the center) together with his chief of staff, General P.N. Shatilov (right) and Prime Minister A.V. Krivoshein. Crimea, 1920.
Myth 5: White terror was in no way inferior to red terror
Perhaps the issue of terror is the most problematic and difficult to understand in the entire history of the Civil War. Of course, white governments and armies carried out punitive actions, repressed dissidents, took hostages, executed prisoners of war - just like their opponents.
But the white and red terror differ in organization and scale. The Bolsheviks systematically destroyed their enemies, guided by the ideology of class struggle and even created a special punitive body in the form of the notorious All-Russian Extraordinary Commission. Systematicity, of course, does not negate cruelty - on the ground, the Red Terror often took the form of war crimes.
The poster “Peter and Vasily or a village in the Soviet Republic” published in Odessa is one of the few relatively successful examples of white propaganda
But war crimes accompany any military action and any warring army. The White Terror, thus, was only a consequence of low discipline in the troops, the personal cruelty of soldiers and their commanders, and, of course, the traditional wartime desire to destroy any enemy physically.
"White" terror<…>- these are, first of all, excesses based on unbridled power and revenge. Where and when in acts of government policy and even in the journalism of this camp will you find a theoretical justification for terror as a system of power? Where and when were voices called for systematic official killings? Where and when was this in the government of General Denikin, Admiral Kolchak or Baron Wrangel? a contemporary, emigrant historian Sergei Melgunov (1879 – 1956) asked a rhetorical question.
Officers and soldiers of the Volunteer Army pray at the lithium for their fallen comrades. Kharkov, summer 1919.
And if cruelty is difficult to measure, then the scale is measured in numbers. And here the myth is refuted by facts - the Red Terror claimed 1.5 million human lives, while the total number of all victims of the punitive actions of the white troops ranges, according to various estimates, from 200 to 500 thousand people.
The Civil War ended almost a hundred years ago. The White Guards were never able to suppress the Red Rebellion, and the state created by the Bolsheviks crumbled, demonstrating, if not the fallacy of their ideology, then at least the untimeliness of the uprising. The ideologists and fighters of both sides have long since passed away, and nothing remains of what they fought for or against. And although many of our fellow citizens continue to fight on the ghostly fronts of the bygone war, it is too late to evaluate its real participants from ideological positions. Myths must be replaced by facts, and propaganda by historical memory. And if we do not want a repetition of the fratricidal massacre, then we must know what actually happened and what actually motivated its participants. After all, in history there are no villains and heroes - there are only people with their dreams, hopes, mistakes and delusions.
"White Russia. Exodus". D. Belyukin, 1992.