Well, that's a bit bothersome: Stalin's making a comeback in Eastern Ukraine

Credit: Alexey Filippov/AFP/Getty Images

Saw an article on The Guardian about how portraits of Josef Stalin are being installed in Donetsk, the capital of the rebel-held and unrecognized Donetsk People's Republic. In fact, the rebel government is also reviving other artifacts of the Soviet-era.

The previously taboo display comes as the rebels revive Soviet customs to cement their Moscow-backed rule – while glossing over Stalin’s atrocities.

The portraits went down well with one young woman walking past. “I think the portraits of Stalin are a good thing. It’s our history and a lot of people have forgotten he even existed,” said Yekaterina, a 22-year-old student.

The horrors of Stalin’s repressions and the deaths of up to five million Ukrainians in the 1930s due to famine caused by forced collectivisation go unmentioned.

The Donetsk rebel leader, Alexander Zakharchenko, said how he regretted the break-up of the Soviet Union.

“The Soviet Union was a great country and it was a huge mistake that it was destroyed by the CIA and other secret services,” said the 39-year-old former field commander who prefers to dress in camouflage gear. “Europe and other countries were scared stiff of us.”

Stalin portraits have become de rigueur in the offices of rebel officials in eastern Ukraine, where the separatist conflict has killed more than 8,000 people.

The Donetsk rebels’ deputy defence minister, Eduard Basurin, wears a badge with Stalin’s profile on his uniform.

Side note: Donetsk was also once named Stalino, so I wonder how long until that gets revived as well.

For the Napoleonic Wars fans

I REGRET NOTHING.

Currently reading

Barnes & Noble.

I decided to take a break from my usual reading and checked Robert Asprey's The Reign of Napoleon Bonaparte from the local library. I hadn't actually planned to check this out, since it was the second book in Asprey's duology and the library lacked the first, but I started reading the first chapter and the next thing I knew, I was already into the second. To continue the Napoleonic theme, I also picked up Mark Urban's The Man Who Broke Napoleon's Codes.

Barnes & Noble.

The book is about George Scovell, who worked as a codebreaker in the British Army during the Napoleonic War, breaking both codes used by the French, including the formidable Great Paris Code.

Your argument is invalid, so here's a picture of Greece's King George I's awesome mustache

You have to hand it to the men of the nineteenth century, they knew how to grow incredible facial hair. George I, King of the Hellenes (Greeks) was an interesting historical figure. First of all, he wasn't even Greek, but Danish. His predecessor Otto was likewise not Greek, but from Bavaria. Why was Greece ruled by two non-Greeks? Because Britain, France, and Russia said so. You see, Greece had for several hundred years been part of the Ottoman Empire. By the early 19th century, however, the Ottomans had weakened to the extent that the Greeks could rebel and a war of independence was launched.