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April 13, 2002
Anne Winkler-Morey
Why
I Didn't Organize
a Passover Seder This Year
April 12, 2002
Nancy Stohlman
Live from East Jerusalem:
International Nonviolence
Brian
J. Foley
Defeating
Evil
Olivier Audeoud
Did the US Break
the Laws of War?
Rep. Ron
Paul
The
Middle East Quagmire
Michael Colby
Republican Porn:
Oiling Up the Caribou
John Chuckman
Tom
Friedman's Fabrications
April 11, 2002
Patrick Cockburn
Battle of St. Petersburg Zoo
Jeff Halper
After
the Invasion:
Now What?
Falk / Krieger
Taming the Nuclear Monster
Steve
Perry
The
Good Life of
Nellie Stone Johnson
Nick Ring
Efficiency and Occupation:
Terrorism vs. Taylorism
Alexander
Cockburn
From
the West Bank to BBQ
to Old Sparky, And Beyond
April 10, 2002
M. Junaid Alam
Blaming the Victims:
Hating the Palestinians
George
Monbiot
World
Bank to West Bank
Fran Schor
US-Sponsored State Terror
David
Vest
Political
Color Schemes
Jack McCarthy
Florida State Radicals:
The Berkeley of the South
Rises Again
Doreen
Miller
A
Tale of Two Warring Tribes
Michael Neumann
Israelis and Indians
April 9, 2002
Bernard
Weiner
Colin
Powell's Table Talk
Matt Vidal
Thomas Friedman,
Another Wasted Pulitzer
Ron Jacobs
Buyer
Beware
Robert Jensen
I Helped Kill a Palestinian
Vijay
Prashad
Memories
of Barbarity:
Sharonism and September
Wayne Madsen
Anthrax and the Agency:
Thinking the Unthinkable
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
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How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
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This Explosive
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Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
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April 13, 2002
Bulldozing History:
The Hotel Stalin Built that Became
a Monument to Bad Taste
By Patrick Cockburn
in Moscow
The Independent
One of the strangest monuments to the Stalinist
era is under threat in Moscow. Planners are discussing whether
the Moskva hotel, a bulky grey building that rises a couple
of hundred yards from Red Square, should be demolished.
First-time visitors to the city are struck
by something odd about the facade of the Moskva. On close examination
they see the two wings of the hotel, on either side of its
central core, are asymmetrical and in different architectural
styles.
The reason is a chillingreminder of the
terror felt by Russians under Stalin who feared they might suffer
the consequence of unwitting disobedience to the dictator's
orders. The architect of the Moskva was Alexei Shchusev, who
submitted his design for the hotel to Stalin in 1931. His blueprint
had alternative versions for the wings and he imagined that
Stalin would choose between the two.
Unfortunately, when Shchusev received
the blueprint back he discovered Stalin had simply signed authorising
the design in the middle of the page, apparently not realising
he was offered a choice. Shchusev, reflecting on the possibly
terminal consequences for himself if he did not follow Stalin's
instructions literally, built the Moskva with two different
wings.
It was finished in 1938 and, with an
extension to the east built later, could accommodate 2,000 guests.
It was considered the most luxurious hotel in the capital during
the Second World War, and Guy Burgess, the Soviet spy in the
Foreign Office who defected, lived in the Moskva until his
death in 1963. It also became well-known to drinkers of vodka
outside Russia because a picture of the hotel appears on the
label of every bottle of Stolichnaya.
The Moskva is not the most appealing
of buildings, but it is part of the history of Moscow and Russia
and as such is listed as a historical monument.
This may not save it. It occupies a prime
site, between the Kremlin, Red Square, the Russian parliament
and the Bolshoi theatre. Muscovites are cynical at the chances
of the hotel surviving. Olga Kabanova, writing in Izvestiya,
says some people claim it is a historical monument and must
be preserved, while others argue "no historical or architectural
monument can survive in the struggle against big money".
Part of the Moskva is closed. Eighteen
months ago the city government was looking for an investor prepared
to put $250m into a rebuilding project to turn the Moskva into
a four-star or five-star hotel. Construction was meant to start
last year but there are no signs of activity. This is not uncommon
in the capital, where grandiose projects are often announced
with a loud fanfare but fail to materialise.
Now the idea is to knock down the hotel
and start again. Streets away, the Brezhnev-era Intourist hotel
is being demolished. Hotel specialists say the problem is that
Moscow has no hotels in the medium-price range. Accommodation
is either luxurious or a step up from a doss-house.
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