In honor of Lennon's Birthday:

Originally shared by Assia Alexandrova

In honor of Lennon's Birthday:
The Russian Abbey Road

(via Dimitar Bechev)

This Salon piece about Soviet counter-espionage can help you identify CIA plants in your midst.

This Salon piece about Soviet counter-espionage can help you identify CIA plants in your midst. 

Totrov came up with were 26 unchanging indicators as a model for identifying U.S. intelligence officers overseas. Other indicators of a more trivial nature could be detected in the field by a vigilant foreign counterintelligence operative but not uniformly so: the fact that CIA officers replacing one another tended to take on the same post within the embassy hierarchy, drive the same make of vehicle, rent the same apartment and so on. Why? Because the personnel office in Langley shuffled and dealt overseas postings with as little effort as required.

One productive line of inquiry quickly yielded evidence: the differences in the way agency officers undercover as diplomats were treated from genuine foreign service officers (FSOs). The pay scale at entry was much higher for a CIA officer; after three to four years abroad a genuine FSO could return home, whereas an agency employee could not; real FSOs had to be recruited between the ages of 21 and 31, whereas this did not apply to an agency officer; only real FSOs had to attend the Institute of Foreign Service for three months before entering the service; naturalized Americans could not become FSOs for at least nine years but they could become agency employees; when agency officers returned home, they did not normally appear in State Department listings; should they appear they were classified as research and planning, research and intelligence, consular or chancery for security affairs; unlike FSOs, agency officers could change their place of work for no apparent reason; their published biographies contained obvious gaps; agency officers could be relocated within the country to which they were posted, FSOs were not; agency officers usually had more than one working foreign language; their cover was usually as a “political” or “consular” official (often vice-consul); internal embassy reorganizations usually left agency personnel untouched, whether their rank, their office space or their telephones; their offices were located in restricted zones within the embassy; they would appear on the streets during the working day using public telephone boxes; they would arrange meetings for the evening, out of town, usually around 7.30 p.m. or 8.00 p.m.; and whereas FSOs had to observe strict rules about attending dinner, agency officers could come and go as they pleased.
http://www.salon.com/2015/09/26/how_to_explain_the_kgbs_amazing_success_identifying_cia_agents_in_the_field/

The agricultural trade war between Russia and the West is getting ugly.

The agricultural trade war between Russia and the West is getting ugly. Associated Press reports on a major cheese bust by Russian authorities. If this were the US, the DEA (Dairy Enforcement Agency) would parade the seized cheese along with weapons and cash confiscated during the bust. In the New Soviet Union, the cheese will likely be re-sold by authorities with a new "Made in Russia" label. 
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/7dc83de80a3f4c4c80ff02385b1c0194/russian-police-bust-30-million-contraband-cheese-ring

Now North Korea can truly be said to be out of step with modern times.

Now North Korea can truly be said to be out of step with modern times.

Originally shared by rare avis

Just gotta be different, eh?

North Korea is establishing it's own Time Zone.

~RA

North Korea is to push its clocks back by 30 minutes to show that it is finally free of Japanese imperialism. Korean time was set to Tokyo time by the Japanese who ruled from 1910-45. The change means that South Korea will now be on different time even though they are on the same longitude.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02yzsf7

Gianni Rodari was an officially approved Western writer of literature ideologically suitable for Soviet children i.e.

Gianni Rodari was an officially approved Western writer of literature ideologically suitable for Soviet children i.e. a Communist who loyally played whatever tune Moscow called for.

I just read my son The Giant's Hair, a story from Rodari's collection Telephone Tales (translated into Russian). The synopsis:

Once upon a time there were four brothers. Three of them were very small, but also very cunning; the fourth one was a giant with an enormous strength, but he was much less shrewd than the others. His strength was in his hands and in his arms, but his intelligence was in his hair. And his clever brothers kept cutting his hair short… until he got wise and let his hair grow out.

Judging by the ideological content (Soviet Union as a shaggy sleeping giant who finally catches wind of the machinations of his wicked Allies) I would guess the story dates from 1948.






https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gianni_Rodari