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random-kazakh-stuff · 6 months

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Okay so one of the symbols of modern Kazakhstan's independence is Altyn Adam - Golden Man*(as in person).

Altyn adam refers to an artefact that was found 1970 in Issyk kurgan(burial)*.

It looks like this(id in the end of the post and in alt):

It is actually quite interesting how the artefact was found.

In 1968 the town Issyk became a town and wanted to develop. However, they needed experts to first check that there are no historical sites, which is what they did. For all of 1969 they were carefully uncovering he kurgan, and in 1970 they finally opened it.

It was empty. The place had signs that it has been robbed several times before.

One archeologist, Bekmuhanbet Nurmuhanbetov*, decided to check some 30-40 meters away, and found a side-burial which was left untouched since 6-5th century BC.

They found so many artefacts that listing them all here would be quite difficult.

What I would like to mention though is who was buried here:

Gender is unknown*, but the age is around late teens(16-18)

The person that was buried here was most likely to be a child of some kind of tribe leader, because their burial is smaller than the main one.

About the tribe! The burial probably belonged to Saka tribes. Saka people might relate to Scythians(they are probably part of the same cultural group?)* *. Anyways this particular kurgan was made by Tigraxauda people. Their name derives from persian and means. Pointy hats........

The golden armor is probably more ritualistic(haven't seen it in direct text sorry) than anything because the golden pieces of armor are wood covered in golden leaf. The helmet is made from golden plates though.

There are actually some interesting thing that are present on the helmet. By that I mean the arrows, which are said to symbolise 4 parts of the world. There are also multiple animals* on it. As a whole the costume consists of 4000 golden pieces.

And finally, Why is it so important?

Well to answer this question, you should know USSR's relationship with history and how is was teached in Kazakhstan specifically: mainly, world history through the lense of revolution and how Kazakhstan just sorta became part of USSR after it was Russian Empire's colony*. Nothing before that as people that lived on this land.

Which led to a very hard situation after the independency was gained because well. The majority of people were Kazakhs, but a lot of culture and identity was lost. And part of it was history.

So an artefact this old brings a sense of legitimacy. It also doesn't hurt that it's pretty.

ID and notes under cut

[ID: Armor on a mannequin in a museum setting standing above camera. The mannequin is wearing long-sleeved jacket which is a mix of red fabric and triangular golden pieces. The same pattern is on its boots. The pants are made from a red fabric. It is wearing a very large conical headpiece almost as tall as its chest(40cm). It is very pointy. The headpiece has 4 golden arrows and some animal ornaments on it. The figure has a bow and and an arrow in its hands, and a sheath for sword and another weapon on its belt. It is also wearing a red cape just reaching its thighs. ]

* Actually there are several artefacts like this! Around 6 or so which were found in different regions at different time. All of them are called golden men, just the place that varies. This one is Issyk's Golden Man. Some of them are actually made from solid gold and not gold leaf which I find fascinating.

* Ok so kurgan is used interchangeably here with burial. And in a way kurgan is a burial. It is also in a way like a pyramid? There are things left for the dead so they can carry them to the afterlife, but the kurgan itself is built a bit in and above ground. The rooms are made from logs, and then covered with dirt to create mounds. I also heard that a herd of horses would run it over a bunch of times to set the earth.

*Full name Bekmuhanbet Nurmuhanbetov Nurmuhanbetovich. He eventually organized a museum for the kurgans he found. He died in 2016, at the age of 81, and for some reason he has "Bekem-aĝa"(aĝa means older brother, uncle just an older friendly male figure) as his pseudonym on his Wiki.

*Actually Saka seem to had been pretty great about equality. There is also a very cool story about their female chief Tomiris.

*Historical records about nomadic people come exclusively from settled ones. Because a lot of stuff they would probably write on(despite the claims about lack of writing system) would't have survived because you know. Nomads.

*Haven't mentioned it in the post but sometimes Saka people are called ancestors of Kazakh people and uhhhh. They are probably more related to modern Europeans than to us. They still had similar lifestyle and lived on this land though. And they were more mixed than anything because you know, race is bullshit.

* Oh also fun fact one of the animals is a tulpar which is a horse with wings. The same mythical animal is present on Kazakhstan's official coat of arms.

*should I keep making these notes? because I feel they might take away from the flow of the text, and some details are simply not that important or I cannot convey them properly. so. what do you think?

#the whole legitimacy thing is of course not just kazakhstan #every country out there is doing it tp build a cohesive narrative that people can unite around #kazakhstan #kazakh #kazakh culture #kazakhstan history #kazakhstan politics #kazakh history #Kazakhstan culture #ussr #history #asia #central asia #cw: mention of death #what warnings should I put?#ussr culture #ussr education

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proustianlesbian · 4 months

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happy 89th birthday to Boris Volynov !! he is the last of the first cosmonauts and the first jewish person to go in space as well as one of my favorite cosmonauts (with yuri gagarin, sigmund jähn, arnaldo tamayo and valeri bykovski) and a great inspiration since i was little !!

💙🌌🚀✡️👨🏻‍🚀💙

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canberramaidan · 2 months

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Soviet stamp of the Hopak - Ukraine's national dance. 1971.

#vintage #ukraine #ukrainian history #ukrainian culture #hopak #1970s #vintage stamps #1971 #soviet union #ussr #folk dance #slavic #eastern europe

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ohsalome · 2 years

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I wonder what had british culture would have looked like if Shakespeare was imprisoned and forbidden to write.

If Chaucer was tortured to death before he made it to his 40

If Orwell rotted away in a concentration camp

If the entire generation of beatniks was executed

If Britain existed behind the iron wall, and noone outside had a slightest clue about what's happening with the people inside

It's hard to imagine what the would would have looked like then. But I know for sure that people would be blabbing about how brits are just naturally culturally inferior and never contributed anything for the humanity

#ukraine #ukrainian culture #ussr #great britain #british culture #literature #ukrainian culture is great. the reason why you don't hear about it is not because it's worse than others

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justacynicalromantic · 7 days

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THIS.

This guy from Romania put everything down splendidly.

I understand, most "woke" US teens want to push "US bad" narrative nowadays to look cool, but for those of you guys who feel depressed - because your media has been constantly telling you about America's many failures in foreign politics in the last 50 years as if it was all a failure.... But guys. Guys. My guys. Americans.

YOU LITERALLY FREED A DOZEN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.

FREED. Do you understand me?

People here in Eastern Europe CELEBRATED it like they celebrated the end of WWII. People CRIED and hugged and went to the streets when the fucking empire fell.

People created human chains that SPANNED COUNTRIES to tell the world they do not want to be part of USSR (Google "The Baltic Way").

In Ukraine, the all-country vote for leaving USSR got the overwhelming ~90% in favor support throughout all the country (YES, IN RUSSIAN-SPEAKING DONBAS TOO)

The propaganda (fed by Russian spies in the West) has warped your own impression of yourselves, so I am putting it all in perspective so you would know - you did some incredible good too, guys. You helped a dozen of previously military occupied countries free themselves.

And now you are helping the same countries protect their Independence when the same regime that had occupied them previously have now recovered its strength and have started trying to re-collect them all again.

#america #ukraine #eastern europe #baltic states #ussr #soviet union #russian imperialism #russian culture #russian invasion #russia is a terrorist state #україна #укртумбочка #укртамблер #укртумба

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katchwreck · 1 year

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Soviet film posters

1: 1927 poster for the film “First and Last”.

2: 1927 poster for the film “Zare” — a Soviet/Armenian Drama released in 1926.

3: 1927 poster for the film “Two Worlds”, starring Hans Merendorf and Maria Leiko.

4: 1928 Poster for the Film “The Third Wife of the Mullah” by Iosif Gerasimovich.

5: 1927 poster of the film “Where is the man? He has left to go see 'The Girl with the Hatbox'.” by Semyon Semyonov-Menes.

6. 1927 poster for the film “October” (Sovexportfilm) — One of the most significant Soviet films of the 1920s. This is a historical and revolutionary film made for the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution.

7: 1925 poster for the film “The Golden Reserve” by Anatoly Belsky.

8: 1923 poster for the first Soviet Azerbaijani feature film: “The legend of Maiden Tower”.

9: 1930 poster of the film “Judas (Antichrist)” — a black and white silent film. A psychological drama of a priest who decided to break with religion, “unmasking the counterrevolutionary role of the clergy during the Civil War”.

10: 1927 poster for the film “Dark Forces”.

#1920s #soviet union #soviet film #movie poster #ussr #culture #cinematographer #posters #Soviet culture

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vintagepromotions · 7 months

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'Circus for Kids'

Soviet Union State Circus Ministry of Culture poster featuring a circus bear riding a unicycle while playing a horn and holding a flower (1987). Artwork by M. Fyodorov.

#vintage poster #1980s #M. Fyodorov #circus #bear #unicycle #soviet union #ussr #russian #ministry of culture #union state circus #animals

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random-kazakh-stuff · 1 year

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USSR was famously a second country to get their hands on nuclear weapons. This however came with a cost, specifically for Kazakhstan. Semipalatinsk polygon was used for around 40 years to test nuclear warheads in Kazakh steppe.

It's strange to think about it. Imagine Wales. Now imagine that it was bombed more than four hundred times. The total power of bombs tested on the polygon from 1949 to 1963 is bigger than that landed on Hiroshima. By 2500 times.

The radiation can be still picked up today and it still affects the larger area around the polygon, so much so that not only the Abai province, the polygon was located in, is leading in cancer cases but the provinces around it too.

#kazakh #kazakhstan #kazakh culture #kazakh nature #i will probably expand on this theme more later #because there is so much to how ussr viewed kazakhstan #like testinf grounds #like a source for minerals

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ode-on-a-grecian-butt · 5 months

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Read this before bed last night and wanted to talk about it. It really is crazy what Russia is now compared to what she was 15-20 years ago. And makes you wonder what Russia could have been instead of going full tilt as an autocratic-kleptocracy. Russian apathy is so strange to me. I mean, I can understand how completely fucked up the circumstances are and how dangerous it is to speak up as an individual. But for that mindset to exist on such a national level....I dont think I could live in a world that was that cynical or indifferent.

#tho to them they would probably say I already do and im just naive and stupid #idk I blame the mongol yoke #It really just warped that pre-Russian culture (or what would become Russia) while it was at a tender age in its development #Its become cultural PTSD #thats still echoing to this day and just piled up more when Russia was a tsardom when it was the USSR and now as a autocratic-kleptocracy

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milanson · 5 months

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humanization of the USSR and the RSFSR (Russia). This is the first appearance of his humanization, so there is no name for him yet.

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thattiredanimator1t0mblr · 2 years

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You know what? F*ck it, I’m making a ’cringe’ countryhumans x reader on Wattpad. And I’m gonna make it as ‘cringy’ and OOC as possible just to piss people off.

#USSR x reader #random tired rants #wattpad #countryhumans #countryhumans x reader #x reader #cringe culture is dead

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canberramaidan · 4 months

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Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: a memoir of love and longing by Anya Von Bremzen

#ukraine #russia #soviet union #vintage cooking #ussr #ukrainian culture #ukrainian cuisine #book covers #vintage books

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rotzaprachim · 6 months

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Jewish tankies are one of the most fascinating I don’t think they’ll eat my face say people advocating monkeys eating peoples faces party situations I’ve ever seen

#Yes I do think there’s a strong history of leftism and radicalism and anti capitalism that must continue in the present #Yes I also think the ussr was a violent empire no I don’t think we should wash away #Cultural repression genocide mass murder land dispossession and ethnic cleansing

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justacynicalromantic · 29 days

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To understand Russia, there's really only one movie you need to see.

During the brief period from 1990-1999, Russian cinema was mostly free of state control. The 1992 film "The Checkist" is one everyone needs to see.

Its still available on YouTube with Eng Subs.

Movie re-enacting Vladimir Lenin's Cheka program that executed anyone who was suspected of being an enemy of the communist regime.

Highly recommended to all Russia / USSR / Communism lovers👍👍👍

youtube

PS: Keep in mind that the movie shows the Soviet Union when Lenin was in power. You know. The pleasant, "nicer" ruler. Then came Stalin. Watch this movie showing Lenin times - and imagine what Stalin had to have done - for him to be known as a butcher and a mass murderer.

#russia #ussr #communism #lenin #russian culture #russian imperialism #russia is a terrorist state #movies #Youtube #soviet union

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ohsalome · 2 years

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