Russia and Resistance

Dear Diary,

Our warm, sunny weather disappeared today and it was dreary and cold so off to Minneapolis to visit two museums to see exhibits that seem to fit right into the politics of our country right now.  First we went to the Museum of Russian Art.  It is a small museum but it had two powerful exhibits.  One was about children in the Soviet era, Born in the USSR and the other was a mind numbing exhibit of the Siege of Leningrad which was 75 years ago this year.  Actually the siege was 900 total days and 1.5 million Russians died during the siege.  The total casualties for the Soviets during the war was over 20,000 million, one third of the population of the entire country.  The invading German army also suffered catastrophic casualties, 500,000 in total.

Our next stop was the Minneapolis Institute of Art to see the photographic exhibit, Resistance, Protest and Resilience.  It was a powerful display of mainly black and white images from various protests around the world.  The Civil Rights era was well represented as well as the Vietnam War protests.  I saw some images from the Disarmament March in NYC in June,1982 which I took part in.  There was also a photograph of a little watch from Ground Zero in Nagasaki stopped at exactly 11:02 am, the time the bomb hit.  I remember seeing similar objects at the museum in Nagasaki when I was there in 2007.

We finished up by going back to the American Swedish Institute for a delicious dessert before heading home.  It was a very thought provoking day for us both and lots of memories for me.