A few pics from last weekend

[Dixon's Dame]

Those are awesome pictures! And that sounds like so much fun. I'd love to do something like that one of these days. Thanks for posting these!

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Speaking of Russian aristocrats in peril ...

See the film The White Countess, with Natasha Richardson and Ralph Fiennes. Shanghai has never looked so pitiless.

 

[ITG]

Very interesting! And good to know! Thanks so much, guess for next time I'll have to learn Italian

If you need help on pronunciation call me and I can stick Manuel on the phone. He speaks Italian. I've picked up a little bit recently as I had to teach a little Italian for the past 4 weeks (We start Japanese next week-Eeeek!). Good luck is Buon Fortuna (bwon-fore-too-nah).
Ciao can mean hello or goodbye. I don't think you need to know any names for classroom objects, do ya? We learned that too.

 

[Speedster]

WOW, great pictures

Speedster

 

[Salv]

Italian resistance movements

Baggers - your scenario for a Russian aristocrat being in Italy during WW2 is very believable, but while the majority of anti-fascist partisans were communists there were several non-communist groups that included monarchists, socialists, republican liberals and christian democrats. Some were even defiantly anti-communist. There's a good overview at the Wikipedia and these paragraphs make interesting reading:

Initially, the movement was composed of independent troops, spontaneously formed by members of political parties previously outlawed by the Fascist regime or by former officers of the disbanded Royal Army loyal to the monarchy. Later, the Committee of National Liberation created by the Italian Communist Party, the Italian Socialist Party, the Partito d'Azione (a republican liberal party), Democrazia Cristiana and other minor parties took control of the movement, in accordance with King Victor Emmanuel III's ministers and the Allies.

In the end, the bands were separated in the communist Garibaldi's Brigades, Giustizia e Libert?† Brigades (related to Partito d'Azione), socialist Matteotti's Brigades, and several Catholic and autonomous groups; the greater part of fighters were in the former two. Between the autonomous formations there were the Green Flames, Di Dio and Mauri, composed of monarchists or former soldiers. Relations between the different groups weren't always good; for example, in 1945 in Porzus (in the province of Udine), Garibaldi Brigade partisans under Yugoslav command attacked and killed partisans of the Catholic and azionista Osoppo band, who had refused to accept Tito's authority.

As in Spain a few years previously the communists fought against just about everyone...

This passage from the Wiki could give Lauren a perfect back-story:

In the valley of Carnia, anti-Communist forces from the Soviet Union under the command of ataman Timofey Ivanovich Domanov were used; they were promised the establishment of a Cossack republic in northeastern Italy, to be called Kosakenland.

So Lauren, you could be part of a Cosssack group in the Carnia valley, situated in the nort-east corner of Italy on the Austrian border.

EDIT: Some further reading about Domanov clarifies the Wiki article. It appears that there was a group of Cossack infantry that fought alongside, not against, the Axis powers in Carnia. They were captured by the British at the end of the war and returned to the Soviet Union. So Lauren wouldn't be part of this group ...

 

[PADDY]

Lauren and Kirsten are just a knock-out team!

I just think you guys are fantastic the way you muck in with so much enthusiasm and totally enter into the spirit of things!! Both you Lauren and Kirsten look great. I really liked Kirsten in her War Correspondents' outfit in the last postings, but I do believe she has managed to TOP that this time around!

I salute you both with a glass of Vodka and a crash of glass in the fire place! Thanks for posting those fabulous pics!

 

[BellyTank]

A great Movie to see!

"Burnt by the Sun"(1994)

I've seen this film, it's great- this would be some good Russian inspiration-

Russia, 1936: revolutionary hero Colonel Kotov is spending an idyllic summer in his dacha with his young wife and six-year-old daughter Nadia and other assorted family and friends. Things change dramatically with the unheralded arrival of Cousin Dmitri from Moscow, who charms the women and little Nadia with his games and pianistic bravura. But Kotov isn't fooled: this is the time of Stalin's repression, with telephone calls in the middle of the night spelling doom - and he knows that Dmitri isn't paying a social call...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111579/

Enjoy!

B
T

 

[Lauren]

Thanks, everyone! All the information is really helpful and interesting and I'm glad you like the pics!

 

[geo]

Speaking of Russian aristocrats in exile: Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, captain of Cossaks, became the last Mongolian Khan in the 20's.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Where he presided over countless Mongolian BBQs before finally meeting the woman of his dreams: Chakka Khan.


.

 

[geo]

No, he was a sinister character.

 

[16_sparrows]

Oh, that looks like so much fun! You two look great and make me very jelous. I wish I had time to take part in such things, or even know where to look to sign up for them!