Some 315 million years ago during the late Age of Amphibians, early reptiles began to roam our lands. As the scientist Carl Sagan explores in his book, The Dragons of Eden, these primeval lizards were simple meager creatures. But their arrival was “a symbolic turning point” in natural history, for much of life since then has been about the widening dominance of brains.

You see, from the humble origins of single-celled organisms to the vast structures of modern mammals, evolution has been a haphazard process in increasing complexity. Many of the most complex life forms today contain far more information in their genes and brains than their ancestors of a previous epoch.

Humans in particular signed a “bargain with nature” several million years ago, Sagan writes—for nature endowed our children with a “long childhood”, chocked full with play, questions, and mischief. While these adorable creatures can be a handful sometimes, their unmatched potential for learning is why we have survived for so long as a species. It is also why we have art and literature, math and science, and other wonderfully human experiences. Youthful plasticity is a powerful gift. But one that may prove to be a curse someday if we are uncareful.

Of course, “biology is more like history than it is like physics”, writes Sagan. It is a deep chronicle of accidents and errors and flukes that powders through the ceaseless sift of natural selection. Indeed, many vestiges are recorded inside us to this day. For one, this is why we find gill slits in the necks of developing human fetuses. They are physical traces of our genetic lineage to some ancient fish.

Similar relics may manifest in our psychology as well. Even to this day, snake bites and our falling from great heights are common themes for nightmares. We should remember, Sagan notes, that the deep structures of our minds were sculpted by the selection pressures that our ancestors endured when they lived up high for millions-of-years in the trees and forests of yore. He and others wonder to what extent our dreams remain tethered to our “arboreal origins”.

We know, likewise, as Sagan explains, that much of our intuitive knowledge and autonomic behavior, like our senses and reflexes, are products of “an extremely long evolutionary history.” Verbally conscious rational thinking, on the other hand, is a recent innovation, at least by the standards of geologic time.

What’s fascinating, I think, is how these programs and systems are simultaneously localized yet integrated in the brain. Sagan shows, for example, that our brains store memories in many sites. They are “encoded by ‘teams’ of neurons all firing in synchrony, providing redundancy that enables these memories to persist over time.” Some travel back and forth through the corpus callosum—a thick bundle of nerve fibers that forms a “neural bridge” between the left and right hemispheres of the human brain.

Of course, functional problems arise when one or more regions of the brain is damaged. “Accidents or strokes to the temporal or parietal lobes of the left hemisphere of the neocortex”, Sagan writes, “result in impairment of the ability to read, write, speak and do arithmetic.” Conversely, “lesions in the right hemisphere lead to impairment of three-dimensional vision, pattern recognition, musical ability and holistic reasoning.” Meanwhile, “injuries to the right parietal lobe… sometimes result in the inability of a patient to recognize his [or her] own face in a mirror or photograph.”

But when it is firing as it should, the mammalian brain must be among the most spectacular constructions in all of biology. Somehow, many of these feeble neurons—which we might think of as individual units for computation—come together in groups of roughly a hundred to make cortical minicolumns in the human brain.

In turn, some fifty to a hundred minicolumns make for a macrocolumn, while many more macrocolumns make for the cortical areas that characterize the broad regions of the human cerebral cortex. All of which, amongst other things, help to bring our perception, language, thought, and consciousness into being.

What’s equally fantastic is how all these disparate programs and organizations consort together. The brain is certainly more than the sum of its parts. No human system, from language and culture, to art and music, to science and math, is purely intuitive or rational. Its product is a melding of worlds in the brain. A merger of deep synaptic programs. In Sagan’s view, we might go as far as to say that “human culture is the function of the corpus callosum” through its bridging of our hemispheres.

Science is exactly like this as well, Sagan argues. It is a daring and creative act that is backed by logical reasoning and verification. For instance, it took great inspiration and imagination on the part of Albert Einstein to conceive of the warping of spacetime in his formulation of general relativity. But it took a good amount of left-brained experiments—from the perihelion precession of Mercury’s orbit to gravitational redshift of light—to verify what might otherwise have been a creative but outlandish description of our physical universe.

Of course, life is often a matter of degree. Sagan himself wonders to what extent the mind might manifest in other mammals. Do elephants see beauty in their landscapes? Do whales enjoy the songs of other whales? Can horses feel horse-like patriotism? Might dogs experience their own version of religious fervor?

While we might not yet know the answer to such questions, it is clear that animals are capable of learning some complex behaviors. Sagan points, for example, to the famous work of Beatrice and Robert Gardner, who taught American sign language to the chimpanzees named Washoe and Lana. The Gardners learned that while the vocal architecture of chimpanzees are ill suited for human speech, it did not mean that they were incapable of communicating with us.

In fact, after learning a good number of basic signs, the chimpanzees began to combine and recombine gestures in nontrivial ways. Washoe combined signs, for instance, to say “waterbird” when she eyed upon a duck in the pond for the first time in her life. Likewise, Lana combined the sign for the color “orange” with the sign for “apple” when she spotted a bright spherical fruit that she had never before seen.

For another example, Sagan turns to a troop of Old World monkeys called macaques on the beaches of a southern Japanese island. In this experiment, mischievous researchers littered the sandy shores with grains of wheat. You must realize that it is a real chore for any human or monkey to separate grain from sand for food. Still, as a persistent lot, the macaques partook in this laborious enterprise. Hour upon hour, they picked and cleaned with every meal and every day.

But after some time, an entrepreneurial macaque named Imo, whether by mistake or anger or genius, tossed a handful of grain and sand into the salty water. Upon her realization that wheat floats and sand sinks, Imo began to eat better than the rest. And while the older monkeys clung to their ways, the youngsters recognized the benefits of her innovation. After a generation or two, all macaques on this part of the island, Sagan notes, became water-sifters. An arresting instance of monkey see, monkey do.

We are also well aware of the complex rituals and traditions that characterize some primate societies. Sagan dedicates a good number of paragraphs in his book, for example, to describe the practices of gothic squirrel monkeys in the canopies of the tropical rainforests of South America. The male monkeys, in particular, are a rather daring and carnal bunch. Whether it is to court a female, or to assert one’s dominance, the male’s grand plan is always the same. He will spread his thighs and thrust his erect phallus into the air, all the while screaming and screeching with unrelenting abandon. And sometimes, the ritual works. Sagan is right to say of course that most humans today will find such behavior at the dining table impolite. But it is not at all strange for a squirrel monkey living in a deeply hierarchical society.

Perhaps we are fortunate then that the quantity and quality of the neural connections inside our brains allow us to select for gentler modes for self-expression. Today, we profess in stories, write in letters, and affect with smiles, hugs and kisses. “In a way, the map of the motor cortex”, Sagan writes—the region in our frontal lobe that helps with controlling and executing goal-directed movements—“is an accurate portrait of our humanity.”

Further still, our frontal lobes have evolved to undertake higher executive functions like planmaking, logical thinking, and problem solving. But “the price we pay for anticipation of the future”, Sagan notes, “is anxiety about it.” We live incessantly and hurriedly, forever in a state of worry about our livelihoods and standing among others. Indeed, it is in response to our anxieties and anticipations that we devise an ever growing myriad of doctrines, from magics to scriptures to legalese. All of this in attempts to understand, regulate and organize ourselves within a harsh, uncertain and unrelenting world.

Still, we must wonder how much of ourselves remains akin to that of squirrel monkeys, for humans are rarely as poetic or logical or rational as we presume ourselves to be. Many go about their affairs without pause under a rulership of thoughtless motivations and emotions.

From hunger and arousal to our fight-and-flight responses, we know that the brain’s limbic system is involved in our emotional functions and survival instincts. The little almond-shaped amygdala that resides inside is especially central to our feelings of pleasure, anxiety, anger, and fear.

Studies find, Sagan notes, that “electrical discharges in the limbic system sometimes result in symptoms similar to those of psychoses… [or] psychedelic and hallucinogenic drugs.” Meanwhile, “electrical stimulation of the amygdala in placid domestic animals can rouse them to almost unbelievable states of fear or frenzy.”

I cannot help but feel uneasy knowing that the line that separates us from the wild, the manic, and the mindless is wafer-thin. But Sagan goes further. He wonders how much of human society itself is limbic or reptilian even. You must agree, after all, that much of human culture, bureaucracy, and politics is hierarchical, territorial, ritualistic, and aggressive.

Despite the scientific and cultural boons that arose with the Ages of Reason and Information, people everywhere continue to find false comfort and hope in limbic doctrines that are “mystical and occult… [and] impervious to rational discussion [and disproof]”, the scientist laments.

Sagan observes a metaphor for our predicament in The Phaedrus by Plato. In the dialogue, his protagonist “Socrates likens the human soul to a chariot drawn by two horses—one black, one white—pulling in different directions and weakly controlled by a charioteer.” Sagan suggests that the human brain and society is just like that. Disparate yet integrated, always in tension and connection.

Indeed, we are familiar, for instance, with how the logical and rational parts of the self can sometimes override its cruder instincts and motivations. Yet the reverse is just as true and common. And in a similar way, our cultures, institutions, and societies too can express and repress the best and worst parts of us. For this reason, Sagan wonders if Hollywood’s obsession with sex and violence is simply a manifestation and reflection of our still primitive roots.

Of course, all of this is an oversimplification. Nothing in life is ever easy to describe. Still, the Phaedrus chariot, I think, is a useful symbol of our character. While the embellishment is sometimes apt, Sagan “[does] not mean [to say] that [our] neocortex is not functioning at all.” Rather, it is “our plasticity, our long childhood, that prevents a slavish adherence to genetically preprogrammed behavior in human beings more than in any other species.” The only hope for humanity then is in learning and education. But behind the backdrop of our cosmic calendar, the human self and society is certainly still in embryo.

As Sagan writes:
“The world is very old, and human beings are very young… [If we] imagine the fifteen-billion-year lifetime of the universe… compressed into the span of a single year… It is disconcerting to find that in such a cosmic year the Earth does not condense out of interstellar matter until early September; dinosaurs emerge on Christmas Eve; flowers arise on December 28th; and men and women originate at 10:30 P.M. on New Year’s Eve. All of recorded history occupies the last ten seconds of December 31; and the time from the waning of the Middle Ages to the present occupies little more than one second… It is only in the last day of the Cosmic Calendar that substantial intellectual abilities have evolved on the planet Earth. The coordinated functioning of both cerebral hemispheres is the tool Nature has provided for our survival. [But] we are unlikely to survive if we do not make full and creative use of our human intelligence.” .

A complete color analysis transformation with skin and features analysis, make up palate choosing, colour analysis swatches, jewellery matching, personal styling and perfectionist finishing touches. Unintentional Style Real Person ASMR. My ASMR videos are for sleepy entertainment purposes only and should not be taken as actual medical advice.

Robson Street is a major southeast-northwest thoroughfare in downtown and West End of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Its core commercial blocks from Burrard Street to Jervis were also known as Robsonstrasse. Its name honours John Robson, a major figure in British Columbia’s entry into the Canadian Confederation, and Premier of the province from 1889 to 1892. Robson Street starts at BC Place Stadium near the north shore of False Creek, then runs northwest past Vancouver Library Square, Robson Square and the Vancouver Art Gallery, coming to an end at Lost Lagoon in Stanley Park.

As of 2006, the city of Vancouver overall had the fifth most expensive retail rental rates in the world, averaging US$135 per square foot per year, citywide. Robson Street tops Vancouver with its most expensive locations renting for up to US$200 per square foot per year. In 2006, both Robson Street and the Mink Mile on Bloor Street in Toronto were the 22nd most expensive streets in the world, with rents of $208 per square feet. In 2007, the Mink Mile and Robson slipped to 25th in the world with an average of $198 per square feet. The price of each continues to grow with Vancouver being Burberry’s first Canadian location and Toronto’s Yorkville neighbourhood (which is bounded on the south side by Bloor) now commanding rents of $300 per square foot.

In 1895, train tracks were laid down the street, supporting a concentration of shops and restaurants. From the early to middle-late 20th century, and especially after significant immigration from postwar Germany, the northwest end of Robson Street was known as a centre of German culture and commerce in Vancouver, earning the nickname Robsonstrasse, even among non-Germans (this name lives on in the Robsonstrasse Hotel on the street). At one time, the city had placed streetsigns reading “Robsonstrasse” though these were placed after the German presence in the area had largely vanished.

Robson Street was featured on an old edition of the Canadian Monopoly board as one of the two most expensive properties.

If you were hoping for Anime Architecture at the House of Illustration to show a futurists’ view of architecture, you’ll be disappointed. It’s the subtitle, Backgrounds of Japan, where the show’s true focus lies. This is not an exhibition of design, but rather of scenery, highlighting the background illustrator’s craft. It is built around the works of Production I.G, showcasing production materials from Patlabor: The Movie (1989), Ghost in the Shell (1995) and Metropolis (2001).

The exhibition is organised roughly in the order of production process, beginning with Haruhiko Higami’s photographic reference. Higami, a protégé of director Mamoru Oshii, seems to have pioneered the role of the ‘concept photographer’. A step beyond the mere provision of photo reference, Higami deploys his camera to compose scenes and spaces within the movie narrative, whether it’s the canal montage of Patlabor 2, or the hybrid old/new Hong Kong cityscapes of Ghost in the Shell. These images are shot in stark monochrome for the benefit of the colour designer.

The next step in production is the layouts of backgrounds. Takashi Watabe is a major star here, having worked on titles from Akira (1988) through to the reboot of Evangelion. What’s striking about his work is not just his set design, but the selection of camera angles and the use of single and two-point perspective. Although these days Watabe uses computer models to compose his backgrounds, the exhibit has many examples of his hand-drawn layouts. Watabe is a fine draughtsman, his worlds composed of ruled lines in mechanical pencil where structural masses pop out from areas of shaded detail. These are the closest things to architectural drawings, particularly when we examine the deco stylings of his backgrounds for Metropolis. The Metropolis project also shows us Watabe’s construction of a backdrop for a multi-plane camera, in which the canyons of a skyscraper cityscape are arranged and move to create a sense of depth. Sadly, the exhibit shows us the layout components but not the composed scene.

The final stage of the process is the background painting, which is represented by the work of the designer and painter Hiromasa Ogura. When one considers that these works were intended to be shown on the big screen, it’s striking how small the paintings are. Ogura’s backdrops are exemplars of the miniaturist’s art, created in gouache and with fine detailing layered over areas of wash. Many pieces hare are taken from the languid night-time montages of Ghost in the Shell, and are lit in blues and purples, with light dry brushstrokes generating the glows around light sources. There’s little futurism in many of these scenes, except maybe for washed-out hints of glass-tower cityscapes in the distance. Rather, the Ghost in the Shell and Patlabor scenes are strikingly contemporary, using Haruhiko Higami’s photos to create scenes of weathered housing and decayed structures, in some cases to be held in long, contemplative shots with little or no animation.

These are backgrounds working harder than they ever have before, not only to be a frame for the character action but to tell stories in and of themselves. Mamoru Oshii is absent as an artist from this exhibition, but his fingerprints are everywhere, in the form of his dog stamp used to approve layouts and other art. The exhibition seems to suggest this use of scenery as a movie character is a modern innovation, with Oshii as the pioneer. Though one would imagine that Akira and Wings of Honneamise (1987), both of which Takashi Watabe worked on, were there long before.

A looping video shows some of these the backgrounds as they appeared in the movies. Oddly, the loop shows a scene from Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2008) not referenced anywhere else in the exhibition, that incorporates extensive use of computer-generated backgrounds. This may be the elephant in the room. The use of CGI backdrops gives far more flexibility in lighting, the selection of camera angles and even permits tracking cameras. Old-school painted scenes, such as those of Ogura’s, represent a fading pre-digital craft. For an exhibition of such craftsmanship, the Anime Architecture show, though small, is worth the visit.

Anime Architecture: Backgrounds of Japan is at the House of Illustration until 10th September.

Built in the early 13th century a few kilometres south of Delhi, the red sandstone tower of Qutb Minar is 72.5 m high, tapering from 2.75 m in diameter at its peak to 14.32 m at its base, and alternating angular and rounded flutings. The surrounding archaeological area contains funerary buildings, notably the magnificent Alai-Darwaza Gate, the masterpiece of Indo-Muslim art (built in 1311), and two mosques, including the Quwwatu’l-Islam, the oldest in northern India, built of materials reused from some 20 Brahman temples.

Brief synthesis

The ensemble of mosques, minars, and other structures in the Qutb Minar complex is an outstanding testimony to the architectural and artistic achievements of Islamic rulers after they first established their power in the Indian subcontinent in the 12th century. The complex, located at the southern fringe of New Delhi, illustrates the new rulers’ aspiration to transform India from Dar-al-Harb to Dar-al-Islam with the introduction of distinctive building types and forms.

Referred to as the Qutb mosque, the Quwwatu’l-Islam, meaning the Might of Islam, introduced to India the classic model of Islamic architecture that had developed in western Asia. The mosque constituted a large rectangular courtyard enclosed by arcades having carved pillars on three sides and an imposing five-arched screen marking the west. Incorporating temple elements such as the carved pillars and cladding characteristic of Hindu and Jain temples, it was completed by subsequent rulers – Qutb ud din Aibak and Shamsu’d-Din Iltutmish. Drawing references from their Ghurid homeland, they constructed a minar (minaret) at the south-eastern corner of the Quwwatu’l-Islam between 1199 and 1503, thereby completing the vocabulary of a typical classic Islamic mosque. Built of red and buff sandstone and eloquently carved with inscriptional bands, the Qutb Minar is the tallest masonry tower in India, measuring 72.5 metres high, with projecting balconies for calling all Muadhdhin to prayer. An iron pillar in the courtyard gave the mosque a unique Indian aesthetic.

The 13th-century square tomb of Iltutmish in the north-western part of Quwwatu’l-Islam marks the beginning of the tradition of constructing royal tombs, a practice followed as late as the Mughal era in India. The tomb-chamber is profusely carved with inscriptions and geometrical and arabesque patterns associated with Saracenic tradition. Expansions made by Allaudin Khilji to the existing ensemble between 1296 and 1311 reflect the power wielded by the monarch. In his short reign, the emperor added a massive ceremonial gateway (Alai Darwaza) south of the Qutb Minar, and also added a madarsa (place of learning). The first storey of the incomplete Alai Minar, which was envisaged to be twice the scale of the Qutb Minar, stands 25 metres high.

Criterion (iv): The religious and funerary buildings in the Qutb Minar complex represent an outstanding example of the architectural and artistic achievements of early Islamic India.

Integrity

The boundary enveloping the remains of the Qutb and Alai minars, Quwwatu’l-Islam mosque with its extension, madarsa of Alauddin Khilji, tomb of Iltutmish, Alai Darwaza (ceremonial gateway), Iron Pillar, and other structures is of adequate size to ensure the complete representation of the features and processes that convey the property’s significance, including the aspiration and vision of the Ghurid clans to establish their rule and religion in India. The state of conservation is stable and the property does not suffer from adverse effects of development and/or neglect.

The peripheral area of the property has mixed land use, a large tract of green area (Mehrauli Archaeological Park), and facilities to support visitor movement. No threats to the integrity of the property have been identified by the State Party.

Authenticity

The Qutb Minar and its Monuments complex is substantially authentic in terms of its location, forms and designs, and materials and substance. The attributes that sustain the Outstanding Universal Value of the property are truthfully and credibly expressed, and fully convey the value of the property. To maintain the state of conservation of the property, repairs undertaken have respected the original construction, architectural, and ornamentation systems that demonstrate the Outstanding Universal Value of the property. Works periodically undertaken to ensure the property’s structural and material sustainability are reversible.

Protection and management requirements

The Qutb Minar and its Monuments complex is owned by the Government of India and managed by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). Its peripheral area is managed by multiple stakeholders, including the ASI, Delhi Development Authority, Municipal Corporation of Delhi, and Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. The overall administration of the property and its peripheral area is governed by the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act (1958) and its Rules (1959), Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains (Amendment and Validation) Act (2010), Delhi Municipal Corporation Act (1957), Land Acquisition Act (1894), Delhi Urban Art Commission Act (1973), Urban Land (Sealing and Regulation) Act (1976), Environmental Pollution Control Act (1986), Indian Forest Act (1927), Forest Conservation Act (1980), and Delhi Development Act (1957). Annual funds are provided by the Central Government for the overall conservation, maintenance, and management of the property.

The Qutb Minar and its Monuments complex is maintained, monitored, and managed by the ASI Acts and Rules through an annual conservation and development plan. To strengthen the plan, training, researchers, and experts are engaged to ensure high-quality conservation that respects the authenticity of the property. Although there is a proposal to prepare a management plan for the property that includes conservation, integrated development, visitor management, and interpretation, in the meantime the property is protected under a well-established management system.

Luna (Russian: Луна, “Moon“) is a Soviet popular science and science fiction film directed by Pavel Klushantsev.

The first part of the film, popular science, tells of recent (mid-1960s) achievements in the exploration of the Moon. Scientists discuss the hypothesis of the origin of the lunar maria, about the temperature of the lunar surface and the supposed properties of the lunar soil. The second part of the film, science fiction, shows how the moon in the near future will be developed by people from a hypothetical first lunar mission to lunar cities and laboratories.

The film won the “Golden Seal of Trieste” at the IV International Science-Fiction Film Festival (Italy, 1966).

Known as the “eighth wonder of the world,” the Amber Room at the Catherine Palace in St. Petersburg was looted by the Nazis and disappeared forever in 1943.

The fate of the Amber Room in Catherine Palace outside of St. Petersburg, Russia, is one of Europe’s most enduring mysteries.

The Amber Room was once the jewel of the Romanov’s luxurious summer residence and was covered in amber, gems, and gold leaf from floor to ceiling. Estimated to be worth between $142 million and $500 million in today’s dollars, the room astonished visitors, who called it the “eighth wonder of the world.”

Then, during World War II, the Amber Room vanished after Nazi soldiers looted it. Because the room was originally built in Germany for the Prussian Emperor Frederick I and later gifted to Peter the Great of Russia, the Nazis claimed it was theirs.

But when they took it back to Germany, all records of its location disappeared. And while some claim that Allied bombs destroyed the precious historic room, others are certain that the Nazis must have hidden away its millions worth of amber. To this day, no one has ever found the amber room.

Prussia’s first king, Frederick I, ordered the construction of the Amber Room in 1701. The room would stand as a testament to Prussian wealth. The king brought in sculptor Andreas Schlüter to design the room, while the Danish craftsman Gottfried Wolfram put together the delicate pieces.

The Baltic region contains some of the largest amber deposits in the world. And amber, fossilized tree resin dubbed the “gold of the north,” became a symbol of Prussian riches.

Not long after the Amber Room was completed at Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin in 1709, royals from across Europe expressed astonishment at its ingenuity. Kings had built rooms covered in gold and precious stones before. But no one had taken amber and transformed it into a glowing art installation.

And in addition to the multicolored amber set onto gold leaf panels to create intricate mosaics, the room was also decorated with mosaics of quartz, jasmine, jade, and onyx. In 2016, the original Amber Room was valued as high as $500 million.

But the room would not remain in Berlin for long. Frederick I died in 1712, and his son, Frederick William I, decided to gift the magnificent creation to the Russians in 1716 to commemorate their alliance against Sweden after Peter the Great spoke highly of the room during a visit to the palace.

So, only years after putting it together, Prussian artisans took apart the room and packaged up a fortune’s worth of amber in 18 boxes. The Russians recreated the display in the Winter Palace of St. Petersburg.

The Romanovs preened over their stunning room. In 1755, Peter the Great’s daughter, Empress Elizabeth, relocated the display to the Catherine Palace outside of St. Petersburg, where the family spent their summers.

Now in a larger space, the Romanovs brought in an Italian designer to expand the Amber Room. Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli brought in more amber and crafted an even more impressive version of the room.

By the end of the 18th century, the room stood at around 180 square feet. It contained six tons of amber mixed in with other precious stones and gold leaf.

When Catherine the Great wanted to impress visitors, she hosted them in the Amber Room. And Czar Alexander II displayed his trophies in the room. Empress Elizabeth used the space for another purpose: private meditation.

In 1917, the Romanovs lost power in Russia. A revolution swept new rulers into power. And while much of the Romanov wealth disappeared, the Amber Room remained in the Catherine Palace — until the Nazis invaded Russia and stole the entire room.

Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union — known as Operation Barbarossa — began in 1941. Three million Nazi soldiers flooded into the Eastern Front. And they hauled off a fortune in art, including the Amber Room.

With Nazis marching toward the Catherine Palace, Soviet officials tried to save the amber. But when they tried to take apart the intricate installations, the amber crumbled to pieces.

That was, in part, because of how the craftsmen created the room. They heated fossilized tree resin and dunked it in honey and linseed. Then, artisans pressed the amber into wood panels. Centuries later, the dry amber had grown incredibly fragile.

Panicking, the officials put up wallpaper to hide the precious amber. But Nazi soldiers quickly saw through the deception. They took apart the room in a matter of hours and shipped it to Königsberg Castle.

The Nazis declared that the Amber Room was German. A German designer crafted it for a German king. And it should not remain in Russia.

In Königsberg, museum director Alfred Rohde looked after the artifacts. And when Allied advances threatened the castle in late 1943, Rohde packed away the amber. Then, in August 1944, a bomb hit the castle.

But did that bomb destroy the Amber Room? When the Soviets marched into Königsberg, they searched the rubble for the treasure. Yet no trace remained.

No one has found the Amber Room since it vanished in 1943. But since its disappearance, many treasure hunters have clamored to discover the location of this lost horde, but none have been successful so far. So, what happened to the tons of amber worth millions?

One theory claims the bombings and fires destroyed the amber. A Soviet professor sent to investigate the missing artifacts claimed he found burned evidence of the amber mosaics in the Königsberg Castle cellar. But many refused to accept that explanation.

Then in 1997, a clue emerged. The son of a Nazi soldier tried to sell a panel from the Amber Room at an auction in Germany. But a follow-up investigation showed that the panel was a one-off — his father stole just the single mosaic while removing the artifact from Russia.

One eyewitness claimed to see Nazis pack boxes onto a transport ship called the Wilhelm Gustloff. In the final months of the war, the Soviets sank the ship. Yet dives to the wreckage of the Wilhelm Gustloff have not turned up any evidence.

Another theory claimed the Nazis snuck out the boxes through tunnels under the castle. The amber may have been hidden away in underground salt mines, sunk to the bottom of a lagoon, or shipped overseas.

In 2017, three amateur sleuths, homeopath Leonhard Blume, 73, scientist Günter Eckardt, 67, and georadar specialist Peter Lohr, 71, thought they’d found the lost treasure. They believed that the famed room resided in Prince’s Cave in the Hartenstein hills near Dresden.

The cave is known to have been used by Nazi scientists, and Lohr told The Daily Mail that a “reliable source” told him in 2001 that the room was brought to an underground bunker there in 1945. And in fact, they even found evidence of a large bunker in these hills and a location where steel ropes were used to haul crates to their desired location.

But when they investigated, they came up empty-handed. No one else has found the Amber Room either.

And even if they had found it, Alexander Shedrinsky, a conservator and biochemistry professor at New York University, told The New York Times, it wouldn’t have been much to look at.

“If the Amber Room lies hidden somewhere, it is most probably in some damp mine, which means it is almost certainly in a state of ruin,” he said.

“Even before it was stolen, it was in poor shape, in need of restoration, and the amber pieces were falling out.”

Today, the mystery of the Amber Room still has no solution — but one last theory holds that the Soviets themselves covered up the destruction of the room. After the war, Königsberg, Germany, became Kaliningrad, Russia, and in 1968, the Soviets destroyed the remains of Königsberg Castle, making it impossible for anyone else to find traces of the original room.

Then, in 1979, the Russians decided to rebuild the entire room. Using black and white photos of the Amber Room and uncovering the trade secrets necessary to create the multicolored amber of the room, the Russian government completed their recreation of the Amber Room in 2004.

The replica cost $11 million and marked the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg. Ironically, when the organization tasked with recreating this landmark ran out of money in 2000, a German company raised the necessary funds to finish the project.

So a German-made artifact, given to the Russians, reworked by Russians and Germans, stolen by the German army, is finally recreated by the Russians with the help of a German company. The complicated relationship between these two great nations is embodied in the history of this work of art.

While visitors can view this new Amber Room in St. Petersburg, the original remains lost to history, at least for a while longer — until the original Amber Room may be found.

On November 1, 2015 Stephen F. Cohen was interviewed by Oksana Boyko, a journalist for RT.COM.

Cohen is a retired professor of Soviet history at Columbia University and New York University,a longtime columnist for The Nation magazine, and expert on Nikolai Bukharin.

In the late 1970s Cohen’s 1973 book Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution was translated secretly into Russian and smuggled into the USSR. Mikhail Gorbachev said that it helped convince him of the evil of the Stalin years. It was the first book by a Western “Sovietologist” to be officially published in Russian, in the USSR, by a Soviet publisher.

Cohen has some credibility among leftists because he is a liberal among the scholars on the USSR. He has said that he was sorry to see the demise of the USSR and felt terrible about the suffering of the (former) Soviet working class during the Yeltsin years, when living standards and life expectancy went into a free fall. Cohen has opposed US policy on Ukraine and is much more supportive of the Putin policy than virtually any other mainstream scholar of Russia or the USSR.

It’s all the more important, therefore, to understand that on the subject of Stalin Cohen is more similar to than he is different from the Cold War anticommunist and anti-Stalin ideologues who are the main “expert” voices about Soviet history. Cohen shares with them what I have called the “anti-Stalin paradigm” of history. This is a version of Soviet history of the Stalin period entirely built on lies, fabrications, and forgeries. Cohen repeats some of them here.

In 2012 my Moscow colleague Vladimir L. Bobrov and I published a lengthy article titled “Stephen Cohen’s Biography of Bukharin: A Study in the Falsehood of Khrushchev-Era ‘Revelations’.” (Cultural Logic for 2010) In it we show that virtually every fact-claim Cohen makes in Chapter 10 of his Bukharin biography is false. This is the chapter that takes Bukharin’s life from 1930 to his trial and execution in 1938.

We begin that article by showing that Cohen deliberately lies in this book. Cohen quotes from the memoirs of one of Bukharin’s close friends and colleagues of the 1920s, the Swiss communist Jules Humbert-Droz. Humbert-Droz revealed that Bukharin told him in 1928 that he and his supporters were plotting to assassinate Stalin. Cohen never mentions this passage, concealing it from his readers. When confronted about this omission in 2014 Cohen claimed: “I knew nothing about his subsequent remark until well after my book was published.” This cannot possibly be true since Cohen quotes from the very same memoir in his book.

(I would like to note here that I was directed to Humbert-Droz’ memoir some years ago by a review by Vijay Singh, founder and editor of the fine journal Revolutionary Democracy.)

Therefore Cohen is not above lying about Soviet history of the Stalin period. But I think the main issue here is not Cohen’s personal dishonesty. Rather, it is the “anti-Stalin paradigm” which is required, is the only “politically correct” version of Soviet history allowed. And it is built on lies.

In this talk I will just outline the lies that Cohen tells in this RT.COM interview.

• Cohen refers to “20 million victims of Stalin.” This is a big lie. No anticommunist scholar has come anywhere close to such a number. Timothy Snyder, in Bloodlands, gets a figure of 6-8 million only by including 5 million who died in the 1932-33 famine as “Stalin’s victims.” The best estimates are that the real number of those who died as a result of the famine is about 2.9 million.
• “Collectivization led to the famine.” The opposite is true. Collectivization was a true reform, as Mark Tauger, the foremost expert on Russian famines, has written. As a result of the modernization and mechanization of agriculture, the cycle of famines every 2-3 years in Russia and Ukraine was stopped for good. I discuss this in detail in Blood Lies, where I state that the collectivization of agriculture should have been awarded a Nobel Prize as the greatest feat of social engineering of the 20th century.

We should never concede that there were any “victims of Stalin” other than the exploiters, the capitalists and their supporters, whose “victims” the Russian peasants and working class had been for centuries. Nor should we ever concede that “Stalin killed” anyone – not even one person. Stalin did not “kill” people at all.

• Cohen claims that “the terror continued till Stalin dies in 1953.” Even the most anticommunist researchers acknowledge that the so-called “terror” – mass executions – stopped when Lavrentii Beria took over as head of the NKVD from Nikolai Ezhov in late 1938.

Likewise, we should never concede that there was ANY “terror.” In a 1986 article in Slavic Review, “Fear and Belief in the USSR’s ‘Great Terror’: Response to Arrest, 1935-1939” Robert Thurston argued that there was no “terror” because people were not “terrorized.”

The best term for this period is the Ezhovshchina, or “bad time of Ezhov.”

• Cohen claims that Stalin wrote “arrest family,” “arrest and shoot” on “lists.” This is false. I discuss this in my book Khrushchev Lied.
• These lists were sent to the Secretariat, including Stalin, “for review.” Many people on them were not executed, or received lesser punishments, or were released.
• Cohen claims that “the NKVD was given quotas by Stalin’s office.” A lie!
• Arch Getty discusses this in his latest book Practicing Stalinism. These were not quotas but limits – not minimum, but maximum numbers. Ezhov treated them as “quotas” – but Ezhov had his own conspiracy against the Soviet leadership, for which he was eventually arrested, tried, and executed.
• Cohen said: “We know Stalin issued an order for the NKVD in prisons” to “use physical force.”
• This is false too. I cover this in Khrushchev Lied. The order in question – which may be a forgery, authorizes the use of “means of physical pressure” only in the case of the most hardened and intransigent enemies of the state. (Cohen gets the dates wrong – the actual date is January 1939, not 1936-37, as Cohen says.)
• Cohen says: “Why did he [Stalin] destroy the military high command? Why did he kill them? He convinced himself that they were not loyal.”

We have a great deal of evidence that confirms the guilt of Marshal Tukhachevsky and other military commanders in plotting both a coup d’etat against the Soviet government and Party leadership, and also plotting with Germany and Japan to join invading fascist armies against the Soviet government in the event of war.

The truth, as demonstrated by the best evidence, is that in stopping the military conspiracy Stalin’s leadership contributed to saving not only the Soviet Union, but all of Europe and indeed the world from fascism at that time. Both Germany and Japan would have been immeasurably stronger in their wars against the Allies if the military conspirators had succeeded. Germany would have had the immense material and human resources of the Soviet Union to turn against England and the US. Japan would have had the petroleum of the Soviet East and Sakhalin, making it far less vulnerable in its war against the USA.

Since Khrushchev’s day it has been heresy in the USSR, and now in Russia, to discuss the evidence that the military conspirators were guilty. But the evidence is there. I wrote about this in Chapter 17 of The Murder of Sergei Kirov. I have much more about the military conspiracy in my forthcoming book Trotsky’s ‘Amalgams.’ It will be published in December, 2015.

Cohen has been close to the family of Nikolai Bukharin for decades and is completely committed to the position that Bukharin was innocent, “framed” and murdered by Stalin. This flies in the face of all the evidence now available. Vladimir Bobrov and I have published several articles on Bukharin and the evidence against him that is now available. All are on my Home Page.

• Cohen claims that he met the daughter of “Kogan,” an NKVD man who had “tormented” Bukharin, and that Bukharin’s aged widow said that Kogan too had been a “victim” of Stalin. This is all wrong.

There were at least two NKVD men named Kogan. We don’t know which “Kogan” is in question here. In her autobiography, Bukharin’s widow Anna Larina just calls him “Kogan.” She also states that Bukharin sent her a note saying that his conditions in prison were very good! Neither she nor anyone else has any evidence that Kogan, or for that matter anybody, “tormented” Bukharin.

Some other sources assume the “Kogan” here is L.I. Kogan. If so, this Kogan was arrested tried, and executed in 1939, under Beria, for “illegal arrests of Soviet citizens and the falsification of criminal cases.” That is, when Beria, with the agreement of Stalin and the rest of the Soviet leadership, was investigating the criminal mass executions carried out under Ezhov. I cover this in my book Blood Lies.

Boyko, the interviewer, calls Timothy Snyder and Anne Applebaum “good historians” and contrasts them to Cohen, who is certainly a liberal compared to these two. In Blood Lies I expose Snyder’s dozens of lies about Stalin, the USSR, and communists.

This shows the convergence of overtly right-wing anticommunists with liberal anticommunists like Cohen in the “anti-Stalin paradigm.” This paradigm can accommodate both. Just as it also accommodates anarchists and Trotskyists, who compete with the overly pro-capitalist anticommunists in spreading lies and horror stories about Stalin.

In conclusion: lies about the Stalin period are promoted by all anticommunists, from the pseudo-left to liberal and right-wing. The Russian Revolution, the high point of whose achievements were attained during the period of Stalin’s leadership, continues to incite fear and hatred among its enemies.