[My first edit on the English Wikipedia was to our article on the Star Alliance at 10:28hrs GMT, 27 May 2006 while in one of their airline lounges. Before that I'd (anonymously) corrected a few spelling mistakes and such like. I also edit other Wiki's.] contribcounter
The 'Political Compass'[1] certified me as:
Economic Left/Right: -3.75,
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.03
which, I understand, placed me just to the economic right of Nelson Mandela and as considerably more authoritarian than the Dalai Lama in 2007...[2]
States I NEVER visited in the United States:- Alaska;
Provinces and Territories I NEVER visited in Canada:- Nunuvut;
Nations I NEVER visited in Europe: Cyprus, Iceland, Malta;
I have also been fortunate enough to visit all ASEAN members, Africa and many of the Pacific Island nations; guess I'll never get to visit South America or Antarctica now...
Raising a Flag over the Reichstag (Russian: Знамя Победы над Рейхстагом, romanized: Znamya Pobedy nad Reykhstagom, lit. 'Victory Banner over the Reichstag') is an iconic World War II photograph, taken during the Battle of Berlin on 2 May 1945 by Yevgeny Khaldei. The photograph was reprinted in thousands of publications and came to be regarded around the world as one of the most significant and recognizable images of World War II, but, owing to the secrecy of Soviet media, both the identity of photographer and the identities of the men in the picture were often disputed.
The Reichstag was seen as symbolic of, and at the heart of, Nazi Germany. It was arguably the most symbolic target in Berlin. After its capture on 2 May 1945, Khaldei scaled the now pacified Reichstag to take a picture. He was carrying with him a large flag, sewn from three tablecloths for this very purpose, by his uncle. The official story would later be that two hand-picked soldiers, Meliton Kantaria (Georgian) and Mikhail Yegorov (Russian), raised the Soviet flag over the Reichstag, However, according to Khaldei himself, when he arrived at the Reichstag, he simply asked the soldiers who happened to be passing by to help with the staging of the photoshoot; the one who was attaching the flag was 18-year-old Private Kovalev from Burlin, Kazakhstan; the two others were Abdulkhakim Ismailov from Dagestan and Leonid Gorychev (also mentioned as Aleksei Goryachev) from Minsk.Photograph credit: Yevgeny Khaldei for TASS; restored by Adam Cuerden
