Monumental Victory In Dushanbe

The Soviets left all sorts of monuments to the Great Patriotic War, aka, WWII, all over Central Asia. The glory of military victory is good propaganda.

Dushanbe has an understated memorial, appropriately titled, Victory Monument.

Two simple steles with nice, brutalist, socialist, blocky frieze figures around the bottoms. Down goes the Nazi flag, up with flowers of peace.

The placement of the Victory Monument turned out to be a traffic choked plaza and the Dushanbe powers decided to duplicate the monument in, well, Victory Park. Bigger! Cleaner! Room for a tank!

With May Day approaching, time for an annual spit and polish. Photos of the dead. The images are near Victory Monument, part of a grand staircase that leads up to an eternal flame and plaza for memorial reflection.

The eternal flame, fresh laid flowers and a plaque that proclaims no one is forgotten.

Remnants Of May 9 Victory Day In Riga, Latvia

Latvia has a large Russian minority population and it still comes out to commemorate Victory Day, May 9, the day the Russians defeated the Nazis in WWII. Of course, like Lithuania, Estonia and other Eastern Europe countries, it also marks the beginning of Soviet occupation that lasted 45+ years. It's a touchy subject.

Riga has a Victory Park, dominated by Soviet Socialist sculptures. A natural place for remembrance.

Solemn details, a sea of flowers, images of lost family members, military hardware.

Flowers in front of the other sculpture.

What To See Randomly In Bangkok

Plenty of palaces and Wats to check out while in Bangkok, not to mention shopping, eating and sweating. What else might one run into?

The impressive Vimanmek Mansion, built in 1900, billed as "The world's largest golden teakwood mansion." Who are we to argue?

You can read more about the mansion and some of the following attractions here.

The big house is part of a park with multiple buildings. Nearby is the Dusit Palace, now an exhibition place. A good place for a picture.

Also in the park is a small exhibition pavilion dedicated to Thailand's traditional beast of burden, the elephant. Yep, the preserved skin of a rare white elephant. Tall tusks and other pachyderm pieces.

One more beauty, the intricate Dusit Throne Hall, 1904.

Victory is ours! Monument, that is, located a mile or so east of the preceding collection of buildings and attractions.