A Summer Stop In Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, Part One

An incredibly random look at a week at the beach.

Boardwalk beacon.

Things racing.

Bumper cars.

Night glimpses.

Family portrait in a storage room.

A Day On Monhegan Island, Maine

When back in the United States, it's nice to soak up some iconic areas of the country. Time to head North to Maine and hop to an island.

First, the ferry.

Chatting and worrying.

Enjoying the land and sea. And good company.

Runaway towel. Captive lobster, lunch in 10 minutes.

Post lunch, time to feed seagulls the shells.

Colors of summer.

On Monhegan, buildings take a back seat to preserving the natural.

Details Of Minsk

There are no shortages of Soviet-era details in the city, both in the architecture and stylistic influences.

Classic culture clash, a building boasting a big Communist bas-relief mural, now over a KFC. With a disturbance that brought the police. Transitions are tough!

Old cafeteria with terra-cotta murals depicting the bounty from manual labor and agriculture. Work it, comrade.

Patriotic sign in the underground area beneath the central Victory monument.

Traditions displayed in shop windows.

Tractor factory.

Apartment architecture, the skyline of Minsk.

Belarusian Great Patriotic War Museum, Part Two

Continuing the tour of the museum, more rooms, more theatrics.

Like a Norman Rockwell painting come to life.

The museum goes deep into detail, even devoting space to landscapes. The civilian fight in the forest.

While in hiding, monitoring the enemy.

More backgrounds and more fighting.

Getting to the end of the war, devastation and destruction.

Belarusian Great Patriotic War Museum, Part One

The biggest museum in Minsk is devoted to WWII. The Great Patriotic War Museum exists to remember and glorify the Belarusian effort to defeat the Nazis. More than a chronicle of WWII, the museum almost breathes the war effort. Which is understandable, considering the razing of Minsk and the millions of lives lost on their own soil.

The museum looks forward as well as backward, using the war effort to build present day national character. High theater is the style, creating impressive life-size dioramas of war scenes. Fascinating.

Scouting the enemy and museum-goers.

Men at war.

Fleeing.

Battlefront hospital and border crossing.

The museum even created scenes without action.

Blooming Minsk

Maybe the summer season is short. Maybe the drab of winter is overwhelming. Maybe Belarusians really, really like flowers. Take a stroll around Minsk and you'll run into flowers everywhere - real, fake, in planters, cemeteries. Color, bursting with pride.

Planters, scattered like seed.

Real in front of fake. Window dressing.

Plastic in a cemetery.

More examples in a cemetery and planters. Why stop with the bright colors at the flowers?

Monumental cemetery bouquet.

Minsk Metro

They love their grand metro design in Russia and former Soviet states. In Minsk, highlights of city architecture can be found underground.

One of the more elaborate stations, double height room with columns and mood lighting.

Color themes, green tile in a station, blue on the cars.

Fantastic space-age circular station map and lighting.

Another look at a station and some machine-age lettering spelling out "Tractor Factory."

Lenin, to remind you that you're at the Lenin Square station. Rub the nose for good luck?