US sets coronavirus infection record; deaths near 224,000

By REBECCA BOONE and DAVID CRARYtoday (AP)

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The U.S. coronavirus caseload has reached record heights with more than 83,000 infections reported in a single day, the latest ominous sign of the disease’s grip on the nation, as states from Connecticut to the Rocky Mountain West reel under the surge.

The U.S. death toll, meanwhile, has grown to 223,995, according to the COVID-19 Dashboard published by Johns Hopkins University. The total U.S. caseload reported on the site Friday was 83,757, topping the 77,362 cases reported on July 16.

The impact is being felt in every section of the country — a lockdown starting Friday at the Oglala Sioux Tribe’s reservation in South Dakota, a plea by a Florida health official for a halt to children’s birthday parties, dire warnings from Utah’s governor, and an increasingly desperate situation at a hospital in northern Idaho, which is running out of space for patients and considering airlifts to Seattle or Portland, Oregon.

“We’ve essentially shut down an entire floor of our hospital. We’ve had to double rooms. We’ve bought more hospital beds,” said Dr. Robert Scoggins, a pulmonologist at the Kootenai Health hospital in Coeur d’Alene. “Our hospital is not built for a pandemic.”

In the southern Idaho city of Twin Falls, St. Luke’s Magic Valley Medical Center said it would no longer accept children because it is overwhelmed with coronavirus patients. Except for newborns, all under age 18 will be sent 128 miles (206 kilometers) away in Boise.

Among those in northern Idaho joining Scoggins at a meeting of Idaho’s Panhandle Health District was board member Walk Kirby.

“People are dying, they’re going to keep dying and catching this stuff,” Kirby said. “How many people won’t wear a mask? The same people that won’t get vaccinated for it.”

Utah’s Gov. Gary Herbert proclaimed Friday to be “a record day for Utah — but not a good one” as COVID-19 cases reached an all-time high for the state.

“Up until now, our hospitals have been able to provide good care to all COVID and non-COVID patients who need it,” he said. “But today we stand on the brink. If Utahans do not take serious steps to limit group gatherings and wear masks, our healthcare providers will not have the ability to provide quality care for everyone who needs it.”

FLORIDA

The top health official in one of Florida’s most populous counties discouraged parents from hosting birthday parties for their children, no matter the size.

Dr. Raul Pino, a state health officer in Orange County, said half of the 30 attendees at a recent Sweet 16 party in the Orlando area came down with the virus. Last month, an Orange County high school closed for two weeks after students who had attended a birthday party tested positive.

“Those parties will not only affect those people participating in that activity, but also everyone else they come into contact with when they leave,” said Pino. “We will continue to see consequences if we don’t act super-responsibly.”

TEXAS

In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott is sending more medical reinforcements to the El Paso area in response to a surge of coronavirus infections. The Texas Department of State Health Services and the Texas Division of Emergency Management will provide more medical personnel and equipment this week.

El Paso County reported 3,750 new coronavirus infections this week, including 1,161 on Thursday. That number accounts for 17.5% of the 21,321 cases reported this week by the state’s 254 counties.

IDAHO

Even as the health-care situation worsened in northern Idaho, a regional health board voted to repeal a local mask mandate. It acted moments after hearing how the Kootenai Health hospital in Coeur d’Alene had reached 99% capacity.

Kootenai is the third-most populous county in conservative Idaho.

The state is experiencing its largest coronavirus spike since the pandemic began, with new cases increasing statewide by 46.5% percent over the past two weeks. Gov. Brad Little, a Republican, has declined to take steps such as requiring masks statewide to slow the virus’ spread.

Dr. Joshua Kern, vice president of St. Luke’s in the Magic Valley region that includes Twin Falls and Jerome, said Thursday during a virtual press conference that he and other medical professionals are scared.

“The purpose of any intervention around coronavirus has been to prevent the hospitals from being overwhelmed, and here I am today saying the hospital is being overwhelmed,” he said.

A day later on Friday, his hospital announced the move to send younger patients to Boise.

NEW JERSEY and CONNECTICUT

For a while, as new COVID-19 cases surged in the Midwest and elsewhere, the level of new cases remained low in the Northeast, which had been hit hard earlier in the pandemic. Several states, including New Jersey and Connecticut, imposed 14-day quarantine requirements for travelers arriving from dozens of states with higher rates of positive tests.

This week, however, rates in New Jersey and Connecticut rose to the point where they qualify for their own quarantine restrictions.

After some confusion, the Democratic governors of New Jersey, Connecticut and New York, where rates remain lower, decided to keep their travel rules in place, but not add each other to their quarantine lists.

Crary reported from New York. Associated Press writers Amy Forliti in Minneapolis; Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, Brady McCombs in Salt Lake City and Freida Frisaro in Orlando, Florida, contributed to this report.

By public health order, masks are required in 21 counties, said Herbert, urging Utah residents to wear one whenever they are around someone outside their immediate household.

The seven-day rolling average for new daily COVID-19 cases in the U.S. surpassed 61,140 Thursday, compared with 44,647 two weeks ago. The record was reached July 22 when the rolling average was 67,293 in the midst of a summer outbreak driven largely by surges of the virus in Florida, Texas, Arizona and California.

The U.S. surge mirrors a similarly widespread spike in Europe, where Rome, Paris and other major cities are reining in nightlife as part of the increasingly drastic measures undertaken to slow the spread of the pandemic. French authorities said the country had recorded over 1 million confirmed coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic, becoming the second country in Western Europe after Spain to reach that number.

The head of the World Health Organization warned that countries in the Northern Hemisphere are at a “critical juncture” as cases and deaths continue to rise.

“The next few months are going to be very tough and some countries are on a dangerous track,” said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a press briefing on Friday.

Some of the latest developments in the United States:

SOUTH DAKOTA

In South Dakota, the Oglala Sioux Tribe ordered a one-week lockdown of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in response to a surging number of COVID-19 cases in the state. Through the morning of Oct. 30, all non-essential travel is banned and non-essential businesses must close.

The tribe posted on its Twitter page that there were 391 active COVID-19 cases as of Thursday on the reservation, which has about 20,000 residents.

The lockdown comes as South Dakota surpassed 9,000 active coronavirus cases on Thursday and reported an all-time high of 973 new cases in one day.

Messo male il capo dei senatori repubblicani

Mitch McConnell, 78, DENIES he has any health problems amid speculation over why his hands are badly bruised and covered in band-aids
Mitch McConnell assured all is well after speculation swirled over his health
These questions emerged after the Kentucky Republican was shown with severe discoloration and band-aids on his hands and his lips appeared bruised
Band-aids covering some of the Senate majority leader's knuckles
'Is there anything going on we should know about?' a reporter asked McConnell
'Of course not,' he said
Some claim the 78-year-old senator has contracted COVID-19, while others say he could be on blood thinners

•  
•  
•  

Pope Francis, the anti-Trump of our age

(The Washington Post)

Centuries ago, Christendom was accustomed to the periodic existence of “antipopes.” They were clerics who, whether through spiritual conviction or political machinations, challenged the designated pontiff with rival claims to the top seat in the Vatican. Sometimes kingdoms backed them. Often men died for them.

In our more global and secular context, it’s arguably the principal figure in the White House — not the Holy See — who commands such consequential power on earth. And in the age of President Trump, there are plenty of candidates for a putative anti-POTUS: Consider liberal leaders like the German chancellor or New Zealand’s charismatic prime minister, let alone geopolitical adversaries like the Chinese president.

But what about the pope himself? Over the course of Trump’s tenure in office, few people have cut a more contrasting figure than Pope Francis, the former Buenos Aires bishop with a Jesuit dedication for social justice and the rights of the poor and marginalized. The two have already squabbled: In 2016, Francis suggested Trump was “not Christian” because of his anti-migrant rhetoric and desire to build walls between nations. Trump reacted angrily at the time, calling the comments “disgraceful” and warning darkly that when Islamist terrorists strike the Vatican, the pope would regret not supporting a Trump presidency.

The following year, Francis questioned how Trump could be “pro-life” while pursuing policies that broke up the families of immigrants and asylum seekers. In their sole meeting, in 2017, he presented Trump a copy of his treatise on protecting the environment and reckoning with climate change, but that hardly dissuaded the president from withdrawing from the Paris climate accord and undermining international efforts to curb emissions.

Their differences abound. The pope participated in a ceremony where he washed the feet of Muslim asylum seekers; Trump scaremongers over the threat of Islam and has blocked immigration from a number of Muslim-majority countries. The pope recently published an encyclical where he warned against “extremist, resentful and aggressive nationalism”; Trump’s brand of nationalist politics can indeed be seen as extremist, often aggressive and steeped in resentment. The pope has likened contemporary capitalism to “the worship of the ancient golden calf … returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money”; Trump, with his gilded mansions and debt-ridden business empire, is an acolyte of that cult.

Francis is back in the news this week with dramatic revelations that he appears to back civil unions for homosexuals. “Homosexual people have the right to be in a family. They are children of God,” Francis said in a new documentary. “You can’t kick someone out of a family, nor make their life miserable for this. What we have to have is a civil union law; that way they are legally covered.”

There are questions about the newness of the footage, which my colleagues reported may actually stem from an earlier 2019 interview with a Mexican broadcaster. Vatican watchers also note that Francis’s position on civil unions is not particularly new or that radical. Francis is hardly supporting same-sex marriage, and he presides more broadly over a church still saddled with the burdens of the past, including myriad allegations of sexual abuse and coverups that go all the way to the top of the papacy.


But his statement on civil unions underscores the general inclusivity of his worldview, which has earned him a set of hard-line opponents within the Catholic Church.

Former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon attempted to court some of them in recent years during his adventures in Europe. In a 2019 interview, Bannon declared the pope to be “dead wrong” and reportedly also advised far-right politicians in Italy to view Francis as “the enemy.”

Trump, meanwhile, has allied himself with a camp that’s also ill-disposed to the pope. “The president has aligned his reelection campaign with a proudly revanchist corner of the Church, one unfamiliar to many American Catholics, even those adamantly opposed to abortion,” Tish Durkin wrote in the Atlantic this week. “This faction’s positions on women, gay people, Muslims, immigration, socialism, and climate change are much closer to those of pro-Trump white evangelicals than to those of liberal Catholics, whom they consider not to be Catholics at all.”
 
“Some of the Pope’s most sulphurous critics, such as Carlo Maria Viganò, former Vatican envoy to Washington, who launched an extraordinary attack on Francis in 2018, have come out for Trump, who has tweeted approvingly of the controversial Italian archbishop’s conspiracy theories about a ‘deep church’ peopled by the ‘children of darkness,’ ” David Gardner wrote in the Financial Times.

The pope’s views, Gardner added, fit far more easily with the Catholicism of Trump’s challenger, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. That’s not surprising. Carolyn Woo, former president of Catholic Relief Services and a co-chair of Catholics for Biden, told the Associated Press that the pope’s unconditional prioritizing of the “dignity of people” echoes the center-left politics preached by Democrats.

“Overall the Democratic platform is: We’ve got to help people where they are at. We’ve got to protect their rights, we’ve got to help them flourish,” she said.

Si è appena concluso il il dibattito finale......e chiedo scusa agli amici Lettori

 

Si è appena concluso il  il dibattito finale tra il presidente Donald Trump e lo sfidante democratico Joe Biden  ed il vostro redattore in anticipo chiede scusa agli amici lettori.

Chiedere scusa per che cosa? 

Ecco la nostra modesta risposta: questa formula televisiva non ha più senso in una situazione in cui quasi 50 milioni di americani hanno già depositato la loro scheda inviandola per posta oppure sobbarcandosi lunghe file di ore per poter votare in anticipo rispetto alla data fatidica del 3 novembre.

Nonostante le regole accettate dalle due squadre per conto dei propri corridori, i 90 minuti di confronto sono stati (almeno per chi scrive) un momento di grande tristezza perché confermavano di quale pasta sono gli uomini che comandano o comanderanno la nazione più potente del mondo.

Se il sottoscritto appartenesse a quei 90 milioni di cittadini che nel 2016 hanno disertato le urne, un dibattito come quello appena concluso avrebbe potuto in qualche modo convincermi a uscire dal mio cinico isolamento dando il voto all'uno o all'altro? Bene: questo non e' accaduto.

Se appartenessi a quella numerosa categoria definita "americano medio" e formulassi la mia decisione di voto sulla base del linguaggio del corpo dei due esponenti politici che si sono affrontati nel dibattito, il mio voto andrebbe a Donald Trump perché scenicamente riesce a bucare l'audience.

Al contrario di Joe Biden incappato oltretutto in una serata non facile per uno come lui che soffre di difficoltà del linguaggio curate sin da quando era un ragazzo. Terribile lo sguardo di Biden all'orologio come fece Bush senior e gli costo' la rielezione.

Se il mio voto dovesse essere motivato dai programmi politici esposti dei due candidati anche in questo caso dovrei dichiarare che il dibattito è servito poco, mentre sicuramente più produttivi per l'uno per l'altro contendente, sono i comizi televisivi ampiamente ribattuti ogni giorno.

Ma siccome non appartengo a quella fascia di elettori mi illudo di fondare la mia scelta di voto sulla conoscenza e preferenza data ad uno dei due avendo capito dalle loro parole quali sono i programmi che intendono attuare a beneficio di una nazione mai così divisa e radicalizzata come in questi giorni.

Anche in questo caso sarei costretto ad ammettere che il dibattito non mi ha accresciuto di alcunché rispetto a quanto già ho deciso nell'ambito della mia coscienza.

Riuscire ad arrivare al 90º minuto è stato per me uno sforzo notevole aggravato dal comportamento della giornalista della NBC, Kristen Welker, che ha concesso al presidente Trump la possibilità di replicare in continuazione alle affermazioni del suo oppositore scardinando le regole dell'incontro anche questa volta violato da un prepotente incontenibile.

Queste elezioni presidenziali sono giustamente considerate fondamentali per la conservazione di una democrazia afflitta da problemi costituzionali e sociali che la rendono facile preda per chi voglia instaurare una autocrazia.

Ognuno ormai si è fatto un'idea e chi ha già votato o chi andrà a votare nei prossimi giorni o il 3 novembre sa perfettamente che questa elezione presidenziale è in realtà un referendum tra un millantatore e un 'usato sicuro'.

Mai come in questi momenti ha un suo significato la frase " God bless America".

Oscar

PS: Io ho gia' votato dieci giorni fa per posta.

 _____________________________________________________

The final, final numbers are in, and the last presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump drew an estimated 63 million viewers, according to Nielsen.
The figures are of viewership across 15 networks that carried the event from roughly 9 PM ET to 11 PM ET.
The viewership dropped 14% from the 73.1 million who watched the first debate on September 29. It also was lower than the audience for the final debate of 2016 between Trump and Hillary Clinton. That event, on October 19, 2016, drew 71.6 million viewers.

___________________________________________________________

UNO a ZERO per il presidente Trump.......Biden sta cercando Prodi par farsi dare il nome del suo prestanome cinese per aprire un conto corrente in cina.....

Leonardo Zangani
___________________________________________________________
Non l'ho visto, eppure non sono d'accordo con te. La migliore analisi è venuta da Jimmy Kimmel. Guardatela. Queste elezioni sono 100% universal health care. Tutto il resto è malarkey. Come al solito, non sia mai che i fatti abbiano avuto il sopravvento. E delle opinioni di estranei posso fare a meno. Ne ho di mie e mi interessano solo quelle di una ristretta cerchia di amici. Anche quando diverse dalle mie, by the way. Clark Misul ____________________________________________________________

Se avessi preso appunti e scribacchiato opinioni avrei pensato che ti eri intrufolato e rubacchiato i miei commenti !!!  Tristezza infinita !!!!Baci MLuisa

"Vote for Trump or else!"

Election 2020

(CNN)

 

Elections officials in Florida and Alaska contacted law enforcement after dozens of registered voters reported receiving threatening emails telling them to "Vote for Trump or else!" At least 183 people at the University of Florida got them, and at least one voter from a third state, Arizona, reported getting one. Meanwhile, early votes are coming in by the millions. In Ohio, absentee ballots are being returned at nearly double the rate they were in 2016. As for the candidates, President Trump and Joe Biden are preparing their final activities on the campaign trail. Trump raised eyebrows yesterday when he abruptly ended a solo interview with CBS News' "60 Minutes" and did not return for an appearance he was supposed to tape with Vice President Mike Pence.

 

Le storie di Oscar # 8: Mosca... ieri per me

1965, primo anno dell'era di Leonid Brezhnev che avrebbe comandato l'Unione Sovietica per 18 anni.

Come responsabile dell'immagine e dei rapporti con i media di una importante industria metallurgica fiorentina avevo avuto l'incarico di coordinare l'allestimento di un padiglione ad una fiera internazionale che si sarebbe tenuta al parco di Sokolniki a Mosca.

Una esperienza molto interessante per chi come me oltretutto era anche consigliere comunale a Firenze per il Partito Liberale e anticomunista dichiarato.

Ma avere la possibilità di visitare dal vivo il cosidetto 'paradiso' dell'Unione Sovietica, a differenza dei compagni italiani che venivano cammellati dai dirigenti di sezione, era una prospettiva molto interessante. Anche se pericolosa.

Non c'era un volo diretto su Mosca e bisognava fare scalo a Vienna e da lì prendere un Tupolev 104  della Aeroflot quello con il muso finestrato di derivazione militare.

In quel primo viaggio l'hotel era l'Ucraina, una copia integrale dallesterno del Waldorf Astoria di New York in cui gli ospiti stranieri erano concentrati per evitare contatti con la popolazione. Stavano costruendo l'enorme Rossyia proprio dietro il Cremlino.

Entro nella mia camera e suona il telefono. Alzo il ricevitore ed una voce di donna in un italiano quasi perfetto mi dice: "Bene arrivato Oscar, sono Svetlana. Quando ci vediamo?"

Questa procedura si sarebbe ripetuta tutte le volte che nel corso degli anni successivi mi sarei recato nell'Unione Sovietica per lavoro.

Un modo come un altro per agganciare il visitatore straniero d'intesa con il ricevimento dell'albergo, per carpire informazioni per il KGB che controllava la linea telefonica della camera d'albergo.

La componente femminile nella esperienza dei visitatori stranieri era determinante: le ragazze più avvenenti ce la mettevano tutta (e' il caso di dirlo) per farsi sposare dagli incauti professionisti di altre nazioni che venivano catturati dal fascino slavo.

Era successo anche a un noto esponente politico, che era rientrato da una lunga visita a Mosca sposato con una bionda effervescente che, una volta catapultata in Italia, dopo poco tempo lo aveva piantato per correre tra le braccia di altri sostanziosi (in termini di ricchezza personale) garzoni italiani.

Al vostro redattore, lontano da propositi matrimoniali dato che non aveva ancora trovato l'anima gemella tra tra le molte offerte in liquidazione, era capitata una simpatica occasione di scambio di opinioni con una Natasha incontrata in un caffè moscovita.

Un pomeriggio camminavamo in un viale di betulle reso ultra romantico dai colori autunnali; a quei tempi fumavo qualche cigarillo, tanto per darmi un tono e non è che mi piacesse.

Avevo tirato fuori da una tasca una scatola di fiammiferi svedesi con cui mi ero acceso l'arnese e avevo gettato il fiammifero spento, continuando a parlare con Natasha che però era sparita dal mio fianco.

Mi sono girato e l'ho vista raccogliere da terra quel fiammifero riponendolo in una scatoletta che aveva tirato fuori dal suo giaccone.

Posso assicurare che mi sono sentito un verme anche se la ragazza aveva agito automaticamente senza voler dare una lezione di educazione civica all'incauto e cafone amico straniero.

La polizia segreta imponeva che ogni stand nel padiglione fieristico avesse un interprete.

A noi era capitata una simpatica ragazza di Reggio Emilia, ovviamente iscritta al partito comunista italiano che aveva facilitato la sua presenza a Mosca per studiare all'università Lomonosov.

Questi interpreti alla fine della giornata dovevano stilare un rapporto al commissario politico raccontando quanto avevano visto e sentito nelle otto ore di presenza nello stand con gli ospiti stranieri.

Bisognava essere molto accorti ed evitare facili battute sulla disorganizzazione moscovita magari sull'onda di qualche bicchiere di vodka. A farne le spese erano stati soprattutto i francesi i quali erano stati espulsi dall'Unione Sovietica nel giro di poche ore per aver detto chissà che cosa nel loro padiglione in fiera.

La nostra simpatica interprete-spia di Reggio Emilia ci raccontava che i compagni italiani non è che fossero molto amati dalla popolazione sovietica, dato che arrivavano con valigie strapiene di indumenti super usati che poi rivendevano a caro prezzo utilizzando il cambio illegale con il rublo.

Nella Mosca di quegli anni tutto si aggiustava comunque: se arrivavi in un ristorante dell'albergo e magari erano passate le nove, trovavi porte chiuse e direttori inflessibili. Ma le porte, i direttori, la cucina e tutto il resto si rimettevano in moto appena gli allentavi una consistente mancia.

Spesso se entravi in amicizia con qualche moscovita ti sentivi chiedere di poter andare in uno dei vari Berioska-betulla (dove gli stranieri potevano acquistare pagando in dollari) a prendere qualcosa che non avrebbero mai trovato nei negozi di Stato. E ti davano i dollari per farlo.

Per chi a Mosca doveva starci per un lungo periodo di tempo non è che la vita fosse molto facile.

I giornalisti stranieri erano costretti ad abitare nel quartiere controllato da garitte militari in Kutuzovsky Prospekt.

Chi andava a visitarli doveva rilasciare il passaporto ai poliziotti al cancello. All'interno degli appartamenti si sapeva che ogni conversazione sarebbe stata registrata e quindi era meglio alzare il volume al massimo del giradischi. Questo succedeva anche nell'ambasciata italiana.

Numerose erano le storie drammatiche che ti raccontavano: ogni giornalista si muniva di biglietti aerei aperti perché nel caso in cui ci fosse stato qualche malanno era meglio fiondarsi fuori dall'Unione Sovietica.

Le donne ricordavano storie allucinanti di reparti ginecologici nei quali veniva usato solo un paio di guanti di gomma per le visite intime alle pazienti. Quel paio di guanti era utilizzato per tutta la camerata.

La carta igienica erano costretti a comprarla a Helsinki in Finlandia in missione diplomatica.

Grande successo si poteva avere se uno si muniva di un pacco di dischi di Celentano e di calze da donna perche' quelle importate dalla Germania dell'Est facevano proprio schifo.

Ogni volta che si usciva per comprare qualcosa bisognava munirsi di una 'avos’ka', la borsa di rete per fare i barattti quotidiani scambiando col prossimo qualsiasi cosa. 

Ad ogni piano dell'albergo c'era una funzionaria che controllava che non si portassero donne in camera. Dietro l'omaggio di un paio di calze e un LP di Celentano in camera poteva entrare anche un elefante.

Una sera, in albergo, mi sono avvicinato al palco dell'orchestra che suonava, ovviamente, solo motivi popolari russi e ho attaccato un discorso con il capo della band, un simpatico sassofonista. Quando gli ho detto che ero un ex cantante professionista italiano mi ha chiesto di cantare qualcosa con loro. Gli ho chiesto se conoscevano qualche standard americano. Ha sorriso compiaciuto e ci siamo accordati su 'The Lady is a Tramp' che abbiamo eseguito insieme come se ci fossimo frequentati per chissà quanto tempo. Grandi applausi dei molti cienti presenti. Suonavano in maniera fantastica.

Ogni volta che ritornavo a Mosca non mancavo di portare all'amico sassofonista una scatola di ance per il suo strumento visto che erano introvabili e che era costretto a grattare quelle vecchie per poter continuare a suonare.

Nella Piazza Rossa ogni giorno ti imbattevi in una coda infinita di cittadini sovietici che volevano o dovevano sfilare davanti alla mummia di Lenin. Per evitare di spendere qualche ora al freddo polare moscovita bastava arrivare al controllo della polizia all'ingresso dichiarando "italijanski delegazia" e ti facevano miracolosamente passare.

Per entrare dentro il museo del Cremlino bisognava sostare nel vestibolo per indossare sopra le proprie scarpe delle cioce di canapa per non rovinare i pavimenti di legno.

In quell'ambiente c'erano alcuni cartelli con la scritta: "vietato fumare". Quei cartelli erano scritti solamente in italiano.
_____________________________________________________

Per chi preferisce ascoltare

https://youtu.be/jIIFc8nZX4Q

_____________________________________________________

Grazie per mandarci le puntate della tua “biografia”, molto piacevoli e interessanti. Appena mi arrivano corro a leggerle! Già letta la puntata Russia!
Grande Oscar!
Patricia

_____________________________________________________

Caro Oscar,
Hai fatto rivivere una Mosca che non c 'è più. I tempi andati lasciano ricordi indelebili per chi li ha vissuti. Con un paio di calze nylon si poteva ottenere tutto!
Un abbraccio

Aldo

______________________________________________________

 WOW! You were in Moscow in 1965...
I was there only a few days in August 1991, to take the Trans-Siberian train to Irkutsk (Lake Baikal), and from there the trans-Manchurian to Beijing, for a long journey through the Gobi desert, up to Kazakhstan before returning to Moscow.
Almost 30 years after your trip, it was still very difficult to travel to and across Russia. Individual tourism wasn’t usually allowed, only groups could apply for a visa to cross the country and enter China. We were a couple and after a lot of paperwork (listing in our visa application ALL the places we would stop for a quick visit and get back on board during the long trip), eventually succeeded. Upon landing at the airport we were escorted by the police to a central hotel (of their choice) where the minute we were in our room, the telephone rang and, sure enough, it was a lady who wanted to talk with Andrea, my partner! Just like you described.
The few days we spent in Moscow were quite difficult: in that period the USSR was breaking up and they were starting to pull down lots of statues, first and foremost those of Lenin, with tanks and armored vehicles on the streets.
The day we had to take the train we were escorted from the hotel to the station, and literally put on the trans-Siberian train. The police didn’t leave until the train had left the station (we could see them from the window). During the whole time of interaction, they didn't say a single word. I wonder whether anything has changed since my trip....

Thanks for sharing with all of us your adventures!
Love from Los Angeles,

Emanuela Appetiti 

_______________________________________________________

Carissimo, vedo che la tua prima esperienza sovietica e’avvenuta lo stesso anno della mia, solo che io ci sono rimasta due anni ….ma non mi sono annoiata neanch’io anche se abitando dentro l’ambasciata americana ci si sarebbe dovuti sentire morbidamente protetti.

A presto! 

MLuisa

_______________________________________________________

Egregio Oscar, ottima l'idea della versione youtube.
Ho dovuto pero' fare il copia-e-incolla del link in quanto non vi si accede direttamente.
Non so se capiti solo a me, ma potrebbe non esser stato fatto il corretto "highlight" del link.
Sempre avvincenti ricordi...
cordiali saluti
Giancarlo Belluso
______________________________________________________

Caro Oscar,
Hai fatto rivivere una Mosca che non c 'è più. I tempi andati lasciano ricordi indelebili per chi li ha vissuti. Con un paio di calze nylon si poteva ottenere tutto!
Un abbraccio
Aldo

______________________________________________________

caro Oscar grazie dei bei ricordi moscoviti che mi mettono malinconia...noi con Bruno abitavamo al famoso Kutusovsky Prospekt con le garitte militari ,felici di aver trovato un miniappatrtamento assegnatoci dal MID dopo lunghi mesi di parcheggio all'hotel Ukraina dove  non c'era la cucina,,accanto a noi abitava nelle stesse condizioni,il Nunzio Apostolico,im perpetua attesa di ottenere un alloggio del suo livello..durante la notte le famose fanciulle di cui parlavi lo importunavano bussando alla porta/anche alla nostra../erano gli anni '90 e vedemmo scendere dal Cremlino la bandiera dell'URSS  sostituita con quella della Russia,,poi una mattina all'alba sotto le nostre finestre sul Kutuzovskij c'erano i carri armati..e arrivo' Eltsin ,tempi difficili ma che ora quasi rimpiango!!speriamo di ritrovarci presto da qualche parte..intanto approfitto per augurarvi un buon Thanksgiving con i ragazzi,,,qui siamo tutti separati e impauriti,un abbraccio a te e Franca Renata

The Oscar's stories #7: Max

"I asked Dr. Busi to see me for a few minutes. Do you think we can make it this morning?"

This is my phone call to Silvana, the powerful head of the secretariat of the CEO of the company where I had been working for several years.

"Perhaps there is a gap between one meeting and the next ..." the colleague replied.

And in fact after ten minutes I was summoned to the presidency offices located in the sixteenth-century Palazzo della Gherardesca in Borgo Pinti in Florence.

Dr. Busi, managing director, was a well-rounded character, totally dedicated to his work, he arrived in the office at seven in the morning and left no earlier than 22 in the evening.

"What is it, Bartoli?" he asked without looking up from the papers he was signing.

"Doctor, my son is about to be born. I ask you to be exempted this year from my trip to Moscow for the international fair. I have already prepared everything, the pavilion has been completed, I have received the photos and there are no problems ..."

Doctor Busi gave me a dirty look.

"Listen Bartoli, you know or should know how I think: first work, then family. Also because it is work that guarantees the life of the family ... This year in Moscow we will have important visits from Russian ministers and a government Italian delegation  and I want everything to work perfectly. Therefore: congratulations on the upcoming birth of your child but you must guarantee your presence in Moscow. "


 

Moscow Sokolniki Park International Fair

_________________________________________________

My wife was in Udine with her mother. Every evening, taking into account the differences in time zones, I would hang up on the phone, call the international switchboard, wait half an hour without any result.

I was very worried as almost all fathers can be while waiting for the arrival of the first child.

Franca's pregnancy had been regular, to the point that she had continued to work in the atelier of the Marquis Emilio Pucci almost to the end. She couldn't stay home and had to somehow continue to be useful.

Daughter of art, her mother had created the most important high fashion atelier in Friuli Venezia Giulia, Franca had made her bones managing the three boutiques owned by the family.

Emilio Pucci 1973.jpg

The Marquis Emilio Pucci had been my best man at the wedding and had asked Franca if she wanted to work in the Palazzo Pucci, in via dei Pucci.

Franca had downsized the "placing" sector of the splendid fabrics designed by this great designer who had been so successful in the United States.

 

And how important the placement of the fabrics was seen immediately because it allowed to reduce waste and stem the leakage of material unfortunately favored by the inability and perhaps corruption of some manager of the marquis's company who was too busy in his work and in politics to be able to follow the details of the production.

So every evening I was busy on that damned phone and waited for hours in the hope of being able to know how my wife was, cursing the Soviet disorganization that found its maximum expression in the impossibility of making a phone call with an Italian city.

This story had been going on for five days now when I decided to let the international service manager pass me by.

I finally managed to speak to a woman who spoke in good French; I made the report of all my failed attempts in the last five days to be able to have a communication with Udine.

The girl told me she would call me back in 15 minutes. And so it was.
 

"Vous ne pouvez pas parler à l'Italie, M. Bartoli, car ils sont constamment en grève"

"You can't talk to Italy, Mr. Bartoli, because they are constantly on strike," she told me, leaving me stunned because hearing it in the capital of the Soviet Union had a certain effect.

 

 

 

In those days when one arrived in Moscow they requisitioned his passport and return ticket which must have been purchased earlier.

Therefore, I asked other exhibitors what the Soviet authorities' procedure has been in recent months.

"You have to queue down in one hotel office and when it's your turn to ask the police officers, find out what the hell they are, if your ticket has been stamped and therefore your departure is confirmed on the scheduled date."

So I began another ordeal made of long waits in long lines before reaching a table behind which sat two "ladies" who, every time it was my turn, interrupted their conversations for a few seconds of hell, one glanced in a wooden box in front of her containing many airline tickets, she unwrapped and regularly replied "nyet!" every time, nothing.

[Militia day in ussr]

I was due to leave two days later and I still didn't have my plane ticket and passport.

Finding myself for the umpteenth time in front of the two policewomen, I began to scream like a madman, decorating my protests with the clips of English and French I knew.

I felt on me the weight of the looks of all the other people in line behind me or sitting on the edge of the room who were surely betting on my safe arrest in Soviet prisons.

The two b....s looked at me with their boiled fish eyes without saying a word. Behind them a policeman, clearly superior in rank, appeared and said something to them, grabbed the damned wooden box with the airline tickets and passports inside, looked carefully and pulled out my ticket and related document. He added, in handing it over, even a smile, which was extremely rare in ordinary Moscow police behavior.

 

It was October 18 and we finally left with an Aeroflot Tupolev 154 that would have stopped in Budapest anyway to refuel at Soviet controlled prices.

From Budapest we left with an hour late on the schedule, destination Linate Milan.

Arriving almost above the Lombard metropolis, the intercom of the cabin announced in Russian and then in English that we would probably not be able to land at Linate due to persistent fog on the runway.

My window seat neighbor was sniffing with perfect Lombard vernacular and then explained to me that (clearly he had to be an expert) Soviet pilots from military aviation could land in fog only if they had 800m visibility, unlike Westerners pilots who had the professionalism of landing with much reduced visibility.

As god wanted, we finally landed at Linate where I took a taxi that took me to the central station. Here I got on the first train to Venice Mestre where I got off taking the train to Udine, where one of my sisters-in-law was waiting for me.

We finally went to the hospital where Franca was suffering the wrath of God and they were even practicing dilation by hand. Fifth world stuff ...

At 6:15 am on October 19th, Maximiliano entered this agitated world ...

 

 

_______________________________________________________

What an experience but what a lovely end at least!
Many many wishes to Max, although two days later… H&K to you all,
_______________________________________________________