Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: Russian

While if I'm not mistaken this wasn't the last day for this unrebuilt Russian train to run (supposedly it was pulled from service on July 2nd, 2009), it was close to the very last. Supposedly the graffiti was cleaned off for the final run. Now these are consigned to history....sort of. The A and B lines are still worked exclusively by them in rebuilt form. The only truly recent trains on the Metro are on the C line.

I earlier posted a photo of a 1960's-era Volga police car, so here's a 1980's-1990's era GAZ-24-10 Volga taxi. This one's been in use in the area of the Hradcanska metro for many years, although when I first moved to Prague it was still painted white, as in the Communist era. At one time, many of Prague's taxis were Volgas. They can be seen in old documentary footage of Elton John's 1984 visit to Prague, for example, although I've had trouble getting much information on said documentary.

This is the builder plate of the old Russian Metro train. While the Krylice may be hard to read if you don't know Russian, note that the date of construction was 1976, meaning that while this train is much older than what's running now, it wouldn't have been one of the original ones from 1974.

Here's an end view of the train.

For the 35th anniversary of the Prague Metro (or at least some anniversary or another, as I've looked up one source that claims the Metro started operations in 1974), DPP got their oldest Metro train out of storage to do some commemorative runs, and miraculously, it seemed to make it through the day without being trashed, unlike a second-generation train on its recent last run. Being Russian-made, these trains were originally designed for the Moscow Metro, and similar trains can also be seen on the Budapest metro.

Here's a closer view of the tank. The ventilator on top of the turret, to the left of the reenactor, is the main spotting feature of a T-54, as opposed to T-55, tank, at least according to Wikipedia (I don't have a copy of Jane's).

Outside of the museum, they had a number of larger temporary exhibits of what would have been seen on the streets in 1968. One of the most iconic of the artifacts from that time was this Russian T-54 main battle tank, in the center, as well as a 1960's-era Skoda 1000MB saloon (on the left behind the tank), and a 1960's-era Volga police cruiser (directly behind the tank).

I took a photo of the Aeroplane Bar the last time I was in Olomouc as well, but I couldn't resist trying it again. Unfortunately, unless you only want part of the plane, or some kind of abstraction, this is one of the only angles which works because of the trees blocking the view.

The memorial service we attended for Jaroslav Hasek included a gun salute, which was meant to be ironic as much as anything else, as while a soldier for many years, Hasek still wasn't too hot on the idea of war or military service by the end of his life. He would have carried, probably, a Mauser 1898 while with the Austrians, but these are Mosin-Nagant rifles, used by the Russian army 1891-1945 (and really longer, if you count the secondary units like the Soviet National Gaurd), and therefore by both sides during the Russian Civil War. Even the U.S. Army carried them in that war, and after the war they remained in U.S. Army National Gaurd units as the M1916 rifle, although I don't know for how long. Most of the U.S. ones had originally been built by American companies like Remington during World War I for the Czar, but then left undelivered because of the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. Today, the only army which still carries Mosin-Nagants, at least that I know of, is the Finnish Army, who use a special, rare version of it called the M85.

The reenactors agreed to have their photo taken, but unfortunately I didn't get their names. I hope they don't mind the effects of my horrible light meter.

Here's a darker shot. I'm not sure if this is really all that great or not, but I figured I'd at least experiment with it.