Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their heads (cranial kinesis). To accommodate their narrow bodies, snakes' paired organs (such as kidneys) appear one in front of the other instead of side by side, and most have only one functional lung. Some species retain a pelvic girdle with a pair of vestigial claws on either side of the cloaca. Lizards have independently evolved elongate bodies without limbs or with greatly reduced limbs at least twenty-five times via convergent evolution, leading to many lineages of legless lizards. These resemble snakes, but several common groups of legless lizards have eyelids and external ears, which snakes lack, although this rule is not universal (see Amphisbaenia, Dibamidae, and Pygopodidae).

 

Living snakes are found on every continent except Antarctica, and on most smaller land masses; exceptions include some large islands, such as Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, the Hawaiian archipelago, and the islands of New Zealand, as well as many small islands of the Atlantic and central Pacific oceans. Additionally, sea snakes are widespread throughout the Indian and Pacific oceans. Around thirty families are currently recognized, comprising about 520 genera and about 3,900 species. They range in size from the tiny, 10.4 cm-long (4.1 in) Barbados threadsnake to the reticulated python of 6.95 meters (22.8 ft) in length. The fossil species Titanoboa cerrejonensis was 12.8 meters (42 ft) long. Snakes are thought to have evolved from either burrowing or aquatic lizards, perhaps during the Jurassic period, with the earliest known fossils dating to between 143 and 167 Ma ago. The diversity of modern snakes appeared during the Paleocene epoch (c. 66 to 56 Ma ago, after the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event). The oldest preserved descriptions of snakes can be found in the Brooklyn Papyrus.

 

Most species of snake are nonvenomous and those that have venom use it primarily to kill and subdue prey rather than for self-defense. Some possess venom that is potent enough to cause painful injury or death to humans. Nonvenomous snakes either swallow prey alive or kill by constriction.

 

Etymology

The English word snake comes from Old English snaca, itself from Proto-Germanic *snak-an- (cf. Germanic Schnake 'ring snake', Swedish snok 'grass snake'), from Proto-Indo-European root *(s)nēg-o- 'to crawl to creep', which also gave sneak as well as Sanskrit nāgá 'snake'. The word ousted adder, as adder went on to narrow in meaning, though in Old English næddre was the general word for snake. The other term, serpent, is from French, ultimately from Indo-European *serp- 'to creep', which also gave Ancient Greek ἕρπω (hérpō) 'I crawl' and Sanskrit sarpá ‘snake’.

 

The fossil record of snakes is relatively poor because snake skeletons are typically small and fragile making fossilization uncommon. Fossils readily identifiable as snakes (though often retaining hind limbs) first appear in the fossil record during the Cretaceous period. The earliest known true snake fossils (members of the crown group Serpentes) come from the marine simoliophiids, the oldest of which is the Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian age) Haasiophis terrasanctus from the West Bank, dated to between 112 and 94 million years old.

 

Based on comparative anatomy, there is consensus that snakes descended from lizards. Pythons and boas—primitive groups among modern snakes—have vestigial hind limbs: tiny, clawed digits known as anal spurs, which are used to grasp during mating The families Leptotyphlopidae and Typhlopidae also possess remnants of the pelvic girdle, appearing as horny projections when visible.

 

Front limbs are nonexistent in all known snakes. This is caused by the evolution of their Hox genes, controlling limb morphogenesis. The axial skeleton of the snakes' common ancestor, like most other tetrapods, had regional specializations consisting of cervical (neck), thoracic (chest), lumbar (lower back), sacral (pelvic), and caudal (tail) vertebrae. Early in snake evolution, the Hox gene expression in the axial skeleton responsible for the development of the thorax became dominant. As a result, the vertebrae anterior to the hindlimb buds (when present) all have the same thoracic-like identity (except from the atlas, axis, and 1–3 neck vertebrae). In other words, most of a snake's skeleton is an extremely extended thorax. Ribs are found exclusively on the thoracic vertebrae. Neck, lumbar and pelvic vertebrae are very reduced in number (only 2–10 lumbar and pelvic vertebrae are present), while only a short tail remains of the caudal vertebrae. However, the tail is still long enough to be of important use in many species, and is modified in some aquatic and tree-dwelling species.

 

Many modern snake groups originated during the Paleocene, alongside the adaptive radiation of mammals following the extinction of (non-avian) dinosaurs. The expansion of grasslands in North America also led to an explosive radiation among snakes. Previously, snakes were a minor component of the North American fauna, but during the Miocene, the number of species and their prevalence increased dramatically with the first appearances of vipers and elapids in North America and the significant diversification of Colubridae (including the origin of many modern genera such as Nerodia, Lampropeltis, Pituophis, and Pantherophis).

 

Fossils

There is fossil evidence to suggest that snakes may have evolved from burrowing lizards, during the Cretaceous Period. An early fossil snake relative, Najash rionegrina, was a two-legged burrowing animal with a sacrum, and was fully terrestrial. One extant analog of these putative ancestors is the earless monitor Lanthanotus of Borneo (though it also is semiaquatic). Subterranean species evolved bodies streamlined for burrowing, and eventually lost their limbs. According to this hypothesis, features such as the transparent, fused eyelids (brille) and loss of external ears evolved to cope with fossorial difficulties, such as scratched corneas and dirt in the ears. Some primitive snakes are known to have possessed hindlimbs, but their pelvic bones lacked a direct connection to the vertebrae. These include fossil species like Haasiophis, Pachyrhachis and Eupodophis, which are slightly older than Najash.

 

This hypothesis was strengthened in 2015 by the discovery of a 113-million-year-old fossil of a four-legged snake in Brazil that has been named Tetrapodophis amplectus. It has many snake-like features, is adapted for burrowing and its stomach indicates that it was preying on other animals. It is currently uncertain if Tetrapodophis is a snake or another species, in the squamate order, as a snake-like body has independently evolved at least 26 times. Tetrapodophis does not have distinctive snake features in its spine and skull. A study in 2021 places the animal in a group of extinct marine lizards from the Cretaceous period known as dolichosaurs and not directly related to snakes.

 

An alternative hypothesis, based on morphology, suggests the ancestors of snakes were related to mosasaurs—extinct aquatic reptiles from the Cretaceous—forming the clade Pythonomorpha. According to this hypothesis, the fused, transparent eyelids of snakes are thought to have evolved to combat marine conditions (corneal water loss through osmosis), and the external ears were lost through disuse in an aquatic environment. This ultimately led to an animal similar to today's sea snakes. In the Late Cretaceous, snakes recolonized land, and continued to diversify into today's snakes. Fossilized snake remains are known from early Late Cretaceous marine sediments, which is consistent with this hypothesis; particularly so, as they are older than the terrestrial Najash rionegrina. Similar skull structure, reduced or absent limbs, and other anatomical features found in both mosasaurs and snakes lead to a positive cladistical correlation, although some of these features are shared with varanids.

 

Genetic studies in recent years have indicated snakes are not as closely related to monitor lizards as was once believed—and therefore not to mosasaurs, the proposed ancestor in the aquatic scenario of their evolution. However, more evidence links mosasaurs to snakes than to varanids. Fragmented remains found from the Jurassic and Early Cretaceous indicate deeper fossil records for these groups, which may potentially refute either hypothesis.

 

Genetic basis of snake evolution

Main article: Limb development

Both fossils and phylogenetic studies demonstrate that snakes evolved from lizards, hence the question became which genetic changes led to limb loss in the snake ancestor. Limb loss is actually very common in extant reptiles and has happened dozens of times within skinks, anguids, and other lizards.

 

In 2016, two studies reported that limb loss in snakes is associated with DNA mutations in the Zone of Polarizing Activity Regulatory Sequence (ZRS), a regulatory region of the sonic hedgehog gene which is critically required for limb development. More advanced snakes have no remnants of limbs, but basal snakes such as pythons and boas do have traces of highly reduced, vestigial hind limbs. Python embryos even have fully developed hind limb buds, but their later development is stopped by the DNA mutations in the ZRS.

 

Distribution

There are about 3,900 species of snakes, ranging as far northward as the Arctic Circle in Scandinavia and southward through Australia. Snakes can be found on every continent except Antarctica, as well as in the sea, and as high as 16,000 feet (4,900 m) in the Himalayan Mountains of Asia. There are numerous islands from which snakes are absent, such as Ireland, Iceland, and New Zealand (although New Zealand's northern waters are infrequently visited by the yellow-bellied sea snake and the banded sea krait).

 

Taxonomy

All modern snakes are grouped within the suborder Serpentes in Linnean taxonomy, part of the order Squamata, though their precise placement within squamates remains controversial.

 

The two infraorders of Serpentes are Alethinophidia and Scolecophidia. This separation is based on morphological characteristics and mitochondrial DNA sequence similarity. Alethinophidia is sometimes split into Henophidia and Caenophidia, with the latter consisting of "colubroid" snakes (colubrids, vipers, elapids, hydrophiids, and atractaspids) and acrochordids, while the other alethinophidian families comprise Henophidia. While not extant today, the Madtsoiidae, a family of giant, primitive, python-like snakes, was around until 50,000 years ago in Australia, represented by genera such as Wonambi.

 

There are numerous debates in the systematics within the group. For instance, many sources classify Boidae and Pythonidae as one family, while some keep the Elapidae and Hydrophiidae (sea snakes) separate for practical reasons despite their extremely close relation.

 

Recent molecular studies support the monophyly of the clades of modern snakes, scolecophidians, typhlopids + anomalepidids, alethinophidians, core alethinophidians, uropeltids (Cylindrophis, Anomochilus, uropeltines), macrostomatans, booids, boids, pythonids and caenophidians.

 

Legless lizards

Main article: Legless lizard

While snakes are limbless reptiles, evolved from (and grouped with) lizards, there are many other species of lizards that have lost their limbs independently but which superficially look similar to snakes. These include the slowworm and glass snake.

 

Other serpentine tetrapods that are unrelated to snakes include caecilians (amphibians), amphisbaenians (near-lizard squamates), and the extinct aistopods (amphibians).

 

Biology

The now extinct Titanoboa cerrejonensis was 12.8 m (42 ft) in length. By comparison, the largest extant snakes are the reticulated python, measuring about 6.95 m (22.8 ft) long, and the green anaconda, which measures about 5.21 m (17.1 ft) long and is considered the heaviest snake on Earth at 97.5 kg (215 lb).

 

At the other end of the scale, the smallest extant snake is Leptotyphlops carlae, with a length of about 10.4 cm (4.1 in). Most snakes are fairly small animals, approximately 1 m (3.3 ft) in length.

 

Perception

Pit vipers, pythons, and some boas have infrared-sensitive receptors in deep grooves on the snout, allowing them to "see" the radiated heat of warm-blooded prey. In pit vipers, the grooves are located between the nostril and the eye in a large "pit" on each side of the head. Other infrared-sensitive snakes have multiple, smaller labial pits lining the upper lip, just below the nostrils.

 

A snake tracks its prey using smell, collecting airborne particles with its forked tongue, then passing them to the vomeronasal organ or Jacobson's organ in the mouth for examination. The fork in the tongue provides a sort of directional sense of smell and taste simultaneously. The snake's tongue is constantly in motion, sampling particles from the air, ground, and water, analyzing the chemicals found, and determining the presence of prey or predators in the local environment. In water-dwelling snakes, such as the anaconda, the tongue functions efficiently underwater.

 

The underside of a snake is very sensitive to vibration, allowing the snake to detect approaching animals by sensing faint vibrations in the ground. Despite the lack of outer ears, they are also able to detect airborne sounds.

 

Snake vision varies greatly between species. Some have keen eyesight and others are only able to distinguish light from dark, but the important trend is that a snake's visual perception is adequate enough to track movements. Generally, vision is best in tree-dwelling snakes and weakest in burrowing snakes. Some have binocular vision, where both eyes are capable of focusing on the same point, an example of this being the Asian vine snake. Most snakes focus by moving the lens back and forth in relation to the retina. Diurnal snakes have round pupils and many nocturnal snakes have slit pupils. Most species possess three visual pigments and are probably able to see two primary colors in daylight. The annulated sea snake and the genus Helicops appears to have regained much of their color vision as an adaption to the marine environment they live in. It has been concluded that the last common ancestors of all snakes had UV-sensitive vision, but most snakes that depend on their eyesight to hunt in daylight have evolved lenses that act like sunglasses for filtering out the UV-light, which probably also sharpens their vision by improving the contrast.

 

Skin

The skin of a snake is covered in scales. Contrary to the popular notion of snakes being slimy (because of possible confusion of snakes with worms), snakeskin has a smooth, dry texture. Most snakes use specialized belly scales to travel, allowing them to grip surfaces. The body scales may be smooth, keeled, or granular. The eyelids of a snake are transparent "spectacle" scales, also known as brille, which remain permanently closed.

 

The shedding of scales is called ecdysis (or in normal usage, molting or sloughing). Snakes shed the complete outer layer of skin in one piece. Snake scales are not discrete, but extensions of the epidermis—hence they are not shed separately but as a complete outer layer during each molt, akin to a sock being turned inside out.

 

Snakes have a wide diversity of skin coloration patterns which are often related to behavior, such as the tendency to have to flee from predators. Snakes that are at a high risk of predation tend to be plain, or have longitudinal stripes, providing few reference points to predators, thus allowing the snake to escape without being noticed. Plain snakes usually adopt active hunting strategies, as their pattern allows them to send little information to prey about motion. Blotched snakes usually use ambush-based strategies, likely because it helps them blend into an environment with irregularly shaped objects, like sticks or rocks. Spotted patterning can similarly help snakes to blend into their environment.

 

The shape and number of scales on the head, back, and belly are often characteristic and used for taxonomic purposes. Scales are named mainly according to their positions on the body. In "advanced" (Caenophidian) snakes, the broad belly scales and rows of dorsal scales correspond to the vertebrae, allowing these to be counted without the need for dissection.

 

Molting

Molting (or "ecdysis") serves a number of purposes. It allows old, worn skin to be replaced and it can remove parasites such as mites and ticks that live in the skin. It has also been observed in snakes that molting can be synced to mating cycles. Shedding skin can release pheromones and revitalize color and patterns of the skin to increase attraction of mates. Renewal of the skin by molting supposedly allows growth in some animals such as insects, but this has been disputed in the case of snakes.

 

Molting occurs periodically throughout the life of a snake. Before each molt, the snake stops eating and often hides or moves to a safe place. Just before shedding, the skin becomes dull and dry looking and the snake's eyes turn cloudy or blue-colored. The inner surface of the old skin liquefies, causing it to separate from the new skin beneath it. After a few days, the eyes become clear and the snake "crawls" out of its old skin, which splits close to the snake's mouth. The snake rubs its body against rough surfaces to aid in the shedding of its old skin. In many cases, the cast skin peels backward over the body from head to tail in one piece, like pulling a sock off inside-out, revealing a new, larger, brighter layer of skin which has formed underneath.

 

A young snake that is still growing may shed its skin up to four times a year, but an older snake may shed only once or twice a year. The discarded skin carries a perfect imprint of the scale pattern, so it is usually possible to identify the snake from the cast skin if it is reasonably intact. This periodic renewal has led to the snake being a symbol of healing and medicine, as pictured in the Rod of Asclepius.

 

Scale counts can sometimes be used to identify the sex of a snake when the species is not distinctly sexually dimorphic. A probe is fully inserted into the cloaca, marked at the point where it stops, then removed and measured against the subcaudal scales. The scalation count determines whether the snake is a male or female, as the hemipenes of a male will probe to a different depth (usually longer) than the cloaca of a female.

 

Skeleton

The skeletons of snakes are radically different from those of most other reptiles (as compared with the turtle here, for example), consisting almost entirely of an extended ribcage.

The skeleton of most snakes consists solely of the skull, hyoid, vertebral column, and ribs, though henophidian snakes retain vestiges of the pelvis and rear limbs.

 

The skull consists of a solid and complete neurocranium, to which many of the other bones are only loosely attached, particularly the highly mobile jaw bones, which facilitate manipulation and ingestion of large prey items. The left and right sides of the lower jaw are joined only by a flexible ligament at the anterior tips, allowing them to separate widely, and the posterior end of the lower jaw bones articulate with a quadrate bone, allowing further mobility. The mandible and quadrate bones can pick up ground-borne vibrations; because the sides of the lower jaw can move independently of one another, a snake resting its jaw on a surface has sensitive stereo auditory perception, used for detecting the position of prey. The jaw–quadrate–stapes pathway is capable of detecting vibrations on the angstrom scale, despite the absence of an outer ear and the lack of an impedance matching mechanism—provided by the ossicles in other vertebrates—for receiving vibrations from the air.

 

The hyoid is a small bone located posterior and ventral to the skull, in the 'neck' region, which serves as an attachment for the muscles of the snake's tongue, as it does in all other tetrapods.

 

The vertebral column consists of between 200 and 400 vertebrae, or sometimes more. The body vertebrae each have two ribs articulating with them. The tail vertebrae are comparatively few in number (often less than 20% of the total) and lack ribs. The vertebrae have projections that allow for strong muscle attachment, enabling locomotion without limbs.

 

Caudal autotomy (self-amputation of the tail), a feature found in some lizards, is absent in most snakes. In the rare cases where it does exist in snakes, caudal autotomy is intervertebral (meaning the separation of adjacent vertebrae), unlike that in lizards, which is intravertebral, i.e. the break happens along a predefined fracture plane present on a vertebra.

 

In some snakes, most notably boas and pythons, there are vestiges of the hindlimbs in the form of a pair of pelvic spurs. These small, claw-like protrusions on each side of the cloaca are the external portion of the vestigial hindlimb skeleton, which includes the remains of an ilium and femur.

 

Snakes are polyphyodonts with teeth that are continuously replaced

 

Snakes and other non-archosaur (crocodilians, dinosaurs + birds and allies) reptiles have a three-chambered heart that controls the circulatory system via the left and right atrium, and one ventricle. Internally, the ventricle is divided into three interconnected cavities: the cavum arteriosum, the cavum pulmonale, and the cavum venosum. The cavum venosum receives deoxygenated blood from the right atrium and the cavum arteriosum receives oxygenated blood from the left atrium. Located beneath the cavum venosum is the cavum pulmonale, which pumps blood to the pulmonary trunk.

 

The snake's heart is encased in a sac, called the pericardium, located at the bifurcation of the bronchi. The heart is able to move around, owing to the lack of a diaphragm; this adjustment protects the heart from potential damage when large ingested prey is passed through the esophagus. The spleen is attached to the gall bladder and pancreas and filters the blood. The thymus, located in fatty tissue above the heart, is responsible for the generation of immune cells in the blood. The cardiovascular system of snakes is unique for the presence of a renal portal system in which the blood from the snake's tail passes through the kidneys before returning to the heart.

 

The vestigial left lung is often small or sometimes even absent, as snakes' tubular bodies require all of their organs to be long and thin.[71] In the majority of species, only one lung is functional. This lung contains a vascularized anterior portion and a posterior portion that does not function in gas exchange. This 'saccular lung' is used for hydrostatic purposes to adjust buoyancy in some aquatic snakes and its function remains unknown in terrestrial species. Many organs that are paired, such as kidneys or reproductive organs, are staggered within the body, one located ahead of the other.

 

Snakes have no lymph nodes.

 

Venom

Cobras, vipers, and closely related species use venom to immobilize, injure, or kill their prey. The venom is modified saliva, delivered through fangs. The fangs of 'advanced' venomous snakes like viperids and elapids are hollow, allowing venom to be injected more effectively, and the fangs of rear-fanged snakes such as the boomslang simply have a groove on the posterior edge to channel venom into the wound. Snake venoms are often prey-specific, and their role in self-defense is secondary.

 

Venom, like all salivary secretions, is a predigestant that initiates the breakdown of food into soluble compounds, facilitating proper digestion. Even nonvenomous snakebites (like any animal bite) cause tissue damage.

 

Certain birds, mammals, and other snakes (such as kingsnakes) that prey on venomous snakes have developed resistance and even immunity to certain venoms.Venomous snakes include three families of snakes, and do not constitute a formal taxonomic classification group.

 

The colloquial term "poisonous snake" is generally an incorrect label for snakes. A poison is inhaled or ingested, whereas venom produced by snakes is injected into its victim via fangs. There are, however, two exceptions: Rhabdophis sequesters toxins from the toads it eats, then secretes them from nuchal glands to ward off predators; and a small unusual population of garter snakes in the US state of Oregon retains enough toxins in their livers from ingested newts to be effectively poisonous to small local predators (such as crows and foxes).

 

Snake venoms are complex mixtures of proteins, and are stored in venom glands at the back of the head. In all venomous snakes, these glands open through ducts into grooved or hollow teeth in the upper jaw. The proteins can potentially be a mix of neurotoxins (which attack the nervous system), hemotoxins (which attack the circulatory system), cytotoxins (which attack the cells directly), bungarotoxins (related to neurotoxins, but also directly affect muscle tissue), and many other toxins that affect the body in different ways. Almost all snake venom contains hyaluronidase, an enzyme that ensures rapid diffusion of the venom.

 

Venomous snakes that use hemotoxins usually have fangs in the front of their mouths, making it easier for them to inject the venom into their victims. Some snakes that use neurotoxins (such as the mangrove snake) have fangs in the back of their mouths, with the fangs curled backwards. This makes it difficult both for the snake to use its venom and for scientists to milk them. Elapids, however, such as cobras and kraits are proteroglyphous—they possess hollow fangs that cannot be erected toward the front of their mouths, and cannot "stab" like a viper. They must actually bite the victim.

 

It has been suggested that all snakes may be venomous to a certain degree, with harmless snakes having weak venom and no fangs. According to this theory, most snakes that are labelled "nonvenomous" would be considered harmless because they either lack a venom delivery method or are incapable of delivering enough to endanger a human. The theory postulates that snakes may have evolved from a common lizard ancestor that was venomous, and also that venomous lizards like the gila monster, beaded lizard, monitor lizards, and the now-extinct mosasaurs, may have derived from this same common ancestor. They share this "venom clade" with various other saurian species.

 

Venomous snakes are classified in two taxonomic families:

Elapids – cobras including king cobras, kraits, mambas, Australian copperheads, sea snakes, and coral snakes.

Viperids – vipers, rattlesnakes, copperheads/cottonmouths, and bushmasters.

There is a third family containing the opistoglyphous (rear-fanged) snakes (as well as the majority of other snake species):

 

Colubrids – boomslangs, tree snakes, vine snakes, cat snakes, although not all colubrids are venomous.

 

Reproduction

Although a wide range of reproductive modes are used by snakes, all employ internal fertilization. This is accomplished by means of paired, forked hemipenes, which are stored, inverted, in the male's tail. The hemipenes are often grooved, hooked, or spined—designed to grip the walls of the female's cloaca. The clitoris of the female snake consists of two structures located between the cloaca and the scent glands.

 

Most species of snakes lay eggs which they abandon shortly after laying. However, a few species (such as the king cobra) construct nests and stay in the vicinity of the hatchlings after incubation. Most pythons coil around their egg-clutches and remain with them until they hatch. A female python will not leave the eggs, except to occasionally bask in the sun or drink water. She will even "shiver" to generate heat to incubate the eggs.

 

Some species of snake are ovoviviparous and retain the eggs within their bodies until they are almost ready to hatch. Several species of snake, such as the boa constrictor and green anaconda, are fully viviparous, nourishing their young through a placenta as well as a yolk sac; this is highly unusual among reptiles, and normally found in requiem sharks or placental mammals. Retention of eggs and live birth are most often associated with colder environments.

 

Sexual selection in snakes is demonstrated by the 3,000 species that each use different tactics in acquiring mates. Ritual combat between males for the females they want to mate with includes topping, a behavior exhibited by most viperids in which one male will twist around the vertically elevated fore body of its opponent and force it downward. It is common for neck-biting to occur while the snakes are entwined.

 

Facultative parthenogenesis

Parthenogenesis is a natural form of reproduction in which growth and development of embryos occur without fertilization. Agkistrodon contortrix (copperhead) and Agkistrodon piscivorus (cottonmouth) can reproduce by facultative parthenogenesis, meaning that they are capable of switching from a sexual mode of reproduction to an asexual mode. The most likely type of parthenogenesis to occur is automixis with terminal fusion, a process in which two terminal products from the same meiosis fuse to form a diploid zygote. This process leads to genome-wide homozygosity, expression of deleterious recessive alleles, and often to developmental abnormalities. Both captive-born and wild-born copperheads and cottonmouths appear to be capable of this form of parthenogenesis.

 

Reproduction in squamate reptiles is almost exclusively sexual. Males ordinarily have a ZZ pair of sex-determining chromosomes, and females a ZW pair. However, the Colombian Rainbow boa (Epicrates maurus) can also reproduce by facultative parthenogenesis, resulting in production of WW female progeny. The WW females are likely produced by terminal automixis.

 

Embryonic Development

Snake embryonic development initially follows similar steps as any vertebrate embryo. The snake embryo begins as a zygote, undergoes rapid cell division, forms a germinal disc, also called a blastodisc, then undergoes gastrulation, neurulation, and organogenesis. Cell division and proliferation continues until an early snake embryo develops and the typical body shape of a snake can be observed. Multiple features differentiate the embryologic development of snakes from other vertebrates, two significant factors being the elongation of the body and the lack of limb development.

 

The elongation in snake body is accompanied by a significant increase in vertebra count (mice have 60 vertebrae, whereas snakes may have over 300). This increase in vertebrae is due to an increase in somites during embryogenesis, leading to an increased number of vertebrae which develop. Somites are formed at the presomitic mesoderm due to a set of oscillatory genes that direct the somitogenesis clock. The snake somitogenesis clock operates at a frequency 4 times that of a mouse (after correction for developmental time), creating more somites, and therefore creating more vertebrae. This difference in clock speed is believed to be caused by differences in Lunatic fringe gene expression, a gene involved in the somitogenesis clock.

 

There is ample literature focusing on the limb development/lack of development in snake embryos and the gene expression associated with the different stages. In basal snakes, such as the python, embryos in early development exhibit a hind limb bud that develops with some cartilage and a cartilaginous pelvic element, however this degenerates before hatching. This presence of vestigial development suggests that some snakes are still undergoing hind limb reduction before they are eliminated. There is no evidence in basal snakes of forelimb rudiments and no examples of snake forelimb bud initiation in embryo, so little is known regarding the loss of this trait. Recent studies suggests that hind limb reduction could be due to mutations in enhancers for the SSH gene, however other studies suggested that mutations within the Hox Genes or their enhancers could contribute to snake limblessness. Since multiple studies have found evidence suggesting different genes played a role in the loss of limbs in snakes, it is likely that multiple gene mutations had an additive effect leading to limb loss in snakes.

 

Behavior

Snake coiled on a stick in Oklahoma. It was brumating in a large pile of wood chips, found by this landscaper after he bulldozed the pile in late autumn 2018.

In regions where winters are too cold for snakes to tolerate while remaining active, local species will enter a period of brumation. Unlike hibernation, in which the dormant mammals are actually asleep, brumating reptiles are awake but inactive. Individual snakes may brumate in burrows, under rock piles, or inside fallen trees, or large numbers of snakes may clump together in hibernacula.

 

Feeding and diet

All snakes are strictly carnivorous, preying on small animals including lizards, frogs, other snakes, small mammals, birds, eggs, fish, snails, worms, and insects. Snakes cannot bite or tear their food to pieces so must swallow their prey whole. The eating habits of a snake are largely influenced by body size; smaller snakes eat smaller prey. Juvenile pythons might start out feeding on lizards or mice and graduate to small deer or antelope as an adult, for example.

 

The snake's jaw is a complex structure. Contrary to the popular belief that snakes can dislocate their jaws, they have an extremely flexible lower jaw, the two halves of which are not rigidly attached, and numerous other joints in the skull, which allow the snake to open its mouth wide enough to swallow prey whole, even if it is larger in diameter than the snake itself. For example, the African egg-eating snake has flexible jaws adapted for eating eggs much larger than the diameter of its head.  This snake has no teeth, but does have bony protrusions on the inside edge of its spine, which it uses to break the shell when eating eggs.

 

The majority of snakes eat a variety of prey animals, but there is some specialization in certain species. King cobras and the Australian bandy-bandy consume other snakes. Species of the family Pareidae have more teeth on the right side of their mouths than on the left, as they mostly prey on snails and the shells usually spiral clockwise.

 

Some snakes have a venomous bite, which they use to kill their prey before eating it. Other snakes kill their prey by constriction, while some swallow their prey when it is still alive.

 

After eating, snakes become dormant to allow the process of digestion to take place; this is an intense activity, especially after consumption of large prey. In species that feed only sporadically, the entire intestine enters a reduced state between meals to conserve energy. The digestive system is then 'up-regulated' to full capacity within 48 hours of prey consumption. Being ectothermic ("cold-blooded"), the surrounding temperature plays an important role in the digestion process. The ideal temperature for snakes to digest food is 30 °C (86 °F). There is a huge amount of metabolic energy involved in a snake's digestion, for example the surface body temperature of the South American rattlesnake (Crotalus durissus) increases by as much as 1.2 °C (2.2 °F) during the digestive process. If a snake is disturbed after having eaten recently, it will often regurgitate its prey to be able to escape the perceived threat. When undisturbed, the digestive process is highly efficient; the snake's digestive enzymes dissolve and absorb everything but the prey's hair (or feathers) and claws, which are excreted along with waste.

 

Hooding and spitting

Hooding (expansion of the neck area) is a visual deterrent, mostly seen in cobras (elapids), and is primarily controlled by rib muscles.[98] Hooding can be accompanied by spitting venom towards the threatening object,[99] and producing a specialized sound; hissing. Studies on captive cobras showed that 13 to 22% of the body length is raised during hooding.

 

Locomotion

The lack of limbs does not impede the movement of snakes. They have developed several different modes of locomotion to deal with particular environments. Unlike the gaits of limbed animals, which form a continuum, each mode of snake locomotion is discrete and distinct from the others; transitions between modes are abrupt.

 

Lateral undulation

Lateral undulation is the sole mode of aquatic locomotion, and the most common mode of terrestrial locomotion In this mode, the body of the snake alternately flexes to the left and right, resulting in a series of rearward-moving "waves". While this movement appears rapid, snakes have rarely been documented moving faster than two body-lengths per second, often much less. This mode of movement has the same net cost of transport (calories burned per meter moved) as running in lizards of the same mass.

 

Terrestrial lateral undulation is the most common mode of terrestrial locomotion for most snake species. In this mode, the posteriorly moving waves push against contact points in the environment, such as rocks, twigs, irregularities in the soil, etc. Each of these environmental objects, in turn, generates a reaction force directed forward and towards the midline of the snake, resulting in forward thrust while the lateral components cancel out. The speed of this movement depends upon the density of push-points in the environment, with a medium density of about 8[clarification needed] along the snake's length being ideal. The wave speed is precisely the same as the snake speed, and as a result, every point on the snake's body follows the path of the point ahead of it, allowing snakes to move through very dense vegetation and small openings.

 

When swimming, the waves become larger as they move down the snake's body, and the wave travels backwards faster than the snake moves forwards. Thrust is generated by pushing their body against the water, resulting in the observed slip. In spite of overall similarities, studies show that the pattern of muscle activation is different in aquatic versus terrestrial lateral undulation, which justifies calling them separate modes. All snakes can laterally undulate forward (with backward-moving waves), but only sea snakes have been observed reversing the motion (moving backwards with forward-moving waves).

 

Sidewinding

Most often employed by colubroid snakes (colubrids, elapids, and vipers) when the snake must move in an environment that lacks irregularities to push against (rendering lateral undulation impossible), such as a slick mud flat, or a sand dune, sidewinding is a modified form of lateral undulation in which all of the body segments oriented in one direction remain in contact with the ground, while the other segments are lifted up, resulting in a peculiar "rolling" motion. This mode of locomotion overcomes the slippery nature of sand or mud by pushing off with only static portions on the body, thereby minimizing slipping. The static nature of the contact points can be shown from the tracks of a sidewinding snake, which show each belly scale imprint, without any smearing. This mode of locomotion has very low caloric cost, less than 1⁄3 of the cost for a lizard to move the same distance. Contrary to popular belief, there is no evidence that sidewinding is associated with the sand being hot.

 

Concertina

When push-points are absent, but there is not enough space to use sidewinding because of lateral constraints, such as in tunnels, snakes rely on concertina locomotion. In this mode, the snake braces the posterior portion of its body against the tunnel wall while the front of the snake extends and straightens. The front portion then flexes and forms an anchor point, and the posterior is straightened and pulled forwards. This mode of locomotion is slow and very demanding, up to seven times the cost of laterally undulating over the same distance. This high cost is due to the repeated stops and starts of portions of the body as well as the necessity of using active muscular effort to brace against the tunnel walls.

 

Arboreal

The movement of snakes in arboreal habitats has only recently been studied. While on tree branches, snakes use several modes of locomotion depending on species and bark texture. In general, snakes will use a modified form of concertina locomotion on smooth branches, but will laterally undulate if contact points are available. Snakes move faster on small branches and when contact points are present, in contrast to limbed animals, which do better on large branches with little 'clutter'.

 

Gliding snakes (Chrysopelea) of Southeast Asia launch themselves from branch tips, spreading their ribs and laterally undulating as they glide between trees. These snakes can perform a controlled glide for hundreds of feet depending upon launch altitude and can even turn in midair.

 

Rectilinear

The slowest mode of snake locomotion is rectilinear locomotion, which is also the only one where the snake does not need to bend its body laterally, though it may do so when turning. In this mode, the belly scales are lifted and pulled forward before being placed down and the body pulled over them. Waves of movement and stasis pass posteriorly, resulting in a series of ripples in the skin. The ribs of the snake do not move in this mode of locomotion and this method is most often used by large pythons, boas, and vipers when stalking prey across open ground as the snake's movements are subtle and harder to detect by their prey in this manner.

 

Interactions with humans

Snakes do not ordinarily prey on humans. Unless startled or injured, most snakes prefer to avoid contact and will not attack humans. With the exception of large constrictors, nonvenomous snakes are not a threat to humans. The bite of a nonvenomous snake is usually harmless; their teeth are not adapted for tearing or inflicting a deep puncture wound, but rather grabbing and holding. Although the possibility of infection and tissue damage is present in the bite of a nonvenomous snake, venomous snakes present far greater hazard to humans.  The World Health Organization (WHO) lists snakebite under the "other neglected conditions" category.

 

Documented deaths resulting from snake bites are uncommon. Nonfatal bites from venomous snakes may result in the need for amputation of a limb or part thereof. Of the roughly 725 species of venomous snakes worldwide, only 250 are able to kill a human with one bite. Australia averages only one fatal snake bite per year. In India, 250,000 snakebites are recorded in a single year, with as many as 50,000 recorded initial deaths. The WHO estimates that on the order of 100,000 people die each year as a result of snake bites, and around three times as many amputations and other permanent disabilities are caused by snakebites annually.

 

The treatment for a snakebite is as variable as the bite itself. The most common and effective method is through antivenom (or antivenin), a serum made from the venom of the snake. Some antivenom is species-specific (monovalent) while some is made for use with multiple species in mind (polyvalent). In the United States for example, all species of venomous snakes are pit vipers, with the exception of the coral snake. To produce antivenom, a mixture of the venoms of the different species of rattlesnakes, copperheads, and cottonmouths is injected into the body of a horse in ever-increasing dosages until the horse is immunized. Blood is then extracted from the immunized horse. The serum is separated and further purified and freeze-dried. It is reconstituted with sterile water and becomes antivenom. For this reason, people who are allergic to horses are more likely to have an allergic reaction to antivenom. Antivenom for the more dangerous species (such as mambas, taipans, and cobras) is made in a similar manner in South Africa, Australia , and India, although these antivenoms are species-specific.

 

Snake charmers

In some parts of the world, especially in India, snake charming is a roadside show performed by a charmer. In such a show, the snake charmer carries a basket containing a snake that he seemingly charms by playing tunes with his flutelike musical instrument, to which the snake responds. The snake is in fact responding to the movement of the flute, not the sound it makes, as snakes lack external ears (though they do have internal ears).

 

The Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 in India technically prohibits snake charming on the grounds of reducing animal cruelty. Other types of snake charmers use a snake and mongoose show, where the two animals have a mock fight; however, this is not very common, as the animals may be seriously injured or killed. Snake charming as a profession is dying out in India because of competition from modern forms of entertainment and environment laws proscribing the practice. Many Indians have never seen snake charming and it is becoming a folktale of the past.

 

Trapping

The Irulas tribe of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu in India have been hunter-gatherers in the hot, dry plains forests, and have practiced the art of snake catching for generations. They have a vast knowledge of snakes in the field. They generally catch the snakes with the help of a simple stick. Earlier, the Irulas caught thousands of snakes for the snake-skin industry. After the complete ban of the snake-skin industry in India and protection of all snakes under the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972, they formed the Irula Snake Catcher's Cooperative and switched to catching snakes for removal of venom, releasing them in the wild after four extractions. The venom so collected is used for producing life-saving antivenom, biomedical research and for other medicinal products. The Irulas are also known to eat some of the snakes they catch and are very useful in rat extermination in the villages.

 

Despite the existence of snake charmers, there have also been professional snake catchers or wranglers. Modern-day snake trapping involves a herpetologist using a long stick with a V-shaped end. Some television show hosts, like Bill Haast, Austin Stevens, Steve Irwin, and Jeff Corwin, prefer to catch them using bare hands.

 

Consumption

Although snakes are not commonly thought of as food, their consumption is acceptable in some cultures and may even be considered a delicacy. Snake soup is popular in Cantonese cuisine, consumed by locals in the autumn to warm their bodies. Western cultures document the consumption of snakes only under extreme circumstances of hunger, with the exception of cooked rattlesnake meat, which is commonly consumed in Texas and parts of the Midwestern United States.

 

In Asian countries such as China, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Cambodia, drinking the blood of a snake—particularly the cobra—is believed to increase sexual virility. When possible, the blood is drained while the cobra is still alive, and it is usually mixed with some form of liquor to improve the taste.

 

The use of snakes in alcohol is accepted in some Asian countries. In such cases, one or more snakes are left to steep in a jar or container of liquor, as this is claimed to make the liquor stronger (as well as more expensive). One example of this is the Habu snake, which is sometimes placed in the Okinawan liqueur Habushu (ハブ酒), also known as "Habu Sake".

 

Snake wine (蛇酒) is an alcoholic beverage produced by infusing whole snakes in rice wine or grain alcohol. First recorded as being consumed in China during the Western Zhou dynasty, this drink is considered an important curative and is believed to reinvigorate a person according to traditional Chinese medicine

 

Pets

In the Western world, some snakes are kept as pets, especially docile species such as the ball python and corn snake. To meet the demand, a captive breeding industry has developed. Snakes bred in captivity are considered preferable to specimens caught in the wild and tend to make better pets. Compared with more traditional types of companion animal, snakes can be very low-maintenance pets; they require minimal space, as most common species do not exceed 5 feet (1.5 m) in length, and can be fed relatively infrequently—usually once every five to 14 days. Certain snakes have a lifespan of more than 40 years if given proper care.

 

Symbolism

In ancient Mesopotamia, Nirah, the messenger god of Ištaran, was represented as a serpent on kudurrus, or boundary stones. Representations of two intertwined serpents are common in Sumerian art and Neo-Sumerian artwork and still appear sporadically on cylinder seals and amulets until as late as the thirteenth century BC. The horned viper (Cerastes cerastes) appears in Kassite and Neo-Assyrian kudurrus and is invoked in Assyrian texts as a magical protective entity. A dragon-like creature with horns, the body and neck of a snake, the forelegs of a lion, and the hind-legs of a bird appears in Mesopotamian art from the Akkadian Period until the Hellenistic Period (323 BC–31 BC). This creature, known in Akkadian as the mušḫuššu, meaning "furious serpent", was used as a symbol for particular deities and also as a general protective emblem. It seems to have originally been the attendant of the Underworld god Ninazu, but later became the attendant to the Hurrian storm-god Tishpak, as well as, later, Ninazu's son Ningishzida, the Babylonian national god Marduk, the scribal god Nabu, and the Assyrian national god Ashur.

 

In Egyptian history, the snake occupies a primary role with the Nile cobra adorning the crown of the pharaoh in ancient times. It was worshipped as one of the gods and was also used for sinister purposes: murder of an adversary and ritual suicide (Cleopatra). The ouroboros was a well-known ancient Egyptian symbol of a serpent swallowing its own tail. The precursor to the ouroboros was the "Many-Faced", a serpent with five heads, who, according to the Amduat, the oldest surviving Book of the Afterlife, was said to coil around the corpse of the sun god Ra protectively. The earliest surviving depiction of a "true" ouroboros comes from the gilded shrines in the tomb of Tutankhamun. In the early centuries AD, the ouroboros was adopted as a symbol by Gnostic Christians and chapter 136 of the Pistis Sophia, an early Gnostic text, describes "a great dragon whose tail is in its mouth". In medieval alchemy, the ouroboros became a typical western dragon with wings, legs, and a tail.

 

In the Bible, King Nahash of Ammon, whose name means "Snake", is depicted very negatively, as a particularly cruel and despicable enemy of the ancient Hebrews.

 

The ancient Greeks used the Gorgoneion, a depiction of a hideous face with serpents for hair, as an apotropaic symbol to ward off evil. In a Greek myth described by Pseudo-Apollodorus in his Bibliotheca, Medusa was a Gorgon with serpents for hair whose gaze turned all those who looked at her to stone and was slain by the hero Perseus. In the Roman poet Ovid's Metamorphoses, Medusa is said to have once been a beautiful priestess of Athena, whom Athena turned into a serpent-haired monster after she was raped by the god Poseidon in Athena's temple. In another myth referenced by the Boeotian poet Hesiod and described in detail by Pseudo-Apollodorus, the hero Heracles is said to have slain the Lernaean Hydra, a multiple-headed serpent which dwelt in the swamps of Lerna.

 

The legendary account of the foundation of Thebes mentioned a monster snake guarding the spring from which the new settlement was to draw its water. In fighting and killing the snake, the companions of the founder Cadmus all perished – leading to the term "Cadmean victory" (i.e. a victory involving one's own ruin).

 

Three medical symbols involving snakes that are still used today are Bowl of Hygieia, symbolizing pharmacy, and the Caduceus and Rod of Asclepius, which are symbols denoting medicine in general.

 

One of the etymologies proposed for the common female first name Linda is that it might derive from Old German Lindi or Linda, meaning a serpent.

 

India is often called the land of snakes and is steeped in tradition regarding snakes. Snakes are worshipped as gods even today with many women pouring milk on snake pits (despite snakes' aversion for milk). The cobra is seen on the neck of Shiva and Vishnu is depicted often as sleeping on a seven-headed snake or within the coils of a serpent. There are also several temples in India solely for cobras sometimes called Nagraj (King of Snakes) and it is believed that snakes are symbols of fertility. There is a Hindu festival called Nag Panchami each year on which day snakes are venerated and prayed to. See also Nāga.

 

In India there is another mythology about snakes. Commonly known in Hindi as "Ichchhadhari" snakes. Such snakes can take the form of any living creature, but prefer human form. These mythical snakes possess a valuable gem called "Mani", which is more brilliant than diamond. There are many stories in India about greedy people trying to possess this gem and ending up getting killed.

 

The snake is one of the 12 celestial animals of Chinese zodiac, in the Chinese calendar.

 

Many ancient Peruvian cultures worshipped nature. They emphasized animals and often depicted snakes in their art.

 

Religion

Snakes are used in Hinduism as a part of ritual worship. In the annual Nag Panchami festival, participants worship either live cobras or images of Nāgas. Lord Shiva is depicted in most images with a snake coiled around his neck. Puranic literature includes various stories associated with snakes, for example Shesha is said to hold all the planets of the Universe on his hoods and to constantly sing the glories of Vishnu from all his mouths. Other notable snakes in Hinduism are Vasuki, Takshaka, Karkotaka, and Pingala. The term Nāga is used to refer to entities that take the form of large snakes in Hinduism and Buddhism.

 

Snakes have been widely revered in many cultures, such as in ancient Greece where the serpent was seen as a healer.[148] Asclepius carried a serpent wound around his wand, a symbol seen today on many ambulances. In Judaism, the snake of brass is also a symbol of healing, of one's life being saved from imminent death.

 

In religious terms, the snake and jaguar were arguably the most important animals in ancient Mesoamerica. "In states of ecstasy, lords dance a serpent dance; great descending snakes adorn and support buildings from Chichen Itza to Tenochtitlan, and the Nahuatl word coatl meaning serpent or twin, forms part of primary deities such as Mixcoatl, Quetzalcoatl, and Coatlicue." In the Maya and Aztec calendars, the fifth day of the week was known as Snake Day.

 

In some parts of Christianity, the redemptive work of Jesus Christ is compared to saving one's life through beholding the Nehushtan (serpent of brass). Snake handlers use snakes as an integral part of church worship, to demonstrate their faith in divine protection. However, more commonly in Christianity, the serpent has been depicted as a representative of evil and sly plotting, as seen in the description in Genesis of a snake tempting Eve in the Garden of Eden. Saint Patrick is purported to have expelled all snakes from Ireland while converting the country to Christianity in the 5th century, thus explaining the absence of snakes there.

 

In Christianity and Judaism, the snake makes its infamous appearance in the first book of the Bible when a serpent appears before Adam and Eve and tempts them with the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. The snake returns in the Book of Exodus when Moses turns his staff into a snake as a sign of God's power, and later when he makes the Nehushtan, a bronze snake on a pole that when looked at cured the people of bites from the snakes that plagued them in the desert. The serpent makes its final appearance symbolizing Satan in the Book of Revelation: "And he laid hold on the dragon the old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years."

 

In Neo-Paganism and Wicca, the snake is seen as a symbol of wisdom and knowledge. Additionally, snakes are sometimes associated with Hecate, the Greek goddess of witchcraft.

 

Medicine

Several compounds from snake venoms are being researched as potential treatments or preventatives for pain, cancers, arthritis, stroke, heart disease, hemophilia, and hypertension, and to control bleeding (e.g. during surgery).

I am alive!

 

This is the MOC I took down to the Christchurch Brick Show in July. Yeah, July. The internet side of my lego life has been virtually (haha, pun not intended :P) nonexistent for ages now.

 

Some of you might remember the Lego graphic novel I was writing and video blogging about earlier this year, until about April. It and I disappeared from the face of the internet without notice. Sorry about that. My beautiful 1-year-old niece passed away very suddenly at the beginning of May, and the project was not a priority.

 

Anyhow, hopefully I'll get back to it at some point. It would be really good to actually get something out of it, because it did have a plot and concepts that I really liked. Right now I'm working on my exhibit for the Auckland Brick Show 2014, a part of a pirate/castleish collaboration. It should be pretty cool :)

 

Thanks for checking this out! :D

The fierce Kingda Ka is simply the tallest, fastest roller coaster on Earth. This remarkable thrill ride breaks all world records for coaster speed and height, zooming from

0 to 128 mph in 3.5 seconds and catapulting you 45 stories into the sky.

 

Get propelled horizontally at 128 mph via hydraulic launch

Hang on tight as you shoot 90 degrees into a quarter-turn

Blast 456 feet high, then plunge vertically into a 270-degree spiral

Experience weightlessness as you swoop down a valley and up a 129-foot camel hump

Kingda Ka is a roller coaster located at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson Township, New Jersey, USA. At its opening on May 21, 2005, it became the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world, claiming the title from Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point. The train is launched by a hydraulic launch mechanism to 128 miles per hour (206 km/h) in 3.5 seconds.[1] At the end of the launch track, the train climbs the main top hat tower reaching a height of 456 feet (139.5 m).[2] Due to aviation safety concerns, the tower is equipped with three dual strobes: two mid-way up, and one on the top.

 

History

 

Kingda Ka was officially announced on September 29, 2004, at an event held for the media and enthusiasts.[3] It was revealed that the ride would become "the tallest and fastest roller coaster on earth", reaching 456 feet (139 m) high and accelerating up to 128 miles per hour (206 km/h) in 3.5 seconds.[4]

 

On January 13, 2005, Kingda Ka was topped off at its 456-foot (139 m) height, finishing construction.[5] A crane over 500 feet (150 m) tall was used to hoist up the highest track piece for the ride. Just approximately four months later, Kingda Ka opened to the public, media day being two days before, on May 19.

 

Kingda Ka was originally supposed to open on Saturday, April 23, 2005, but on April 18, 2005, Six Flags announced that Kingda Ka's opening would be delayed; media day would have been on April 21. [6] Before Kingda Ka was built, Cedar Point's Top Thrill Dragster was the tallest and fastest roller coaster on the planet.

 

During a test run with no passengers on June 8, 2005, a bolt failure caused damage to the launch cable resulting in closure of the ride until August 2005, and the reconfiguration of the line area.

  

Major malfunctions

On June 6, 2005, less than a month after its grand opening, a bolt failure caused the liner inside the trough that the launch cable travels through to come loose and create friction against the cable. The friction caused the train to not accelerate to the correct speed. The rubbing of the cable against the inside of the metal trough caused sparks and shards of metal to fly out from the bottom of the train. The engine, as it is designed, attempted to compensate by applying more force to the cable to attain the 128 mph (206 km/h) launch speed.

The brake fins—metal fins attached to the underside of some roller coaster cars that slide between brakes mounted to the track[7]—rise up into the braking position on a timing pattern, independent of the launching mechanism. The fins are mounted in steel supports that are connected to actuators that raise and lower the fins into the desired position. There are four braking zones, and each zone has about 24 individual brake fins. The fins actually caught up to the launching train as the timing pattern of the rising fins was faster than the accelerating train. The magnetic brakes began to slow the train in the launch area, and the engine tried to compensate even more, and dragged the train through the brake zones. The catch car released, but the train was still in the brake zone and came to a complete stop at the bottom of the hill.

 

This malfunction occurred when no passengers were aboard during a test run. No injuries or deaths occurred. Damage occurred to the launch cable (frayed and needed to be replaced), engine (minor routine damage to seals), and brake fins (many needed to be replaced). The brake fins in the launch section are mounted in such a way to keep fast moving trains from moving backwards into the station, but a fast moving train being pulled forwards caused an unexpected stress on a number of fins that bent them forward. Not all of the fins needed to be replaced, but there were more damaged brake fins than Six Flags had replacements, and extra brake fins had to be specially ordered from Intamin. In addition, Kingda Ka had to be re-inspected. Kingda Ka started testing on July 21, 2005. It reopened on August 4, 2005, with the line modified so that it no longer ran under the launch track.[8] The dark blue train was being launched when the malfunction occurred. It was used for the rest of the season, but major problems requiring replacement parts were discovered when the train was inspected during the off-season. Consequently, this train remained disassembled throughout the 2006 season.

  

Ride experience

After the train has been locked and checked, it slowly advances out of the station to the launch area. The train goes through a switch track which allows 4 trains on two tracks to load simultaneously. Once the train is in position, the hydraulic launch mechanism rockets the train from 0 to 128 miles per hour (206 km/h) in 3.5 seconds,[9] pulling about 1.67 g's. At the end of the launch track, the train climbs the main tower, or top hat, twisting 90 degrees to the right before reaching a height of 456 feet (139.5 m).[10] The train then descends 418 feet (127 m) straight down through a 270-degree spiral. Finally, the train climbs the second, 129 foot hill, producing a moment of weightlessness before being smoothly brought to a stop by the magnetic brakes. The train then makes a U-turn and enters the station. The ride lasts 28 seconds from the start of the launch to the end of the brake run, but has an "official" ride time of 50.6 seconds.

 

The hydraulic launch motor is capable of producing 20,800 horsepower (15.5 MW) peak. Due to the high speed and open nature of the trains, this ride will not operate in light rain, as rider contact with rain drops can cause discomfort.[8]

  

Rollbacks and launch

Sometimes, it is possible for a train to roll back—to fail to reach the top of the tower and descend. The train instead reaches as high on the tower as it can go (in most cases to the very top), and rolls back. Kingda Ka includes retractable brakes on its launch track that will bring a train rolling backwards down the tower to a stop. Rollbacks are more common in breezy weather, or just after wet weather. Many riders look forward to a rollback.

It is hard to know exactly when Kingda Ka's launch will occur. When the signal to launch is given, the train rolls back slightly to engage the catch car, then the brakes on the launch track retract. Most times there will be a voice that says "arms down, head back and hold on". The launch will occur five seconds after the "hiss" of the brakes retracting or the warning voice. Previously, Kingda Ka's horn sounded before every launch, but it has been turned off because of noise complaints from nearby residents. The horn now sounds only when Kingda Ka first launches after being idle for a certain period of time. Kingda Ka's launch mechanism is capable of launching a train every 45 seconds, resulting in a capacity of 1400 guests per hour.

  

Camera

Kingda Ka features two on-ride cameras. One is placed shortly after the beginning of the launch, the other is at the end of the brake run, resulting in "before" and "after" photographs. Since both cameras are located on the right side of the track, riders intending to purchase their on-ride photo are advised to sit in the right-hand seat.

 

Station

 

Kingda Ka's station has two parallel tracks with switch tracks at the entrance and exit. Each of the station's tracks accommodates two trains, so that each of the four trains has its own station. Each train only loads and unloads at its own station; it does not go to any others. During operation, the trains on one side are loaded while the trains on the other side are launched. This system works extremely efficiently as long as all four trains are running and there are no significant delays in loading and checking the trains. This system was not used at all in 2006 because only two trains were working that year. It also results in a very fast-moving line before the station, but a long wait inside the station, especially if waiting for the front row. An employee directs riders in line to go to a particular side of the station, but riders will then be able to choose the front or rear train. Two operators load, check and dispatch each train, and one launches the trains. Kingda Ka's music is by Safri Duo, "Adagio" is played in the queue and "Played-A-Live" and "Samba Adagio" are played in the station.

 

Trains

Kingda Ka's four trains are color coded for easy identification: green, dark blue, light blue (commonly called teal) and orange. These four colors are also used on the seats and restraints. Kingda Ka's trains seat 18 people, with two per row. The rear car has one row, while the rest have two. The rear row of each car is positioned higher than its front row for better visibility. The trains do not have official names, only numbers.

 

The dark blue train was being launched when 2005's major malfunction (see above) occurred, and problems stemming from this malfunction were discovered in the train's off-season rehab, putting this train out of service throughout the 2006 season. As a result, Kingda Ka only ran two trains for the whole year. The teal and green trains ran from the start of the season until late July, and the teal and orange trains ran for the rest of the season. Kingda Ka opened for the 2007 season with all four trains running.[11]

 

Each of Kingda Ka's trains has a panel behind the last row of seats that covers an extra row of seat mounts. These panels could be removed for the installation of additional seats at some future time. This modification would increase the capacity of each train to from 18 to 20 guests and the hourly capacity of the coaster from 1400 to 1600 guests per hour. Kingda Ka's station is already set up for this modification; it has the entrance gates for the currently nonexistent row of seats.

 

While this modification has not yet been done, the trains were slightly modified for the 2006 season - the nose of each train got a new coat of paint, after which the large "Kingda Ka" logo and the train number decals were not put back on the trains. The non-padded portions of the restraints are now bare metal rather than painted orange.

  

Seat restraints

Kingda Ka's over-the-shoulder restraint system consists of a thick, rigid lap bar and two thin, flexible over-the-shoulder restraints. Because the over-the-shoulder portions of the restraint are not rigid, the hand grips are mounted to the lap bar. This type of restraint feels like a lap bar restraint, while still providing the safety of a traditional over-the-shoulder restraint.

These restraints use a hydraulic locking system (rather than a ratchet) which allows them to be pulled down to any position; when "locked", they can move down to any position but not up. In contrast, a ratchet-based restraint only locks at each "notch", and will often be too loose or uncomfortably tight. Kingda Ka's restraints are also held down by a belt in case the main locking system fails. In order to speed up loading, riders are asked to secure their own restraints if they are able to. The minimum height restriction is 54 inches, the same as most other major coasters. In addition, it is actually possible for a rider to be too tall to ride Kingda Ka - if you are tall enough that your head is entirely above the seat, you would not be able to ride as the launch could give you whiplash.

  

Queue area

Kingda Ka's line starts well before the actual entrance arch. The line passes by an ice cream stand, then goes under the entrance arch. It then enters a long switchback area, where a DJ is sometimes present to entertain the guests in the line. After the switchback area, the line passes by the lockers and then into the station. At this point, an employee will direct guests to a particular side of the station. Each train's station has a separate line for the front row.

Before 2005's major malfunction, Kingda Ka's line area was much larger. It started at the main entrance arch, went under the launch track, traveled through two large switchback areas, and split into separate lines for each side of the station. Most of the entire line used to be set in the ride's infield. Due to the parts that came flying from the launch track during its first malfunction, the park (Six Flags Great Adventure) or state (New Jersey) perhaps both, felt it would be safer to have guests stay as far away from the track as possible at all times. The current main entrance to the station was previously the "flash pass" entrance.

  

Awards and records

Golden Ticket Awards: Best Steel Coaster

Year 2005 2006 2007

Ranking 31 28 31

      

Por favor, no use esta imagen en su web, blogs u otros medios sin mi permiso explícito. © Todos los derechos reservados.

© Alejandro Cárdaba Rubio/2013

 

La Punta de San Lorenzo, situada en la costa sur de Madeira, ofrece unas excepcionales vistas de la costa. La vegetación en esta punta es casi inexistente, debido a la cantidad de sol que recibe, al contrario de lo que sucede en la mayor parte de la isla. No hay más que una fina hierba y pitas. Además, ésta es una zona de mucho viento, hasta el punto de que se han instalado motores de viento. Cuidado con acercarse demasiado a los acantilados, carecen de barandilla. Pasearse por los senderos de la costa es muy agradable. Pero lleva puesto un buen calzado, ya que los caminos están llenos de piedras.

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The Punta de San Lorenzo, located on the south coast of Madeira, offers exceptional views of the coast. The vegetation in this tip is almost nonexistent, due to the amount of sunlight it receives, contrary to what happens in most of the island. There is only a thin grass and pitas. Moreover, this is a zone of high wind, to the extent that motors are installed wind. Beware of getting too close to the cliffs, no railing. Strolling along the paths of the coast is very nice. But wearing good shoes, because the roads are full of stones.

 

Más Información / More Information : www.easyviajar.com/portugal/la-punta-de-san-lorenzo-2140

You ever see an old movie where a rolling window blind suddenly snaps open and startles everyone? That would be a good description of how spring has finally taken its rightful place here in Durham, North Carolina. The fresh green evident throughout this image was nonexistent a scant few days ago... it also makes obvious the overall condition of the Eno River, which is quite good. So much so that the loop parking area at the end of Cole Mill Road was nearly full. Everyone I met seemed to be taking full advantage of a beautiful day on the river.

 

While I am continuing photographing and documenting the wildflowers along the Eno River, the thought occurred to me that you may want to have a look at the river itself. This was taken just upstream from the old cabin across from the suspension bridge. The images in the links below were taken on the same day within minutes of this spot. Again, my point is not to just shoot pictures of flowers, but to find extraordinary compositions that express how such diversity indicates a healthy ecosystem.

This morning I was up with the sun and out for the best light of the day and I happened upon a pair of grebes on the lake. I didn't cross paths with them until around 8:00AM but I found them in one of the most ideal locations with lots of open water and some nice backdrops. With the winds being almost nonexistent and these little birds being very relaxed, I was able to get really close at just the right angle with the sun and just kind of park next to them. I only got one decent pic with the both of them in the frame but I'm totally stoked by what I ended up bringing home with me.

 

I realize that I've been really negligent of commenting to all of my contacts and for that I apologize. I've been packing as much fishing time into the last several weeks as possible since it won't be too much longer before the boat goes into dry-dock for the winter. I've also got a ton of backlog photos to post over the coming weeks but some have been sitting since May so who knows when I'll get around to it. I'll be back in commenting mode soon enough but, for the next couple of months I'll probably just post and run. Thanks for the comments and I'll do my best to visit your streams as soon as I can carve out some time for it.

 

This made Explore #341 on Thursday, September 22, 2011. Thanks everyone!

Manufacturer: Thunderhead

Nationality: America

First assembled: May 23, 1957

Birthplace: Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Engine 6.6 L V8

HP: 550 BHP

0-60: 6.3 Seconds

Top speed: 193.29 MPH

 

Thunderhead is most know for big block V8 musclecars when it comes to notable vehicles. You've got 2 door slabs of American muscle like the Roadbeast and the Mercenary, both of which in modern times are much more well-rounded performers than just dominating a quarter mile. Thunderhead doesn't just worry about musclecars, though. There are purebread sportscars like the Supercobra GTS and off-roaders like the Gila. Also as of recent the ultra-luxury sedan known as the Royale is now on the markets. The Royale wasn't Thunderhead's first stint at luxury, though. As a matter of fact Thunderhead's history is outright drowned in luxury, with big comfortable sedans and cruisers worthy of carrying royalty. Not to say that these luxo-barges were big, soft rolling couches, though. They could move when needed to. Probably the luxo-barge of Thunderhead's old days has to be the Empire Coupe. Though the Empire nameplate existed since the early 2240's, the coupe model was virtually nonexistent until 1957. Not to say it wasn't just as popular, though. The Empire was said to actually look better as a coupe, something a king would surely be proud to ride around in. That king would sure enjoy the ride, too. The quality of the interior and ride rivaled that of the Empire's European competitors. The Empire wasn't just for low and slow cruising, though. The 6.6 L V8, which would later be extensively modified for usage in the Roadbeast, gave the Empire and respectable 550 BHP. The 0-60 was just above 6 seconds, and the top speed nearing 200. Quick for a rolling barge. The Empire nameplate is still a part of Thunderhead's lineup today, though it's largely agreed that the Empire has fallen from grace since the days of the original coupe, which doesn't even exist nowadays in place of just the standard sedan. And original Empire Coupe from the olden days will run about $80,000 to $120,000 at auction.

Port des Saint-Pères 03/06/2016 19h19

The harbor along the Quai Malaquais seems nonexistent at the moment of the high water level. In the distance the Pont du Carrousel.

 

2016 European Floods

In late May and early June 2016 flooding began after several days of heavy rain in Europe, mostly Germany and France, but also Austria, Belgium, Romania, and Moldova. Beginning at the river Neckar, also the Danube, Rhine, Seine and their tributaries were affected by high water and flooding along their banks. At least 16 people have died to date.

In France, the river Seine burst its banks and one town was evacuated. Two people died in the floods. An 86-year-old woman was found dead in Souppes-sur-Loing, Seine-et-Marne, after her house was flooded. A 74-year-old man on horseback died in Evry-Gregy-sur-Yerre, south of Paris while crossing a flooded field.

Some areas reported the worst flooding ever seen in a century. In the department of Loiret, six weeks worth of rain reportedly fell in three days. Drivers on a highway had to be rescued by soldiers.

 

In Paris, boat cruises were cancelled. The Louvre museum barred public admission on 2 June to 3 June to preemptively secure the artwork in case of flooding caused by the river Seine. Flooding in Paris was expected to peak at around 6.30m over normal, higher than 6.18m high seen in 1982, but below the 1955 flood level of 7.12m, and the 1910 Paris flood which saw levels at 8.62m over normal.

[ Source and more Information: Wikipedia - 2016 European Floods ]

 

Ebikes are best used when they are simply car replacements, a means of transportation. I don't know these riders, but later I noticed that a bike shop was guiding groups of bikers on rented ebikes in the area. Biking infrastructure in Olympia was poor to nonexistent similar to biking infrastructure in Seattle and Tacoma. These are cities designed for cars and anyone on a bike takes their lives in their hands traveling on streets.

 

Sony ILCE ⍺6500 | Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 DC DN

Nightmares in which you cease to exist and are left behind in the deep, numbing cold....

Rail replacement is something that Robertson Buses readily take part in when vehicles are available, with buses travelling around the East Midlands to destinations such as Derby, Lincoln and Sheffield when the need arises. Since such instances tend to involve a range of operators anyway it’s easy to envisage RB joining them on this slightly more haphazard (and fun) form of contract. It’s a good excuse to have a bigger fleet of deckers and heavyweight singles than what the service routes really require, although as shown when I was explaining RB’s contracts and excursions, you can come up with some creative ways to keep bigger buses busy in a fictitious fleet… or I suppose you could run a lot of important services, but with the quality of IRL operators in Nottingham there really is no need. (Not that I can even assemble any replacement double deckers for the one intensive route RB do have…)

 

Since I touched on specific cases when talking about each route, plus other model/fictitious fleets, I might as well address how various real life operators are viewed in the universe in which Robertson Buses exists. Pretty much all major operators around Nottingham are reasonably as they are, with RB playing second fiddle to the likes of NCT and TrentBarton. A few Nottinghamshire County Council and CT4N routes encroach on what would otherwise be an RB service, so the services mentioned like the 510, 536 and 16 (Long Eaton town bus) would be nonexistent or amended but the operators themselves very much still there. I know some model fleets exist on the basis that XXXXX-operator doesn’t, but given how small RB is I’ve tried to work around what’s already there. Sometimes it happens where a Robertson Buses route pre-empts something similar that does occur later on in real life, like the Vectare Grantham-Bingham bus, or the launch of Econnect. For instances such as those, the RB route is deemed to be ‘already existing’ and (in the universe of RB) the new development either doesn’t happen or is a more minor change.

 

If anyone is interested in that kind of ‘major operator replacement’, I do have that Lincoln bus network revamp I was working on back in the summer, and ideas for a modern-day Road Car as if Robertson Buses (or a subsidiary of it) took over parts of Stagecoach East Midlands. Due to space, budget and time limitations I won’t be able to do it as a model fleet, but possibly as a CG drawn and OMSI one. Let me know if that’s the kind of thing that wants to be seen.

Though personalized art appeared during World War I, and occasionally grew to incorporate the entire aircraft, most pilots carried a saying or a slogan, or a family crest, or squadron symbol. Some were named, but nose art was not common. During World War II, nose art not only saw its true beginnings, but its heyday.

 

No one knows exactly who started nose art first--it appeared with both the British and the Germans around the first time, with RAF pilots painting Hitler being kicked or skulls and crossbones on their aircraft, while German nose art was usually a personal symbol, named for a girlfriend or adopting a mascot (such as Adolf Galland using Mickey Mouse, something Walt Disney likely didn't approve of). It would be with the Americans, and a lesser extent the Canadians, that nose art truly became common--and started including its most famous forms, which was usually half-naked or completely naked women. This was not always true, but it often was.

 

The quality of nose art depended on the squadron or wing artist. Some of it was rather crude, while others were equal to the finest pinup artists in the United States, such as Alberto Vargas. For men thousands of miles away from home and lonely, a curvaceous blonde on a B-17 or a P-51 made that loneliness a bit easier. Others thought naked women were a little crude, and just limited themselves to names, or depicted animals, cartoon characters, or patriotic emblems, or caricatures of the Axis dictators they were fighting.

 

Generally speaking, there was little censorship, with squadron and group commanders rarely intervening on names or pictures; the pilots themselves practiced self-censorship, with profanity almost unknown, and full-frontal nudity nearly nonexistent. After the loss of a B-17 named "Murder Inc.," which the Germans captured and used to make propaganda, the 8th Air Force, at least, set up a nose art committee that reviewed the nose art of aircraft--but even it rarely wielded its veto. For the most part, nose art was limited only by the crew's imagination and the artist's ability. The British tended to stay away from the lurid nudes of the Americans, though the Canadians adopted them as well. (The Axis also did not use nose art in this fashion, and neither did the Soviets, who usually confined themselves to patriotic slogans on their aircraft, such as "For Stalin!" or "In the Spirit of the Motherland!")

 

When World War II ended, so did nose art, for the most part. In the peacetime, postwar armed forces, the idea of having naked women were wives and children could see it was not something the postwar USAF or Navy wanted, and when it wasn't scrapped, it was painted over. A few units (especially those away from home and family) still allowed it, but it would take Korea to begin a renaissance of nose art.

 

"Flo" is B-25J Mitchell 44-28834, a former USAF TB-25N trainer aircraft and later water bomber; it was eventually acquired by Grand Forks AFB and placed on display at the base airpark in 1986. The original "Flo" was 43-27889, which flew with the 321st Bomb Group, based in Italy during World War II; the pilot, John O'Keefe, was later the head of the Grand Forks Volunteer Association. "Flo" looks to be loosely based on a Varga Girl, dressed in a flimsy nightgown. (This is an accurate reproduction of the original nose art--"Flo" didn't get more clothes for a modern audience!)

Some More lego Star Wars characters for a series of stop motion movies I'm planning on making. As you can see, I've added another Metroid Character: Dark Samus.

 

Quarren Mercenary:

A Quarren Mercenary hired by the Disciples of Ragnos.

 

Quarren Slave:

A slave girl on Nar Shadaa.

 

Clawfish:

A Quarren criminal who has but one remaining facial tentacle. He always becomes enraged when asked about this. He follows our three heroes across the galaxy just so that he can beat the crap out of Ekrchry, who asked him why he has so few tentacles. He is similar to the "CHOCOLATE!!" guy from Spongebob Square Pants in this sense.

 

Sh'shak:

A S'krrr warrior-poet, who has left his home planet on a mission to find help destroying the Drog Beetle swarm, which has completely overtaken S'krrr.

 

Aj Clarke (Shirtless):

Self explanatory. Aj without a shirt on.

 

Jimmy Jango (Hatless):

Jimmy without a hat on.

 

Jodo Kast (No Helmet):

Jodo Kast was a member of Alliance SpecOps who became a bounty hunter in the time of the Galactic Civil War. In his suit of modified Mandalorian armor, Kast was sometimes mistaken for the infamous bounty hunter Boba Fett, a fact he capitalized on when possible. Valuing credits over ideals and loyalties, Kast worked for the Empire, Black Sun, the New Republic, or anyone who would pay him. Kast's impersonation of Fett eventually caught up with him, though, when the other bounty hunter sought to reclaim his own reputation. Fett baited a trap on Nal Hutta, using an alias to offer a bounty on a nonexistent man. When Kast came to Nal Hutta, Fett attacked and defeated him, leaving Kast to be killed by his own exploding jetpack.

 

Boba Fett (No Helmet/Before Sarlacc):

Boba Fett was a Mandalorian warrior and bounty hunter. He was a clone of the famed Jango Fett, created in 32 BBY as the first of many Fett replicas designed to become part of the Grand Army of the Republic, and was raised as Jango's son. Jango taught Boba much, training the latter to become a skilled bounty hunter as his father-figure was before him.

 

Boba Fett (No Helmet/After Sarlacc):

Boba is known to have obtained gruesome scars from his time spent in the Sarlacc. They cover most of his face. Those who saw his face and survived (before he fell into the sarlacc) wouldn't recognize him anymore, due to his acid-bleached skin and hair.

 

Dark Samus:

Dark Samus is a being of Phazon taking on the form of Samus Aran. She is following Samus, although Samus is unaware of this.

 

R5-D4:

R5-D4, also known as Red, was a part of the low cost Industrial Automaton R5 line, a line plagued with malfunctions. As a result, R5-D4 was owned by many beings and in a constant state of used sale. His programming became jealous of other droids that were capable of serving without failure and had loyal masters. He was also used intelligence gathering source by the Rebel Alliance.

 

Mammon Hoole:

Mammon Hoole was a Shi'ido scientist from Lao-mon during the reign of the Galactic Empire. He was the brother of Zak and Tash Arranda's father.

 

Grand Admiral Thrawn:

Mitth'raw'nuruodo, better known by his core name Thrawn, was a male Chiss who served in the Imperial Navy and became the only non-Human Grand Admiral. He was regarded as the best military strategist in the navy, and despite the Empire's strict non-Human policies, rose to a position of power.

 

DV-9:

DV-9 (Deevee) was a research droid built by the anthropologist Mammon Hoole as an assistant. After the destruction of Alderaan, he spent most of his time as a personal tutor for Hoole's niece and nephew, Tash and Zak Arranda much to his dismay.

 

Sava Brec Madak:

Sava Brec Madak was an alias used by Boba Fett when dealing with the House Benelex on Paquallis III. Fett used the identity to hire Jodo Kast to capture Satnik Hiicrop on Nal Hutta. Unknown to the Benelex Guild or to Kast was that the entire operation was an elaborate setup wherein Fett would find and kill Kast.

 

Satnik Hiicrop:

"It's called a hologram. This is called a trap. And I'm calling you dead."

Satnik Hiicrop was a fictional name created by Boba Fett to lure Jodo Kast into a trap on Nal Hutta in order to take revenge for Kast's capitalization on Fett's identity. A hologram was used to create the illusion of Hiicrop actually being real. The story of Hiicrop was actually mimicking that of Kast's—He was a man who had done Sava Brec Madak (or Boba Fett) many wrongs by stealing both his business and his name. Hiicrop was about to be captured by Kast when the hologram faded and Fett stepped out of the shadows.

 

Nodon (Shirtless):

Yes, he is wearing pants.

 

Nonak (Shirtless):

Yes, he is wearing pants.

I was visiting with Jeanette, a classmate of mine, on campus when he approached, trailing his rollerboard suitcase, and asked for directions to a city information bureau. He had a British accent and friendly manner. He had just gotten off the bus from Buffalo and had walked a couple of blocks to where we met. He is visiting Toronto from Coventry England. Jeanette was just on her way to meet a friend so I told him I would give him directions. He seemed an interesting fellow so we stood on the street chatting for a few minutes. He was surprised (and pleased) that I knew of Coventry because, as he said, many people draw a blank when he mentions it. It is famous for its cathedral, among other things. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coventry) We shook hands. Meet John from Coventry.

 

John is 84 and is retired from a career in the plastics manufacturing industry. “Do you know of bakelite?” he asked. “Yes, I do.” “Well my career didn’t have anything to do with bakelite” he said with a wry smile, but with other forms of plastic. “Were you a chemical engineer?” I asked, trying to get a handle on his expertise. “Well, you’re glorifying me just a bit” he said. Call it a “production manager.”

 

John has arrived in Toronto to spend the final week of his holiday getting to know this part of Canada. He started out in New York before going to Buffalo prior to his arrival in Toronto. He had the name and address of a hostel to stay at but wanted to get to the visitor’s bureau for maps and other suggestions for his week in the city. I told him there is an office nearby and said I would walk him over but first I wanted to invite him to join my Human Family photography project. “Sure” he said. “I’d be glad to.” I asked him if he’s ever heard of Humans of New York. “Can’t say that I have” he replied. “Good” I continued, because this isn’t quite the same.” We laughed as I got even with him for his use of bakelite as an example of what he had not worked with. John had that friendly, dry wit which we often associate with the British.

 

As we moved out of the direct afternoon sunlight to a rather grungy nearby loading dock which offered diffuse light, John said he had been interested in photography in past years. “Have you ever worked with wet plates?” Wow. I feel that my past experience with developing 35mm black and white film sets me apart from most people I know and here’s a guy who has worked with wet plates! Photos taken, we continued to chat and he was a fascinating man. “What has been your biggest surprise so far on this trip?” I asked. “I had no idea that Buffalo had a load of Frank Lloyd Wright homes so that was a fantastic treat. I had architecture student flatmates when I was in school and some of it rubbed off on me. I really appreciate architecture.” (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Lloyd_Wright) I asked if he’d seen Niagara Falls and he said “Oh yes. I couldn’t be that close to the Falls without taking the boat tour and getting myself soaked in the spray!” I asked if he traveled a lot and he said “There were a number of years when I was unable to travel, so now I’m trying to make up for it.” What a guy.

 

When I asked about the greatest challenge he’s faced in life he said “I can’t really give you an answer to that one so I’ll just take a pass.” “How about a message to share through my project?” “Well” he said, “don’t give people advice because given a bit of encouragement they can usually figure things out for themselves using their own resources.” A most interesting message. “What did you like most about your career in the plastics manufacturing industry?” “I’d say the greatest satisfaction was in getting people to do what they really didn’t want to do” he said. “Oh, so you’re a very persuasive guy?” “No, you don’t get it” he said. “You don’t persuade; you encourage them to come up with the idea themselves and volunteer to do it!” I couldn’t help laughing. What an interesting and clever fellow.

 

I asked if he had an email address to send his photo to and he said “I’m afraid not. My cyber footprint is nonexistent but thank you anyway.”

 

I walked John over to the travel bureau, only to discover it had been moved to Union Station about a mile away. “That’s fine” John said. “Just point me in the right direction and I’ll be fine. My suitcase just follows along quietly on its wheels.” I walked him to Yonge Street and pointed him south. It was time for me to head for home and for John to find his map and accommodations for the night. I hope I’ve got half that much spirit of adventure when I reach 84.

 

Thank you John for the friendly chat and for taking part in the Human Family project. Enjoy your stay in Toronto and safe travels back to Coventry.

 

This is my 78th submission to The Human Family on Flickr.

 

You can view more street portraits and stories by visiting The Human Family.

Peter, a retired Navy helicopter pilot takes Bill, a retired Navy F-14 Tomcat RIO up for a flight in the T-6 Texan. Bill is head down, perhaps looking for a nonexistent Tactical Information Display.

 

To view a hi-res version and for more information visit my website:National Capitol Squadron Meetings

"Maldito el soldado que vuelva las armas de la República contra su pueblo."

 

Simón Bolívar

 

O como dicen ahora, ¡Ya está bueno ya!

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El periodista Fernando Rospigliosi de El Comercio de Lima dice lo que debe ser obvio a todos:

 

Aunque desde diversos ángulos se intenta disfrazar la dictadura establecida por Hugo Chávez en 1999, en realidad es eso, una dictadura. En primer lugar, concentra todos los poderes y los usa descaradamente contra sus adversarios. El Ejecutivo, el Parlamento, el Poder Judicial y en general todas las instituciones están directa y totalmente controladas por el chavismo, como muestra el arbitrario y escandaloso encarcelamiento de Leopoldo López, que además está impedido de participar en elecciones desde el 2008.

 

En segundo lugar, no existe alternancia en el poder, los líderes gobiernan hasta su muerte o hasta que son derrocados, como en todas las dictaduras personalistas. Hugo Chávez modificó la Constitución y se hizo reelegir varias veces. Y quizás hubiera cumplido su promesa de gobernar hasta el 2030 si no hubiera fallecido en marzo pasado. Nicolás Maduro se mantendrá en el poder hasta que sea depuesto por el pueblo.

 

En tercer lugar, la libertad de expresión ha sido restringida hasta casi desaparecer. Los canales de televisión están controlados por el gobierno, los diarios que no se han doblegado están siendo asfixiados, los periodistas independientes son perseguidos. Y en situaciones de crisis como la actual el gobierno simplemente censura las emisiones, como ocurrió con el canal de cable NTN24, al que sacaron del aire.

 

En cuarto lugar, las Fuerzas Armadas y la Guardia Nacional están politizadas, tremendamente corrompidas y controladas por el chavismo. Adicionalmente, están los “colectivos chavistas”, matones paramilitares que atacan violentamente a los opositores. Y también la “milicia bolivariana”, que depende directamente del presidente de la República.

 

El servicio de inteligencia, Sebin, ha sido el responsable directo de varios de los asesinatos de manifestantes en los últimos días, a tal punto que Maduro tuvo que cambiar al director que apenas llevaba un mes en el puesto. El nuevo director es un general que ha sido el jefe de la milicia bolivariana.

 

Es decir, en Venezuela no existe ninguna de las cualidades que hacen que una democracia sea tal: división de poderes, balances y contrapesos; alternancia regular en el poder a través de elecciones libres y competitivas; libertad de prensa que permita fiscalizar al poder; institutos militares no politizados.

 

En suma, para todo efecto práctico, en Venezuela existe una dictadura. El hecho de que se realicen elecciones amañadas que siempre gana el oficialismo –salvo algunos gobiernos locales– no la convierte en una democracia. Muchos parecen haber olvidado que las dictaduras personalistas que proliferaron en América Latina los primeros 60 años del siglo XX realizaban puntualmente elecciones que indefectiblemente ganaban los dictadores, militares o civiles.

 

elcomercio.pe/opinion/columnistas/izquierdas-y-venezuela-...

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En su editorial de hoy, El Comercio de Lima nos advierte que:

 

Sea como fuere, el régimen chavista, que ya no posee los recursos para seguir comprando el nivel de apoyo que en otros tiempos tenían sus tropelías, está intentando encerrar las voces de Venezuela como en una caja hermética. Algo similar, esto es, al estado en que viven los cubanos desde hace décadas. Tendría que ser el deber de quienes en la región creemos en la democracia hacer todo lo que esté en nuestras manos para que las voces de la oposición se oigan, antes de que la caja logre cerrarse sobre ellas.

 

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The eloquence gets lost in translation, but the gist is that the soldier who takes up arms against his people is damned. Today, the Venezuelan opponents of the government are just saying "Enough is enough!"

 

What's it like in Venezuela now? There are so many issues and so many back stories that it's hard to put together a list that doesn't go on for pages. So here are two conditions that stand out from the rest:

 

> The independence of the judiciary has been severely compromised, to the point where it's nonexistent in high-stakes situations. If that had happened here, we never would have gotten rid of Nixon because no court would have ordered him to turn over the tapes that were his undoing.

 

So if we had Venezuela's judicial system, it's unlikely any court would overturn laws enacted by the ruling party and the president. For example, no court would gutted the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and it's unlikely the courts would be overturning state laws that impede the recognition of same-sex marriage.

 

> The regime prevents the press and TV from disseminating information about events, issues or people the president and those acting in his name don't want the public to know about.

 

If it were like that in the US, our campaigns would look very different. You would see very little of the opposition in the papers or on TV. You'd probably have to be present at an opposition campaign event to and witness it in person to find out what happened. PACs (assuming they still existed) would not be able to but air time for opposition issues. In contrast, the ruling party and the incumbent president would barrage the press and airwaves with campaign-related information and events.

 

And we would never have read about the Occupy Wall Street movement or the nationwide anti-war rallies that took place before Bush II began bombing Baghdad. But I can guarantee the president would have been on TV calling them "fascists" and "coup-plotters."

 

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Here's the only good article about the current situation in Venezuela that I've come across lately:

 

feministing.com/2014/02/20/toward-a-nuanced-feminist-disc...

9x19mm compact machine pistol.

 

A diminutive and cheap machine pistol designed by Archwell, and is based off of the vaunted HK VP70M.

 

Small enough to conceal behind a jacket, it is an ideal weapon for covert operations or personal defense. And with a monstrous 900 RPM fire rate emptying a 19 round magazine, it surely doesn't lack in firepower as well. Unfortunately, due to the small frame, control is all but nonexistent.

 

Commonly used by government bodyguards and covert operatives around the world, sales have skyrocketed since its introduction in 2041. In fact, it has surpassed the AMP-18/A1 in terms of export sales.

I'm gobsmacked by several things here. First, the light was nonexistent. Yet the Sony A7RII performed extremely well at incredibly high ISO. Second, using knowledge developed around a digital Zone System, I knew precisely where I wanted the tonal values and was able to place them accordingly. Third, I am happy to confirm the dynamic range of the sensor extends usefully to below Zone 0 (Zone -2!), even at such high ISO settings. Fourth, 1950s German optics can do the trick. These images were made using a triplet wide angle. Who would design such a thing and make it work? Micro-contrast is something to be seen, otherwise you wouldn't believe it.

Blue gold sky

Your fire is burning

Horizon questions why

Your evening is yearning

For a day that is soon gone

Into oblivion abyss

To carry the night on

In dreamy nocturnal kiss

 

All the blue gold is bound

Into your drifting clouds

Sunset of silver found

Among the streets and crowds

Love song of dusky distant

Where weaving dreams go

In to the nonexistent

Of ocean’s nightly glow

 

Blue gold sky

Yesterday is in your sight

When you come in sweet lullaby

In the falling off the eve light

Chariot of fire gold

Blue silver moon beyond

Nothing your dreams can hold

You are to stars whishes bond

 

Peter S. Quinn

 

See where this picture was taken. [?]

Behance

Though personalized art appeared during World War I, and occasionally grew to incorporate the entire aircraft, most pilots carried a saying or a slogan, or a family crest, or squadron symbol. Some were named, but nose art was not common. During World War II, nose art not only saw its true beginnings, but its heyday.

 

No one knows exactly who started nose art first--it appeared with both the British and the Germans around the first time, with RAF pilots painting Hitler being kicked or skulls and crossbones on their aircraft, while German nose art was usually a personal symbol, named for a girlfriend or adopting a mascot (such as Adolf Galland using Mickey Mouse, something Walt Disney likely didn't approve of). It would be with the Americans, and a lesser extent the Canadians, that nose art truly became common--and started including its most famous forms, which was usually half-naked or completely naked women. This was not always true, but it often was.

 

The quality of nose art depended on the squadron or wing artist. Some of it was rather crude, while others were equal to the finest pinup artists in the United States, such as Alberto Vargas. For men thousands of miles away from home and lonely, a curvaceous blonde on a B-17 or a P-51 made that loneliness a bit easier. Others thought naked women were a little crude, and just limited themselves to names, or depicted animals, cartoon characters, or patriotic emblems, or caricatures of the Axis dictators they were fighting.

 

Generally speaking, there was little censorship, with squadron and group commanders rarely intervening on names or pictures; the pilots themselves practiced self-censorship, with profanity almost unknown, and full-frontal nudity nearly nonexistent. After the loss of a B-17 named "Murder Inc.," which the Germans captured and used to make propaganda, the 8th Air Force, at least, set up a nose art committee that reviewed the nose art of aircraft--but even it rarely wielded its veto. For the most part, nose art was limited only by the crew's imagination and the artist's ability. The British tended to stay away from the lurid nudes of the Americans, though the Canadians adopted them as well. (The Axis also did not use nose art in this fashion, and neither did the Soviets, who usually confined themselves to patriotic slogans on their aircraft, such as "For Stalin!" or "In the Spirit of the Motherland!")

 

When World War II ended, so did nose art, for the most part. In the peacetime, postwar armed forces, the idea of having naked women were wives and children could see it was not something the postwar USAF or Navy wanted, and when it wasn't scrapped, it was painted over. A few units (especially those away from home and family) still allowed it, but it would take Korea to begin a renaissance of nose art.

 

Depicted with the yellow nose and red tail of the 34th Bomb Group, based at RAF Mendlesham, UK, B-17G 44-85778 "Miss Angela" is a former USAF TB-17G trainer, VB-17G executive transport, and firebomber. It was restored back as a wartime B-17G in 1991, and joined the Palm Springs Air Museum's collection in 1997. Initially, the aircraft carried a Varga Girl pinup with no name attached, but in 2004, it was repainted with a custom pinup done with an airbrush. "Miss Angela" might be a bit overdressed for a World War II-era B-17 nose art girl, but it's beautiful all the same.

 

How shiny is the bare metal finish on "Miss Angela"? You can see my reflection just in front of the girl's face.

 

EDIT (2022): Almost 25,000 views in a little over a year? Wow! Thank you all!

 

EDIT (2023): 52,330 views? Whoa. Thanks so much!

nonexistent in New Jersey and that is DELICIOUSNESS ! So now for the benefit of those with taste buds I introduce Edge Blondies! The Ultimate Homemade Blondies, Speared with Chocolate Chips and Pecans and baked into the shape of a Star! (some are decorated with black and red icing to resemble The Rated-R Superstar's tattoos). The Ultimate Dessert for the Ultimate Edgehead!

I took a drive out to Sherod Park, on the shore of Lake Erie in Vermillion, Ohio. I was hoping to capture the sunset on the beach. However, Mother Nature decided it was a better idea, to be cloudy and rain. So, I decided to make the best of it. I started adjusting the shutter speed, and wasn't too happy with the results. I don't like that the background is virtually nonexistent. This was one of the only images, i liked enough to share. I'll forever be my own worst critic. I know what I need to work on, and will focus on that, more and more, in the coming months.

Stivan, a small settlement on Adriatic Sea island Cres in Kvarner bay, is an almost abandoned place. Incredibly stony ground, almost nonexistent arable soil, not close enough to the sea shore to be of interest for tourists, offers little to survive. Some old fig trees and olive trees and sheep, this is all one can rely on. But it is situated in a great landscape, in an open, rather flat (as the whole south part of the island) Mediterranean landscape, harsh, wind-swept and sunny, with mild spring and autumn climate and hot summers. Yet, 200 years ago men was capable not only to survive here but also to live full lives and to build large stony farmhouses like this one on my pictures. Now it is a ruin worth nothing, defeated by time and overtaken by Wulfen's Spurge (Euphorbia wulfeni).

The last of the FED cameras (model 5C) which were made in Ukraine in the late 80's, when even Soviet citizens no longer wanted such old fashioned cameras...

Nevertheless these were fairly good rangefinder cameras when not defective (quality control was almost nonexistent in Soviet factories in those days, because quantity with the quota system was the order of the day).

And today these Ukrainian and Russian rangefinder cameras are very much appreciated by those of us in the West who are looking for classic rangefinder cameras at reasonable prices (Leica prices having gone through the roof) in order to do traditional street photography such as used to be done by the great photographers of the 20th century like Henri Cartier-Bresson, Elliott Erwitt, Jacques Henri Lartigue, Robert Doisneau, Josef Koudelka, and many others,

 

The 39mm Leica screw-mount on these rangefinder cameras of the former Soviet Union permits us to use a wide variety of lenses made not only by the Soviets themselves (Industar and Jupiter lenses) but also those made by Leitz since 1930, and by Canon in Japan since about 1935, as well as others in Japan like Nikon and Topcon who made lenses for Leicas and Leica copies after 1945. And in recent decades, the excellent lenses made in Japan by Cosina under the Voigtlander label (which they purchased from the Germans).

 

New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA) R32 car 3694, marked for the nonexistent X route, is the lead unit on a southbound refuse train, seen crossing onto the seldom used express track on the Culver Line. This train operates daily from Coney Island Yard to Jamaica, collecting garbage bins from stations along the way. The equipment used varies, on this day being an uncommon arrangement of R32s on the front and an R127 refuse motor on the rear.

 

R32 (X) (Budd, 1964-1965)

4th Ave-9th St Station

Culver Line - IND

View On Black

 

Native to high elevations in northeast India, China, Burma, and Thailand, Vanda coerulea is prized for its flowers' rich blue/purple, a color rare among cultivated orchids. Wild populations of this orchid are almost nonexistent today because local growers have over harvested them for the international horticulture trade.

Deserts are part of a wider classification of regions that, on an average annual basis, have a moisture deficit (i.e. they can potentially lose more than is received). Deserts are located where vegetation cover is sparse to almost nonexistent.

I am alive!

 

This is the MOC I took down to the Christchurch Brick Show in July. Yeah, July. The internet side of my lego life has been virtually (haha, pun not intended :P) nonexistent for ages now.

 

Some of you might remember the Lego graphic novel I was writing and video blogging about earlier this year, until about April. It and I disappeared from the face of the internet without notice. Sorry about that. My beautiful 1-year-old niece passed away very suddenly at the beginning of May, and the project was not a priority.

 

Anyhow, hopefully I'll get back to it at some point. It would be really good to actually get something out of it, because it did have a plot and concepts that I really liked. Right now I'm working on my exhibit for the Auckland Brick Show 2014, a part of a pirate/castleish collaboration. It should be pretty cool :)

 

Thanks for checking this out! :D

if she knew how hard it made me cry,

would she stop or want more tears

 

if she could feel what I feel,

would she want me to feel better or to feel worse

 

if she knew it broke me every time, would it deter or encourage

 

would I stay broken

 

would I keep breaking more

  

is this the hill I will die on

why are you out seeking my death

 

?

 

what sort of empathy am I even looking for

  

(Here’s a modern curse. It is powerful, please use it with caution: You Will Never Have Closure.

Never experience the satisfaction of a resolution.

 

You can, and will, ask and ask; every question will be like arguing with a mirror, the question repeated as the answer.)

 

(If you’re lucky you’ll still have your identity intact and be able to reconstruct your own narrative around the gaping emptiness that is your nonexistent closure. That’s not part of the curse, some people are just lucky enough to know which head goes on their body even after there’ve been too many head-swaps.)

   

After discovering the 517 was still a thing and operated by CT4N using Solos I decided to try and get a better planned photo in the sunshine. The route means there are barely any opportunities to get the afternoon sun on both the front and side at the same time, but I thought the bottom of School Lane might be a good call, which worked... sort of. As you can see, the sun isn't on the side because the angle for getting it was perfectly blocked by the blue car on the right, so I just had to make do with standing here instead.

 

As you can see, this is the 517 to Beeston thanks to CT4N actually providing a destination, unlike Nottingham Coaches which only provided the route number and Yourbus which provided nothing. Now all I need to figure out is where the damn thing starts (I'm guessing some random school) and if there's a morning journey in the opposite direction. Where do you come from, where do you go, where do you come from Cotton-Eye-517?

 

The 680, which used to pass in the opposite direction to the 517 along here, appears to be long-gone and would seem to have only operated in the Nottingham Coaches days when they always used one of their Van Hool T8s on it. Again, service information was nonexistent, but if it was still running I reckon CT4N would've taken that over too and not provided any vehicle worth getting excited over. They have that Omnidekka, but whether they've used it for anything other than loaning it to Redfern I have no idea.

 

So, here is one of CT4N's ex-Blackpool Solos at the bottom of School Lane in Chilwell (apt for a school bus), seen with the Charlton Arms behind it, plus a badly parked Peugeot and some boring, grey SUVs that do a good job of blending into the background.

 

22.9.21

There are few entry points to Chilika Lake . Satapada is closer to the famous temple town Puri ; here you will find Irrawaddy Dolphins and some Migratory bird in winter. Better stay in Puri and take a day trip to Satapada.

 

If you are interested in Bird watching then go to Barkul ( Balugaon) which you can reach from Bhubaneswar as well from Gopalpur ; here you will find all the migratory birds during winter but you need super telephoto lens to see them as the islands where migratory birds nest are off limit for general public. Four Irrawaddy Dolphins accompanied my speed boat ! Stay at OTDC Panthanivas which is the only option and a bad option also. Do not expect hotel comfort ; room service nonexistent ; take A.C. DR on first floor , do not go for cottage as they are inside a bus terminus . A disgusting place but to watch migratory bird you have to be there. Masala Crab is a must , don't miss that. It takes 12 hr drive from Calcutta ( 10 hr driving + 2 hr ) , road is excellent express highway , mostly NH 5 .

 

If you want to see the vast water body which Chilika is then go to Rambha ( ½ hr drive from Barkul) ; stay at OTDC Panthanivas ; cottages are good , place is new and really beautiful. Take a boat ride and enjoy the sunset , sunrise on the lake. Do nothing just watch the blue, blue water of the lagoon ! Flocks of migratory birds will accompany you. This is the most scenic part of Chilika ! If you need a guide to take you to the nesting place of Olive Ridley Turtle then contact Mr. Babu Behera ( Chilika Expert) call +91-9937226378. He will be happy to show you Northern Shovelers ! One evening go to Gopalpur on sea ( less than an hour drive from Rambha) and enjoy your evening at Mayfair Gopalpur ( Bar is still not open )! If you like good whiskey then you are my pal ; friend bring your own bottle , nothing beyond IMFL is available in this part .

 

 

## Photo taken on 20th January 2013

Philadelphia, PA, est. 1682; pop. 1,567,442 (metro 6MM)

 

• built in 1740 • earliest known photograph is dated 1859 — bldg. was then 119 yrs. old [photo] • Georgian-Colonial trinity aka "bandbox" design • typically, trinity houses had 1 room per floor & were built facing each other in rows of 4 identical bldgs. • in addition to the room on each floor, this house had a walkable attic room & a cellar

 

• served as both business & residence for shopkeepers & artisans for over 150 yrs. • among the occupants in the 18th c. were a shoemaker, apothecary & an upholsterer named Betsy Ross, who is said to have sewn the first American flag in this building • estimates of when & how long she lived here have her arriving in 1773 at the earliest & departing as late as 1791

 

• over time the house changed in appearance [photos] as neighborhood houses were razed & replaced w/larger commercial buildings —Where's Betsy

 

Betsy Ross

 

• Elizabeth "Betsy" Griscom (1752-1836) was a fourth-generation American • daughter of Samuel Griscom (1717-1793) & Rebecca James (c. 1730-1793) • the 8th of their 17 children • great granddaughter of Andrew Griscom (c. 1654-1694), a Quaker carpenter who migrated from England to New Jersey in 1680, 1 yr. before William Penn founded Philadelphia

 

"She often laughed at the curious fact that she was born on the first day of the week, the first day of the month, the first day of the year, and the first year of the 'new style' [which was] the dividing line between the old way of measuring the years time and the new method under the [Gregorian calendar… She was also] the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter." —C.B. Satterthwaite, great grandson, The Des Moines Register, 07 Jan, 1906

 

• at age 3 Betsy's family moved to a large home at 4th & Arch Sts. • went to a Friends (Quaker) public school • 8 of her siblings died before adulthood • lost her mother, father & sister, Deborah, to the 1793 yellow fever epidemic

 

• upon completion of her schooling at age 12, her father apprenticed her to upholsterer John Webster • fell in love with fellow apprentice John Ross (1752-1773), son of an Episcopal asst. rector at Christ Church • defying her parents, in 1773 Betsy, age 21, eloped w/John

 

• Betsy's sister Sarah & her husband Capt. Wm. Donaldson rowed the couple across the Delaware River, heading 5 miles downstream to Gloucestertown, NJ • they were married at family friend William Hugg Jr.'s tavern & inn, known locally as Hugg's …more: The New Jersey Hugg Line

 

• because her marriage to a non-Quaker was considered an act of "disorderly and undutiful conduct," Betsy was split from her family & read out of meeting, i.e., disowned by her Quaker community • became a member of Christ Church • the Ross's pew No. 12 [photo] was adjacent to Martha & George Washington's No. 56 & not far from Deborah & Benjamin Franklin's No. 70

 

• the newlyweds — now trained upholsterers — opened their own business • c. 1773 they rented a house, probably at what is today 239 Arch St. although the exact site is still debated by historians • most records point to this house or one next door at No. 241, long since razed

 

"The identity of the location was always preserved in the family, which agrees with the records in the old Philadelphia directories… from 1785, the first published, to the removal of Betsy Ross and her husband from 239 Arch Street, in 1791" —Betsy Ross grandson George Canby, New York Times, 05 July, 1908

 

• Benjamin Franklin & Benjamin Chew were among the Rosses' customers • business slowed during the Revolutionary War as fabric was in short supply • John Ross joined the Pennsylvania militia • mid-Jan., 1776, he was gravely wounded by a powder explosion at a Delaware River ammunition cache, apparently while standing guard • Betsy nursed him in their home, but he died within days

 

• in June, 1777, Betsy married girlhood suitor Joseph Ashburn, a privateer who commanded the sailing sloop Swallow • the couple had 2 daughters • the 1st, Aucilla ("Zillah"), died in infancy

 

• British troops entered Philadelphia on 26 Sep., 1777 after their victory at the Battle of Brandywine • the Ashburn home was forcibly shared with British occupation soldiers as the Continental Army suffered through the killing winter at Valley Forge • the British soldiers nicknamed Betsy "Little Rebel" —US History•org

 

• Betsy was pregnant with Elizabeth ("Eliza") when Joseph accepted a job offer & shipped out as first mate on the 6-gun brigantine, Patty • returned to be present for the Feb., 1781 birth of their 2nd daughter

 

• Joseph became master of the 18-gun Lion & took her to sea late in the summer of 1781 • on 31 Aug., his ship was captured off the coast of France by a 44-gun British frigate, the HMS Prudente

 

• prior to March, 1782, the British refused to designate captured rebels as prisoners of war, thus the captives from the Lion were viewed as traitors, charged with high treason & committed to Plymouth, England's Mill Prison [images] • while incarcerated, Ashburn met fellow prisoner John Claypoole, a longtime friend of the Ross family

 

• Claypoole, a Continental Army vet, had been wounded at Germantown & consequently discharged • in 1781 he signed on to man the 18-gun Pennsylvania privateer Chevalier de la Luzerne & was captured in April • in the spring of 1782 Ashburn died in prison, leaving Betsy a 2-time war widow at age 30 —Betsy Ross and the Making of America

 

"In the Night of the 3d of March Mr Joseph Ashburn departed this life after an illness of about a week which he bore with amazing fortitude & resignation" —John Claypoole, Mill Prison

 

"The story goes that Ashburn, while in Mill Prison, often talked with John Claypoole about his wife, Betty*, and at his death sent farewell messages by him to her. Claypoole, on his arrival in Philadelphia, hastened to deliver these messages, and inside of eight months he married her." —John Claypoole's Memorandum-Book *Betsy is referred to as "Betty" in some 18th, 19th & early 20th c. books & media

 

• in 1782 Claypoole returned to Philadelphia, called on Betsy & married her the following year • gave up his seafaring career to join her at the Arch St. upholstery shop • though renamed "John Claypoole, upholsterer," to customers the shop remained Betsy's place • the couple had 5 daughters: Clarissa, Susanna, Rachel, Jane & Harriet, who died at 9 months • sometime after Susanna's birth in 1786, the Claypooles moved from Arch St. to a larger house on 2nd

 

• Betsy returned to her Quaker roots, albeit with the Free (Fighting) Quakers, a group exiled from the main Quaker community when their support for the Revolution was ruled a violation of the faith's peace testimony • the couple became members c. 1785 • image: Betsy Claypoole signature taken from the Meeting House roster

 

• it is widely believed that when the Free Quaker Meeting House shut down in 1834, it was its last attending members — Elizabeth Claypoole & Samuel Wetherill — who closed the doors

 

• in 1817, after a long illness, John Claypoole died • Betsy never remarried • after retiring, she moved to the home of her daughter, Susanna • she died on 30 Jan, 1836, age 84

 

The American Flags

 

"Flags were a rare sight on land in the British North American colonies," —Wooden Teachout, Capture the Flag: A Political History of American Patriotism

 

• American flags were seldom used in parades or displayed by private citizens • colors were flown mainly in battle, over government institutions & on ships, where they were essential to identifying other vessels & determining friend or foe

 

• this changed after America's 1876 Centennial Exposition, which explains why "flags made prior to the Civil War are extremely rare, and flags made before 1820 are practically nonexistent." —Jeff R. Bridgeman, Stars and Stripes, Early American Life, Aug. 2011

 

• with the onset of the Revolutionary War, a flag for the "United Colonies" was created without the sanction of the Continental Congress • this 1775 flag was known as the Continental Colors, aka Grand Union, Congress Flag, Cambridge Flag

 

• on 2 Dec., 1775, the 1st Continental Colors flag was hand sewn by milliner Margaret Manny, who had begun making flags & ensigns the previous year

 

"Everyone knows about Betsy Ross, why do we know nothing about Margaret Manny? Probably for no better reason than that she had fewer articulate friends and relatives to build a story around her." —historian Barbara Tuchman, The First Salute

 

• the Continental Colors had 13 alternating red & white stripes with the British Union crosses in the canton • was created to replace the use of individual colony flags • prior to the Declaration of Independence, it was probably the most used unofficial flag of the revolution • American Flag Timeline

 

• the inclusion of the British Jack in the design signals that this flag was intended not for a civil war of secession, but rather a crusade to secure the American colonists' rights as Englishman • prior to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Gen. George Washington, still hoping for reconciliation with Mother England, would occasionally toast the King —The Forgotten Flag of the American Revolution and What It Means

 

• on 3 Dec, 1775, the new flag was raised by 1st Lt. John Paul Jones (1747-1792) on the 30-gun Continental Navy frigate USS Alfred [painting], the 1st national ensign to fly on an American fighting vessel —Naval History Blog

 

• the flag later flew over the signing of the Declaration of Independence & according to tradition (contested by some scholars), it was raised on a ship's mast atop Charlestown's Prospect Hill [painting] during Washington's 1 Jan., 1776 siege of Boston

 

• spotting the hybrid British/American flag for the first time, confused British observers took it as a signal of submission: “By this time, I presume, they begin to think it strange that we have not made a formal surrender of our lines,” Washington wrote • his psychological weaponry also included an early form of war propaganda

 

• absent a single government-mandated flag design, a variety of others were used • within a yr. after Prospect hill, the Continental Colors' Union Jack was replaced by a blue field w/13 white stars in various arrangements, e.g., rows, or possibly a circle?

 

• on 14 June, 1777, now celebrated as Flag Day, the American Flag was born by resolution of the Continental Congress, the country’s 1st flag law • during the Revolutionary period that followed, the stars on most American flags were arranged in rows of 4-5-4 with the number of points on most stars ranging from 4 to 8 • compared to the Continental Colors, the rows of stars made it easier to identify the flag/ship/nationality at sea —The 13 Stars & Stripes

 

The Story

 

• about a year before the Flag Resolution of 1777 Betsy Ross, 5-months a widow & struggling to make a ends meet, is said to have received a visit from a Continental Congress flag committee (apparently a secret one as there are no records of its existence)

 

• according to the well known Betsy Ross story, in late May of 1776 (but possibly 1777) 3 heroes of the revolution — George Ross, the uncle of Betsy's late husband, financier/slave trader Robert Morris & Betsy's pew neighbor Gen. George Washington [portraits] — called on her to discuss a flag for the new nation

 

• Rachel Fletcher (Betsy's daughter) recalled that "…she was previously well acquainted with Washington, and that he had often been in her house in friendly visits, as well as on business. That she had embroidered ruffles for his shirt bosoms and cuffs, and that it was partly owing to his friendship for her that she was chosen to make the flag." —Rachel's affidavit

 

• as told by Betsy, Gen. Washington, then head of the Continental Army, showed her a rough design of a flag with 6-pointed stars • she offered suggestions for modifications & stated a preference for 5-pointed stars • when her visitors expressed concern over the difficulty of producing them, she replied, "Nothing easier," which she then proved by cutting a 5-pointed star in a single snip • video: Make a perfect star with ONE cut! (1:15) • Two Conundrums Concerning the Betsy Ross Five-Pointed Star

 

• changes approved, Washington redrew the flag w/a pencil • Betsy's friend & collaborator William Barrett, a Cherry St. ornamental painter created a water color copy of the drawing for her to work from • 1-2 other seamstresses sewed alternate designs for the committee, but only Betsy's was approved & used

 

• what is known today as the "Betsy Ross flag" has 13 red & white stripes & a ring of 13, white 5-pointed stars • though the design may have been in use by 1777, vexillologists believe that between 1777-1795, (the yrs. the official flag had 13 stars) most flags displayed stars in rows, which are easier to produce than a circle

 

• None of the surviving flags from the 18th century exhibit the Betsy Ross pattern • however a few examples are depicted in the art of the era (although period art is notoriously unreliable for flag research)

 

• the flag depicted in Chas. Willson Peale's 1779 George Washington at the Battle of Princeton is generally considered credible & "may be the only evidence in a painting… that suggests that a circle-pattern flag may have existed in colonial times… Otherwise, you won't see an American flag with a perfect circle of stars made before the 1890s." —Jeff R. Bridgeman, loc. cit.13 Stars in the Betsy Ross Pattern • historically significant the American flags [images]

 

• though known as an upholsterer, there is no doubt that Betsy made flags, having sewn pennants & ensigns for the Pennsylvania State Navy Board (as did Margaret Manning & Rebecca Young, whose daughter Mary Pickersgill would go on to sew the enormous flag that inspired the U.S. National Anthem, Francis Scott Key's The Star-Spangled Banner)

 

• a month before Congress passed the Flag Resolution, Betsy was paid 14 pounds, 12 shillings, 2 pence (~$2,300 in 2017 USD) for what must have been a prodigious quantity of Pennsylvania Navy flags • there is no hard evidence that any of these were American flags • "...today we are reasonably convinced that Betsy’s flag was a naval flag, with a simple ‘in line’ arrangement of the stars…" —John B. Harker, Historian & Betsy Ross descendent

 

• Betsy (Elizabeth Claypool) was now in the business of producing flags & ensigns for the federal govt. • throughout the Jefferson & Madison admins. the skilled needlewoman made flags as large as 18' x 24' for American military installations, with demand peaking during the War of 1812

 

• for the rest of her life she — in her words — "never knew what it was to want employment" • her oldest daughter, Clarissa Sidney Wilson (1785-1864) [portrait], succeeded her, supplying arsenals, navy yards & the mercantile marine with flags for years —Betsy Ross•org

 

"In the last years of her life, Ross was neither more nor less important than other aging women who had lived through the Revolution. That she became famous while others were forgotten exposes the interlocking power of family history, local memory, and national politics." —How Betsy Ross Became Famous by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Historian

 

The Legend

 

"…at a time of great historic import such as that time when the Declaration was signed, people have no leisure to think about the minor events which are taking place. Thus, during the revolution no one thought of Betsy Ross as a national heroine, and it was not, in fact until 1870 that William J. Canby (1825-1890) first brought the story of how the first flag was made into general prominence." —Dr. Lloyd Balderston, great-grandson of Betsy Ross, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 3 Jul, 1908

 

• there is no record of the the Betsy Ross story prior to 1870 • that year — 34 years after her death — Betsy's 45 yr. old grandson, a title processor named William Jackson Canby, presented a paper titled The History of the Flag of the United States to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania • the document, accompanied by sworn affidavits, was an oral history passed on by descendants of Betsy Ross, including Canby himself who was 11 yrs. old when she died • …more: The Evolution of the American Flag by (Betsy Ross descendants) George Canby (1829-1907), Lloyd Balderston, Ph.D (1863-1933)

 

• the story was largely ignored until it was mentioned in historian George Henry Preble's 1872 book Our Flag & appeared in the July, 1873 Harper's Monthly [illustration] • with Civil War wounds slowly healing & the 1876 centennial celebration fast approaching, Betsy Ross & the flag entered American consciousness • in the 1880's her story began to appear in textbooks • by the mid 1890s it was often illustrated by an engraving of The Birth of Our Nation’s Flag, an 1893 painting by Charles H. Weisgerber (1856-1932)

 

• oral tradition has it that in 1892 Weisgerber, a 36 yr. old aspiring artist, was bent on winning a forthcoming art competition • walking along Arch St., he noticed a plaque at No. 239 which identified the bldg. as the site where Betsy Ross sewed the 1st American flag

 

• inspired, Weisgerber envisioned a scene of Betsy & the 1st flag set in her shop • to fill in details of the story, characters & setting, he drew on period portraits, the testimony of living descendants & the 22 yr. old Canby paper

 

• with no authentic image of Betsy in existence (according to her relatives), Weisgerber painted a composite taken from images of 4 of her daughters & a granddaughter who was said to closely resemble her • the resulting portrait was critiqued by relatives who had known her & modified accordingly • Weisgerber then created a massive 9' x 12' painting • portrayed the young Widow Ross, saintly matriarch of a new nation, as she presents the 1st American flag to 3 revered American patriarchs

 

• "the image was [said] …by Mrs. Ross' grandson, George Canby, to be the only correct likeness of [her]" — he was 7 yrs. old when Betsy Ross died —The Times (Philadelphia) 15 Jun 1893

 

• the flag depicted in the painting — with no evidence to support the authenticity of its design — has since been known as the "Betsy Ross flag," the standard for celebrating the U.S.A.'s birthday each 4th of July

 

The Apotheosis

 

• Weisgerber's painting won the $1,000 prize & in 1893 was showcased in the Pennsylvania Building at Chicago’s Columbian Exposition • seen by millions of visitors • contributed to the nascent reverence for Betsy Ross & the flag as sacred symbols of the emerging, quasi-religious American civil religion • politicians, patriotic societies & public sentiment propelled the flag's transformation into an object of veneration, its role expanding well beyond the customary military & govt. functions

 

On Flag Day, 1894, the Colonial Dames gathered 500 schoolchildren to honor “the adoption by Congress . . . of the flag made by Betsy Ross from the design submitted to her by Gen. Washington” • by 1895, 10 states had laws requiring public schools to display the flag on all school days — Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, loc. cit.

 

• in 1897 the City of New York bought thousands of lithographs of Weisgerber’s painting for its public schools: “It is thought that the representation which is declared historically correct, together with such lectures as the teachers may deliver, will add much to the pupil’s knowledge and keep alive a proper reverence for the country’s emblem.” —New York Times, 14 Feb, 1897

 

• in 1885, NYC school principal George T. Balch (1821-1908), a vet. of the Indian & Civil Wars, wrote Salute to the Flag, the U.S.A.'s first pledge of allegiance

 

"I give my hand and my heart to my country — one nation, one language, one flag."

 

• the heightened patriotism of the era inspired a movement to organize schoolyard flag raising ceremonies • the American Flag Assn. was founded in 1897 for the "fostering of public sentiment in favor of honoring the flag in our country and preserving it from desecration" • Natl. Flag Day was proclaimed in 1917

 

• Christian Socialist Francis Bellamy (1855-1931), who worked in the premium dept. of The Youth's Companion magazine, wrote a new U.S. Pledge of Allegiance (1892) for his employer • created as part of the magazine's campaign to sell American flags to public schools • goal was a flag in every classroom • 25,000 schools acquired flags the 1st yr. • though priced "at cost," banner sales proved profitable

 

• Bellamy also choreographed a salute — the "Bellamy Salute" — to accompany the pledge • because of its similarity to the Nazi heil it was replaced by a right-hand-over-heart gesture during World War II • another Youth's Companion employee, James Upham, headed a flag-centric project designed to engage public schools in the commemoration of the U.S.A.'s 1st Columbus Day (Oct. 1892)

 

The Verdict

 

• for nearly a century-and-a-half, historians have debated the available evidence in an attempt to prove that Betsy Ross either did or did not produce the 1st American flag: "There’s no good historical evidence that she did. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t. There’s simply a lack of documentation. Most historians believe the story is apocryphal." —Marc Leepson, author of Flag: An American Biography, The Truth About Betsy Ross

 

• the identity of the woman who sewed America's 1st flag may never be certain, but there is good reason to believe that its designer may have been Francis Hopkinson (1737-1791) • the NJ representative to the Continental Congress & signer of the Declaration of Independence is the only person entered into the Congressional record for designing the 1st American flag

 

• it has been speculated that on 14 June, 1777, it was Hopkinson who replaced the British crosses in the Continental Colors with white stars on a blue field • no original sketch of a Hopkinson flag exists, but surviving rough sketches including his design for the Great Seal of the U.S. incorporate elements of 2 of his flag designs —Wikipedia

 

On 25 May, 1780, Hopkinson wrote to the Continental Board, requesting "a Quarter Cask of the public Wine" as payment for several itemized "patriotic designs" he had completed, most notably, "the flag of the United States of America" • submitted another bill on 24 June for "drawings and devices," including "the Naval Flag of the United States"

 

• the Treasury Board rejected his request for payment because he "was not the only person consulted on those exhibitions of Fancy" & furthermore was not entitled to compensation as he was already on the government payroll —Did Francis Hopkinson Design Two Flags?, Earl P. Williams, Jr.

 

• Hopkinson is also considered America's 1st poet-composer • written at age 21, his song My Days have been so Wondrous Free (1759) is regarded as the earliest surviving American secular composition [listen] —UPen•edu

 

Saving Betsy's House

 

• by 1859, 239 Arch St. was occupied by the family of German immigrant (Carl) Philip Mund (1822-1883), who operated a tailor's shop on the 1st floor • the landlord, after collecting rent for the first year, never returned • over the succeeding rent-free decades, the Munds operated a variety of businesses in their retail space

 

• after Canby's 1870 speech identified the location of Betsy Ross's house as Arch between 2nd & 3rd, the Munds — occupants of the block's last standing colonial house — posted a sign: "First Flag of the US Made in this House" • in 1876, as visitors poured into the city for the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, the Munds ran an ad for their latest 1st floor business: "Original Flag House, Lager, Wine and Liquors. This is the house where the first United States flag was made by Mrs. John Ross." —Historic Philadelphia

 

• after Philip Mund died his wife Amelia, who objected to running a saloon, converted the space into a cigar store & candy shop which operated until 1892 — her son Charles then devoted the space to a museum/souvenir shop [photo] —The Betsy Ross House Facts, Myths, and Pictures by G.A. Anderson

 

• c. 1897 citizens led by Charles Weisgerber organized the American Flag Soc. & Betsy Ross Memorial Assn. • goal was to rescue the house from imminent demolition • intended to purchase it from Charles Mund, restore it to its 18th-c. appearance, preserve the memory of Betsy Ross & honor the American flag

 

• to raise the funds for purchasing the Betsy Ross "American Flag House," the Association devised a rudimentary multi-level marketing strategy • sold lifetime memberships for 10 cents • each member was encouraged to recruit others & form a group of 30; each group founder received a chromolithographograph of Weisgerber's painting • over 2 million monochrome certificates were sold at ten cents each • the colorful chromoliths were available at addl. cost (frame not included) —Enjoying Philadelphia

 

• the Association leased the house in 1898, purchased it in 1903 • Weisgerber & his family moved in • lived upstairs, kept the museum & a souvenir shop on the 1st floor • in 1902 they named their newborn son Charles Vexil Domus, Latin for "flag house" [photo] • he would later replace his parents as custodian of the house —G.A. Anderson, loc. cit.

 

• by 1936 the house was on the verge of ruin • in 1937 Philadelphia Mayor Davis Wilson proposed a restoration by WPA workers • this provoked "a storm of protest" from critics

 

• Pennsylvania Historical Soc. members wrote off the Betsy Ross story as "hokum" and "the bunk" • the protests from scholars & historians sparked an unwinnable faith vs. reason culture war with patriotic organizations such as the Daughters of the American Revolution & the Patriotic Order Sons of America

 

• amid the controversy, Philadelphia radio manufacturer & philanthropist A. Atwater Kent (1873-1949) offered to pay up to $25K for the restoration • Historical architect, Richardson Brognard Okie (1875-1945) won the commission

 

• the design for the restoration was derived from evidence & conjecture • goal was to return the bldg. to its c. 1777 appearance • surviving architectural elements were preserved when possible • materials salvaged from demolished colonial era homes were also used • in 1941, the Association gave the property to the city • the house now stands as one of Philadelphia's most popular tourist attractions

 

Postscript

 

• in 1929 Hugg's tavern, where Betsy Griscom defied family & church to marry John Ross, was demolished to make way for the Proprietor's Park swimming pool, which no longer exists • the Revolutionary War-era Hugg-Harrison-Glover House (1764), built on property owned by the Hugg family as early as 1683, was razed in the face of fervent opposition, March, 2017 —Facebook

 

• 178 yrs. after Betsy's wedding & just 5 blocks from where Hugg's once stood, another American legend was born at the Twin Bar [photo] when Bill Haley (and the Saddlemen) performed there in the early 1950s [poster] • in 1952 Haley's band laid down a cover of Rock the Joint [listen], an historic 1949 recording by Jimmy Preston & His Prestonians [listen] • each of these recordings has been cited as a candidate for the title of first rock 'n' roll song • Gloucester City thus became one of several U.S. sites that claims the title "Cradle of Rock 'n Roll"

 

Charles H. Weisgerber died in 1932 • his magnum opus, The Birth of the American Flag lay rolled up & hidden away in a barn loft & later in the back of a South Jersey dye-making workshop • his grandson Stuart (son of Vexil Domus) found it — still rolled up — in his mother's basement • its poor condition precluded exhibition: in the 50s, hanging in the old State Museum at Harrisburg, it had been vandalized, then incurred additional damage from repeated unrolling

 

• Weisgerber sought a Philadelphia home for the massive work but was unsuccessful • after a $40K restoration in 2002 the painting, it's appraised market value just $50K, returned to the State Museum at Harrisburg

 

• in 1976 the remains of Betsy Ross & 3rd husband John Claypoole were moved from Mount Moriah cemetery, Yeadon, PA, to the garden on the west side of the Betsy Ross House courtyard

THEME: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUAcDMHuC2E

 

Introducing my Self-MOC! This is actually the 12th version (12.4 to be exact) and a character reboot, though, and I have revamped the whole thing again since this version, too. I will post a picture showing some of the previous versions (I don't have pictures of pre-7th versions, except for the very first), just so you can get an idea of the evolution of the character.

 

---DESCRIPTION---

Nicknamed "Rahksha" due to her Makuta heritage, Nyctoria is somewhat of a Toa: the most accurate way to put it is, she's a protector...of sorts. She has a strong link with the Netherverse, enabling her to draw on its dark power to perform necromancy, as well as harvest souls and summon them as Netherwalkers (inhabitants of the Netherverse) with her scythe. She can also reanimate corpses to serve her by using seals on their Kanohi.

 

However, the power of the Netherverse always takes it toll, and the user's soul - and therefore body - will decay the more they use it. The only way to maintain oneself is to harvest the souls of others. Hence, Nyctoria hunts down villains to defeat and consume.

 

While Nyctoria does defend others from Makuta and other threats, she is not altrustic in her motives -- she will just as easily consume innocents if there is no other source available, and rarely helps others unless she perceives them or the target as useful in her quest for revenge against her "father", Teridax -- and by extension, her de facto creator, Mutran.

 

As an individual, Nyctoria is largely anti-social, apathetic and an on-off misanthrope - hardly surprising considering her origins. That being said, she is not without a sense of justice and empathy, although her concept of morality is nonexistent at worst and dubious at best.

 

---BIO---

NAME: Nyctoria

 

ALIASES: Rahksha, Daughter of Teridax, Destral's Shadowborne

 

SPECIES: Rahkshi/Toa (mutant; Kraata infused with energy from a Nui Stone)

 

GENDER: Female

 

KANOHI: N/A

 

ELEMENT: Shadow

 

WEAPON: Harvest Scythe - "Slayer's Slave"

 

Diagram nonexistent. Better to leave it as a mystery of the ancients.

NEDERLAND, NETHERLANDS, HOLLAND, PAYS-BAS, HOLANDA, PAISES BAJOS, Barendrecht, Un pueblo llamado Barendrecht, A town called Barendrecht, Une ville appelée Barendrecht, LAGARTIJAS, LEZARDS , LIZARDS, HAGEDISSEN, ECHSEN, LAGARTO,

  

AXOLOTIS.-

 

There was a time when I thought a great deal about the axolotls. I went to see them in the aquarium at the Jardin des Plantes and stayed for hours watching them, observing their immobility, their faint movements. Now I am an axolotl.

 

I got to them by chance one spring morning when Paris was spreading its peacock tail after a slow wintertime. I was heading down tbe boulevard Port-Royal, then I took Saint-Marcel and L'Hôpital and saw green among all that grey and remembered the lions. I was friend of the lions and panthers, but had never gone into the dark, humid building that was the aquarium. I left my bike against tbe gratings and went to look at the tulips. The lions were sad and ugly and my panther was asleep. I decided on the aquarium, looked obliquely at banal fish until, unexpectedly, I hit it off with the axolotls. I stayed watching them for an hour and left, unable to think of anything else.

 

In the library at Sainte-Geneviève, I consulted a dictionary and learned that axolotls are the larval stage (provided with gills) of a species of salamander of the genus Ambystoma. That they were Mexican I knew already by looking at them and their little pink Aztec faces and the placard at the top of the tank. I read that specimens of them had been found in Africa capable of living on dry land during the periods of drought, and continuing their life under water when the rainy season came. I found their Spanish name, ajolote, and the mention that they were edible, and that their oil was used (no longer used, it said ) like cod-liver oil.

 

I didn't care to look up any of the specialized works, but the next day I went back to the Jardin des Plantes. I began to go every morning, morning and aftemoon some days. The aquarium guard smiled perplexedly taking my ticket. I would lean up against the iron bar in front of the tanks and set to watching them. There's nothing strange in this, because after the first minute I knew that we were linked, that something infinitely lost and distant kept pulling us together. It had been enough to detain me that first morning in front of the sheet of glass where some bubbles rose through the water. The axolotls huddled on the wretched narrow (only I can know how narrow and wretched) floor of moss and stone in the tank. There were nine specimens, and the majority pressed their heads against the glass, looking with their eyes of gold at whoever came near them. Disconcerted, almost ashamed, I felt it a lewdness to be peering at these silent and immobile figures heaped at the bottom of the tank. Mentally I isolated one, situated on the right and somewhat apart from the others, to study it better. I saw a rosy little body, translucent (I thought of those Chinese figurines of milky glass), looking like a small lizard about six inches long, ending in a fish's tail of extraordinary delicacy, the most sensitive part of our body. Along the back ran a transparent fin which joined with the tail, but what obsessed me was the feet, of the slenderest nicety, ending in tiny fingers with minutely human nails. And then I discovered its eyes, its face. Inexpressive features, with no other trait save the eyes, two orifices, like brooches, wholly of transparent gold, lacking any life but looking, letting themselves be penetrated by my look, which seemed to travel past the golden level and lose itself in a diaphanous interior mystery. A very slender black halo ringed the eye and etched it onto the pink flesh, onto the rosy stone of the head, vaguely triangular, but with curved and triangular sides which gave it a total likeness to a statuette corroded by time. The mouth was masked by the triangular plane of the face, its considerable size would be guessed only in profile; in front a delicate crevice barely slit the lifeless stone. On both sides of the head where the ears should have been, there grew three tiny sprigs, red as coral, a vegetal outgrowth, the gills, I suppose. And they were the only thing quick about it; every ten or fifteen seconds the sprigs pricked up stiffly and again subsided. Once in a while a foot would barely move, I saw the diminutive toes poise mildly on the moss. It's that we don't enjoy moving a lot, and the tank is so cramped—we barely move in any direction and we're hitting one of the others with our tail or our head—difficulties arise, fights, tiredness. The time feels like it's less if we stay quietly.

 

It was their quietness that made me lean toward them fascinated the first time I saw the axolotls. Obscurely I seemed to understand their secret will, to abolish space and time with an indifferent immobility. I knew better later; the gill contraction, the tentative reckoning of the delicate feet on the stones, the abrupt swimming (some of them swim with a simple undulation of the body) proved to me that they were capable of escaping that mineral lethargy in which they spent whole hours. Above all else, their eyes obsessed me. In the standing tanks on either side of them, different fishes showed me the simple stupidity of their handsome eyes so similar to our own. The eyes of the axolotls spoke to me of the presence of a different life, of another way of seeing. Glueing my face to the glass (the guard would cough fussily once in a while), I tried to see better those diminutive golden points, that entrance to the infinitely slow and remote world of these rosy creatures. It was useless to tap with one finger on the glass directly in front of their faces; they never gave the least reaction. The golden eyes continued burning with their soft, terrible light; they continued looking at me from an unfathomable depth which made me dizzy.

 

And nevertheless they were close. I knew it before this, before being an axolotl. I learned it the day I came near them for the first time. The anthropomorphic features of a monkey reveal the reverse of what most people believe, the distance that is traveled from them to us. The absolute lack of similarity between axolotls and human beings proved to me that my recognition was valid, that I was not propping myself up with easy analogies. Only the little hands . . . But an eft, the common newt, has such hands also, and we are not at all alike. I think it was the axolotls' heads, that triangular pink shape with the tiny eyes of gold. That looked and knew. That laid the claim. They were not animals.

 

It would seem easy, almost obvious, to fall into mythology. I began seeing in the axolotls a metamorphosis which did not succeed in revoking a mysterious humanity. I imagined them aware, slaves of their bodies, condemned infinitely to the silence of the abyss, to a hopeless meditation. Their blind gaze, the diminutive gold disc without expression and nonetheless terribly shining, went through me like a message: "Save us, save us." I caught myself mumbling words of advice, conveying childish hopes. They continued to look at me, immobile; from time to time the rosy branches of the gills stiffened. In that instant I felt a muted pain; perhaps they were seeing me, attracting my strength to penetrate into the impenetrable thing of their lives. They were not human beings, but I had found in no animal such a profound relation with myself. The axolotls were like witnesses of something, and at times like horrible judges. I felt ignoble in front of them; there was such a terrifying purity in those transparent eyes. They were larvas, but larva means disguise and also phantom. Behind those Aztec faces, without expression but of an implacable cruelty, what semblance was awaiting its hour?

 

I was afraid of them. I think that had it not been for feeling the proximity of other visitors and the guard, I would not have been bold enough to remain alone with them. "You eat them alive with your eyes, hey," the guard said, laughing; he likely thought I was a little cracked. What he didn't notice was that it was they devouring me slowly with their eyes, in a cannibalism of gold. At any distance from the aquarium, I had only to think of them, it was as though I were being affected from a distance. It got to the point that I was going every day, and at night I thought of them immobile in the darkness, slowly putting a hand out which immediately encountered another. Perhaps their eyes could see in the dead of night, and for them the day continued indefinitely. The eyes of axolotls have no lids.

 

I know now that there was nothing strange, that that had to occur. Leaning over in front of the tank each morning, the recognition was greater. They were suffering, every fiber of my body reached toward that stifled pain, that stiff torment at the bottom of the tank. They were lying in wait for something, a remote dominion destroyed, an age of liberty when the world had been that of the axolotls. Not possible that such a terrible expression which was attaining the overthrow of that forced blankness on their stone faces should carry any message other than one of pain, proof of that eternal sentence, of that liquid hell they were undergoing. Hopelessly, I wanted to prove to myself that my own sensibility was projecting a nonexistent consciousness upon the axolotls. They and I knew. So there was nothing strange in what happened. My face was pressed against the glass of the aquarium, my eyes were attempting once more to penetrate the mystery of those eyes of gold without iris, without pupil. I saw from very close up the face of an axolotl immobile next to the glass. No transition and no surprise, I saw my face against the glass, I saw it on the outside of the tank, I saw it on the other side of the glass. Then my face drew back and I understood.

 

Only one thing was strange: to go on thinking as usual, to know. To realize that was, for the first moment, like the horror of a man buried alive awaking to his fate. Outside, my face came close to the glass again, I saw my mouth, the lips compressed with the effort of understanding the axolotls. I was an axolotl and now I knew instantly that no understanding was possible. He was outside the aquarium, his thinking was a thinking outside the tank. Recognizlng him, being him himself, I was an axolotl and in my world. The horror began—I learned in the same moment —of believing myself prisoner in the body of an axolotl, metamorphosed into him with my human mind intact, buried alive in an axolotl, condemned to move lucidly among unconscious creatures. But that stopped when a foot just grazed my face, when I moved just a little to one side and saw an axolotl next to me who was looking at me, and understood that he knew also, no communication possible, but very clearly. Or I was also in him, or all of us were thinking humanlike, incapable of expression, limited to the golden splendor of our eyes looking at the face of the man pressed against the aquarium.

 

He returned many times, but he comes less often now. Weeks pass without his showing up. I saw him yesterday, he looked at me for a long time and left briskly. It seemed to me that he was not so much interested in us any more, that he was coming out of habit. Since the only thing I do is think, I could think about him a lot. It occurs to me that at the beginning we continued to communicate, that he felt more than ever one with the mystery which was claiming him. But the bridges were broken between him and me, because what was his obsession is now an axolotl, alien to his human life. I think that at the beginning I was capable of returning to him in a certain way—ah, only in a certain way—and of keeping awake his desire to know us better. I am an axolotl for good now, and if I think like a man it's only because every axolotl thinks like a man inside his rosy stone semblance. I believe that all this succeeded in communicating something to him in those first days, when I was still he. And in this final solitude to which he no longer comes, I console myself by thinking that perhaps he is going to write a story about us, that, believing he's making up a story, he's going to write all this about axolotls.

  

Il fut une époque où je pensais beaucoup aux axolotls. J’allais les voir à l’aquarium du Jardin des Plantes et je passais des heures à les regarder, à observer leur immobilité, leurs mouvements obscurs. Et maintenant je suis un axolotl. Le hasard me conduisit vers eux un matin de printemps où Paris déployait sa queue de paon après le lent hiver. Je descendis le boulevard Saint-Marcel, celui de l’hôpital, je vis les premiers verts parmi tout le gris et je me souvins des lions. J’étais très amis des lions et des panthères, mais je n’étais jamais entré dans l’enceinte humide et sombre des aquariums. Je laissai ma bicyclette contre les grilles et j’allais voir les tulipes. Les lions étaient laids et tristes et ma panthère dormait. Je me décidai pour les aquariums et, après avoir regardé avec indifférence des poissons ordinaires, je tombai par hasard sur les axolotls. Je passai une heure à les regarder, puis je partis, incapable de penser à autre chose.

 

À la bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève je consultai un dictionnaire et j’appris que les axolotls étaient les formes larvaires, pourvues de branchies, de batraciens du genre amblystone. Qu’ils étaient originaires du Mexique, je le savais déjà, rien qu’à voir leur petit visage aztèque. Je lus qu’on en avait trouvé des spécimens en Afrique capables de vivre hors de l’eau pendant les périodes de sécheresse et qui reprenaient leur vie normale à la saison des pluies. On donnait leur nom espagnol, ajolote, on signalait qu’ils étaient comestibles et qu’on utilisait leur huile (on ne l’utilise plus) comme l’huile de foie de morue.

 

Je ne voulus pas consulter d’ouvrages spécialisés mais je revins le jour suivant au jardin des Plantes. Je pris l’habitude d’y aller tous les matins, et parfois même matin et soir. Le gardien des aquariums souriait d’un air perplexe en prenant mon ticket. Je m’appuyais contre la barre de fer qui borde les aquariums et je regardais les axolotls. Il n’y avait rien d’étrange à cela ; dès le premier instant j’avais senti que quelque chose me liait à eux, quelque chose d’infiniment lointain et oublié qui cependant nous unissait encore. Il m’avait suffit de m’arrêter un matin devant cet aquarium où des bulles couraient dans l’eau. Les axolotls s’entassaient sur l’étroit et misérable (personne mieux que moi ne sait à quel point il est étroit et misérable) fond de pierre et de mousse. Il y en avait neuf, la plupart d’entre eux appuyaient leur tête contre la vitre et regardaient de leurs yeux d’or ceux qui s’approchaient. Troublé, presque honteux, je trouvais qu’il y avait de l’impudeur à se pencher sur ces formes silencieuses et immobiles entassées au fond de l’aquarium. Mentalement, j’en isolai un, un peu à l’écart sur la droite, pour mieux l’étudier. Je vis un petit corps rose, translucide (je pensai aux statuettes chinoises en verre laiteux), semblable à un petit lézard de quinze centimètres, terminé par une queue de poisson d’une extraordinaire délicatesse - c’est la partie la plus sensible de notre corps. Sur son dos, une nageoire transparente se rattachait à la queue ; mais ce furent les pattes qui me fascinèrent, des pattes d’une incroyable finesse, terminés par de tout petits doigts avec des ongles - absolument humains, sans pourtant avoir la forme de la main humaine - mais comment aurais-je pu ignorer qu’ils étaient humains ? c’est alors que je découvris leurs yeux, leur visage. Un visage inexpressif sans autre trait que les yeux, deux orifices comme des têtes d’épingles entièrement d’or transparent, sans aucune vie, mais qui regardaient et qui se laissaient pénétrer par mon regard qui passait à travers le point doré et se perdait dans un mystère diaphane. Un très mince halo noir entourait l’oeil et l’inscrivait dans la chair rose, dans la pierre rose de la tête vaguement triangulaire, au contours courbes et irréguliers, qui la faisaient ressembler à une statue rongée par le temps. La bouche était dissimulée par le plan triangulaire de la tête et ce n’est que de profil que l’on s’apercevait qu’elle était très grande. Vue de face, c’était une fine rainure, comme une fissure dans de l’albâtre. De chaque côté de la tête, à la place des oreilles, se dressaient de très petites branches rouges comme du corail, une excroissance végétale, les branchies, je suppose. C’était la seule chose qui eût l’air vivante dans ce corps. Chaque vingt secondes elles se dressaient, toutes raides, puis s’abaissaient de nouveau. Parfois une patte bougeait, à peine, et je voyais les doigts minuscules se poser doucement sur la mousse. C’est que nous n’aimons pas beaucoup bouger, l’aquarium est si étroit ; si peu que nous remuions nous heurtons la tête ou la queue d’un autre ; il s’ensuit des difficultés, des disputes, de la fatigue. Le temps se sent moins si l’on reste immobile.

 

Ce fut leur immobilité qui me fit me pencher vers eux, fasciné, la première fois que je les vis. Il me sembla comprendre obscurément leur volonté secrète : abolir l’espace et le temps par une immobilité pleine d’indifférence. Par la suite, j’appris à mieux les comprendre, les branchies qui se contractent, les petites pattes fines qui tâtonnent sur les pierres, leurs fuites brusques (ils nagent par une simple ondulation du corps) me prouvèrent qu’ils étaient capables de s’évader de cette torpeur minérale où ils passaient des heures entières. Leurs yeux surtout m’obsédaient. A côté d’eux, dans les autres aquariums, des poissons me montraient la stupide simplicité de leurs beaux yeux semblables aux nôtres. Les yeux des axolotls me parlaient de la présence d’une vie différente, d’une autre façon de regarder. Je collais mon visage à la vitre (le gardien, inquiet, toussait de temps en temps) pour mieux voir les tout petits points dorés, cette ouverture sur le monde infiniment lent et éloigné des bêtes roses. Inutile de frapper du doigt contre la vitre, sous leur nez, jamais la moindre réaction. Les yeux d’or continuaient à brûler de leur douce et terrible lumière, continuaient à me regarder du fond d’un abîme insondable qui me donnait le vertige.

 

Et cependant les axolotls étaient proches de nous. Je le savais avant même de devenir un axolotl. Je le sus dès le jour où je m’approchai d’eux pour la première fois. Les traits anthropomorphiques d’un singe accusent la différence qu’il y a entre lui et nous, contrairement à ce que pensent la plupart des gens. L’absence totale de ressemblance entre un axolotl et un être humain me prouva que ma reconnaissance

était valable, que je ne m’appuyais pas sur des analogies faciles. Il y avait bien les petites mains. Mais un lézard a les mêmes mains et ne ressemble en rien à l’homme. Je crois que tout venait de la tête des axolotls, de sa forme triangulaire rose et de ses petits yeux d’or. Cela regardait et savait. Cela réclamait. Les axolotls n’étaient pas des animaux.

 

De là à tomber dans la mythologie, il n’y avait qu’un pas, facile à franchir, presque inévitable. Je finis par voir dans les axolotls une métamorphose qui n’arrivait pas à renoncer tout à fait à une mystérieuse humanité. Je les imaginais conscients, esclaves de leur corps, condamnés indéfiniment à un silence abyssal, à une méditation désespérée. Leur regard aveugle, le petit disque d’or inexpressif - et cependant terriblement lucide - me pénétrait comme un message : "Sauve-nous, sauve-nous." Je me surprenais en train de murmurer des paroles de consolation, de transmettre des espoirs puérils. Ils continuaient à me regarder, immobiles. Soudain les petites branches roses se dressaient sur leur tête, et je sentais à ce moment-là comme une douleur sourde. Ils me voyaient peut-être, ils captaient mes efforts pour pénétrer dans l’impénétrable de leur vie. Ce n’étaient pas des êtres humains mais jamais je ne m’étais senti un rapport aussi étroit entre des animaux et moi. Les axolotls étaient comme témoins de quelque chose et parfois ils devenaient de terribles juges. Je me trouvais ignoble devant eux, il y avait dans ces yeux transparents une si effrayante pureté. C’était des larves, mais larve veut dire masque et aussi fantôme. Derrière ces visages aztèques, inexpressifs, et cependant d’une cruauté implacable, quelle image attendait

son heure ?

 

Ils me faisaient peur. Je crois que sans la présence du gardien et des autres visiteurs je n’aurais jamais osé rester devant eux. " Vous les mangez des yeux ", me disait le gardien en riant, et il devait penser que je n’étais pas tout à fait normal. Il ne se rendait pas compte que c’était eux qui me dévoraient lentement des yeux, en un cannibalisme d’or. Loin d’eux je ne pouvais penser à autre chose, comme s’ils m’influençaient à distance. Je finis par y aller tous les jours et la nuit je les imaginais immobiles dans l’obscurité, avançant lentement une petite patte qui rencontrait soudain celle d’un autre. Leurs yeux voyaient peut-être la nuit et le jour pour eux n’avait pas de fin. Les yeux des axolotls n’ont pas de paupières.

 

Maintenant je sais qu’il n’y a rien eu d’étrange dans tout cela, que cela devait arriver. Ils me reconnaissaient un peu plus chaque matin quand je me penchais vers l’aquarium. Ils souffraient. Chaque fibre de mon corps enregistrait cette souffrance bâillonnée, cette torture rigide au fond de l’eau. Ils épiaient quelque chose, un lointain royaume aboli, un temps de liberté où le monde avait appartenu aux axolotls. Une expression aussi terrible qui arrivait à vaincre l’impassibilité forcée de ces visages de pierre contenait sûrement un message de douleur, la preuve de cette condamnation éternelle, de cet enfer liquide qu’ils enduraient. En vain essayai-je de me persuader que c’était ma propre sensibilité qui projetait sur les axolotls une conscience qu’ils n’avaient pas. Eux et moi nous savions. C’est pour cela que ce qui arriva n’est pas étrange. Je collais mon visage à la vitre de l’aquarium, mes yeux essayèrent une fois de plus de percer le mystère de ces yeux d’or sans iris et sans pupille. Je voyais de très près la tête d’un axolotl immobile contre la vitre. Puis mon visage s’éloigna et je compris. Une seule chose était étrange : continuer à penser comme avant, savoir. Quand j’en pris conscience, je ressentis l’horreur de celui qui s’éveille enterré vivant. Au-dehors, mon visage s’approchait à nouveau de la vitre, je voyais ma bouche aux lèvres serrées par l’effort que je faisais pour comprendre les axolotls. J’étais un axolotl et je venais de savoir en un éclair qu’aucune communication n’était possible. Il était hors de l’aquarium, sa pensée était une pensée hors de l’aquarium. Tout en le connaissant, tout en étant lui-même, j’étais un axolotl et j’étais dans mon monde. L’horreur venait de ce que - je le sus instantanément - je me croyais prisonnier dans le corps d’un axolotl, transféré en lui avec ma pensée d’homme, enterré vivant dans un axolotl, condamné à me mouvoir en toute lucidité parmi des créatures insensibles. Mais cette impression ne dura pas, une patte vint effleurer mon visage et en me tournant un peu je vis un axolotl à côté de moi qui me regardait et je compris que lui aussi savait, sans communication possible mais si clairement. Ou bien j’étais encore en l’homme, ou bien nous pensions comme des êtres humains, incapables de nous exprimer, limités à l’éclat doré de nos yeux qui regardaient ce visage d’homme collé à la vitre.

 

Il revint encore plusieurs fois mais il vient moins souvent à présent. Des semaines se passent sans qu’on le voie. Il est venu hier, il m’a regardé longuement et puis il est parti brusquement. Il me semble que ce n’est plus à nous qu’il s’intéresse, qu’il obéit plutôt à une habitude. Comme penser est la seule chose que je puisse faire, je pense beaucoup à lui. Pendant un certain temps nous avons continué d’être en communication lui et moi, et il se sentait plus que jamais lié au mystère qui l’obsédait. Mais les ponts sont coupés à présent, car ce qui était son obsession est devenu un axolotl, étranger à sa vie d’homme. Je crois qu’au début je pouvais encore revenir en lui, dans une certaine mesure - ah ! seulement dans une certaine

mesure - et maintenir éveillé son désir de mieux nous connaître. Maintenant je suis définitivement un axolotl et si je pense comme un être humain c’est tout simplement parce que les axolotls pensent comme les humains sous leur masque de pierre rose. Il me semble que j’étais arrivé à lui communiquer cette vérité, les premiers jours, lorsque j’étais encore en lui. Et dans cette solitude finale vers laquelle il ne revient déjà plus, cela me console de penser qu’il va peut-être écrire quelque chose sur nous ; il croira qu’il invente un conte et il écrira tout cela sur les axolotls.

 

Julio Cortázar (1914-1984)

THEME: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUAcDMHuC2E

 

Introducing my Self-MOC! This is actually the 12th version (12.4 to be exact) and a character reboot, though, and I have revamped the whole thing again since this version, too. I will post a picture showing some of the previous versions (I don't have pictures of pre-7th versions, except for the very first), just so you can get an idea of the evolution of the character.

 

---DESCRIPTION---

Nicknamed "Rahksha" due to her Makuta heritage, Nyctoria is somewhat of a Toa: the most accurate way to put it is, she's a protector...of sorts. She has a strong link with the Netherverse, enabling her to draw on its dark power to perform necromancy, as well as harvest souls and summon them as Netherwalkers (inhabitants of the Netherverse) with her scythe. She can also reanimate corpses to serve her by using seals on their Kanohi.

 

However, the power of the Netherverse always takes it toll, and the user's soul - and therefore body - will decay the more they use it. The only way to maintain oneself is to harvest the souls of others. Hence, Nyctoria hunts down villains to defeat and consume.

 

While Nyctoria does defend others from Makuta and other threats, she is not altrustic in her motives -- she will just as easily consume innocents if there is no other source available, and rarely helps others unless she perceives them or the target as useful in her quest for revenge against her "father", Teridax -- and by extension, her de facto creator, Mutran.

 

As an individual, Nyctoria is largely anti-social, apathetic and an on-off misanthrope - hardly surprising considering her origins. That being said, she is not without a sense of justice and empathy, although her concept of morality is nonexistent at worst and dubious at best.

 

---BIO---

NAME: Nyctoria

 

ALIASES: Rahksha, Daughter of Teridax, Destral's Shadowborne

 

SPECIES: Rahkshi/Toa (mutant; Kraata infused with energy from a Nui Stone)

 

GENDER: Female

 

KANOHI: N/A

 

ELEMENT: Shadow

 

WEAPON: Harvest Scythe - "Slayer's Slave"

 

Operation “Salt City" resulted in the arrest of 248 individuals from May through September 2015. Of those arrested, 124 were active gang members. During the operation 22 firearms, more than $237,000 in U.S. currency, 70 grams of heroin, 266 grams of cocaine, and 723 grams of marijuana with a total estimated street value of almost $44,000 was taken off Syracuse streets by participating agencies.

Operation Salt City is part of the U.S. Marshals nation-wide “Triple Beam” gang reduction initiative. Triple Beam partners federal, state, and local law enforcement to reduce violent crime and take dangerous offenders off the streets. The goal of the U.S. Marshals Gang Enforcement Program is to seek out and disrupt illegal gang activity in areas of the country with smaller or nonexistent gang enforcement units by providing manpower, funding and the Marshals’ renowned fugitive tracking abilities.

 

Photo by Shane T. McCoy / US Marshals

BOX DATE: 1994

MANUFACTURER: Hasbro

VARIATIONS: Blonde; African American

BODY TYPE: No date; straight arms; straight, non-bending legs

HEAD MOLD: 1993 "AA Tiffany"; pierced ears

 

PERSONAL FUN FACT written by my sister: I truly considered the chance to buy this doll a once in a lifetime opportunity. I had no idea when I was eight years old that this version of Twist 'n Style Tiffany existed! She is so beautiful! First of all, my particular doll has the nicest, most perfect hair. (I'd say it's because I got her boxed, as an adult, but that doesn't necessarily mean luscious locks.) I love the way her pink outfit and purple eyeshadow pop against her dark skin. She also gives me a new appreciation for the lip color. Aside from the hair and skin color, she is exactly like the blonde I got for Christmas 1995. Shelly and I were reminded of Tiffany when we found our Wellie Wishers in April 2021. I think it was Shelly who realized who we were thinking of and first said, "Tiffany" aloud. It is possible that I also realized what the Wellies were reminding me of before she said it (we're weirdly in sync like that). What I do know is that I'd taken to holding Camille, who was sort of hanging around because she needed a stain lifted from her face, for no reason, and that she reminded me of someone. When we realized we were both missing my blonde Tiffany, who I hadn't had in about fifteen years, we took to eBay. Well...there was a slight progression to that. First, Shelly went to write on a Wellie doll or fashion and wanted to make a reference to Tiffany and, of course, needed to figure out who she was to do that properly. Shelly identified my childhood doll as Twist 'n Style Tiffany, which didn't surprise either of us--it was a name we only half forgot. (If you'd asked me, I'd have said her name was 100% Tiffany and that it was something like "Styling Tiffany.") It didn't take Shelly long to figure out who Tiffany was...and it only took a few hours before we were looking, not for identification, but for shopping purposes. In her shopping travels, Shelly found this EXACT Tiffany on eBay. She showed her to me and, though the asking price was close to eighty bucks and this wasn't even the exact doll I had, we were both intrigued. I'd even suggested bidding on her. Shelly talked me out of it because she didn't think there was a lot of competition and figured that the seller may, eventually, lower their expectations. However, we agreed--having been able to see only ONE OTHER African American Tiffany pictured online (and she was someone's family, not on a shopping site)--that the asking price wasn't actually unreasonable. I was, however, reluctant to not overpay and jump at the chance to have this doll because I was afraid the seller might not relist her or someone else might buy her. I consider this Tiffany to be a rare item. Rare is a term I avoid using because I feel it is often misused and overused. A lot of people call things "rare," when what they really mean is "desirable." Supply versus demand. For example, a lot of first editions of things--Bratz, Monster High, Ever After High--are NOT rare, they are more populous than later lines from those franchises. They are, however, desirable, because a lot of collectors want the "first" of different things. This Tiffany is genuinely, in my opinion, rare, because, while mass produced, dolls like this were often played with and discarded. Most people, even if they have these floating around, don't bother to list them on eBay--they wind up in secondhand stores, toy chests, and (sadly) dumpsters. People don't often buy toddler type dolls like this to resell. There aren't, when you really look at it, that many buying options for the blonde and this girl was the ONLY one like her that was available for purchase anywhere I looked. I thought she was really special and, even though I hadn't even gotten around to replacing my childhood blonde yet, I wanted this doll. I fixated. I watched her get relisted a couple times. At first, it was like watching paint dry--the price didn't lower substantially. The thing is, while this doll was, in fact, a rare find, she is not, by most people's standards, desirable. Very few people would be looking for this doll, or her blonde counterpart, so, while my options were limited, the competition was nonexistent. I gave up checking on this doll every day. I thought to check one night in July and realized that the "Buy it Now" price was lower AND there was a "make offer" option. I figured my chance had FINALLY come! Knowing this beauty had been listed for several months and there was no interest, I figured the seller would take a reasonable offer. I wound up getting this radiant beauty for about fifty dollars, as opposed to what would've been about $80 if I hadn't been so patient. Shelly and I became REALLY BAD at buying dolls online after the 2020 school closure and it was made worse by a very dry 2021 flea market season. Tiffany came during a time when we were ordering a lot of things and expecting a lot of packages--but she was probably my most highly anticipated package! I was able to buy a used blonde shortly after she got here, and the blonde arrived a mere five days later. However, THIS was the first Twist 'n Style Tiffany that I'd seen in about fifteen years! Opening her was a truly special experience. She smelled really good to me...like the sort of cardboard/plastic combo that makes me feel nostalgic. She still sealed in her plastic bag--meaning I was the first person to get to touch this doll. (Her tray was pulled out of the box in the listing, but everything was still in bags.) She was lucky she didn't suffer hair or skin decay from years of being encased in a plastic bag. I think it is testament to her quality--she is a very sturdy doll. Opening her was truly magical, though I have to say the box, and the doll, felt bigger in 1995! It was like meeting an old friend in so many ways. She definitely reminded me of my childhood doll, even though she's the other variation. But, by that point, she also felt like an old friend because I'd been looking at her on eBay so long! I really felt, back when I found this listing, that this Tiffany was meant to be my girl. I really do think she was a once in a lifetime find--if I hadn't been thinking of Tiffany at the right time, this doll may not have happened. I didn't know that this variation existed, therefore, I wouldn't have been actively seeking her if she hadn't been listed (or relisted, she could've been listed before) on the day Shelly was trying to find the name of a childhood favorite, she'd never have even seen her! She is a cherished part of my collection and lives with my American Girl dolls and, of course, her blonde counterpart!

The second stop on the way home from my college visit was in Richmond!

 

The Richmond Kmart appears to be a former Grants (and thus reminded me of the Erie Kmart that I visited last summer). It is very noticeably bigger than Anderson; it is also very nice; it has a Kmart Express gas station and it has a former Kmart Cafe (that still has the counter/displays, the full menu board and even the register! Looks like a more recent KCafe closure from what I've seen; if anybody else here has any more information I would like to know more about it!). This store appears to be doing fairly well for one of the last remaining stores in/near the Miami Valley.

 

Of course, I had to check out the Kmart Express after my main store rounds were complete, so I headed over there and looked around. This is the second Kmart Express I've seen, but the first one I have actually visited, as the other one (at the now nonexistent Brooklyn Super Kmart) had already closed. I didn't buy anything at this KExpress though, as I had spent my money in the main store. Hopefully next time I can buy some coffee or donuts from Kmart Express while going to/from Anderson (if I plan another college visit to Anderson U, which is likely)!

 

Hopefully the Richmond Kmart will still be able to remain "normal" for a good time longer...I like this store! :D

 

Kmart #7246 - 3150 National Road West - Richmond, Indiana

Though personalized art appeared during World War I, and occasionally grew to incorporate the entire aircraft, most pilots carried a saying or a slogan, or a family crest, or squadron symbol. Some were named, but nose art was not common. During World War II, nose art not only saw its true beginnings, but its heyday.

 

No one knows exactly who started nose art first--it appeared with both the British and the Germans around the first time, with RAF pilots painting Hitler being kicked or skulls and crossbones on their aircraft, while German nose art was usually a personal symbol, named for a girlfriend or adopting a mascot (such as Adolf Galland using Mickey Mouse, something Walt Disney likely didn't approve of). It would be with the Americans, and a lesser extent the Canadians, that nose art truly became common--and started including its most famous forms, which was usually half-naked or completely naked women. This was not always true, but it often was.

 

The quality of nose art depended on the squadron or wing artist. Some of it was rather crude, while others were equal to the finest pinup artists in the United States, such as Alberto Vargas. For men thousands of miles away from home and lonely, a curvaceous blonde on a B-17 or a P-51 made that loneliness a bit easier. Others thought naked women were a little crude, and just limited themselves to names, or depicted animals, cartoon characters, or patriotic emblems, or caricatures of the Axis dictators they were fighting.

 

Generally speaking, there was little censorship, with squadron and group commanders rarely intervening on names or pictures; the pilots themselves practiced self-censorship, with profanity almost unknown, and full-frontal nudity nearly nonexistent. After the loss of a B-17 named "Murder Inc.," which the Germans captured and used to make propaganda, the 8th Air Force, at least, set up a nose art committee that reviewed the nose art of aircraft--but even it rarely wielded its veto. For the most part, nose art was limited only by the crew's imagination and the artist's ability. The British tended to stay away from the lurid nudes of the Americans, though the Canadians adopted them as well. (The Axis also did not use nose art in this fashion, and neither did the Soviets, who usually confined themselves to patriotic slogans on their aircraft, such as "For Stalin!" or "In the Spirit of the Motherland!")

 

When World War II ended, so did nose art, for the most part. In the peacetime, postwar armed forces, the idea of having naked women were wives and children could see it was not something the postwar USAF or Navy wanted, and when it wasn't scrapped, it was painted over. A few units (especially those away from home and family) still allowed it, but it would take Korea to begin a renaissance of nose art.

 

This rather shapely girl is painted on the side of a M7 Priest self-propelled artillery vehicle at the National Museum of Military Vehicles in Dubois, Wyoming. Though "nose art" was by no means unusual on Army vehicles, it was somewhat uncommon due to the difficulty of maintaining it. Army vehicles of all types get filthy, and trying to keep up the artwork would be difficult. (A similar problem accounts for the rarity of nose art on US Navy aircraft, though there the problem is saltwater.) Still, it did exist, and much like nose art on aircraft, has largely become nonexistent on modern vehicles--though naming vehicles is still done quite often in the field. It may not be an aircraft, but it still counts, so I got a picture of "Black Widow" in September 2021.

Operation “Salt City" resulted in the arrest of 248 individuals from May through September 2015. Of those arrested, 124 were active gang members. During the operation 22 firearms, more than $237,000 in U.S. currency, 70 grams of heroin, 266 grams of cocaine, and 723 grams of marijuana with a total estimated street value of almost $44,000 was taken off Syracuse streets by participating agencies.

Operation Salt City is part of the U.S. Marshals nation-wide “Triple Beam” gang reduction initiative. Triple Beam partners federal, state, and local law enforcement to reduce violent crime and take dangerous offenders off the streets. The goal of the U.S. Marshals Gang Enforcement Program is to seek out and disrupt illegal gang activity in areas of the country with smaller or nonexistent gang enforcement units by providing manpower, funding and the Marshals’ renowned fugitive tracking abilities.

 

Photo by Shane T. McCoy / US Marshals

Speaking of marvels, I am alive

together with you, when I might have been

alive with anyone under the sun,

when I might have been Abelard’s woman

or the whore of a Renaissance pope

or a peasant wife with not enough food

and not enough love, with my children

dead of the plague. I might have slept

in an alcove next to the man

with the golden nose, who poked it

into the business of stars,

or sewn a starry flag

for a general with wooden teeth.

I might have been the exemplary Pocahontas

or a woman without a name

weeping in Master’s bed

for my husband, exchanged for a mule,

my daughter, lost in a drunken bet.

I might have been stretched on a totem pole

to appease a vindictive god

or left, a useless girl-child,

to die on a cliff. I like to think

I might have been Mary Shelley

in love with a wrongheaded angel,

or Mary’s friend, I might have been you.

This poem is endless, the odds against us are endless,

our chances of being alive together

statistically nonexistent;

still we have made it, alive in a time

when rationalists in square hats

and hatless Jehovah’s Witnesses

agree it is almost over,

alive with our lively children

who–but for endless ifs–

might have missed out on being alive

together with marvels and follies

and longings and lies and wishes

and error and humor and mercy

and journeys and voices and faces

and colors and summers and mornings

and knowledge and tears and chance.

 

-Lisel Mueller

Though personalized art appeared during World War I, and occasionally grew to incorporate the entire aircraft, most pilots carried a saying or a slogan, or a family crest, or squadron symbol. Some were named, but nose art was not common. During World War II, nose art not only saw its true beginnings, but its heyday.

 

No one knows exactly who started nose art first--it appeared with both the British and the Germans around the first time, with RAF pilots painting Hitler being kicked or skulls and crossbones on their aircraft, while German nose art was usually a personal symbol, named for a girlfriend or adopting a mascot (such as Adolf Galland using Mickey Mouse, something Walt Disney likely didn't approve of). It would be with the Americans, and a lesser extent the Canadians, that nose art truly became common--and started including its most famous forms, which was usually half-naked or completely naked women. This was not always true, but it often was.

 

The quality of nose art depended on the squadron or wing artist. Some of it was rather crude, while others were equal to the finest pinup artists in the United States, such as Alberto Vargas. For men thousands of miles away from home and lonely, a curvaceous blonde on a B-17 or a P-51 made that loneliness a bit easier. Others thought naked women were a little crude, and just limited themselves to names, or depicted animals, cartoon characters, or patriotic emblems, or caricatures of the Axis dictators they were fighting.

 

Generally speaking, there was little censorship, with squadron and group commanders rarely intervening on names or pictures; the pilots themselves practiced self-censorship, with profanity almost unknown, and full-frontal nudity nearly nonexistent. After the loss of a B-17 named "Murder Inc.," which the Germans captured and used to make propaganda, the 8th Air Force, at least, set up a nose art committee that reviewed the nose art of aircraft--but even it rarely wielded its veto. For the most part, nose art was limited only by the crew's imagination and the artist's ability. The British tended to stay away from the lurid nudes of the Americans, though the Canadians adopted them as well. (The Axis also did not use nose art in this fashion, and neither did the Soviets, who usually confined themselves to patriotic slogans on their aircraft, such as "For Stalin!" or "In the Spirit of the Motherland!")

 

When World War II ended, so did nose art, for the most part. In the peacetime, postwar armed forces, the idea of having naked women were wives and children could see it was not something the postwar USAF or Navy wanted, and when it wasn't scrapped, it was painted over. A few units (especially those away from home and family) still allowed it, but it would take Korea to begin a renaissance of nose art.

 

This nose art is painted on the nose of FM-2P Wildcat Bureau Number 86777, which flies with the Texas Flying Legends Museum. It's a hilarious depiction of a pitchfork-wielding bulldog riding in a bottle of booze--the former a reference to the Marines' nickname of Devil Dogs, and the latter probably to the Wildcat's rather portly shape. (Or the reference that one would have to be blind drunk to fly one.) This is a personal marking; the squadron, VMF-114, carried its squadron insignia on the starboard side: that depicted "aces and eights," the infamous "Dead Man's Hand"--appropriate for a unit nicknamed the "Death Dealers." I didn't think to get a picture of that one...

 

I guess the 'questioning of reality' theme comes up quite a bit in my photography.

 

It's one of the reasons I was drawn to shoot closeups on the street of strangers.

 

If you do a keyword search on flickr of my photostream using the word 'reality' some fifty eight images come up.

 

It becomes clear to me at least that 'reality' is a subject on which I often dwell.

 

For almost seven years I lived with someone who had a mental illness that caused her grip on reality to become 'detached' and at times nonexistent.

 

Diagnosed as 'psychotic' she never seemed to be able to dial in to treatment that allowed her to live a normal life.

 

'Psychosis is a symptom or feature of mental illness typically characterized by radical changes in personality, impaired functioning, and a distorted or nonexistent sense of objective reality.'

 

A psychotic can be intelligent, attractive, highly functioning and for all intents and purposes appear to all of us to be what we would consider 'normal.'

 

In many people afflicted with psychosis or schizophrenia the symptoms often don't come to manifest themselves until they're in their mid thirties.

 

And they often appear without warning... sometimes due to significant stressful events in that person's life.

 

When you're in a relationship with someone given a diagnosis as a psychotic it doesn't mean they're evil or wrong or even 'broken'... it just means that they don't have a grasp on reality.

 

They believe sometimes that the things they feel are real... and they respond to those things as if they in fact do exist... when very often they are creations of a delusional mind.

 

This can lead life to get pretty crazy.

 

And when you're trying to relate to someone like this I'll tell you what...

 

you are going to question reality on a daily basis.

 

You will be in effect living a 'psychotic life.'

 

When I look back I don't know how I managed to survive the experience.

 

I struggled with dealing with this diagnosis as much as she did and I did everything I could to be a supportive partner...

 

until things progressed to a point where my children were in danger and my own 'sanity' was threatened.

 

Psychosis is a very powerful thing.

 

Because 'perception' is a very powerful thing.

 

And seeing someone you care about fall into the darkness of psychosis and be unable to bring themselves back out of it is a crushing moment.

 

I'm not sure anyone knows why exactly it happens...

 

but my years of being exposed to it were the biggest challenge of my life.

 

That experience made me think about what 'reality' really is... and how it is perceived by others... how two or more people can have an experience that for each of them is completely understood and believed to be 'different.'

 

Intelligent psychotics are particularly interesting because they can function at a high level in society but they genuinely believe their own lies and psychotic perceptions.

 

A mentally balanced person loses their medicine and they wonder where they put it.

 

Someone suffering from psychosis loses their medicine and they might really believe that the neighborhood kids in some kind of conspiracy to hurt them took the medicine away.

 

When a psychotic believes things like that then those children may be in danger.

 

According to statistics there are almost 400,000 people living in the US with this affliction.

 

Individually many people suffer from psychosis and schizophrenia.

 

Some are diagnosed with both.

 

That was the challenge that I had to deal with.

 

Collectively I've come to see that society itself manifests signs of psychosis and schizophrenia too.

 

Think about the Salem Witch Trials and some of the other terrible things society has done to itself.

 

Those people who think the newscaster on tv is talking directly to them... in code... they really believe that.

 

I mean... they TRULY BELIEVE it I swear to gahd.

 

I've seen it.

 

And I've never seen anything like it.

 

If you try to tell them that the tv newscaster is not talking directly to them they may lash out at you in some unfathomable way.

 

Having survived this encounter with what I can only call 'surreality' I am left wondering very often how tightly people and society itself actually grip reality.

 

I've never come up with any kind of definitive answer but I know this...

 

people and society are not ENTIRELY in touch with reality.

 

There's this grey area in almost every situation where the reality perceived by some isn't what it is supposed to be.

 

Those grey areas are where the whack shit that goes down in society are generally germinated.

 

We should always question what others present to us as 'reality.'

 

The media... the internet... our friends...

 

No one can always see 'reality'...

 

but what differentiates the healthy mind from the psychotic or schizophrenic mind the most I think is that the healthy mind does not react instinctively to their perceptions of reality until they're pretty certain that those perceptions are indeed valid.

 

That's why some very intelligent and mentally healthy people when faced with the actions of a psychopath in that theater in Colorado didn't react to the shooters psychotic actions immediately as if they were real.

 

As much as the psychotic mind finds great difficulty in dealing with reality...

 

the mentally balanced mind can never truly understand the mind of a psychotic.

 

Shake it Out

    

The Moscow Metro is a metro system serving the Russian capital of Moscow as well as the neighbouring cities of Krasnogorsk, Reutov, Lyubertsy and Kotelniki in Moscow Oblast. Opened in 1935 with one 11-kilometre (6.8 mi) line and 13 stations, it was the first underground railway system in the Soviet Union.

 

As of 2023, the Moscow Metro, excluding the Moscow Central Circle, the Moscow Central Diameters and the Moscow Monorail, had 294 stations and 514.5 km (319.7 mi) of route length, excluding light rail Monorail, making it the 8th-longest in the world and the longest outside China. It is the third metro system in the world (after Madrid and Beijing), which has two ring lines. The system is mostly underground, with the deepest section 84 metres (276 ft) underground at the Park Pobedy station, one of the world's deepest underground stations. It is the busiest metro system in Europe, the busiest in the world outside Asia, and is considered a tourist attraction in itself.

 

The Moscow Metro is a world leader in the frequency of train traffic—intervals during peak hours do not exceed 90 seconds. In February 2023, Moscow was the first in the world to reduce the intervals of metro trains to 80 seconds.

 

Name

The full legal name of the metro has been "Moscow Order of Lenin and Order of the Red Banner of Labor V.I. Lenin Metro" (Московский ордена Ленина и ордена Трудового Красного Знамени метрополитен имени В.И. Ленина) since 1955. This is usually shortened to V.I. Lenin Metro (Метрополитен им. В.И. Ленина). This shorter official name appears on many stations. Although there were proposals to remove Lenin from the official name, it still stands. During the 1990s and 2000s, Lenin's name was excluded from the signage on newly built and reconstructed stations. In 2016, the authorities promised to return the official name of the metro to all the stations' signage.

 

The first official name of the metro was L. M. Kaganovich Metro (Метрополитен им. Л.М. Кагановича) after Lazar Kaganovich. (see History section). However, when the Metro was awarded the Order of Lenin, it was officially renamed "Moscow Order of Lenin L. M. Kaganovich Metro" (Московский ордена Ленина Метрополитен им. Л. М. Кагановича) in 1947. And when the metro was renamed in 1955, Kaganovich was "given a consolation prize" by renaming the Okhotny Ryad station to "Imeni Kaganovicha". Yet in a matter of only two years, the original Okhotny Ryad name of the station was reinstated.

 

Logo

The first line of the Moscow Metro was launched in 1935, complete with the first logo, the capital M paired with the text "МЕТРО". There is no accurate information about the author of the logo, so it is often attributed to the architects of the first stations – Samuil Kravets, Ivan Taranov and Nadezhda Bykova. At the opening in 1935, the M letter on the logo had no definite shape.

 

Today, with at least ten different variations of the shape in use, Moscow Metro still does not have clear brand or logo guidelines. An attempt was made in October 2013 to launch a nationwide brand image competition, only to be closed several hours after its announcement. A similar contest, held independently later that year by the design crowdsourcing company DesignContest, yielded better results, though none were officially accepted by the Metro officials.

 

Operations

The Moscow Metro, a state-owned enterprise, is 449 km (279 mi) long and consists of 15 lines and 263 stations organized in a spoke-hub distribution paradigm, with the majority of rail lines running radially from the centre of Moscow to the outlying areas. The Koltsevaya Line (line 5) forms a 20-kilometre (12 mi) long circle which enables passenger travel between these diameters, and the new Moscow Central Circle (line 14) and even newer Bolshaya Koltsevaya line (line 11) form a 54-kilometre (34 mi) and 57-kilometre (35 mi) long circles respectively that serve a similar purpose on middle periphery. Most stations and lines are underground, but some lines have at-grade and elevated sections; the Filyovskaya Line, Butovskaya Line and the Central Circle Line are the three lines that are at grade or mostly at grade.

 

The Moscow Metro uses 1,520 mm (4 ft 11+27⁄32 in) Russian gauge, like other Russian railways, and an underrunning third rail with a supply of 825 Volts DC, except lines 13 and 14, the former being a monorail, and the latter being directly connected to the mainlines with 3000V DC overhead lines, as is typical. The average distance between stations is 1.7 kilometres (1.1 mi); the shortest (502 metres (1,647 ft) long) section is between Vystavochnaya and Mezhdunarodnaya, and the longest (6.62 kilometres (4.11 mi) long) is between Krylatskoye and Strogino. Long distances between stations have the positive effect of a high cruising speed of 41.7 kilometres per hour (25.9 mph).

 

The Moscow Metro opens at 05:25 and closes at 01:00. The exact opening time varies at different stations according to the arrival of the first train, but all stations simultaneously close their entrances at 01:00 for maintenance, and so do transfer corridors. The minimum interval between trains is 90 seconds during the morning and evening rush hours.

 

As of 2017, the system had an average daily ridership of 6.99 million passengers. Peak daily ridership of 9.71 million was recorded on 26 December 2014.

 

Free Wi-Fi has been available on all lines of the Moscow Metro since 2 December 2014.

 

Lines

A Moscow Metro train passes through Sokolnicheskaya and Koltsevaya lines. View from the driver's cabin

Each line is identified by a name, an alphanumeric index (usually consisting of just a number, and sometimes a letter suffix), and a colour. The colour assigned to each line for display on maps and signs is its colloquial identifier, except for the nondescript greens and blues assigned to the Bolshaya Koltsevaya, the Zamoskvoretskaya, the Lyublinsko-Dmitrovskaya, and Butovskaya lines (lines, 11, 2, 10, and 12, respectively).[citation needed] The upcoming station is announced by a male voice on inbound trains to the city center (on the Circle line, the clockwise trains), and by a female voice on outbound trains (anti-clockwise trains on the Circle line).

 

The metro has a connection to the Moscow Monorail, a 4.7-kilometre (2.9 mi), six-station monorail line between Timiryazevskaya and VDNKh which opened in January 2008. Prior to the official opening, the monorail had operated in "excursion mode" since 2004.

 

Also, from 11 August 1969 to 26 October 2019, the Moscow Metro included Kakhovskaya line 3.3 km long with 3 stations, which closed for a long reconstruction. On 7 December 2021, Kakhovskaya is reopened after reconstruction as part of the Bolshaya Koltsevaya line. The renewed Varshavskaya and Kashirskaya stations reopened as part of the Bolshaya Koltsevaya line, which became fully functional on 1 March 2023. Its new stations included Pechatniki, Nagatinsky Zaton and Klenovy Bulvar.

 

Renamed lines

Sokolnicheskaya line was previously named Kirovsko-Fruzenskaya

Zamoskvoretskaya line was previously named Gorkovsko-Zamoskvoretskaya.

Filyovskaya line was previously named Arbatsko-Filyovskaya.

Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya line was previously named Zhdanovsko-Krasnopresnenskaya

 

History

The first plans for a metro system in Moscow date back to the Russian Empire but were postponed by World War I, the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War. In 1923, the Moscow City Council formed the Underground Railway Design Office at the Moscow Board of Urban Railways. It carried out preliminary studies, and by 1928 had developed a project for the first route from Sokolniki to the city centre. At the same time, an offer was made to the German company Siemens Bauunion to submit its own project for the same route. In June 1931, the decision to begin construction of the Moscow Metro was made by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In January 1932 the plan for the first lines was approved, and on 21 March 1933 the Soviet government approved a plan for 10 lines with a total route length of 80 km (50 mi).

 

The first lines were built using the Moscow general plan designed by Lazar Kaganovich, along with his project managers (notably Ivan M. Kuznetsov and, later, Isaac Y. Segal) in the 1930s–1950s, and the Metro was named after him until 1955 (Metropoliten im. L.M. Kaganovicha). The Moscow Metro construction engineers consulted with their counterparts from the London Underground, the world's oldest metro system, in 1936: British architect Charles Holden and administrator Frank Pick had been working on the station developments of the Piccadilly Line extension, and Soviet delegates to London were impressed by Holden's thoroughly modern redeployment of classical elements and use of high-quality materials for the circular ticket hall of Piccadilly Circus, and so engaged Pick and Holden as advisors to Moscow's metro system. Partly because of this connection, the design of Gants Hill tube station, which was completed in 1947, is reminiscent of a Moscow Metro station. Indeed, Holden's homage to Moscow has been described as a gesture of gratitude for the USSR's helpful role in The Second World War.

 

Soviet workers did the labour and the art work, but the main engineering designs, routes, and construction plans were handled by specialists recruited from London Underground. The British called for tunnelling instead of the "cut-and-cover" technique, the use of escalators instead of lifts, the routes and the design of the rolling stock. The paranoia of the NKVD was evident when the secret police arrested numerous British engineers for espionage because they gained an in-depth knowledge of the city's physical layout. Engineers for the Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Company (Metrovick) were given a show trial and deported in 1933, ending the role of British business in the USSR.

 

First four stages of construction

The first line was opened to the public on 15 May 1935 at 07:00 am. It was 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) long and included 13 stations. The day was celebrated as a technological and ideological victory for socialism (and, by extension, Stalinism). An estimated 285,000 people rode the Metro at its debut, and its design was greeted with pride; street celebrations included parades, plays and concerts. The Bolshoi Theatre presented a choral performance by 2,200 Metro workers; 55,000 colored posters (lauding the Metro as the busiest and fastest in the world) and 25,000 copies of "Songs of the Joyous Metro Conquerors" were distributed. The Moscow Metro averaged 47 km/h (29 mph) and had a top speed of 80 km/h (50 mph). In comparison, New York City Subway trains averaged a slower 25 miles per hour (40 km/h) and had a top speed of 45 miles per hour (72 km/h). While the celebration was an expression of popular joy it was also an effective propaganda display, legitimizing the Metro and declaring it a success.

 

The initial line connected Sokolniki to Okhotny Ryad then branching to Park Kultury and Smolenskaya. The latter branch was extended westwards to a new station (Kiyevskaya) in March 1937, the first Metro line crossing the Moskva River over the Smolensky Metro Bridge.

 

The second stage was completed before the war. In March 1938, the Arbatskaya branch was split and extended to the Kurskaya station (now the dark-blue Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line). In September 1938, the Gorkovskaya Line opened between Sokol and Teatralnaya. Here the architecture was based on that of the most popular stations in existence (Krasniye Vorota, Okhotnyi Ryad and Kropotkinskaya); while following the popular art-deco style, it was merged with socialist themes. The first deep-level column station Mayakovskaya was built at the same time.

 

Building work on the third stage was delayed (but not interrupted) during World War II, and two Metro sections were put into service; Teatralnaya–Avtozavodskaya (three stations, crossing the Moskva River through a deep tunnel) and Kurskaya–Partizanskaya (four stations) were inaugurated in 1943 and 1944 respectively. War motifs replaced socialist visions in the architectural design of these stations. During the Siege of Moscow in the fall and winter of 1941, Metro stations were used as air-raid shelters; the Council of Ministers moved its offices to the Mayakovskaya platforms, where Stalin made public speeches on several occasions. The Chistiye Prudy station was also walled off, and the headquarters of the Air Defence established there.

 

After the war ended in 1945, construction began on the fourth stage of the Metro, which included the Koltsevaya Line, a deep part of the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya line from Ploshchad Revolyutsii to Kievskaya and a surface extension to Pervomaiskaya during the early 1950s. The decoration and design characteristic of the Moscow Metro is considered to have reached its zenith in these stations. The Koltsevaya Line was first planned as a line running under the Garden Ring, a wide avenue encircling the borders of Moscow's city centre. The first part of the line – from Park Kultury to Kurskaya (1950) – follows this avenue. Plans were later changed and the northern part of the ring line runs 1–1.5 kilometres (0.62–0.93 mi) outside the Sadovoye Koltso, thus providing service for seven (out of nine) rail terminals. The next part of the Koltsevaya Line opened in 1952 (Kurskaya–Belorusskaya), and in 1954 the ring line was completed.

 

Stalinist ideals in Metro's history

When the Metro opened in 1935, it immediately became the centrepiece of the transportation system (as opposed to horse-carried barrows still widely used in 1930s Moscow). It also became the prototype, the vision for future Soviet large-scale technologies. The artwork of the 13 original stations became nationally and internationally famous. For example, the Sverdlov Square subway station featured porcelain bas-reliefs depicting the daily life of the Soviet peoples, and the bas-reliefs at the Dynamo Stadium sports complex glorified sports and physical prowess on the powerful new "Homo Sovieticus" (Soviet man). The metro was touted as the symbol of the new social order – a sort of Communist cathedral of engineering modernity.

 

The Metro was also iconic for showcasing Socialist Realism in public art. The method was influenced by Nikolay Chernyshevsky, Lenin's favorite 19th-century nihilist, who stated that "art is no useful unless it serves politics". This maxim sums up the reasons why the stations combined aesthetics, technology and ideology: any plan which did not incorporate all three areas cohesively was rejected.

 

Kaganovich was in charge; he designed the subway so that citizens would absorb the values and ethos of Stalinist civilization as they rode. Without this cohesion, the Metro would not reflect Socialist Realism. If the Metro did not utilize Socialist Realism, it would fail to illustrate Stalinist values and transform Soviet citizens into socialists. Anything less than Socialist Realism's grand artistic complexity would fail to inspire a long-lasting, nationalistic attachment to Stalin's new society.

Socialist Realism was in fact a method, not exactly a style.[31]

Bright future and literal brightness in the Metro of Moscow

The Moscow Metro was one of the USSR's most ambitious architectural projects. The metro's artists and architects worked to design a structure that embodied svet (literally "light", figuratively "radiance" or "brilliance") and svetloe budushchee (a well-lit/radiant/bright future). With their reflective marble walls, high ceilings and grand chandeliers, many Moscow Metro stations have been likened to an "artificial underground sun".

 

This palatial underground environment reminded Metro users their taxes were spent on materializing bright future; also, the design was useful for demonstrating the extra structural strength of the underground works (as in Metro doubling as bunkers, bomb shelters).

 

The chief lighting engineer was Abram Damsky, a graduate of the Higher State Art-Technical Institute in Moscow. By 1930 he was a chief designer in Moscow's Elektrosvet Factory, and during World War II was sent to the Metrostroi (Metro Construction) Factory as head of the lighting shop.[33] Damsky recognized the importance of efficiency, as well as the potential for light as an expressive form. His team experimented with different materials (most often cast bronze, aluminum, sheet brass, steel, and milk glass) and methods to optimize the technology. Damsky's discourse on "Lamps and Architecture 1930–1950" describes in detail the epic chandeliers installed in the Taganskaya Station and the Kaluzhskaia station (Oktyabrskaya nowadays, not to be confused with contemporary "Kaluzhskaya" station on line 6). The work of Abram Damsky further publicized these ideas hoping people would associate the party with the idea of bright future.

 

The Kaluzhskaya Station was designed by the architect [Leonid] Poliakov. Poliakov's decision to base his design on a reinterpretation of Russian classical architecture clearly influenced the concept of the lamps, some of which I planned in collaboration with the architect himself. The shape of the lamps was a torch – the torch of victory, as Polyakov put it... The artistic quality and stylistic unity of all the lamps throughout the station's interior made them perhaps the most successful element of the architectural composition. All were made of cast aluminum decorated in a black and gold anodized coating, a technique which the Metrostroi factory had only just mastered.

 

The Taganskaia Metro Station on the Ring Line was designed in...quite another style by the architects K.S. Ryzhkov and A. Medvedev... Their subject matter dealt with images of war and victory...The overall effect was one of ceremony ... In the platform halls the blue ceramic bodies of the chandeliers played a more modest role, but still emphasised the overall expressiveness of the lamp.

 

— Abram Damsky, Lamps and Architecture 1930–1950

Industrialization

 

Stalin's first five-year plan (1928–1932) facilitated rapid industrialization to build a socialist motherland. The plan was ambitious, seeking to reorient an agrarian society towards industrialism. It was Stalin's fanatical energy, large-scale planning, and resource distribution that kept up the pace of industrialization. The first five-year plan was instrumental in the completion of the Moscow Metro; without industrialization, the Soviet Union would not have had the raw materials necessary for the project. For example, steel was a main component of many subway stations. Before industrialization, it would have been impossible for the Soviet Union to produce enough steel to incorporate it into the metro's design; in addition, a steel shortage would have limited the size of the subway system and its technological advancement.

 

The Moscow Metro furthered the construction of a socialist Soviet Union because the project accorded with Stalin's second five-year plan. The Second Plan focused on urbanization and the development of social services. The Moscow Metro was necessary to cope with the influx of peasants who migrated to the city during the 1930s; Moscow's population had grown from 2.16 million in 1928 to 3.6 million in 1933. The Metro also bolstered Moscow's shaky infrastructure and its communal services, which hitherto were nearly nonexistent.

 

Mobilization

The Communist Party had the power to mobilize; because the party was a single source of control, it could focus its resources. The most notable example of mobilization in the Soviet Union occurred during World War II. The country also mobilized in order to complete the Moscow Metro with unprecedented speed. One of the main motivation factors of the mobilization was to overtake the West and prove that a socialist metro could surpass capitalist designs. It was especially important to the Soviet Union that socialism succeed industrially, technologically, and artistically in the 1930s, since capitalism was at a low ebb during the Great Depression.

 

The person in charge of Metro mobilization was Lazar Kaganovich. A prominent Party member, he assumed control of the project as chief overseer. Kaganovich was nicknamed the "Iron Commissar"; he shared Stalin's fanatical energy, dramatic oratory flare, and ability to keep workers building quickly with threats and punishment. He was determined to realise the Moscow Metro, regardless of cost. Without Kaganovich's managerial ability, the Moscow Metro might have met the same fate as the Palace of the Soviets: failure.

 

This was a comprehensive mobilization; the project drew resources and workers from the entire Soviet Union. In his article, archeologist Mike O'Mahoney describes the scope of the Metro mobilization:

 

A specialist workforce had been drawn from many different regions, including miners from the Ukrainian and Siberian coalfields and construction workers from the iron and steel mills of Magnitogorsk, the Dniepr hydroelectric power station, and the Turkestan-Siberian railway... materials used in the construction of the metro included iron from Siberian Kuznetsk, timber from northern Russia, cement from the Volga region and the northern Caucasus, bitumen from Baku, and marble and granite from quarries in Karelia, the Crimea, the Caucasus, the Urals, and the Soviet Far East

 

— Mike O'Mahoney, Archeological Fantasies: Constructing History on the Moscow Metro

Skilled engineers were scarce, and unskilled workers were instrumental to the realization of the metro. The Metrostroi (the organization responsible for the Metro's construction) conducted massive recruitment campaigns. It printed 15,000 copies of Udarnik metrostroia (Metrostroi Shock Worker, its daily newspaper) and 700 other newsletters (some in different languages) to attract unskilled laborers. Kaganovich was closely involved in the recruitment campaign, targeting the Komsomol generation because of its strength and youth.

 

Later Soviet stations

"Fifth stage" set of stations

The beginning of the Cold War led to the construction of a deep section of the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line. The stations on this line were planned as shelters in the event of nuclear war. After finishing the line in 1953 the upper tracks between Ploshchad Revolyutsii and Kiyevskaya were closed, and later reopened in 1958 as a part of the Filyovskaya Line. The stations, too, were supplied with tight gates and life-sustenance systems to function as proper nuclear shelters.

 

In the further development of the Metro the term "stages" was not used any more, although sometimes the stations opened in 1957–1959 are referred to as the "fifth stage".

 

During the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, the architectural extravagance of new Metro stations was decisively rejected on the orders of Nikita Khrushchev. He had a preference for a utilitarian "minimalism"-like approach to design, similar to Brutalism style. The idea behind the rejection was similar to one used to create Khrushchyovkas: cheap yet easily mass-produced buildings. Stations of his era, as well as most 1970s stations, were simple in design and style, with walls covered with identical square ceramic tiles. Even decorations at the Metro stations almost finished at the time of the ban (such as VDNKh and Alexeyevskaya) got their final decors simplified: VDNKh's arcs/portals, for example, got plain green paint to contrast with well-detailed decorations and pannos around them.

 

A typical layout of the cheap shallow-dug metro station (which quickly became known as Sorokonozhka – "centipede", from early designs with 40 concrete columns in two rows) was developed for all new stations, and the stations were built to look almost identical, differing from each other only in colours of the marble and ceramic tiles. Most stations were built with simpler, cheap technology; this resulted in utilitarian design being flawed in some ways. Some stations such as adjacent Rechnoi Vokzal and Vodny Stadion or sequiential Leninsky Prospect, Akadmicheskaya, Profsoyuznaya and Novye Cheryomushki would have a similar look due to the extensive use of same-sized white or off-white ceramic tiles with hard-to-feel differences.

 

Walls with cheap ceramic tiles were susceptible to train-related vibration: some tiles would eventually fall off and break. It was not always possible to replace the missing tiles with the ones of the exact color and tone, which eventually led to variegated parts of the walls.

 

Metro stations of late USSR

The contrasting style gap between the powerfully decorated stations of Moscow's center and the spartan-looking stations of the 1960s was eventually filled. In the mid-1970s the architectural extravagance was partially restored. However, the newer design of shallow "centipede" stations (now with 26 columns, more widely spaced) continued to dominate. For example, Kaluzhskaya "centipede" station from 1974 (adjacent to Novye Cheryomushki station) features non-flat tiles (with 3D effect utilized), and Medvedkovo from 1978 features complex decorations.

 

1971 station Kitay-Gorod ("Ploshchad Nogina" at the time) features cross-platform interchange (Line 6 and line 7). Although built without "centipede" design or cheap ceramic tiles, the station utilizes near-grayscale selection of colors. It is to note the "southbound" and "northbound" halls of the station have identical look.

 

Babushkinskaya station from 1978 is a no-column station (similar to Biblioteka Imeni Lenina from 1935). 1983 Chertanovskaya station has resemblance to Kropotkinskaya (from 1935). Some stations, such as the deep-dug Shabolovskaya (1980), have the near-tunnel walls decorated with metal sheets, not tiles. Tyoply Stan features a theme related to the name and the location of the station ("Tyoply Stan" used to literally mean warm area): its walls are covered in brick-colored ribbed panes, which look like radiators).

 

Downtown area got such stations as Borovitskaya (1986), with uncovered red bricks and gray, concrete-like colors accompanying a single gold-plated decorative pane known as "Tree of peoples' of USSR" or additional station hall for Tretyakovskaya to house cross-platform interchange system between line 6 and line 8. To this day, Tretyakovskaya metro station consists of two contrasting halls: brutalism-like 1971 hall and custom design hall reminiscent of Tretyakovskaya Galereya from 1986.

 

Post-USSR stations of the modern Russian Federation

Metro stations of the 1990s and 2000s vary in style, but some of the stations seem to have their own themes:

 

Ulitsa Akademika Yangelya station used to feature thick orange neon lamp-like sodium lights instead of regular white lights.

Park Pobedy, the deepest station of the Moscow Metro, was built in 2003; it features extensive use of dark orange polished granite.

Slavyansky Bulvar station utilizes a plant-inspired theme (similar to "bionic style").

The sleek variant of aforementioned bionic style is somewhat represented in various Line 10 stations.

Sretensky Bulvar station of line 10 is decorated with paintings of nearby memorials and locations.

Strogino station has a theme of huge eye-shaped boundaries for lights; with "eyes" occupying the station's ceiling.

Troparyovo (2014) features trees made of polished metal. The trees hold the station's diamond-shaped lights. The station, however, is noticeably dim-lit.

Delovoy Tsentr (2016, MCC, overground station) has green tint.

Lomonosovsky Prospekt (Line 8A) is decorated with various equations.

Olkhovaya (2019) uses other plant-inspired themes (ольха noun means alder) with autumn/winter inspired colours.

Kosino (2019) uses high-tech style with the addition of thin LED lights.

Some bleak, bland-looking "centipedes" like Akademicheskaya and Yugo-Zapadnaya have undergone renovations in the 21st century (new blue-striped white walls on Akademicheskaya, aqualine glassy, shiny walls on Yugo-Zapadnaya).

 

Moscow Central Circle urban railway (Line 14)

A new circle metro line in Moscow was relatively quickly made in the 2010s. The Moscow Central Circle line (Line 14) was opened for use in September 2016 by re-purposing and upgrading the Maloe ZheleznoDorozhnoe Kol'tso. A proposal to convert that freight line into a metropolitan railway with frequent passenger service was announced in 2012. The original tracks had been built in pre-revolutionary Moscow decades before the creation of Moscow Metro; the tracks remained in place in one piece as a non-electrified line until the 21st century. Yet the circle route was never abandoned or cut. New track (along the existing one) was laid and all-new stations were built between 2014 and 2016. MCC's stations got such amenities as vending machines and free water closets.

 

Line 14 is operated by Russian Railways and uses full-sized trains (an idea, somewhat similar to S-Train). The extra resemblance to an S-Train line is, the 1908 line now connects modern northern residential districts to western and southern downtown area, with a station adjacent to Moscow International Business Center.

 

There is a noticeable relief of congestion, decrease in usage of formerly overcrowded Koltsevaya line since the introduction of MCC. To make line 14 attractive to frequent Koltsevaya line interchanges users, upgrades over regular comfort of Moscow Metro were made. Use of small laptops/portable video playing devices and food consumption from tupperwares and tubs was also improved for Line 14: the trains have small folding tables in the back of nearly every seat, while the seats are facing one direction like in planes or intercity buses - unlike side-against-side sofas typical for Metro.

 

Unlike MCD lines (D1, D2 etc.) MCC line accepts "unified" tickets and "Troika" cards just like Moscow Metro and buses of Moscow do. Free transfers are permitted between the MCC and the Moscow Metro if the trip before the transfer is less than 90 minutes. It's made possible by using same "Ediny", literally "unified" tickets instead of printing "paper tickets" used at railroads.

 

To interchange to line 14 for free, passenger must keep their freshly used ticket after entering Moscow Metro to apply it upon entering any line 14 station (and vice versa, keep their "fresh" ticket to enter underground Metro line after leaving Line 14 for an interchange).

 

MCD (D lines)

In 2019, new lines of Russian Railways got included in the map of Metro as "line D1" and "line D2". Unlike Line 14, the MCD lines actually form S-Train lines, bypassing the "vokzals", terminus stations of respective intercity railways. Line D3 is planned to be launched in August 2023, while D4 will be launched in September of that year. The schedule for the development of the infrastructure of the Central Transport Hub in 2023 was signed by the Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin and the head of Russian Railways Oleg Belozerov in December 2022.

 

As for the fees, MCD accepts Moscow's "Troika" cards. Also, every MCD station has printers which print "station X – station Y" tickets on paper. Users of the D lines must keep their tickets until exiting their destination stations: their exit terminals require a valid "... to station Y" ticket's barcode.

 

Big Circle Line (line 11)

After upgrading the railway from 1908 to a proper Metro line, the development of another circle route was re-launched, now adjusted for the pear-shaped circle route of line #14.

 

Throughout the late 2010s, Line 11 was extended from short, tiny Kakhovskaya line to a half-circle (from Kakhovskaya to Savyolovskaya). In early 2023, the circle was finished.

 

Similarly made Shelepikha, Khoroshovskaya, CSKA and Petrovsky Park stations have lots of polished granite and shiny surfaces, in contrast to Soviet "centipedes". Throughout 2018–2021, these stations were connected to line 8A.

Narodnoye Opolcheniye (2021) features lots of straight edges and linear decorations (such as uninterrupted "three stripes" style of the ceiling lights and rectangular columns).

As for the spring of 2023, the whole circle route line is up and running, forming a circle stretching to the southern near-MKAD residential parts of the city (Prospekt Vernadskogo, Tekstilshchiki) as opposed to the MCC's stretching towards the northern districts of Moscow. In other words, it "mirrors" Line 14 rather than forming a perfect circle around the city centre. While being 70 km long, the line is now the longest subway line in the world, 13 kilometres ahead of the previous record holder - the line 10 of Beijing Subway.

 

Expansions

GIF-animated scheme of Moscow Metro growth (1935-2019)

Since the turn of the 2nd millennium several projects have been completed, and more are underway. The first was the Annino-Butovo extension, which extended the Serpukhovsko-Timiryazevskaya Line from Prazhskaya to Ulitsa Akademika Yangelya in 2000, Annino in 2001 and Bulvar Dmitriya Donskogo in 2002. Its continuation, an elevated Butovskaya Line, was inaugurated in 2003. Vorobyovy Gory station, which initially opened in 1959 and was forced to close in 1983 after the concrete used to build the bridge was found to be defective, was rebuilt and reopened after many years in 2002. Another recent project included building a branch off the Filyovskaya Line to the Moscow International Business Center. This included Vystavochnaya (opened in 2005) and Mezhdunarodnaya (opened in 2006).

 

The Strogino–Mitino extension began with Park Pobedy in 2003. Its first stations (an expanded Kuntsevskaya and Strogino) opened in January 2008, and Slavyansky Bulvar followed in September. Myakinino, Volokolamskaya and Mitino opened in December 2009. Myakinino station was built by a state-private financial partnership, unique in Moscow Metro history. A new terminus, Pyatnitskoye Shosse, was completed in December 2012.

 

After many years of construction, the long-awaited Lyublinskaya Line extension was inaugurated with Trubnaya in August 2007 and Sretensky Bulvar in December of that year. In June 2010, it was extended northwards with the Dostoyevskaya and Maryina Roscha stations. In December 2011, the Lyublinskaya Line was expanded southwards by three stations and connected to the Zamoskvoretskaya Line, with the Alma-Atinskaya station opening on the latter in December 2012. The Kalininskaya Line was extended past the Moscow Ring Road in August 2012 with Novokosino station.

 

In 2011, works began on the Third Interchange Contour that is set to take the pressure off the Koltsevaya Line. Eventually the new line will attain a shape of the second ring with connections to all lines (except Koltsevaya and Butovskaya).

 

In 2013, the Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya Line was extended after several delays to the south-eastern districts of Moscow outside the Ring Road with the opening of Zhulebino and Lermontovsky Prospekt stations. Originally scheduled for 2013, a new segment of the Kalininskaya Line between Park Pobedy and Delovoy Tsentr (separate from the main part) was opened in January 2014, while the underground extension of Butovskaya Line northwards to offer a transfer to the Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya Line was completed in February. Spartak, a station on the Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya Line that remained unfinished for forty years, was finally opened in August 2014. The first stage of the southern extension of the Sokolnicheskaya Line, the Troparyovo station, opened in December 2014.

 

Current plans

In addition to major metro expansion the Moscow Government and Russian Railways plans to upgrade more commuter railways to a metro-style service, similar to the MCC. New tracks and stations are planned to be built in order to achieve this.

 

Stations

The deep stations comprise 55 triple-vaulted pylon stations, 19 triple-vaulted column stations, and one single-vault station. The shallow stations comprise 79 spanned column stations (a large portion of them following the "centipede" design), 33 single-vaulted stations (Kharkov technology), and four single-spanned stations. In addition, there are 12 ground-level stations, four elevated stations, and one station (Vorobyovy Gory) on a bridge. Two stations have three tracks, and one has double halls. Seven of the stations have side platforms (only one of which is subterranean). In addition, there were two temporary stations within rail yards.

 

The stations being constructed under Stalin's regime, in the style of socialist classicism, were meant as underground "palaces of the people". Stations such as Komsomolskaya, Kiyevskaya or Mayakovskaya and others built after 1935 in the second phase of the evolution of the network are tourist landmarks: their photogenic architecture, large chandeliers and detailed decoration are unusual for an urban transport system of the twentieth century.

 

The stations opened in the 21st century are influenced by an international and more neutral style with improved technical quality.

 

Rolling stock

Since the beginning, platforms have been at least 155 metres (509 ft) long to accommodate eight-car trains. The only exceptions are on the Filyovskaya Line: Vystavochnaya, Mezhdunarodnaya, Studencheskaya, Kutuzovskaya, Fili, Bagrationovskaya, Filyovsky Park and Pionerskaya, which only allows six-car trains (note that this list includes all ground-level stations on the line, except Kuntsevskaya, which allows normal length trains).

 

Trains on the Zamoskvoretskaya, Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya, Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya, Kalininskaya, Solntsevskaya, Bolshaya Koltsevaya, Serpukhovsko-Timiryazevskaya, Lyublinsko-Dmitrovskaya and Nekrasovskaya lines have eight cars, on the Sokolnicheskaya line seven or eight cars, on the original Koltsevaya line seven cars, and on the Filyovskaya line six cars. The Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya line also once ran seven-car 81-717 size trains, but now use five-car trains of another type. Butovskaya line uses three-car trains of another type.

 

Dimensions have varied subtly, but for the most cars fit into the ranges of 19–20 metres (62 ft 4 in – 65 ft 7 in) long and 2.65–2.7 metres (8 ft 8+3⁄8 in – 8 ft 10+1⁄4 in) wide with 4 doors per side. The 81-740/741 Rusich deviates greatly from this, with a 3-car Rusich being roughly 4 normal cars and a 5-car Rusich being 7 normal cars.

 

Trains in operation

Currently, the Metro only operates 81-style trains.

 

Rolling stock on several lines was replaced with articulated 81-740/741 Rusich trains, which were originally designed for light rail subway lines. The Butovskaya Line was designed by different standards, and has shorter (96-metre (315 ft) long) platforms. It employs articulated 81-740/741 trains, which consist of three cars (although the line can also use traditional four-car trains).

 

On the Moscow Monorail, Intamin P30 trains are used, consisting of six short cars. On the Moscow Central Circle, which is a route on the conventional railway line, ES2G Lastochka trains are used, consisting of five cars.

 

Ticketing

Moscow Metro underground has neither "point A – point B" tariffs nor "zone" tariffs. Instead, it has a fee for a "ride", e.g. for a single-time entry without time or range limit. The exceptions "only confirm the rule": the "diameters" (Dx lines) and the Moscow Central Circle (Line 14) are Russian Railways' lines hence the shared yet not unified tariff system.

 

As for October 2021, one ride costs 60 rubles (approx. 1 US dollar). Discounts (up to 33%) for individual rides are available upon buying rides "in bulk" (buying multiple-trip tickets (such as twenty-trip or sixty-trip ones)), and children under age seven can travel free (with their parents). Troika "wallet" (a card, similar to Japanese Suica card) also offers some discounts for using the card instead of queueing a line for a ticket. "Rides" on the tickets available for a fixed number of trips, regardless of distance traveled or number of transfers.

 

An exception in case of MCC e.g. Line 14: for a free interchange, one should interchange to it/from it within 90 minutes after entering the Metro. However, one can ride it for hours and use its amenities without leaving it.

There are tickets without "rides" as well: – a 24-hour "unified" ticket (265 rub in 2022), a 72-hour ticket, a month-long ticket, and a year-long ticket.

 

Fare enforcement takes place at the points of entry. Once a passenger has entered the Metro system, there are no further ticket checks – one can ride to any number of stations and make transfers within the system freely. Transfers to other public-transport systems (such as bus, tram, trolleybus/"electrobus") are not covered by the very ride used to enter Metro. Transfer to monorail and MCC is a free addition to the ride (available up to 90 minutes after entering a metro station).

 

In modern Metro, turnstiles accept designated plastic cards ("Troika", "social cards") or disposable-in-design RFID chip cardboard cards. Unlimited cards are also available for students at reduced price (as of 2017, 415 rubles—or about $US6—for a calendar month of unlimited usage) for a one-time cost of 70 rubles. Transport Cards impose a delay for each consecutive use; i.e. the card can not be used for 7 minutes after the user has passed a turnstile.

 

History of smart ticketing

Soviet era turnstiles simply accepted N kopeck coins.

 

In the early years of Russian Federation (and with the start of a hyperinflation) plastic tokens were used. Disposable magnetic stripe cards were introduced in 1993 on a trial basis, and used as unlimited monthly tickets between 1996 and 1998. The sale of tokens ended on 1 January 1999, and they stopped being accepted in February 1999; from that time, magnetic cards were used as tickets with a fixed number of rides.

 

On 1 September 1998, the Moscow Metro became the first metro system in Europe to fully implement "contactless" smart cards, known as Transport Cards. Transport Cards were the card to have unlimited amount of trips for 30, 90 or 365 days, its active lifetime was projected as 3½ years. Defective cards were to be exchanged at no extra cost.

 

In August 2004, the city government launched the Muscovite's Social Card program. Social Cards are free smart cards issued for the elderly and other groups of citizens officially registered as residents of Moscow or the Moscow region; they offer discounts in shops and pharmacies, and double as credit cards issued by the Bank of Moscow. Social Cards can be used for unlimited free access to the city's public-transport system, including the Moscow Metro; while they do not feature the time delay, they include a photograph and are non-transferable.

Since 2006, several banks have issued credit cards which double as Ultralight cards and are accepted at turnstiles. The fare is passed to the bank and the payment is withdrawn from the owner's bank account at the end of the calendar month, using a discount rate based on the number of trips that month (for up to 70 trips, the cost of each trip is prorated from current Ultralight rates; each additional trip costs 24.14 rubles). Partner banks include the Bank of Moscow, CitiBank, Rosbank, Alfa-Bank and Avangard Bank.

In January 2007, Moscow Metro began replacing limited magnetic cards with contactless disposable tickets based on NXP's MIFARE Ultralight technology. Ultralight tickets are available for a fixed number of trips in 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 60-trip denominations (valid for 5 or 90 days from the day of purchase) and as a monthly ticket, only valid for a selected calendar month and limited to 70 trips. The sale of magnetic cards ended on 16 January 2008 and magnetic cards ceased to be accepted in late 2008, making the Moscow metro the world's first major public-transport system to run exclusively on a contactless automatic fare-collection system.

 

On 2 April 2013, Moscow Transport Department introduced a smartcard-based transport electronic wallet, named Troika. Three more smart cards have been launched:

 

Ediniy's RFID-chip card, a "disposable"-design cardboard card for all city-owned public transport operated by Mosgortrans and Moscow Metro;

90 minutes card, an unlimited "90-minute" card

and TAT card for surface public transport operated by Mosgortrans.

One can "record" N-ride Ediniy ticket on Troika card as well in order to avoid carrying the easily frayed cardboard card of Ediniy for weeks (e.g. to use Troika's advanced chip). The turnstiles of Moscow Metro have monochrome screens which show such data as "money left" (if Troika is used as a "wallet"), "valid till DD.MM.YYYY" (if a social card is used) or "rides left" (if Ediniy tariff ticket is used).

 

Along with the tickets, new vending machines were built to sell tickets (1 or 2 rides) and put payments on Troika cards. At that time, the machines were not accepting contactless pay. The same machines now have tiny terminals with keypads for contactless payments (allowing quick payment for Troika card).

 

In 2013, as a way to promote both the "Olympic Games in Sochi and active lifestyles, Moscow Metro installed a vending machine that gives commuters a free ticket in exchange for doing 30 squats."

 

Since the first quarter of 2015, all ticket windows (not turnstiles) at stations accept bank cards for fare payment. Passengers are also able to pay for tickets via contactless payment systems, such as PayPass technology. Since 2015, fare gates at stations accept mobile ticketing via a system which the Metro calls Mobilny Bilet (Мобильный билет) which requires NFC-handling smartphone (and a proper SIM-card). The pricing is the same as Troika's. Customers are able to use Mobile Ticket on Moscow's surface transport. The Moscow Metro originally announced plans to launch the mobile ticketing service with Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) in 2010.

 

In October 2021, the Moscow Metro became the first metro system in the world to offer Face-Pay to their customers. In order to use this system, passengers will need to connect their photo, bank card and metro card to the service through the metro’s mobile app. For this purpose, the metro authorities plan to equip over 900 turnstiles in over 240 stations with biometric scanners. This enables passengers to pay for their ride without taking out their phone, metro or bank card and therefore increasing passenger flow at the station entrances. In 2022, Face-Pay was used over 32 million times over the course of the year.

 

Notable incidents

1977 bombing

On 8 January 1977, a bomb was reported to have killed 7 and seriously injured 33. It went off in a crowded train between Izmaylovskaya and Pervomayskaya stations. Three Armenians were later arrested, charged and executed in connection with the incident.

 

1981 station fires

In June 1981, seven bodies were seen being removed from the Oktyabrskaya station during a fire there. A fire was also reported at Prospekt Mira station about that time.

 

1982 escalator accident

Escalator accident in 1982

A fatal accident occurred on 17 February 1982 due to an escalator collapse at the Aviamotornaya station on the Kalininskaya Line. Eight people were killed and 30 injured due to a pileup caused by faulty emergency brakes.

 

1996 murder

In 1996, an American-Russian businessman Paul Tatum was murdered at the Kiyevskaya Metro station. He was shot dead by a man carrying a concealed Kalashnikov gun.

 

2000 bombings

On 8 August 2000, a strong blast in a Metro underpass at Pushkinskaya metro station in the center of Moscow claimed the lives of 12, with 150 injured. A homemade bomb equivalent to 800 grams of TNT had been left in a bag near a kiosk.

 

2004 bombings

August 2004 Moscow Metro bombing

On 6 February 2004, an explosion wrecked a train between the Avtozavodskaya and Paveletskaya stations on the Zamoskvoretskaya Line, killing 41 and wounding over 100. Chechen terrorists were blamed. A later investigation concluded that a Karachay-Cherkessian resident had carried out a suicide bombing. The same group organized another attack on 31 August 2004, killing 10 and injuring more than 50 others.

 

2005 Moscow blackout

On 25 May 2005, a citywide blackout halted operation on some lines. The following lines, however, continued operations: Sokolnicheskaya, Zamoskvoretskaya from Avtozavodskaya to Rechnoy Vokzal, Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya, Filyovskaya, Koltsevaya, Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya from Bitsevskiy Park to Oktyabrskaya-Radialnaya and from Prospekt Mira-Radialnaya to Medvedkovo, Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya, Kalininskaya, Serpukhovsko-Timiryazevskaya from Serpukhovskaya to Altufyevo and Lyublinskaya from Chkalovskaya to Dubrovka. There was no service on the Kakhovskaya and Butovskaya lines. The blackout severely affected the Zamoskvoretskaya and Serpukhovsko-Timiryazevskaya lines, where initially all service was disrupted because of trains halted in tunnels in the southern part of city (most affected by the blackout). Later, limited service resumed and passengers stranded in tunnels were evacuated. Some lines were only slightly impacted by the blackout, which mainly affected southern Moscow; the north, east and western parts of the city experienced little or no disruption.

 

2006 billboard incident

On 19 March 2006, a construction pile from an unauthorized billboard installation was driven through a tunnel roof, hitting a train between the Sokol and Voikovskaya stations on the Zamoskvoretskaya Line. No injuries were reported.

 

2010 bombing

On 29 March 2010, two bombs exploded on the Sokolnicheskaya Line, killing 40 and injuring 102 others. The first bomb went off at the Lubyanka station on the Sokolnicheskaya Line at 7:56, during the morning rush hour. At least 26 were killed in the first explosion, of which 14 were in the rail car where it took place. A second explosion occurred at the Park Kultury station at 8:38, roughly forty minutes after the first one. Fourteen people were killed in that blast. The Caucasus Emirate later claimed responsibility for the bombings.

 

2014 pile incident

On 25 January 2014, at 15:37 a construction pile from a Moscow Central Circle construction site was driven through a tunnel roof between Avtozavodskaya and Kolomenskaya stations on the Zamoskvoretskaya Line. The train operator applied emergency brakes, and the train did not crash into the pile. Passengers were evacuated from the tunnel, with no injures reported. The normal line operation resumed the same day at 19:50.

 

2014 derailment

On 15 July 2014, a train derailed between Park Pobedy and Slavyansky Bulvar on the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line, killing 24 people and injuring dozens more.

 

Metro-2

Main article: Metro-2

Conspiracy theorists have claimed that a second and deeper metro system code-named "D-6", designed for emergency evacuation of key city personnel in case of nuclear attack during the Cold War, exists under military jurisdiction. It is believed that it consists of a single track connecting the Kremlin, chief HQ (General Staff –Genshtab), Lubyanka (FSB Headquarters), the Ministry of Defense and several other secret installations. There are alleged to be entrances to the system from several civilian buildings, such as the Russian State Library, Moscow State University (MSU) and at least two stations of the regular Metro. It is speculated that these would allow for the evacuation of a small number of randomly chosen civilians, in addition to most of the elite military personnel. A suspected junction between the secret system and the regular Metro is supposedly behind the Sportivnaya station on the Sokolnicheskaya Line. The final section of this system was supposedly completed in 1997.

 

In popular culture

The Moscow Metro is the central location and namesake for the Metro series, where during a nuclear war, Moscow's inhabitants are driven down into the Moscow Metro, which has been designed as a fallout shelter, with the various stations being turned into makeshift settlements.

 

In 2012, an art film was released about a catastrophe in the Moscow underground.

The second stop on the way home from my college visit was in Richmond!

 

The Richmond Kmart appears to be a former Grants (and thus reminded me of the Erie Kmart that I visited last summer). It is very noticeably bigger than Anderson; it is also very nice; it has a Kmart Express gas station and it has a former Kmart Cafe (that still has the counter/displays, the full menu board and even the register! Looks like a more recent KCafe closure from what I've seen; if anybody else here has any more information I would like to know more about it!). This store appears to be doing fairly well for one of the last remaining stores in/near the Miami Valley.

 

Of course, I had to check out the Kmart Express after my main store rounds were complete, so I headed over there and looked around. This is the second Kmart Express I've seen, but the first one I have actually visited, as the other one (at the now nonexistent Brooklyn Super Kmart) had already closed. I didn't buy anything at this KExpress though, as I had spent my money in the main store. Hopefully next time I can buy some coffee or donuts from Kmart Express while going to/from Anderson (if I plan another college visit to Anderson U, which is likely)!

 

Hopefully the Richmond Kmart will still be able to remain "normal" for a good time longer...I like this store! :D

 

Kmart #7246 - 3150 National Road West - Richmond, Indiana