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Daily Mirror
27-05-2025
- General
- Daily Mirror
Creepy ghost town suddenly abandoned now overrun with polar bears
Pyramiden, a town in the Arctic Circle that has stood empty of humans since 1998, is a living museum to Soviet life. Visit today and you will find cups left on the table, skiing equipment abandoned in the hallway and newspaper cuttings on the wall An eerie ghost town has been left exactly as it was when crews abandoned it 27 years ago. The Mary Celeste ship has been etched into the memories of school children for decades. The American merchant brigantine was discovered adrift and deserted in the Atlantic Ocean off the Azores on December 4, 1872, with food still on plates as if the crew was about to sit down to dinner. The mystery surrounding the abandoned ship has captivated people for over 150 years, leading to numerous theories about the fate of its crew. Far less well known is the story of Pyramiden, a town in the Arctic Circle that has stood empty of humans since 1998. Visit today and you will find cups left on the table, skiing equipment abandoned in the hallway and newspaper cuttings on the wall. "Walking Pyramiden today gives you a glimpes into the Soviet -style nostalgia, outdoor as well as indoor. Best of all, its not an artificial scenery aimed for some kind of movie-production. This is real. The smell of papirosa, likely the strongest cigarette ever made, stains on the indoor walls. Hammer and Sickle ornaments and the Soviet star are used as decoration around the town," the Barent Observer writes of Pyramiden. "In a remote room inside the Palace of Culture are a few empty bottles of the cheap domestic Rossiya- and Priviet vodka. A book with the transcripts from the 27th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union lays on a desk. That was the first congress presided over by Mikhail Gorbachev as General Secretary of the Central Committee." There are few signs of life beyond the occasional hardy seabird, an Arctic fox or a polar bear looking for its next meal. Unlike the Mary Celeste, there is no mystery around why the occupants of Pyramiden left in such a hurry. The Russian state-owned mining company Trust Arktikugol closed down Pyramiden's mining operations in April 1998, following 53 years of continuous activity. The end of the settlement neared as coal prices dwindled, difficulties with coal extraction from the mountain became more apparent, and 141 people tragically lost their lives in 1996 at Operafjellet. Miners and their families perished in the plane crash that had been ferrying them from Pyramiden to Barentsburg. Such was the scale of the tragedy and the impact it had on the town of 1,000 that its continued operation proved impossible. The town was first founded by Sweden in 1910 but was sold to the USSR 17 years later. From 1955 to 1998, up to nine million tonnes of coal were thought to have been pumped out of Pyramiden. Svalbard belongs to Norway under the Svalbard treaty, which allows citizens from all its member countries to become residents. The treaty reads: 'All citizens and all companies of every nation under the treaty are allowed to become residents and to have access to Svalbard including the right to fish, hunt or undertake any kind of maritime, industrial, mining or trade activity." In its pomp, it boasted a theatre, studios for creative arts, and a library. The schools, 24-hour canteen, and sports complex are all gone. All that remains is a statue of former Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, the northernmost monument to him in the world. Today, the main thing occupying the ghost town now are the terrifying polar bears. However, six people operate as rifle-carrying warders in the summer. Despite the nearest settlement being some 31 miles away, dark tourism has been gently ticking along since 2013, but you can only access Pyramiden by boat or snowmobile for nine months of the year. One visitor to the town in 2018 wrote in Haaretz: "There are thousands of angry polar bears all around us.'
The Sun
14-05-2025
- Business
- The Sun
PM Anwar invites Russian airlines, including Aeroflot, to resume direct flights to Malaysia
KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has invited Russian airlines, including Aeroflot, to resume direct flights to Malaysia as soon as possible. 'We have taken a position of centrality in Malaysia, as well as ASEAN, to decide for ourselves what is best for Malaysia and its people,' he said during a joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Russia, today. Aeroflot is the largest Russian airline group, which includes the Rossiya and Pobeda airlines. The Aeroflot Group is the undisputed leader of Russian commercial aviation. In 2024, Aeroflot carried 30.1 million passengers; 55.3 million if other Aeroflot Group airlines are included. Aeroflot is constantly expanding its domestic route network, including flights between the country's regions, developing socially oriented transportation programmes and implementing its flat fares on flights to cities in the country's Far East and Kaliningrad.
The Sun
14-05-2025
- Business
- The Sun
PM Anwar invites Aeroflot, others to resume direct Malaysia flights
KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has invited Russian airlines, including Aeroflot, to resume direct flights to Malaysia as soon as possible. 'We have taken a position of centrality in Malaysia, as well as ASEAN, to decide for ourselves what is best for Malaysia and its people,' he said during a joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Russia, today. Aeroflot is the largest Russian airline group, which includes the Rossiya and Pobeda airlines. The Aeroflot Group is the undisputed leader of Russian commercial aviation. In 2024, Aeroflot carried 30.1 million passengers; 55.3 million if other Aeroflot Group airlines are included. Aeroflot is constantly expanding its domestic route network, including flights between the country's regions, developing socially oriented transportation programmes and implementing its flat fares on flights to cities in the country's Far East and Kaliningrad. ALSO READ: Malaysia-Russia committed to strengthen bilateral relationship, explore new cooperation
Barnama
14-05-2025
- Business
- Barnama
PM Anwar Invites Russian Airlines, Including Aeroflot, To Resume Direct Flights To Malaysia
KUALA LUMPUR, May 14 (Bernama) --- Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has invited Russian airlines, including Aeroflot, to resume direct flights to Malaysia as soon as possible. 'We have taken a position of centrality in Malaysia, as well as ASEAN, to decide for ourselves what is best for Malaysia and its people,' he said during a joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Russia, today. Aeroflot is the largest Russian airline group, which includes the Rossiya and Pobeda airlines.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
I watched the Kremlin's new Putin documentary (so you don't have to) − here's what it says about how the Russian leader views himself
As the chances of President Donald Trump's peace deal in Ukraine seemingly recede, attention turns back to the question of Vladimir Putin and his war aims. What does the Russian president want to achieve from the conflict? And when – and under what conditions – will he be willing to make peace? Thousands of lives and billions of dollars hinge on the answers to these questions. Important insights into Putin's worldview on this and other matters can be gleaned from a new 90-minute documentary, 'Russia. Kremlin. Putin. 25 Years,' released by the state broadcaster Rossiya on May 4, 2025, and available on YouTube. The documentary looks back on Putin's quarter century in power. I see the film as the Kremlin's attempt to make its case to the Russian public. The film explains how Putin sees his place in history and why he is waging the war on Ukraine. Its release coincides with the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, which Russia marks on May 9, as opposed to May 8 in the rest of Europe. As would be expected from a Kremlin-sponsored look at Russia's leader, it is more hagiography than hard-hitting journalism. But as a scholar who has tracked Russia's post-Soviet slide into authoritarianism, it is nonetheless revealing. It shows us the image that Putin wants to project to the Russian public, one that has been fairly consistent during his time in office. The film starts with the loyal and somewhat obsequious journalist Pavel Zarubin interviewing Putin at the end of his long working day in the Kremlin, at 1:30 a.m. The chat with Zarubin is interspersed with archival footage of key events and earlier speeches by Putin. Putin shows Zarubin around his apartment, which includes a chapel, a gym – Putin says he works out for 90 minutes every day – and a kitchen, in which Putin awkwardly prepares snacks for their chat. The rooms are immaculate but lifeless, albeit with a surfeit of gold leaf. The new documentary is carefully curated with clips showing Putin as a humble man of the people. 'I don't consider myself a politician, I breathe the same air as millions of citizens of Russia,' he says at one point. We do not see anything of his chain of lavish palaces, yachts and other assets. While Putin's predominant image in the outside world is that of a ruthless strongman, for domestic audiences the Kremlin has tried to soften this image. Here, the documentary is treading familiar ground. On the eve of Putin's election in May 2000, the Kremlin published an autobiography and released a documentary packed with heartwarming anecdotes about Putin's childhood and daily life. The image being put forward contrasted to the realities of his early presidency, when Russia was waging a brutal war in Chechnya. A common thread running through the film is Putin's commitment to restoring the sovereignty and independence of Russia, which he sees as under threat by the Western powers. Prominently displayed behind Putin in the apartment is a portrait of Czar Alexander III, apparently a role model for Putin. Alexander III is not well known in the West. An avowed nationalist, during his short rule from 1881 to 1894 he pursued economic modernization and avoided starting any foreign wars. The film is laden with anti-West propaganda. It argues that Western powers were behind the movement for independence in Chechnya, which threatened to break apart the Russian Federation. Putin goes on to blame the West for the current 'special military operation' in Ukraine. In the Russian president's telling, it was the West's failure to implement the Minsk accords of 2014-2015, which were supposed to bring peace to the restive Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. He suggests that the West used the Minsk accords as 'a pause in order to prepare for a war with Russia.' Zarubin asks Putin, 'Why does the West hate us, do they envy us?' It's a question that launches Putin into a potted summary of 1,000 years of Russian history. A similar thing happened during Putin's notorious 2024 interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Putin argues that since the rift between the Roman Catholic Church and Byzantium in 1054, the West has prioritized material wealth, while in Russia spiritual values come first. The film has several prominent references to the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in Russian identity. Early in Putin's presidency he had been open to cooperation with the West, taking tea with Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace and developing close relationships with Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder. But since the 2012 demonstrations protesting his return to the presidency, Putin has increasingly used the argument that the West has abandoned 'traditional values' by promoting issues such as gay rights. This is the first major official biographical documentary of Putin since the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and it may be the closest we will get to an explanation of why Putin launched this war. There is a long feel-good segment about the 'unification' of Crimea with Russia in 2014, which is presented as the most important achievement of Putin's time in office. The film shows images of destruction and suffering during the current war in Ukraine, without pointing out that it was Russia that started the war. It shows the devastated city of Mariupol and states incorrectly that the city was 'destroyed' by Ukrainians. The documentary portrays the war in Ukraine as a direct continuation of World War II and a struggle against the 'neo-Nazi' regime in Kyiv allegedly created by the West as part of its goal to inflict a 'strategic defeat' on Russia. The film shows Putin visiting wounded soldiers and meeting the widows and mother of fallen warriors. Putin thanks the women for their sacrifice – and they thank him for the opportunity to serve the motherland. This illustrates one of the central themes of the Kremlin worldview: that Russia is strong because its people are ready to sacrifice themselves. Zarubin asks, 'Is it possible to make peace with the Ukrainian part of the Russian people?' It's phrasing that denies the existence of Ukraine as a sovereign nation. Putin replies, 'It is inevitable despite the tragedy we are experiencing.' He expresses regret that there are only 150 million Russians – as a great power, Russia needs more people. He also suggests he may need more territory, something that will be alarming for Russia's neighbors. In one clip, Putin asks a boy, 'Where do the borders of Russia end?' The boy answers, 'The Bering Strait with USA.' And Putin responds, 'The borders of Russia never end.' This framing also suggests that Putin is not interested in a peace deal with Ukraine in which Russia would see only limited territorial gains, which puts the breakdown of talks over a potential U.S.-sponsored deal in context. Asked about the recent falling out between Trump and Europe sparked in part by Washington's more pro-Russian stance, Putin answers, 'Nothing has changed since Biden's time,' adding that the 'collective West' is still bent on destroying Russia. Toward the end of the documentary, Zarubin asks whether Putin is thinking about choosing a successor. The Russian president says he constantly thinks about succession and would prefer a choice between several candidates. But the program does not provide any clues as to who that successor could be – and none of the potential successors are given any exposure. The Russian people have been told for years that it is impossible to imagine Russia without Putin. This film lies firmly in that tradition. The main intended message is clear: Putin is willing and able to fight on until he achieves victory on his own terms. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Peter Rutland, Wesleyan University Read more: How Putin has shrugged off unprecedented economic sanctions over Russia's war in Ukraine – for now Imagining Russia post-Putin To split Moscow from Beijing, Trump is reviving Nixon's 'madman diplomacy'. It could backfire badly Peter Rutland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
