View of Ulyanovsk from my 20th floor hotel room
On a Sunday evening in Ulyanovsk, after the Give Birth to a Patriot ceremony, I found myself in a movie theater watching Wanted, the new Russian-directed Angelina Jolie flick, with a 19-year-old prostitute named Katya. At least she said she was a prostitute. I met her while doing man-on-the-street interviews during the ceremony, and we ended up getting sloshed at an Aztec-themed nightclub a couple miles from Lenin’s birthplace. (more…)
Gov. Sergei Morozov baptizes a UAZ-Patriot, the grand prize for one lucky newborn’s family.
ULYANOVSK, Russia—On a humid Sunday afternoon in late June, about 100 couples clutching newborn babies filed into the Lenin Memorial overlooking the wide banks of the Volga River. This mammoth concrete slab of Soviet constructivism was erected in Lenin’s hometown to commemorate the leader’s 100th birthday and now houses one of the city’s many Lenin museums, but the families had not come for a lesson in Soviet history; they were there to pick up their prizes. (more…)
