but that doesn't stop that from blaming Obama for this situation!

A key piece of real esate for centuries.

I guess you could say our own Monroe Doctrine kinda established our ideas about hegemony...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_River

You might claim that it's still important for the Volga catchment area, I suppose (since that doesn't have an outlet to the direct ocean, but does have a canal linking it to the Don), but it would be pushing it.

You are, of course, right that the Volga drains into the Caspian. I should have been more precise in saying that it conrols the utility of the Volga, which (from the Russian perspective) relies on the fact that there it ties into a non land-locked route—that you can take a boat from central Russia to the Atlantic ocean, if you don't mind a long trip.

But yes, you transfer to the Don for the last leg.

And the transfer point where the rivers come together is around Volgograd/Stalingrad, which really made it the last line of defense. Once Germany pushed past that point Russia would really have been cut off.

Not good in winter, of course, but I don't know what length of the Volga remains navigable in winter anyway.

It's no surprise it appears in history books again and again.

Huge price to pay, if that were to happen. Including a serious, if not fatal blow to his own consolidation of power at home.

this is one of those issues, the warm water port, that his people are considering, I am sure.

Foreign affairs are as strongly entangled as could be, but we have them. I trust the man I voted for President to have the right people by his side advising him...

I just, for some reason, any time I see that place, I think Cimmeria.

It is bad. I try not to, but, it just happens.

So, don't feel bad, I feel like an idiot thinking this way.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2920984/

Florence Nightingale is one of the first names that comes to mind. It was reading about her that I first learned about Crimea.

Because I Googled it a couple days ago.

The Charge of the Light Brigade




Half a league, half a league,
? Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death,
? Rode the six hundred.
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns' he said:
Into the valley of Death
? Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldiers knew
? Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
? Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
? Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
? Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turned in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army while
? All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre-stroke
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
? Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
? Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
? All the world wonder'd.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
? Noble six hundred

The tune "Siege of Sevastapol" commemorated the Crimean War.
It morphed into the proto-blues instrumental "Vestapol."
A Reverend Wilkins altered the tune and added word. He called it "That's No Way To Get Along. "
The Rolling Stones recorded that song as "Prodigal Son."