Hovhannes Ayvazyan (Pogonyalovo Ivan Aivazovsky) arrived in the United States in 1892 to participate in the Russian section of the jubilee (400 years since the discovery of America) Columbian Exhibition
- in Chicago
- along with paintings by F. Vasiliev, K. Korovin, K. Makovsky. V. Perov, I. Repin, G. Semiradsky, P. Trubetskoy, I. Shishkin and others,
- total 133 paintings
- He arrived at the height of the US famine relief campaign of 1891-1892. Russia;
- even before his departure, he witnessed an enthusiastic meeting arranged in Russia for ships with food,
- sent by American philanthropists
- so-called "Hunger Fleet" - Famine Fleet
In 1892, Aivazovsky captured this event in 2 paintings:
- "Ship of Aid" (according to other sources, the original name of this painting is "The arrival of the Missouri steamer with bread to Russia") and
- Distribution of food.
I.K. Aivazovsky, "Ship of Aid", 1892 
I.K. Aivazovsky, "Distribution of food", 1892
Particularly interesting is the 2nd picture
- made in the still not verbally formulated style of socialist realism
- What makes Ayvazyan the forerunner of this and
- explains his order-bearing: all power loves positive art
- Debriefing:
--- on a sleigh flying along a dusty street, harnessed by a Russian troika,
--- laden, obviously, pendostan tops,
--- famously stands dressed in summer "garachy ryuski man" (while the coachman is dressed in winter)
--- not at all afraid of a fast ride and proudly raising the Pendostan flag over his head;
--- some starving Russian peasants are waving shawls, hats, and some even turbans;
--- others, having fallen into the roadside dust, pray to the Russian God and give praise to Pendostan for help;
--- the troika briskly carried past the government hut, richly decorated with Russian tricolors, and
--- a church richly decorated with a gilded dome, as if hinting that "they found money for this"
--- exactly where this trio is going past the starving peasants, it is not clear,
--- probably straight into the future - into izm, as the famous Russian khokhlo-peisatil Gogol presciently believed;
--- i.e. to other objects of traditional pendostan help:
--- famines in the Volga region, on / uv Khokhland, lend-lease, etc. Bush's legs.
During his visit to the United States, the great Armenian artist presented these paintings as a gift to the Armenian Corcoran Gallery in Washington DC.
- Subsequently, before they ended up in a private collection in Pennsylvania in 1979
--- the canvases were repeatedly exhibited in the USA to raise the nat. self-pride
--- from 1961 to 1964 they were on display at the White House ("coincidence? I don't think so")
--- The initiator of this exhibition was the wife of John F. Kennedy - Jacqueline.
--- She ordered the paintings to be hung in the room where the American president used to hold press conferences.
--- Obviously, the first lady of the United States intended thereby to emphasize the deep sympathy of Americans for the Russian people,
--- to which they always came to the rescue and, by the way,
--- were also always perceived separately from the Pendostan government.
So, in the second half of the twentieth century, Ayvazyan's painting contributed to maintaining the "romantic" image of Russia in the West.
- forever hungry, enthusiastically homemade, kneeling in the dust,
- which was raised by a swift troika loaded with imported tops under the Pendostan flag
Hovhannes Ayvazyan, Order bearer Aivazovsky, 1892
The Armenian artist himself in 1893, in an interview
- The New York Evening Post
- tried to soften the negative image of official Russia,
- as a country of violence and arbitrariness, emphasizing
- what Americans distort the meaning of the discriminatory policy towards Russian Jews:
--- "They," Ayvazyan educated US citizens, "is not a discriminated ethnic group,
--- but as heavy a burden for Russia as Chinese immigrants are for America"
- (Why did Ayvazyan fixate on the Chinese while ignoring the Indians, Negroes, Meks and Irish in Pendostan?
- Or, for example, Armenians in Turkey? Quite a dissertation topic for wise men on both sides of the sea-akiyana! - X.H.)
- The magazine "Free Russia" (yes, Russophobia did not start with the Bolsheviks) made critical comments on this interview
- "Certainly, art is not the best field for the fight against tyranny, and
- we cannot expect from the overwhelming majority of artists even such a mild protest against imperialism,
- which is present in the canvases of Vereshchagin.
- But even more regrettable is the fact that artists like Aivazovsky,
instead of painting
- consider it necessary to defend the tsar and "historical friendship" ...
- Professor Aivazovsky is deeply mistaken if he intends to find among sane Americans those who
- who are in favor of introducing a law against Chinese immigration,
- guided by the idea of its similarity with the legislation in force in the Russian Empire".
__________________________________________________
I.K. Aivazovsky. “The arrival of the Missouri steamer with bread to Russia”, 1892
In connection with the severe crop failure of 1891, which engulfed the south of Russia and the Volga region, famine began in the vast territory of the country, aggravated by the continued export of Russian wheat abroad. The Russian government, however, denied there was a famine, saying the West was exaggerating the severity of the situation. Officially, American humanitarian aid to Russia was offered by the US diplomatic mission in St. Petersburg in mid-November and accepted by the Russian government on December 4, 1891. Grand Duke Nikolai, the future emperor of Russia, was appointed head of the special committee to help the famine-stricken; coordinators of American assistance from the Russian side - Minister of the Court I.I. Vorontsov-Dashkov and A.A. Bobrinsky.
The campaign to help the famine-stricken Russia was waged in the United States under the slogan of the need to repay Russia for its support during the American Civil War. In the United States, the United States Committee for Assistance to the Russian Starving was created ( Russian Famine Relief Committee of the United States), which received the moral support of the official American authorities, although assistance was carried out primarily at the expense of funds raised by American citizens and private organizations.
Outfitted by the public of Philadelphia, the Indiana transport ship ( Indiana) with a cargo of food with a total weight of 1900 tons arrived in the Baltic port of Libava (Liepaja) on March 16, 1892. The second Missouri ship equipped with residents of the states of Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska ( Missouri) delivered a cargo of wheat and corn flour with a total weight of 2,500 tons to Libau on April 4, 1892. In May, a ship equipped with Philadelphians arrived at the port of Riga with humanitarian cargo, and in June - a ship equipped with the American Red Cross in Washington, in July - another from New York.
A charity concert of opera singers and the New York Symphony Orchestra, organized on March 12 in New York, added $7,000 to the $40,000 previously collected in favor of the famine-stricken in Russia. By mid-April 1892, the American mission in St. Petersburg received 77,000 dollars from various US cities to help the starving people in Russia. The total cost rendered to Russia in 1891-92. private and public humanitarian aid (including transportation costs) was estimated at $1 million. According to information from American sources, the US government (Department of the Interior) provided financial assistance to individual Russian provinces in the form of loans totaling $75 million.
The future emperor of Russia, Nicholas II, said: "We are all deeply touched by the fact that ships full of food are coming to us from America." The resolution prepared by prominent representatives of the Russian public, in particular, read: "By sending bread to the Russian people in a time of deprivation and need, the United States of America is showing the most moving example of fraternal feelings."
I.K. Aivazovsky, Distribution of food. 1892
P.S. "Ivans, who do not remember kinship, are usually called people who are unprincipled, ungrateful, easily forgetting the good done to them."
From the dictionary of winged words and expressions
One of two paintings by Ivan Aivazovsky dedicated to helping Americans starving Russian peasants. The star-striped flag and the worship of hungry peasants are clearly visible on the canvas.
Aivazovsky's painting "Distribution of food", written by the artist in 1892, is one of those that were not welcomed for display in modern Russia. On a Russian troika loaded with American food stands a peasant proudly raising an American flag over his head. Villagers wave headscarves and hats, and some, falling into roadside dust, pray to God and praise America for helping. The picture is dedicated to the American humanitarian campaign of 1891-1892 to help starving Russia.
The future emperor of Russia, Nicholas II, said: "We are all deeply touched by the fact that ships full of food are coming to us from America." The resolution prepared by prominent representatives of the Russian public, in particular, read: "By sending bread to the Russian people in a time of deprivation and need, the United States of America is showing the most moving example of fraternal feelings."
Prince Alexander Mikhailovich, cousin of Nicholas II:
“The difficulties facing the American government were no less than ours, but our asset was greater. Russia had gold, copper, coal, iron; its soil, if it were possible to raise the productivity of the Russian land, could feed the whole world. What was missing in Russia? Why couldn't we follow the American example? Here, at a distance of four thousand miles from the European cockfights, the eye of the observer was a living example of the country's capabilities in conditions similar to those of Russia. We should have put just a little more common sense into our politics...”
On the same topic - "Ship of Aid", Aivazovsky
The second painting by Ivan Aivazovsky, dedicated to the arrival of American aid in the ports of the Russian Empire.
At the end of the 19th century, the Americans saved the Russians from starvation. The memory of this incident is documented in an unusual way - in the paintings of Ivan Aivazovsky
Russians have a short memory: according to opinion polls, they consider the United States enemy No. 1, forgetting that the United States has repeatedly helped their country. So it was during both world wars - official Washington was not only an ally, but also helped with loans and various equipment. And shortly before the First World War, ordinary Americans literally saved the mighty, as it seemed to many then, the Russian Empire from starvation.
Even artistic evidence of this has been preserved - paintings painted by the famous Russian marine painter Ivan Aivazovsky.
In April 1892, he watched as American ships loaded with wheat and corn flour arrived at the Baltic ports of Liepaja and Riga. In Russia, they were eagerly awaited, since for almost a year the empire had suffered from famine caused by a crop failure.
The collapsing hut of a starving Tatar peasant in one of the villages of the Nizhny Novgorod province (photo 1891-1892) Photo: Maxim Dmitriev, DR
The authorities did not immediately agree to the offer of US philanthropists for help. There were rumors that the then Russian Emperor Alexander III commented on the food situation in the country as follows: “I don’t have starving people, there are only victims of crop failure.”
However, the American public persuaded St. Petersburg to accept humanitarian aid. Farmers in the states of Philadelphia, Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska collected about 5 thousand tons of flour and sent it for their own money - the amount of assistance was about $ 1 million - to distant Russia. Some of these funds also went to regular financial assistance. In addition, American public and private companies offered long-term loans to Russian farmers in the amount of $75 million.
Aivazovsky painted two canvases on this topic - Distribution of food and Aid ship. And he donated both to the Corcoran Gallery in Washington. It is not known whether he witnessed the scene of the arrival of bread from the United States to the Russian village depicted in the first painting. However, the atmosphere of universal gratitude to the American people in that hungry year was much greater than in modern Russia.
If the paintings had stayed in the Russian Federation, perhaps the Russians would have retained a sense of gratitude towards the Americans.
"Unexpected" disaster
“The autumn of 1890 was dry,” Dmitry Natsky, a lawyer from the Russian city of Yelets, located near Lipetsk, wrote in his memoirs. “Everyone was waiting for rain, they were afraid to sow winter crops in dry land, and, without waiting, they began to sow in the second half of September” .
Censorship began to delete from the newspaper columns the words hunger, hungry, - Prince Vladimir Obolensky publisher, on the famine of 1891-1892
He goes on to point out that what was sown almost never sprouted. After all, the winter was not snowy, with the first spring warmth, the snow quickly melted, and the dry earth was not saturated with moisture. “Until May 25, there was a terrible drought. On the night of the 25th, I heard the murmur of streams in the street and was very happy. The next morning it turned out that it was not raining, but snowing, it got very cold, and the snow melted only the next day, but it was too late. And the threat of crop failure became real,” Natsky continued to recall. He also pointed out that they ended up with a very poor crop of rye.
Drought was widespread in the European part of Russia. The writer Vladimir Korolenko described this disaster that befell the Nizhny Novgorod province in the following way: From the Nizhny Novgorod mountains, the fires and smoke of fires were constantly visible in the Trans-Volga region. The forests burned all summer, lit up by themselves.”
Western illustration - hungry peasants go in search of food to St. Petersburg, DR
The previous few years have also been poor. In Russia, in such cases, since the time of Catherine II, there was a system of assistance to peasants. She was in the organization of the so-called local food stores. These were ordinary warehouses in which grain was stored for future use. In lean years, the regional administration lent bread from them to the peasants.
At the same time, by the end of the 19th century, the Russian government got used to constant cash receipts from grain exports. In successful years, more than half of the crop was sold to Europe, and the treasury annually received more than 300 million rubles.
In the spring of 1891, Aleksey Yermolov, director of the department of unsalary fees, wrote a note to Finance Minister Ivan Vyshnegradsky, in which he warned of the threat of starvation. The government has audited grocery stores. The results were frightening: in 50 provinces they were filled by 30% of the norm, and in 16 regions where the harvest was the lowest, by 14%.
However, Vyshnegradsky declared: “We won’t eat ourselves, but we’ll take them out.” The export of grain continued throughout the summer months. That year, Russia sold almost 3.5 million tons of bread.
When it became clear that the situation was really critical, the government ordered a ban on grain exports. But the ban lasted only ten months: large landlords and merchants, who had already bought up bread for export abroad, became indignant, and the authorities went along with them.
The following year, when famine was already rampant in the empire, the Russians sold even more grain to Europe - 6.6 million tons.
Folk canteen in one of the villages affected by the famine / Photo: Maxim Dmitriev, DR
Meanwhile, the Americans, having heard about the grandiose famine in Russia, collected bread for the starving. Not knowing that the warehouses of grain traders are full of export wheat.
The famine was ignored not only by merchants - the authorities at first did not recognize that there was a real disaster in the country. Prince Vladimir Obolensky, a Russian philanthropist and publisher, wrote about this: “Censorship began to delete the words famine, hungry, starving from newspaper columns. Correspondence, which was forbidden in the newspapers, went from hand to hand in the form of illegal leaflets, private letters from the starving provinces were carefully copied and distributed.
Diseases were added to chronic malnutrition, which, with the then existing level of medicine in the empire, turned into a real pestilence. Sociologist Vladimir Pokrovsky calculated that at least 400,000 people died due to the famine by the summer of 1892. This is despite the fact that in the villages the record of the dead was not always kept.
remember good
On November 20, 1891, William Edgar, an American publisher and philanthropist from Minneapolis, who owned the rather influential Northwestern Miller magazine at the time, sent a telegram to the Russian embassy. From his European correspondents, he learned that in Russia there is a real humanitarian catastrophe. Edgar offered to organize a collection of funds and grain for the country in distress. And Ambassador Kirill Struve asked the tsar to ask him if he would accept such help?
A week later, without receiving any response, the publisher sent a letter of the same content. The embassy responded a week later: "The Russian government accepts your proposal with gratitude."
Sociologist Vladimir Pokrovsky calculated that at least 400,000 people died due to the famine by the summer of 1892.
On the same day, Northwestern Miller came out with a fiery proclamation. “There is so much grain and flour in our country that this food is about to paralyze the transport system. We have so much wheat that we cannot eat all of it. At the same time, the nastiest dogs that roam the streets of American cities are better fed than Russian peasants.”
Edgar sent letters to 5,000 Eastern grain traders. He reminded his fellow citizens that at one time Russia helped the United States a lot. In 1862-63, during the Civil War, a distant empire sent two military squadrons to the American coast. Then there was a real threat that the slave-owning south, with which the industrial one fought, would come to the aid of British and French troops. Russian ships then stood in American waters for seven months - and Paris and London did not dare to get involved in a conflict with Russia. This helped the northern states win that war.
Another Western illustration depicting what will happen again in Ukraine in the 1930s - Cossacks are riding through the Russian village in search of grain, Maxim Dmitriev, DR
Almost everyone to whom he sent letters responded to William Edgar's call. The movement to raise funds for Russia unfolded throughout the States. The New York Symphony Orchestra gave charity concerts. Opera performers picked up the baton. As a result, the artists alone raised $77,000 for the distant empire.
Americans brought humanitarian flour for three months. Already on March 12, 1892, the Missouri and Nebraska steamships set off for Russia with a cargo of aid. Edgar himself swam to Berlin, and traveled to St. Petersburg by train. On the border he suffered the first shock. “The Russian customs officers were so strict that I felt like a rat in a trap,” the traveler wrote. Edgar was struck by the Russian capital - its luxury did not match the starving country too much. Moreover, they met him according to local tradition with bread and salt in a silver salt shaker.
Then the American philanthropist toured the starving regions. There he saw the real Russia. “In one village, I watched a woman cook dinner for her family. Some green grass was boiled in a pot, to which the hostess threw a couple of handfuls of flour and added half a glass of milk,” Edgar wrote later in his journal.
He was also struck by the scenes of the distribution of humanitarian aid brought by him. One distribution official allowed the hungry peasants to take as much as they could carry. “Exhausted people put a sack of flour on their shoulders and, barely moving their legs, dragged it to their families,” Edgar reported.
It was not without curiosities familiar to Russia, which were incomprehensible to the American. Already in Liepaja, part of the humanitarian aid disappeared without a trace. Edgar was warned that local merchants would go to any lengths for profit. A month earlier, the government bought 300,000 pounds of grain. It turned out that almost all of it was mixed with the earth and therefore was unsuitable for consumption.
Ashes of history
The Americans greatly facilitated the life of the starving regions and in return received sincere gratitude from the main recipients of assistance - ordinary peasants. This impressed Aivazovsky, who painted two canvases at once about American aid.
But the famine, as well as the seascape paintings taken to Washington, were soon forgotten in Russia. As, however, and about the movement started by William Edgar.
It was only in 1962 that American newspapers began to write about all this. Then the US and the USSR were on the brink of nuclear war due to the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba. And the Americans tried to find common ground in the past.
US First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy borrowed Aivazovsky's paintings from the Corcoran Gallery for a conference room at the White House. Against their background, the president and his press secretaries made statements on the course of sorting out relations with Moscow. Aivazovsky's canvases, according to the American side, reminded of the former fraternal feelings between the two peoples.
The canvases that served as history were sold at Sotheby’s for $2.4 million in 2008. Buyers - private individuals - are unknown.
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Many predict Russia a whole streak of constant economic problems and crises, which it has already entered since 2014. And what is usually associated with economic devastation? Of course, with empty refrigerators, in which there was only a stale can of canned fish and old pickled mushrooms from my grandmother.
But the inhabitants of the Russian Federation should not worry so much about their children, who in the future may swell from hunger. After all, the best friends in the world will come to the rescue - Pindos Americans, as it has happened more than once in history.
Famine in 1891-1892
In 1891, a severe crop failure broke out in the regions of the Chernozem and Middle Volga regions. Areas with a population of 36 million people found themselves in an extremely unenviable position. And the local authorities, who had to have reserves for such cases, suddenly announced that there was no bread for a rainy day in the hangars. Well, it rolled - crisis, famine, devastation, deaths, epidemics of typhoid and cholera. Approximately about 500 thousand people went to the next world, thanks to the wise actions of the tsarist regime. There could have been much more victims if not for the ubiquitous Pindos Americans.
Painting by Aivazovsky "The arrival of the Missouri steamer with bread to Russia", 1892
Painting by Aivazovsky “Distribution of food”. 1892
To provide humanitarian assistance in the United States, a special committee was formed to help the starving - Russian Famine Relief Committee of the United States. Everything was sponsored by caring citizens of America, who, through the Famine Fleet, began to deliver tons of food to Russia by ship. Also, the US government provided some Russian provinces with a loan for the purchase of food in the amount of $75 million.
The mission of the ARA (American Relief Administration) in the 1920s.
If in tsarist Russia famine was often associated with crop failures that came periodically every 5-7 years, then in the 20s of the last century the situation looked much more apocalyptic. World War I, Revolutions, Civil War. The population suffered from endless extortions for the needs of the armies, all kinds of gangs and groups. The Bolsheviks confiscated everything to the last grain within the framework of the surplus appropriation, and those who disagreed were killed.
Serious famine gripped the Volga region, where the population was eventually forced to eat grass, cats, dogs, and, in critical cases, themselves. But the damned Pindos Americans, who always get into other people's affairs around the world, did not stand aside here either. As soon as the news of the terrible famine reached the United States, a mission was urgently formed ARA(American Relief Administration) - American Relief Administration. Their assistance differed from other organizations (the Red Cross, the Nansen Committee, etc.) in that food went straight to the needy through their independent structures, and not through Bolshevik grabbers. Remembering the bitter experience of 1892, when Russian slow-witted and thieving officials kept American grain in warehouses until it rotted, the ARA mission did everything itself.
In addition to food, the Americans widely supplied medicines, set up hospitals, pharmacies, and medical aid stations. One of the acute problems was the issue of vaccination - Russian peasants called vaccinations "the devil's offspring." Then the ARA began to issue rations only with a relevant medical certificate. As a result, 9 million people were vaccinated, which helped reduce the number of deaths from epidemics and diseases.
Residents of the Samara region knelt before an American who brought humanitarian aid
The ARA mission was led by Herbert Hoover, the 31st President of the United States, who at that time served as Secretary of the Economy. At first, the Bolsheviks were reluctant to accept Western aid, fearing that taming the famine would evoke in the Russian peasants "a spirit of freedom and attachment to bourgeois values." Yes, and the peasants themselves at first were distrustful of the mission of the ARA, because of the ARA's focus on children, and not on adults, which, in the opinion of the village workers, was unfair waste (after all, children can still be born). But after the Americans launched a broad food program for adults, opinion changed dramatically in a positive direction. The peasants even wrote letters demanding that Hoover's portraits be sent in order to put them instead of icons in the red corner.
Hey, quilted jacket, he fed your grandfathers, and you don't even know his name. HERBERT HOOVER, bitch!
The ARA Mission has become one of the largest humanitarian food campaigns of the 20th century. But Russian historians prefer to remain silent about this.
Committee "Aid to Russia in the War" during the Second World War.
« Thanks to the Russian people, the hero people. He took upon himself the brunt of the war, did not cave in, did not get scared, survived. I urge you to be worthy of our great allies in the East, who fight desperately and fearlessly. If only I could, I would be the first to kneel before these people. I ask you, my dear Americans, help these people, pray for them. Remember that they die for us too. These are great people!» (Franklin Delano Roosevelt, addressing the American people, November 23, 1942).)
On September 12, 1941, the President's Council for the Control of the Organization of Military Assistance officially registered the American Society for Relief of Russia, called the Committee " Help Russia in the war"(Russian War Relief). The council included prominent bankers, industrialists, philanthropists, as well as representatives of the Russian diaspora. Among those who expressed support for the committee were Albert Einstein, Charlie Chaplin, Leon Feuchtwanger, Robert Oppenheimer, John von Neumann.
One of the campaign posters of the Committee
Already in 1942, the Committee became a large public organization with an extensive network of various sectors and divisions: regional (states, cities), women's, youth, religious (Jewish, Orthodox, Baptist, etc.), national (Russian, Jewish, Armenian and etc.). He had his own production plants, workshops, warehouses. A particularly important role was assigned to the public relations sector, whose tasks included propaganda and agitation work. American citizens of all walks of life donated millions of dollars to the Committee to purchase food, medicine, clothing, equipment, and essential supplies. Parcels from the USA went to Soviet orphanages, schools, collective farms, and hospitals. These parcels included letters from ordinary Americans expressing faith in victory. More than 2 million American families took part in the large-scale Letter to Russia campaign.
Postcard from an American from Kansas to the Soviet Union
When difficulties arose in acquiring clothing, footwear, textile products and other things in the US domestic market due to the lack of these goods in warehouses, the Committee decided to appeal to ordinary Americans with an appeal " Share your clothes with a Russian ally!". The movement under this slogan became popular and massive. The collection of clothes, shoes, various household items went on throughout the country. Special points were organized for collecting and sorting the collected things. Most of them were practically new, and the rejection rate was low. The Americans worked for free at these reception points, and the drivers free of charge in their free time were engaged in the transportation of goods.
The last major charitable action of the society was the collection and shipment of English-language, mainly fiction, literature to the Soviet Union in order to at least partially compensate for the destruction of 12 thousand libraries and more than 20 million books by the Nazis on the territory of the USSR. It was planned to send 1 million volumes to the Soviet Union. The book collection campaign was of an unprecedented scale. It was attended by schoolchildren, students, housewives, writers, scientists, politicians, and even President Truman himself, who handed over the 40-volume collected works of George Washington to be sent to Russia. Books were collected by schools, universities, publishing houses, church communities, and libraries. The Library of Congress donated 10,000 volumes.
The book transferred from New York to Karelia as part of the Committee's activities
The "Aid to Russia in the War" committee did not refer to Lend-Lease supplies, but was a broad public initiative. But Kiselev, of course, will not tell you anything about this.
American humanitarian aid to Russia in the early 90s.
The collapse of the Soviet Union was naturally reflected on the plate of an ordinary citizen. The administrative economy is dead, and the market economy has not yet been launched. The counters in Russian cities were empty, there was practically no normal quality food. And at this difficult moment, the restless insidious Pindos Americans, together with the Nazi Germans, decided to feed the Russian people! Outrageous!
These are the C-17 military aircraft that sent food to the needy post-Soviet countries
In 1991 alone, 241,000 tons of food was supplied free of charge. In addition, preferential loans were allocated for the purchase of grain from the United States at below market prices.
In 1992, the Americans organized Operation Provide Hope (delivery of hope). Until the early 2000s, military transport aircraft delivered humanitarian aid to various cities of the CIS. Minsk was also affected by this program.
Great assistance was provided by Russia and Germany. All over Europe, non-governmental organizations collected parcels for Russia.
Unloading foreign aid
While all sorts of Putins were making money on the smuggling of metals, and the Girkins were fighting in Transnistria, the West was trying to feed the hungry citizens of the Russian Federation. But Russia Today will not show this.
American aid 2020?
So we want to reassure all rashists. You can continue to go crazy, collapse the ruble, destroy the economy, grow fecal stalagmites, threaten the world with nuclear ashes and drop your own bombers on Voronezh. A jar of stew and an “I Love New-York” T-shirt will be sent to you anyway. It's not the first time to save the bad ones.
In contact with
"Ship of Relief" and "Food Distribution"- atypical paintings in the work of the famous marine painter Ivan Aivazovsky. But it was these canvases that the first lady of the United States, Jacqueline Kennedy, "borrowed" in one of the American galleries, when a nuclear clash between the two powers seemed almost inevitable. And put them in the conference room of the White House.
Perhaps this was the only true move to cool off the hot heads of the overseas hawks.
Contemporaries (a terrible famine covered Russia in 1892) perfectly understood the meaning of the plot: help for the starving Russian peasants comes from America. This is not state deliveries and not interstate trade; food was collected by ordinary people. They were united by the Committee for Assistance to the Russian Starving, it was financed by public funds. The so-called "Hunger Fleet" was also formed. "Indiana" delivered 1,900 tons of food to the port of Libava (now - Liepaja), "Missouri" delivered 2,500 tons of grain and corn flour to the same place. Throughout the spring and summer of 1892, the friendship sea bridge operated. The total cost of humanitarian aid provided by the United States in 1891-1892 is estimated at nearly $1 million...
The victorious Soviet authorities had reason to treat the canvases of Aivazovsky with displeasure. In the astute assessment of a modern historian, there is much more admiration for American benefactors than concern for starving fellow citizens:
"On a Russian troika loaded with American food stands a peasant, proudly raising an American flag over his head. Villagers wave their headscarves and hats, and some, falling into roadside dust, pray to God and praise America for help."
It is not surprising that the "non-marine" canvases of the great marine painter were pushed aside from the forefront of Soviet culture - in order to enter the forefront of world politics in 1962.
And this is a reason for today's reflections: after all, we knew how to settle things with the Americans. And find a common language in dramatic situations. Invaluable experience! A wonderful human example of cooperation without regard to the political topic of the day. Anger ready to blow up the world.
We can't get away from each other. Our relations are the axis of world balance.
Hunger, not hunger - but we were ready to feed each other.
And now let's agree!
In 2008, the "land" canvases of Ivan Aivazovsky went under the hammer. The names of the buyers are unknown. Known amount: 2.4 million dollars.
Will they resurface again from the bottom of the archives to remind us of the frailty of the nuclear world? I hope it doesn't come to that. I really want to believe that the Caribbean exposition of the Russian painter has already played its role in history.
