Old, Old Graves

 The tiny church at Bender is a modern jewel, reflecting that, in the end, this graveyard is a political statement.  The place is as new as the church; most of the graves were moved here at the end of the hot portion of the Transnistrian war.  They had been closer to the fortress itself.  Their markers were moved with them and other, newer, more legible markers put up too.

The statement of this graveyard is "We are Russian.  We paid for this place in blood."  It's also only a couple of miles from the Russian military installation.

Bucket Stripe

Outside of the backstitching, the bucket stripe is done.  Time to move on to some shells.

Bender War Cemetery

 Andreas finished another set of photos from last summer.  These are from Bender, where we took his parents while they were here in Moldova.  This was the first time I'd visited it in the summer, and it's a beautiful, bleak, sad place even then.  The cemetery is very close to downtown on a busy street and is surrounded by commercial buildings and apartment blocks.

The people buried here fought for or against Russian control of the area that is Moldova.  Most of them died during the reign of Catherine the Great in the various battles for Tighina Fortress.  The last one buried here died in 1992 during the hot period of the Transnistrian War.  Because of that war, there are still 20,000 Russian troops on Moldovan soil to "protect" the breakaway "country" of Transnistria.  It's a sad situation that is only made worse by the current crisis in Ukraine.

Two More Stripes

I have finished the cross stitch band and the one after.  Time to get more done!

Starting New Backstitching

The backstitching for flowers on the outer part of part six has begun!  This means I'm done with part five's backstitching, and even part seven is moving along nicely, with domes getting filled in.

Temari For Violeta

 Since I wasn't around for Christmas, I made everyone in the offic Valentine's Day presents.  This is Violeta's.  I picked these colors because they're her favorites.

End Of Utah Beach

We spent more than half a day at Utah beach; we would have spent more time if it were warmer.  The cars were parked on the side of the road as we were leaving  the main site.  The photos after that were taken a bit farther down the beach where there's an overrun bunker still intact.

Not only is there solemnity here, there's also a holiday campground that we did not take photos of.  It has a water park and a beach and a place to relax.