Hi gang In today's (Feb 3) Miami Herald. The City of Volgograd name changed back to Stalingrad to comemorate the 70th anniversity of the epic battle that turned the tide of World War II. Hitler had seen capturing Stalingrad as a prize that would sap Soviet morale partly because of it's symbolic name and help secure control of oil fields in the Caucasus. For 200 days Germaqns and Russians fought hand to hand, street by street and even room to room battling subzero cold, snow and sometimes starvation. Russian historians say 40,000 people were killed on the day of fiercest bombing and at the height of combat the average survival time of Soviet soldiers sent into battle was 24 hours. The victory in the 6 month battle which killed about 2 million people has produced an outburst of patriotic ferver and for some nostolgia for the Soviet era and dictator Joseph Stalin. Admirers of Stalin posted his pictures on mini buses. President Putin flew to Volgograd, laid a wreath and met vetrans the youngest of which was 89, after a military parade led by soldiers in WWII uniforms and a war time t-34 tank. In my view America, Europe, Jews and the world owes the Soviets as does the Russians owes us for Normandy, etc and the limited amount of supplies we sent via the dangerous trips to Murmansk. Comrade Blumenthal