What do you mean? It's 12:30 in Moscow

I don't have specific literature to recommend but you might be able to find literature in a similar vein which discusses this last paragraph of Ch. 2 of the Communist Manifesto:

In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.

I take this section to mean that the material interests of individuals is no longer in contradiction with, in fact completely bound up with the material interests of society at large. So the things which benefit society also directly benefit the individual. This is in comparison to capitalism where things which increase profit for capital are directly at odds with individual development.

Only a few countries haven't signed the treaty banning cropduster munitions

I pretty much tried to switch for no other reason than the UN name change. They use this spelling in English even on the official tourism website GoTürkiye

That's hilarious

Disregarding that his premise is false, I mean it used to be more popular (or maybe it's just my own stereotyping) to get married at age like 20 after knowing the person for only a year or two. Then they stay married for the rest of their lives, for better or worse, and when they're 65 they're sharing boomer memes on Facebook about hating their wife. Why is that preferred?

Regardless, Soviet sweets like syrniki are delicious. Smetana gets translated as sour cream but to me it's not the same as sour cream you find e.g. in the US. More neutral and fatty tasting by comparison.

Unfortunately I suspect the name Beryl will quickly become outdated

There's a free pdf on the publisher website if you don't need a physical copy:

https://www.iskrabooks.org/stalin-history-and-critique

May she recover quickly and good that you were there to help :rat-salute:

I hope this happens, but something tells me that even if the war in Ukraine ends, the Finnish government might continue their anti Russia policies for a while. I agree it sounds like an awesome trip if you can make it!

I've done the Helsinki to St. Petersburg trip several times since the war started so I could PM you with all those details if you want. The short answer is you have basically two options to get to Russia:

First option: Flight through a third country.

This basically means Helsinki-Istanbul and then Istanbul-Moscow or St. Petersburg. The best tickets are pretty expensive (over 1k eur/person), but you can find a bit cheaper if you can deal with a longer layover. A less common route is through Serbia (Belgrade), but I think the flights are less frequent and have longer layovers.

About the 404 pages, a lot of flight aggregator websites aren't showing tickets to Russia anymore. You can search the Turkish Airlines website directly for Helsinki-St. Petersburg or Moscow. Or through Serbia it's probably AirBaltic and then transfer to Aeroflot.

If you can read Russian or can handle page translation, aviasales.ru shows flight options. Here's Helsinki-Moscow and here's Helsinki-St. Petersburg.

Moscow likely has high speed rail connections to like Kazan, but probably standard rail the whole way across Siberia. I haven't researched the cross-country train options, so I don't know how fast it is.

Second option: Ferry to Tallinn + bus to St. Petersburg through the Narva-Ivangorod border point.

This is the cheapest and sometimes the fastest way to get to St. Petersburg. Unfortunately this border point is under reconstruction, so it's pedestrian only (no vehicles). This means the bus stops at Narva, everyone gets out and takes their luggage, and crosses the border by foot. Lately the lines have been very long, but it varies (expect at least 2 hours, probably longer). Bring water, snacks, and a hat.

We can cross our fingers and hope the Finnish-Russian border is reopened before your trip, then you could easily take a bus from Helsinki. (Same kind of companies operate, for example LuxExpress or SovAvto.)

Getting a visa

Of course, to enter Russia you also need a Russian visa. There used to be a third party visa center operating in Helsinki (Jätkäsaari), but they have been temporarily closed since January 2024. Now you need to submit your visa application through the consulate. However, the visa center's website has some useful information to help you apply. If you decide to go down this path, I can give you tips from when I was doing my application.

Anyway it's a bit complicated, but if you have time to plan and this is going to be a month or longer vacation, this is how you could cross the border.