Wall Street Gambling, Price Manipulation, etc

Yes. That whole region is replete with accusation, counter-accusation,
revenge and retribution. I don't need to ask Finns: I have relatives and
others in Lithuania who don't argue about the immorality of the pogroms
against Jews, but instead argue about whether it was 94% or 96% that were
murdered.

Personally, I think Lithuania was lucky that a crazy crazed Stalin didn't send
the whole lot off to Siberia for their collaboration with the Nazis. And I've
heard all sorts of stories about how they were forced. Fact is, the slaughter
of Jews started well before Hitler made demands of them, and it's something
that the country is finding difficult to reconcile.

Same with collaboration with the Soviets. When I asked why there haven't
been Nuremberg-style trials for alleged monstrosities, I was told that half the
country were involved in supplying information to the Russians, and it's
probably better to forget all about it.

Let's hope the Leningrad Cowboys/Red Army Choir collaboration is a sign of
what will be.

The singer's accent is funny, but that voice is remarkable. When my wife
heard the start of it, she initially thought it might have been Paul Robeson,
a comrade of quite a different colour.

 

With all its problems, sometimes I think the short collective memory of Americans is a blessing; we don't spend our time fighting and dying over things that happened before any of us were born.

 

Gold at $1350
Wake me up when it hits $640

 

He was called Motti Matti http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matti_Aarnio colonel actually. Thou the russiand never got to Saimaa..
BR Teddy

Ps. And Churchill decleared war on Finland..

 

Thanks for the clarifications and additional info. The history I picked up along the way as I bought Finnish Mosins has been secondary to information about the guns themselves -- a side-bar, if you will. Interesting that you say Churchill declared war on the Finns. Did the British and Finnish forces ever meet in battle, or was it just a diplomatic posture adopted by the Brit's?

I have about two dozen Mosins in my collection. All of them are in good working condition, and get used for target shooting or plinking (nothing I have is a 'wall-hanger,' bought just for its looks or historical significance; I'm not a big believer in owning guns that don't work ). And Mosins are known more for their reliability and robustness than for their smooth operation and accuracy -- at least in conventional wisdom. But two of my Mosins are Finnish M39's, and I would say those and my Russian M91/59 are probably the smoothest-operating and most accurate bolt-action milsurp rifles I own. That includes my British Enfields -- and Enfields are known for butter-smooth actions.

A quick question: among Mosin collectors, Simo Häyhä is revered as the Finnish sniper who had 505 confirmed kills in 100 days, mostly while using an M28/30 Mosin with iron sights. And he accomplished this during the Finnish winter, with its shortened hours of daylight. Is he still remembered and respected in his home country, or is he just a footnote for historians?

add: I've been reading the site you linked to,, and it's fascinating stuff. In fact, I'm still reading it even though I should be in bed. As usual, actual history is a lot more complicated than glib summaries of it....

 

Another Mosin - Nagant

In my cottage in the Stockholm archipelago we have an old bayonet that came with the house. My youngest son took care of it, cleaned it from rust and sharpened it. He googled for information on the numbers engraved on the bayonet and it turned to have been used with a Remington rifle. I then recalled that there is an old rusty rifle in the next house so he went over, got the rifle and cleaned it. With the help of Google and the engraved letters and numbers (Cyrillic and latin letters, numbers, and the text Deutches Reich) some of the history of the rifle was revealed.

The rifle is an 1892 Mosin - Nagant, manufactured in Izhevsk in Russia for the Russian army. The engraved text Deutches Reich means that it was captured by the Germans during the first world war and then used by the German army. There are no records showing how it came to our archipelago. My guess is that it was bought as surplus after WWI and used for seal hunting.

There are approximately 4 million registered weapons in Sweden (with 9.4 million people). In addition to that there are an estimated 4 million illicit weapons, of which the police expect 50% to be in working order. (Swedes are not terribly good at handing in old guns to the authorities.) We have good hopes of increasing the number of working illicit guns from 2000000 to 2000001. I don't believe we will risk firing it, and the ammo (7.62 x 54R) is not very common.

As for you Troy, the rifle gave both me and my son yet another reason to dig into Finnish history. For a Swede, the Finnish history is the key to understanding modern (post 1809) Swedish foreign policy.

A sidenote: It seems that any subject can be connected with guns.

Erik

 

Had one ww2 model myself. It was bored to 8.2 mm to be better for moose hunting and with 'sniper' bolt thou have the original bolt still somewhere...
Troy, think it was a diplomatic kissing Stalins a$$