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An Indian girl, Aritri Bannerjee, gets dressed as the Goddess Durga, during the Kumari Puja as part of the Durga Puja festival at Shidaspur village, far north of Kolkata, eastern India, 22 October 2023. During the Kumari Puja, devotees worship a girl aged between six and twelve, symbolizing the Kanya Kumari (virgin) form of the Goddess Durga Devi. Hindu devotees believe that Kanya is a living embodiment of the goddess Durga. (Photo by Piyal Adhikary/EPA/EFE)

An Indian girl, Aritri Bannerjee, gets dressed as the Goddess Durga, during the Kumari Puja as part of the Durga Puja festival at Shidaspur village, far north of Kolkata, eastern India, 22 October 2023. During the Kumari Puja, devotees worship a girl aged between six and twelve, symbolizing the Kanya Kumari (virgin) form of the Goddess Durga Devi. Hindu devotees believe that Kanya is a living embodiment of the goddess Durga. (Photo by Piyal Adhikary/EPA/EFE)
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02 Nov 2023 05:36:00


“The saguaro (scientific name Carnegiea gigantea) is a large, tree-sized cactus species in the monotypic genus Carnegiea. It is native to the Sonoran Desert in the U.S. state of Arizona, the Mexican state of Sonora, a small part of Baja California in the San Felipe Desert and an extremely small area of California, U.S. The saguaro blossom is the State Wildflower of Arizona”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Daniel Appel (L), a firefighter with Engine 84 from the Lassen National Forest in California and Mike Hallen, (R), Arizona representative of the National Register of Big Trees, measure the circumference of this Saguaro cactus called the "Grand One," in the Tonto National Forest on July 1, 2005 35 miles north of Phoenix, near Carefree, Arizona. The cactus, estimated to be more than 200 years old, measures a circumference of 7 feet, 10 inches (2.4 meters) and stands 46 feet high (14 meters). The cactus was burned in the Cave Creek Complex fire and may not survive. It was once the largest Saguaro in the world, two others have been found recently that have tied it's measurements. The fire has burned more than 214,000 acres of the Sonoran desert. (Photo by Jeff Topping/Getty Images)
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26 Jul 2011 12:27:00
Aviation enthusiast Patrick Wilson 8, from Wetherby looks at  an Avro 504 k at “The Shuttlesworth Collection” at Old Warden on July 21, 2014 in Biggleswade, England. Of the 55,000 planes that were manufactured by the Royal Army Corps (RAC) during WWI, only around 20 remain in airworthy condition. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Aviation enthusiast Patrick Wilson 8, from Wetherby looks at an Avro 504 k at “The Shuttlesworth Collection” at Old Warden on July 21, 2014 in Biggleswade, England. Of the 55,000 planes that were manufactured by the Royal Army Corps (RAC) during WWI, only around 20 remain in airworthy condition. Six of these belong to The Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden, Bedfordshire, making it the most complete collection of original airworthy WWI aircraft in the world. Amongst the collection is the SE5a. The SE5a is a single seater fighter aircraft. It is an original biplane designed by the Royal Aircraft Factory, with its engine built by Wolseley Motors Ltd, and it was issued to 84 Squadron in November 1918. The National Archive in Kew has recently verified that the plane saw action in France with 84 Squadron the day before Armistice, November 10, 1918. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
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23 Jul 2014 10:00:00
Palestinian barber Ramadan Odwan styles and straightens the hair of a customer with fire at his salon in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip February 2, 2017. In Ramadan Odwan's barbershop in Gaza, hair isn't just blow-dried, it's blowtorch-dried. “People have gone crazy about it, many people are curious to go through the experience and they are not afraid”, he told Reuters. “People here love adventures”. Odwan, 37, is not the first stylist in the world to use flame to straighten hair, but his craft is unique in the Gaza Strip. In his salon in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, Odwan applied what he described as a protective liquid coating to a customer's hair – he declined to disclose its contents – before aiming for the head and pressing the button on a small blowtorch. “I control how long I apply fire, I keep it on and off for 10 seconds or 15 seconds. It is completely safe and I have not encountered any accident since I started it two months ago”, Odwan added. Odwan charges 20 shekels ($5.20) for a haircut and fire-straightening. A barber for the past 18 years, he said part of the reason he uses the technique is to show that Palestinian barbers are as “professional as those out there around the world”. (Photo by Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters)

Palestinian barber Ramadan Odwan styles and straightens the hair of a customer with fire at his salon in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip February 2, 2017. In Ramadan Odwan's barbershop in Gaza, hair isn't just blow-dried, it's blowtorch-dried. “People have gone crazy about it, many people are curious to go through the experience and they are not afraid”, he told Reuters. “People here love adventures”. (Photo by Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters)
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11 Feb 2017 00:05:00
Palestinian plain-clothed security officers detain a man during a demonstration in the city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, on June 26, 2021, to protest the death of human rights activist Nizar Banat while in the custody of Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces. Thousands of mourners attended on June 25 the funeral of the 43-year-old Banat, a day after he died in custody following his violent arrest by Palestinian security forces, which sparked outrage in the occupied West Bank. He was known for social media videos denouncing alleged corruption within the PA. (Photo by Ahmad Gharabli/AFP Photo)

Palestinian plain-clothed security officers detain a man during a demonstration in the city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, on June 26, 2021, to protest the death of human rights activist Nizar Banat while in the custody of Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces. Thousands of mourners attended on June 25 the funeral of the 43-year-old Banat, a day after he died in custody following his violent arrest by Palestinian security forces, which sparked outrage in the occupied West Bank. He was known for social media videos denouncing alleged corruption within the PA. (Photo by Ahmad Gharabli/AFP Photo)
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08 Jul 2021 10:22:00
1924:  Vladimir Ilyich Lenin lying in state in the Kremlin

Photo: Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870 – 1924) lying in state in the Kremlin. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images). 1924

Important! For the same article in Russian language click here.

Something quite intriguing is happening within Russian-speaking internet during the last few – should you type a fully academic inquiry (at least, according to Russian academic requirements) in national search engines for "Lenin's mausoleum" – the first thing you get (even in top 10 searches) is website pages talking about black magic and occult. Website authors view this construction differently, but unconditionally agree on one thing: the mausoleum of the "leader of the world proletariat” – the essence of a magical artifact, a sort of “energy vampire”. It was built with a certain purpose: to drain the energy out of miserable Soviet citizens on one hand; and to poison the anthroposphere of one-sixth part of the earth with its vibes (the exact territory that was occupied by the former Soviet Union), depriving the Russian people of will to resist on the other hand. Complete nonsense? No doubt. Nevertheless, an intriguing one. Well, probably because some oddities do exist in mausoleum's history. These oddities are the thing we are going to discuss this time. First, let me refresh you memory on the subject.
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16 Oct 2011 11:27:00
Takahiro Shito, 47, and his wife Sayomi Shito, 46, pray with their children Tomoka, 14, and Kenya 16, and their great uncle Akinori Takahashi, 76, as they pay respects to their daughter Chisato,12, buried in a nearby cemetery, victim of the Okowa Elementary School tragedy, who was killed during last year's tsunami on March 11, 2012 near Ishinomaki, Japan

Takahiro Shito, 47, and his wife Sayomi Shito, 46, pray with their children Tomoka, 14, and Kenya 16, and their great uncle Akinori Takahashi, 76, as they pay respects to their daughter Chisato,12, buried in a nearby cemetery, victim of the Okowa Elementary School tragedy, who was killed during last year's tsunami on March 11, 2012 near Ishinomaki, Japan. Teachers at the school weren't trained for tsunami evacuation and didn't to lead the children up the snow covered mountain behind the school after the tsunami warning was sounded. Out of 108 students at the school, 74 died and four remain missing; 10 of the school's 13 teachers were also killed. (Photo by Daniel Berehulak /Getty Images)
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11 Mar 2012 09:47:00
A young girl splashes through a waterfall at a park in Washington, DC, on June 28, 2021, as a heatwave moves over much of the United States. Swathes of the United States and Canada endured record-setting heat on June 27, 2021, forcing schools and Covid-19 testing centers to close and the postponement of an Olympic athletics qualifying event, with forecasters warning of worse to come. The village of Lytton in British Columbia broke the record for Canada's all-time high, with a temperature of 46.6 degrees Celsius (116 Fahrenheit), said Environment Canada. (Photo by Jim Watson/AFP Photo)

A young girl splashes through a waterfall at a park in Washington, DC, on June 28, 2021, as a heatwave moves over much of the United States. Swathes of the United States and Canada endured record-setting heat on June 27, 2021, forcing schools and Covid-19 testing centers to close and the postponement of an Olympic athletics qualifying event, with forecasters warning of worse to come. The village of Lytton in British Columbia broke the record for Canada's all-time high, with a temperature of 46.6 degrees Celsius (116 Fahrenheit), said Environment Canada. (Photo by Jim Watson/AFP Photo)
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06 Jul 2021 10:32:00