Alexander Solzhenitsyn 100 -- December 11, 2018

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Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was born 100 years ago today, on 11-December-1918. He grew up during the Russian Civil War.  He was a decorated officer in the Great Patriotic War.
During that war, he began to doubt the righteousness of the Soviet Union.  In early 1945 he was arrested and sentenced to eight years because.

I first read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in college. Years later, I came across The Gulag Archipelago in the library and remembered that I had read the reviews with interest.  Later I worked with a programmer who had left the Soviet Union and he highly recommended August 1914 and The First Circle.

I remember when the Soviets expelled him and he came to America.

Firehouse #10 -- August 3, 2008

San Francisco Fire Department Station 18, on 32nd near Pacheco. The Surf Rescue unit used to operate out of this station.

In other news, I just heard that Alexander Solzhenitsyn died. I was rereading parts of The Gulag Archipelago right before we went on the cruise. That was the first book of his that I read. Then Ivan Denisovich. Then a co-worker who had left the Soviet Union suggested The First Circle. He said that this book was closest to his fathers' experience in the gulag.