I have an avid interest in cyphers and codes stretching back to my childhood. I guess it started when a teacher in our school read us, 8 year old second graders, a story about how Lenin tricked intelligence agents from “okhranka” (tsarist secret service). Yep, this was a story from Russian language textbooks for the 2 grade. I know it sounds insane and weird, but we had many stories in our books about Great patriotic war, communist revolution and Lenin: how he liked kids, or made a friend with illiterate bricklayer, who didn’t know whom he spoke to, etc. It was in the beginning of 80’s in the Soviet Union, and school education was a part of global brainwashing program, I believe. I have no regrets though, as we had great time at school, education was free and very good and that stories in the textbooks were interesting.Back to the cyphers. That story about Lenin and okhranka agents contained some references to the simple way of coding, by book, and the way to do so. Apparently if you use milk instead of ink for writing, nobody can see what there’s something written. To see the message you should hold the page above heat for a while, and transparent lines will become visible. So while in prison Lenin could communicate in this way: he’d shape some bread as ink-pot, pour milk in there and write with it; after he’d finish he’d eat his “inkpot” (milkpot?) and “ink” left; having a nice meal of milk and bread. Secret agents never could catch him; moreover, in such a manner he wrote a couple of books in between lines of some French novels he was allowed to read.I loved this story. Soon I started to research and develop cyphers and ways of communication with my friends, our neighbours kids myself. To omit details, I even took a course on structural linguistics/cracking cyphers at university later. It was very exciting indeed, and I was happy to learn from one of the students of prof. Yuri Knorozov, who amongst other things decyphered Mayan script and later on his life “located” mythical place of origin of Meso-American people, known as Chichomoztoc, which is slightly out of scope of this post, though a very fascinating subject. So I’ll put a picture here, but won’t tell you why at this point:
The seven caves of Chicomoztoc, from Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca.
Continue reading ‘Zodiac killer code: mapping the way to Sirius’
Other posts by boris kislitsin
The most important day of my life was December 5, 1995, when I met my father for the first time. I was informed about his arrival and I was supposed to go and meet him at the local law court. I could not sleep the whole night and I was so nervous that I almost decided not to go, but, after a long conversation, my best friend Sivlija managed to convince me to change my mind. She went with me to the courthouse where we sat near the front door in order to see everybody entering. Suddenly Silvija showed me a grey man who was talking to the lawyer in the nearby corridor and she said: “For sure he is your father”. I did not believe her and I continued looking for a person from my dreams and from my grandmother’s stories: “He is a tall and strong man with black hair”, I was often told.
A minute later Silvija’s mother, who is employed there too, came and gave me a sign that he was the man I had been looking for - for 16 years. Then Silvija went to school and I stayed there alone. I knew that he was sitting behind the pillar, but I could not move. I stood there rooted, looking in his direction. I wanted to run away after I realised how many nights I has spend crying because of him, how many nights I had been dreaming about him, how much sorrow there still was in my heart because of him. I was so confused. All these memories threatened to destroy me. Finally I stood up and made the first step of the seven steps I will never forget.
Continue reading ‘Meeting my father’
Other posts by Lidija
I remember moments. Certain indelible events take place during the course of my life that sear themselves into my brain and do not leave. I cannot remember what came before the event, what came after the event, or even precisely when the event occurred. I simply remember the moment.
As strange as it may sound, I remember the first shower I ever took. More precisely, I remember the moment I first washed my hair in the shower. I used Dad’s Johnson and Johnson shampoo, the kind that looked like the amber which held the dinosaur DNA in Jurassic Park. The disasterous fate which awaited me that morning superceded even that met by Jeff Goldblum and company.
Continue reading ‘Defining moments’
Other posts by Maria Cohen
Here are some of my first memories put together.
One of my first memories is being a four year old in Pakistan when I came with my parents to visit our relatives. There were some qawwalis on a bus singing “damma damm mustt qalandar” but what I was actually singing was “damma damm bus conductor”, thinking the song was about the buses! My language was a bit mixed up, though we spoke Punjabi at home, I grew up in England speaking English with my friends.
Another one of my first memories is a memory of being sick. Me and my brother wanted to make some nice bubbles out of mouth when we speak, so we would surprise our friends. So we ate some soap in the bathroom. I remember the worried look on the face of my mother, and as she mixed something pink in a glass of water, so I could drink it and throw up.
I also remember my tricycle. I was happy riding it around empty parking lot in circles. It was autumn so I enjoyed going over fallen leaves, leaving the tracks. I went around over and over, until everything was covered in circle traces, so it looked like a plate with spaghetti.
Aziz
Other posts by aziz
