ONE EVENING IN JANUARY 2015, Terry Virts, a Nasa astronaut onboard the International Space Station (ISS), decided to pop over to the Russian quarters, catch up with his Russian colleagues and check out the view. For views, nothing beats the space station. From this orbiting perch approximately 400km above the Earth, scores of astronauts have waxed lyrical about the beauty of our planet: its mesmerising, fast-motion sunrises and sunsets, its brilliant colours and startling fragility.
As a 47-year-old former space shuttle pilot, then on his second visit to the space station, Virts had experienced all of this himself and would do so many times again. But this night would be different.
Joining Virts at the window was Alexsandr Samokutyayev. Three years younger than Virts, the Russian cosmonaut was also on his second visit to the space station. Both men had been military pilots in their countries. They spoke each other's languages. They exchanged Christmas presents. They were friends. Now the Russian and the American floated companionably side by side in the microgravity of orbit and gazed down at the world below.
Usually at night the inhabited areas of the Earth present a sensational spectacle of dazzling city lights. But at this point the space station happened to be passing over eastern Ukraine. Down there was darkness, punctuated by sudden red flashes. They were watching a war.
It was only a year since Russia had annexed Crimea. Now pro-Russian forces were engaging Ukrainians on their eastern border. The two men stared, transfixed. "We were watching people being killed by the Russian war from space," Virts tells me. "We both looked at each other. It was a sombre moment. But we didn't say a word."
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة September 01, 2023 من The Guardian Weekly.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة September 01, 2023 من The Guardian Weekly.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
Finn family murals
The optimism that runs through Finnish artist Tove Jansson's Moomin stories also appears in her public works, now on show in a Helsinki exhibition
I hoped Finland would be a progressive dream.I've had to think again Mike Watson
Oulu is five hours north from Helsinki by train and a good deal colder and darker each winter than the Finnish capital. From November to March its 220,000 residents are lucky to see daylight for a couple of hours a day and temperatures can reach the minus 30s. However, this is not the reason I sense a darkening of the Finnish dream that brought me here six years ago.
A surplus of billionaires is destabilising our democracies Zoe Williams
The concept of \"elite overproduction\" was developed by social scientist Peter Turchin around the turn of this century to describe something specific: too many rich people for not enough rich-person jobs.
'What will people think? I don't care any more'
At 90, Alan Bennett has written a sex-fuelled novella set in a home for the elderly. He talks about mourning Maggie Smith, turning down a knighthood and what he makes of the new UK prime minister
I see you
What happens when people with acute psychosis meet the voices in their heads? A new clinical trial reveals some surprising results
Rumbled How Ali ran rings around apartheid, 50 years ago
Fifty years ago, in a corner of white South Africa, Muhammad Ali already seemed a miracle-maker.
Trudeau faces 'iceberg revolt'as calls grow for PM to quit
Justin Trudeau, who promised “sunny ways” as he won an election on a wave of public fatigue with an incumbent Conservative government, is now facing his darkest and most uncertain political moment as he attempts to defy the odds to win a rare fourth term.
Lost Maya city revealed through laser mapping
After swapping machetes and binoculars for computer screens and laser mapping, a team of researchers have discovered a lost Maya city containing temple pyramids, enclosed plazas and a reservoir which had been hidden for centuries by the Mexican jungle.
'A civil war' Gangs step up assault on capital
Armed fighters advance into neighbourhoods at the heart of Port-au-Prince as authorities try to restore order
Reality bites in the Himalayan 'kingdom of happiness'
High emigration and youth unemployment levels belie the mountain nation's global reputation for cheeriness