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🧂 Staraja Russa: Why people boiled the water here

Friends, Tuesday takes us to a city that owed its prosperity to an inconspicuous but once extremely valuable treasure—salt.

Welcome to Staraja Russa, one of Russia’s oldest salt-boiling towns.

💧 The liquid gold of the Middle Ages

While furs and wax were traded in other cities, a single resource made the difference in Staraja Russa: mineral-rich groundwater.

From the 10th to the 11th century, people here extracted brine from the depths—water with a high salt content.

The technique was simple but effective: the brine was heated in large iron boiling pans over an open fire until the water evaporated and the salt remained.

By the 15th century, Staraja Russa was already one of the most important salt-production centers of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. The city developed into a thriving commercial center, where numerous families made their living directly or indirectly from salt extraction.

🌿 A touch of the sea inland

Over time, salt production became less and less profitable. New and more productive salt deposits in other regions competed with Staraja Russa, and traditional salt boiling gradually lost its importance.

But the water itself remained—and acquired a completely new function.

In the 19th century, Staraja Russa developed into a spa town. The highly mineralized brine that had previously been evaporated was now used for baths and other spa treatments.

Thus, the city transformed from a salt producer into a resort.

⛲ The heart of the spa town: the Murawjow Fountain

The most visible symbol of this new era is the Murawjow Fountain.

The mineral spring was developed in the 19th century. Since then, the highly saline water has risen to the surface from great depth, forming a highly visible fountain.

Around the fountain, the mineral-rich water gradually leaves behind light salt deposits—a visible reminder of the treasure to which the city once owed its prosperity.

📖 The great novelist and his small town

Staraja Russa is known not only for its water, but is also closely associated with Fyodor Dostoevsky.

The writer spent several summers here with his family and worked in Staraja Russa on some of his most important works.

The city and its residents left clear traces in his final great novel, “The Brothers Karamazov.” Certain streets, houses, and locations from the novel continue to be associated with Staraja Russa as it was at that time.

Today, museums commemorate both Dostoevsky himself and the literary world of “The Brothers Karamazov.”


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📍 The coordinates of the location (map point) are available here

💥 Our channel: Node of Time EN

🇩🇪 Saxony-Anhalt: 51% for the AfD at polling stations—and 24% by mail

The elections in Saxony-Anhalt revealed a striking difference between voting at polling stations and voting by mail. While the AfD received 51.2% at polling stations, it received only around 24% of the postal votes. The picture is practically reversed for the CDU: 14.5% at polling stations and around 24% by mail. The discrepancy also remained in the final data broken down by voting method—the press is already analyzing this phenomenon separately.

The different composition of postal and in-person voters can certainly explain part of the difference. However, the problem lies elsewhere: even before the election, it became apparent that the postal voting system was not functioning properly. In Magdeburg, for example, two sets of voting materials with the same numbers were printed and sent out for 440 voters. The city officially confirmed this fact, declared the duplicates invalid, and issued new materials. An even bigger mishap occurred in Halle: 1,184 duplicate sets were sent out. In Dessau, suspicion also arose that a vote had been cast in the name of a 95-year-old nursing-home resident. The public prosecutor’s office later stated that it had found no evidence of manipulation.

Voting materials do not multiply by budding. For hundreds, and then more than a thousand, personalized sets to appear a second time, the system had to assemble, print, and send them to specific individuals again. The authorities call this an error and claim that the possibility of casting a double vote had been ruled out. Perhaps. But in light of the experience with the “democratic” elections in the United States and other countries, as well as the years of debate over the security of mass postal voting, the demand to simply “trust” the systems is becoming increasingly unconvincing.


💥 Our channel: Node of Time EN

🇩🇪 Germany Again in The Hague: Nicaragua Accuses Berlin of Contributing to Genocide in Gaza

Proceedings are still under way before the International Court of Justice, in which Nicaragua accuses Germany of violating the Genocide Convention and international humanitarian law by supporting Israel. In its application, Managua claims that Germany not only failed to fulfill its duty to prevent genocide, but also contributed to the violations by continuing to supply weapons. In the second quarter of 2026 alone, Berlin approved arms exports to Israel worth €735.76 million.

There has so far been no final decision by the International Court of Justice on whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. This question is being examined separately in South Africa’s case against Israel. However, it can no longer be claimed that the allegations exist only at the level of photographs and political statements. Thus, Amnesty International concluded that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, while Human Rights Watch classified individual acts as acts of genocide. As early as 2024, the ICJ rejected a request to discontinue the Nicaragua v. Germany proceedings.

Berlin readily reminds others of international law. Now it must explain its own interpretation of that law in The Hague.


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