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Imagine sweeping through green fields, floating five feet above ground, sun on your face as you slide by, on track to your destination.

Not a care in the world as you simply lean back.

And before you know it, you're there.

This is how travels should feel.

And on our trains, it does.

Avanti West Coast, feel good travel.

Yeah. Greetings, and welcome to the eastern border.

First off, I want to say thank you to Chris and Dave for their donations.

My main job right now is a reporter for a small regional Latvian newspaper,

and they pay me according to the amount of articles I write per month. And making this podcast

both takes me away from writing articles and costs money. So your donations are really helpful. Thank you

again. Dave also gets a thank you for pointing out that the team playing against the USSR, in the

Miracle on Ice game, was the USA team and not the Canadian one. And I honestly have no idea

how that mistake made its way into the script. Secondly, after the previous episode, I've received

quite a lot of emails and Facebook messages from people who share their own experiences and more stories about the Soviet military. Thank you for that, and I'll be sure to use them in a future episode. Also, we have a Facebook page now. Just search the eastern border there if you wish to follow us. And finally, this episode is dedicated to the culture in the Soviet Union.

Due to the subject matter, there will also be quite a few pictures accompanying this show.

So don't forget to visit our homepage at theeasternborder.l.v to see them.

When talking about the culture in the Soviet Union, I have to warn you that I will be talking exclusively about what happened in the Baltics and the cultural life here.

...