Russian Fire Fetishism and Fire-Fighting Tanks

As a 430,000-acre series of wildfires burns near Moscow, bathing the city in an acrid, toxic smog and contributing to about 700 deaths a day in the city’s worst-ever heat-wave, what can most of the rest of us do but gawk?

Searching Flickr brings a few amazing photos of fires being fought and life going on in Moscow, plenty of photos of smog hanging over the city (more here, here, here, and here) and a few amusing ones of residents finding novel ways to beat the smog. If you haven’t seen the recent galleries from Boston.com, Montreal Gazette and the Kansas City Star, they’re worth checking out.

But there’s more to wildfires and smog than tragedy tourism. There’s also fire fetishism. Check out these gems, which appear to be some bizarrely pervy fashion photos taken today by a Moscow photographer in honor of the smog.

Meanwhile, for military equipment fetishists like me, EnglishRussia.com runs a gallery of fire-fighting tanks of the USSR. Many of the tanks are built on the chassis of T-55s or T-62s, the main battle tanks that had the West all freaked out when they were, you know, pointed at Bonn and West Berlin. The poster puts it best: “The vehicle was successfully used to extinguish conflagrations.”

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