Before that they had known two centuries of splendid middle-class rule, when prosperous merchants in tall black hats had sent out ships to the far ends of Asia and, with the profits, sponsored De Hooch and Vermeer.
If Russia was genuinely interested in providing some kind of naval assistance to its Syrian ally, or in conducting some sort of an evacuation, using ships from the Northern Fleet makes absolutely no sense: Russia has ships in the Black Sea that are much closer and that could be on station in a matter of days.
Part of what gave the story in late June credibility was the fact that the ships in question were both based in the Black Sea and, if needed, could be in Syria in less than a week.
Yet almost at the same time that Russia was making these concessions, a number of media reports have emerged that indicate that Russia is sending a sizable a flotilla of ships drawn from the Baltic, Northern, and Black Sea fleets to Syria.
Professor Rajan Gerta, from Mahatma Gandhi University in Kerala, said that there are many references to "ships coming with gold, and going back with 'black gold'" - pepper.
On January 19th, the day he moored his ships together in the Ross Sea, he wore a black, military-style sweater adorned with Sea Shepherd patches, and a rainbow-colored belt that held a sheathed knife.
Ships are known to strike right whales, partly because the black creatures are difficult to spot on the water.
It is worth noting that the landing craft in question, while they have not been named in any of the reporting, are very clearly not the landing craft from the Black Sea fleet that were at the center of the controversy in late June but totally different ships from the Northern Fleet.
The ships sank Sunday during a fierce storm which generated hurricane-force winds and gigantic waves in the Black Sea and the Azov Sea to the north.
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