the experimental school have just passed their exams he was a moscow university student headed to leningrad and the baltic republics for a holiday the teachers were certain that the excursion would be good for him but it was then that he seriously began to think about suicide. it was a tough month. i couldn't get through it. i couldn't cope with not enjoying music art or sculpture. i couldn't feel it completely and it was all too much. in a few years all that emotional stress transformed into a suicidal tendencies. it was only because i was loved and i could feel it but i didn't kill myself from. thought hello man hello how are you hello boris the prophet. just remember thirty years ago you told me i was going to have the same difficulties with my own alexander savor of. this experiment was insanely cruel bush is just as cruel and violent as life is itself. for someone who has nothing but pain and grief to overcome and the only option is madness but still a person who has lost some of their senses can be taught a lot. more than they'd just have to learn to use their remaining senses in the

you see it in trafalgar square in london and in leningrad in the soviet union.t the root of the western tradition-- in architecture, painting, and sculpture-- is the classical legacy. it's so ingrained in our way of seeing things that we don't notice when we use it in tv, commercials, magazines, coins, even on our credit card. many of our uses for it no doubt would astonish people from the ancient world. but if an ancient greek could be here now, he would recognize this around us and feel that, in some sense, the west is heir to his civilization. the power of this tradition and its hold over our imagination make it difficult for us to see the greeks and romans as they really were. the athenians of the fifth century b.c., the builders of the temple at sounion, are often portrayed as superheroes, the creators of democracy and a perfect society. we must be careful not to idealize them. like all societies, theirs was imperfect. it was based on slavery, women had no rights, they were imperialists, and in their darkest moments, as in the bitter peloponnesian war with

had more than chocolate but really nice housing, a private apartments, a city built designed by leningrad architects of the theater theater, recreational centers, a grade schools, paid 15 percent more than everybody else and best of our -- best of all shops that were like the best shops of moscow. one woman said we had in the stores everything from crab to caviar. and stocked stores for the unbelievable luxury at the time. they had a yacht club. even preschools had indoor swimming pools. it was unbelievable but this is how most people in russia but especially in siberia in the nearby steel town lines formed at 2:00 in the morning for bread and they would still be there the next morning. people would live in the basement dugout and the local settlement around ozersk had utilitarian names like asbestos. so for many people who arrived in these towns that have lived in the interior of writing in the "plutopia" was like winning the golden ticket that a person had arrived in the material comfort and prosperity they had never expected to achieve in their lifetime. interview her remembers his chi

you had the siege of stalingrad and leningrad. you had -- >> stalin. >> you had stalin. >> and the czars before that. >> a country who perhaps as a result the leadership of this country may be cynical, may be very hardened, may think that the world is a brutal and awful place. and chemical weapons in the general scheme of things, if they threaten us that's bad, but you know, we actually don't care that much about some of these other conflicts because we've seen a lot of blood shed and i just don't think you see quite the same moral outrage about some of these issues you see in the united states. they've had a much more brutal recent history. >> interesting thing is from 1945 right till 91 the fall of the moscow coup the two countries never fought with each other. that's one of the great realities of history. there is some rationality on their side. i think khrushchev was incredibly rational during the cuban missile crisis to the benefit of the world. >> and lost his job because of it. >> he was lopped off for being what he was. th

coming up, you know, used to be leningrad. >> yeah, instead of stalingrad. >> instead of st.sburg. the body is still sitting somewhere, out in the open. we don't do that here. >> no. but they do it in a lot of places. china. >>> coming up, good news for home buyers looking for a jumbo mortgage. and we're going to try on that new samsung smartwatch. i don't know. it is the first one. it is too big, i think. "squawk box" will be right back. ♪ ♪ i've got something for you too. (announcer) fancy feast delights with cheddar. a meal that is sure to delight your cheese lover. now available in the classic form she loves. fancy feast. the best ingredient is love. >>> time now for the executive edge. this is a daily segment focus on giving business leaders a leg up. jeff bezos is visiting the washington post for first time since he agreed to buy the paper for 2 $50 million last month. he's meeting with employees including reporters and editors and among his comments reported by the paper, the amazon chief said all businesses need to be young forever. if your customer base age is with y