Nudists offer clothes to earthquake victims

(Special from The Voice of the Volga – July 10, 2015)

An altruistic nudist sect that donated several truckloads of clothing to earthquake victims in Chile is at it again. This time an airplane full of warm duds and blankets are headed for Hashishistan, a former Soviet republic located somewhere north of Turkey and west of China.
According to unpublished reports the Potomac Rambling Bares, an ancient society of nudists is still collecting generators and wool socks that are slated to be shipped Friday. Temperatures in Hashishistan, although temperate to date, can begin the plunge to zero as early as October.
The Bares, who wear clothes to work have been invited as honored guests to both Chile and Russia in September. However, political footballs, kicked from Kiev and Santiago may succeed in foiling the visit. In Chile nudity is no big deal. Even the serious Catholics don’t seem to give a damn. The group will probably never even be noticed unless, of corpse, there is coinciding trouble with Argentina, Bolivia or Peru and the black-tie nudists are buttonholed as spies, strip-searched and collared.
In Russia nudity, along with most everything else, is nothing new.
The unclothed were first discovered near Yekaterinburg near the Ural Mountains in 311. Many of the slapstick czars were born naked until Nicholas I put a stop to that in 1825. Czar Nicholas II, under the influence of Russian monk, Gregori Rasputin, banned nudity altogether in 1908, stirring hopeless resentment that may have ignited the revolution in 1917. Although a Communist, Stalin returned to the stringent norms of the Czar, making nudity a crime in the Soviet Union. Victorious German soldiers tell of newly liberated, nude villagers coming out to meet them in Belarus and Lithuania in 1941.
Today Russia proudly boasts over 4.8 million nudists with many more born each day. – Neville Hoser