Tourists preparing to visit Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, will find numerous information on its beautifully preserved historical center which ranks among UNESCO sites on the World Heritage List. Travel guides are filled with pictures of the city hall, churches, scenic viewpoints of the sea and picturesque colored facades of the old town. It appears like a medieval European harbor city full of wonders, almost like a time-capsule that was transported from the Middle Ages to today, skipping the 20^th^ century.

International sporting events are not just athletic competitions but also ideological competitions between the athletes’ nations’ cultural, political, and social beliefs. The best example is the 1980 Lake Placid Olympic Games where the Soviet Union took on the United States in the Semi-Final Ice Hockey Match; this game would decide who competed for the Gold Medal. The match also represented the ideological clash between communism and capitalism.

Every day on their way to work and returning home, hundreds of residents of the capital of Kazakhstan, Nur-Sultan (formerly known as Astana before 2019), pass near the enormous grey concrete-pier trestles in the middle of the new shiny city center. They are a part of the infamous Astana Light Rail Transportation (LRT) project stalled when its construction has barely begun. They are hard to hide behind the fencing because of their colossal height and scatteration along the main street road. But people seem not to notice them. They had come to terms with these four-meter-high ugly columns calling them ironically "the monument for great Kazakh corruption." Just like they did with the corruption itself, which has permeated all aspects of their lives.

When the atomic bomb drops, day turns into night, people become ghosts. (Sakamoto Hatsumi, 1952)¹