Smithsonian Sunday: Now Olympic Site Sochi Was Once Setting of Horrific Ethnic Cleansing

DC's Smithsonian museums (there are 17 of them here in the city) are among America's most treasured and visited places. But the Smithsonian also publishes a series of some of the most interesting, fact-filled blogs appearing anywhere on the internet. Each Sunday, The Prices Do DC re-posts an entry that initially appeared in one of those highly-readable blogs. Hope you enjoy and maybe we'll see you soon at the Smithsonian.

History has largely been kind to Alexander II, the Russian czar who freed the serfs in 1861, just two years before Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 (the two world leaders even corresponded about their plans.)Modern historians refer to him as the “Czar-Liberator” and compare him to Mikhail Gorbachev for his willingness to engage with the West and reform Russia.

But on the occasion of the 2014 Winter Olympics being held in Sochi and the surrounding areas, it’s helpful to look back and remember that 600,000 locals died from starvation, exposure, drowning and massacres in a concerted campaign by the Russian Empire to expel the Circassian people, as they were called, from the region. The Circassians and the other inhabitants of the Caucasus region did not fit into the Czar’s reform program, because he viewed them as an inherent risk to the security of Russia’s southern frontier and the nation is still coming to terms with the consequences of the czar’s expulsion of the Circassian people today.

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Can Data Miners Tell How Many Olympic Medals a Country Will Win?

DC's Smithsonian museums (there are 17 of them here in the city) are among America's most treasured and visited places. But the Smithsonian also publishes a series of some of the most interesting, fact-filled blogs appearing anywhere on the internet. Each Sunday, The Prices Do DC re-posts an entry that initially appeared in one of those highly-readable blogs. Hope you enjoy and maybe we'll see you soon at the Smithsonian.

The American Olympic contingent at the opening ceremony: How many medals will they win?

If someone asked you to predict the number of medals each country is going to win in this year's Olympics, you'd probably try to identify the favored athletes in each event, then total each country's expected wins to arrive at a result.

Tim and Dan Graettinger, the brothers behind the data mining company Discovery Corps, Inc., have a rather different approach. They ignore the athletes entirely.

Instead, their model for the Sochi games looks at each country's geographic area, GDP per capita, total value of exports and latitude to determine how many medals each country will win. In case you're wondering, it predicts the U.S. will come out on top, with 29 medals in total.

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