3 WTF WIKI'S
Week 3
1. Krokodil Street Drug
Otherwise known as “Desomorphine” this is simply another opioid that has corrupted European countries like Russia, Switzerland, the UK and the former Soviet Union. The name “Krokodil” is the Russian word for crocodile and it has earned that street name because of the abscesses (DO NOT look that word up) of dead flesh it leaves on the user’s body, making their skin look like a crocodiles. This is due to the user injecting the drug and missing a vein or because the materials that were used come from secondary sources. It was once prescribed as a pain-killer and offered “quicker relief than morphine” but had side effects like: severe respiratory depression, dangerously low blood levels, and people being unable to get all their pee out of their bladder. It started being cooked by regular people in Russia using over-the-counter codeine (I fucking wish America) and other pharmaceuticals. There have been rumors that the drug has made it’s way to North America but there are no confirmed cases of this being true.
I won’t put any photos for this one cause its gross as hell and it’ll actually ruin your day.
2. Agent Orange
So this is a term I’ve heard used in podcasts when talking about war that always rung in my ear when I’d hear it but never actually looked further. Well agent orange was a herbicide used by the U.S. in the Vietnam war as a chemical weapon. About 18% of the entire country of Vietnam was sprayed with this (12,000 sq. miles), which kills the natural vegetation and animals. It is estimated that 4 million people were sprayed with the chemical and that about 3 million people suffer from disease as a result. Also, Vietnam was not the only suspect at the time. The nearby countries of Laos and Cambodia were also sprayed, I am not sure why considering they were considered to be neutral during the war. 500,000 gallons of toxins were dropped on the two countries during the war. Now since they were neutral America never claimed those operations were done in order to dodge having to pay any reparations. If you look up any photos on how these victims look all you can find are photos of deformed children, seeing that the damage is still very much being done today.
Even as the American soldiers who sprayed the “defoliant” got back home, they could not get compensated for damages done by the cancerous chemicals. American GI’s had to somehow prove they had gotten sick as a direct result of using the chemical. In 1993, the VA had compensated 486 victims for agent orange meanwhile they had over 39,000 requests for compensation for using the herbicide.
3. Faberge Egg
Imagine being gifted one of these for Easter? This is known as a Faberge Egg and has its origins coming from over 140 years ago in Russia. Starting around the 1840’s for the Russian royal family but then went on to make private pieces for other royal’s and even the Rothschild family. These jeweled eggs came from a jeweler’s workshop and would be made every year for a span of over 100 years and given the the king and his tsarina typically around Easter time. The artist (Faberge) is most known for his Imperial Eggs set which were specifically gifts to royalty but you can find what seems like hundreds if not thousands of cool and intricate designs on these eggs. The business has stayed in the family and even to this day the Faberge Jeweler makes egg-themed pieces. I know some of the eggs are casted out of solid gold or silver but I wonder if any of the eggs are just actual decorated hen eggs.