Senate Russia: its impact on the world, its invasion of Ukraine, and its future

I'm glad that in your moral calculus, ethnic slurs are less worrisome than "Americentrism."

 

Thank you for your support, but, no, I've conceded, I was in the wrong here, not him

 

I think this is one of the reasons I tend to get on well with Slavs. I grew up in a similar environment, with blunt, brutally honest people who cursed a lot. I spent my teens in a housing estate where people dressed like Gopniks (and were the British equivalent, although without the squatting; Brits generally don't have the ankle dorsiflexion). Because I train with kettlebells (and belong to a school of strength founded by Pavel Tsatsouline, former Spetznaz PTI) I get to meet a fair few folks from Russia & former Soviet states. I appreciate their toughness and feel comfortable among them in a way I never could around Americans.

 

I didn't say it was. I think though the point at which you engaged him charging on your moral high horse, Rocinante, you did so based on a set of assumptions which were proven wrong. If you spent time in any other culture, you'd know that what we consider acceptable commentary on race et al is not universal and as such, making assumptions of a clearly non-Westerner - with respect of Western values - is astonishingly arrogant. Even for you.

 

The Wocky-Ender war is an ancient conflict that deals with issues far before you or I joined the JCC. It's best for us not to get involved. Your post may have been the latest flashpoint, but it's not the main thing they're arguing over.

Also, for what it's worth, my only beef with you has been over your walls of pictures, not your point of view, despite me not always agreeing with you. I am also someone who grew up in a country with experiences vastly different than that of most JCCers, putting me sometimes in direct odds with them over who to support. Therefore, I actually sympathize with you a bit and I've found you've gotten a lot of ill treatment and unfair accusations of being a shill for merely disagreeing.

 

Mother Russia would destroy USA in a direct conflict. Let's be honest here Papa Putin is just too OP.

 

A direct, all-out war would result in a nuclear exchange. Mother Russia and Third Cousin, Twice Removed USA, and Stepbrother Rest of the World would be too busy with 100,000,000< deaths and the plumes of radioactive fallout to care about the winner of the apocalyptic pissing contest.

 

Indeed, nobody needs a nuke war. It would be the end of all of us...

Anyway, Russia today celebrates the third anniversary of Crimea returning to the Motherland. See here for more details of that little event, if unfamiliar: http://boards.theforce.net/threads/on-this-date-in-history.50007799/page-174#post-54204610

Some early pics from festivities in various regions:

Folk ensemble performing in city of Tyumen, in Ural Mountains


Celebrations in Odintsovo, a large town in Moscow region, lots of people carrying Russian flags and patriotic slogans, listening to a band on stage



In Petrozavodsk, capital of Karelia, a Northern region bordering Finland, members of the local Crimean Tatar diaspora take photos with a table full of traditional treats they have prepared for revelers at the local event:


The government is actually taking a lesser part in the celebrations this year. Putin will not even address the rally in Moscow.

Instead, they want the people themselves to organize and celebrate as they, the people, wish

There will be dancing today, youth groups are planning massive flash mobs and such, apparently. Will be a fun day, for everyone

Oh, and oppositioners, led by the renowned activist and potential Presidential candidate Alexey Navalny, wanted to use the occasion for a protest march against government corruption

Municipal authorities banned this, predictably. Still, Navalny, once again, got to put his name out there, like the smart political strategist he is

 

SergeyX2017
can I ask you - how long do you think Putin will hold onto power ? I mean do you think he'll do all he can to stay in charge ?

 

I think he will rule till death. He has no choice. He has done some awful things while in office, from the 300,000 dead civilians in Chechnya (and hundreds of innocent sleeping families blown up in apartment buildings in several Russian cities in 1999, mass bombings blamed on the Chechens and used as pretext by Putin to send troops back into Chechnya to crush them for good), to the war with Georgia in 2008, to certain questionable legalities of the Crimea operation, the events in Donbass, the Russian military involvement in Syria. Not to mention all the journalists and human rights activists and such assassinated, murdered on his watch, some, like Anna Politkovskaya or Boris Nemtsov, probably on his direct orders.

Basically, the man has a LOT to answer for, potentially. And no guarantees that, should he hand over the reigns and retire alive, whoever replaces him won't hand him off to the Hague to be tried for all of this crap, or even put him on trial himself, in a Russian court.

So, he has to rule till he dies. Or, at least, another two decades, by which time his alleged bastard son with Alina Kabaeva will be old enough to inherit the throne from daddy lol At least you can hope your own bloody offspring won't throw you to the wolves, right? Though, in Russia, even THAT is not exactly a 100% certainty...

 

Flash mob in Sevastopol, Crimea, yesterday, for 3rd anniversary of return to Russia, whole bunch of people line up to make a huge Russian flag, visible from the air:

Pretty cool

 

Kresty-2 is a new jail complex, biggest in Europe, opened in St. Petersburg, Russia, in late 2015



It replaces the old Kresty prison, which is a fortress complex dating back to the Tsarist era

Kresty closed a few years ago, it is a museum now. I think some rich jackass is trying to buy it from the government, wants to turn it into a hotel, I kid you not! Russia lol

The name "Kresty", btw, means "Crosses" in Russian. Because of the shape of the buildings, I guess. Or the buildings were designed for the name. I have no idea, honestly, which came first. Old Kresty prison was as legendary in Russia as Alcatraz in US. Many famous gangsters and other criminals were in there over its couple centuries of existence. Petersburg was always a rough town well known for their outlaws, to this very day... And Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders all got locked up there before their Revolution. Perhaps the most famous and infamous prison in Russia.

Kresty-2 is designed to hold 4,000 inmates, but, knowing the Russian penal system, before long, twice ir even three times as many men will end up crammed in each cell. Original Kresty was built to hold just 1,200 or so, but has, at times, especially in last decade, housed up to 5,000!

Overcrowding is a major issue in Russian prisons. Only the US locks up more of its citizens than Russia (be proud, my friends ) In Russia, especially these urban jails, where many people are held at trial detention, are horribly overcrowded, which has had other nasty consequences, in terms of sanitation, all kinds of diseases spread in there, I read an account of a human right activist who visited a jail in Moscow, not in some ****hole in Siberia, in Moscow, and saw conditions that shocked him, cells crammed full, inmates, some looking visibly sick, sleeping on the ****ing floor, people pissing in the corners of cells, for lack of toilets! WTF... Russia is not supposed to be a third world country, you know!

Well, Kresty-2 is supposed to be different. Not only biggest, but most modern Russian prison ever

Spoiler

Four-man cell



One-man cell


As you see, each cell has own (vandalism resistant) sink and toilet. Luxurious Presidential suite, by the standards of the Russian penal system lol

That ain't all: all the cells have AIR CONDITIONING for the hot summers! I hear, after this place opened, they had to hold a bloody lottery among all the inmates in St. Petersburg and surrounding regions, who gets to go to this place. Everyone wanted to move there

Innovations in security too, like the windows, made of a special, apparently shatter-proof glass, along with the usual metal bars


As well as guard observation booths at the cross junction of each of the buildings


And there will also be much more use of cameras and other electronic equipment.

They even, apparently, have those horizontal escalators, I only seen them before at airports and a casino around here


By mid-2016, first batches of prisoners were moved into Kresty-2, and the process is continuing.

Now, in a hilarious bit of irony, the president of the construction company who built the prison may find himself among its inmates. He was arrested today, accused of defrauding other investors in this very project lmao There were other scandals connected with Kresty-2, namely, this dude's partner in his company was killed, shot dead, probably by a professional hitman, couple years ago and the man in question is suspected of hiring the assassin. Nice man, in short. Hopefully, he enjoys the prison he built

 

Yeah, but that's part of their business model. The 'three strikes' de facto slavery you get with Freedom

From the photos, it looks really nice! Maybe I should join the Russian mafia. I hear they pride themselves on being the best conditioned criminals in the world.

 

Maybe you can get a cool nickname from the Bratva. Something like "The Machine.":

 

Has Putin completed his transition from authoritarian to totalitarian? It must involve a lot of paranoia, I know. But he's been in charge since I was in the seventh grade, and I didn't expect him to last this long. He must be extremely smart to be this dangerous. Turning Russia into a spookocracy was no easy task. He frightens me now more than he did before 2014, although I do recall him gassing all those people during a terrorist attack when I was in high school. I should have become concerned then, I suppose.

 

It was a hostage situation in a theatre. Used sleeping gas during the siege.

Russia will remain a autocracy; doubt it will ever transcend into a full totalitarian. United Russia don't require it. He might be an autocrat, but Putin is a very smart leader; doesn't take gambles without carefully studying all possible outcomes. It is why Putin hasn't annexed Eastern Ukraine.

 

yeurgh

I don't think they take outsiders, people from outside former USSR lol But, sure, go to Brighton Beach or wherever, get in touch, and try out, good luck lol Maybe they will even give you a cool nickname, as Lord Vivec said

SateleNovelist11

I don't think Putin will go FULL totalitarian, he will still leave people some room to breathe. I hope so, anyway.

God knows, there are folks who want him to go all the way. That Crimean governor, Aksyonov, earlier said Russia should go monarchy again (see post #410); and now, yesterday, again, said Putin should be Prez for life: Russia-backed Crimea chief says Putin should be president for life

That's just one, among other influential people. And I too, again, agree that he will rule for life. But he won't go into bloody repressions like Stalin, no, I don't believe so.

He cannot afford to entirely turn away from the West either.

Here is a good article:

Russia cannot live with the west – or without it

DanielUK

Yes, they used some sort of poison gas at Dubrovka Theater. And later, in 2004, shot the crap out of that school in Beslan, even used artillery, allegedly.

Well, this accomplished one thing: the Chechen terrorists stopped taking hostages, just stopped using that, as a tactic. It only works against an opponent who, at least, cares about the lives of their own people. Against one who just wastes everyone, yours and their own, it is pointless, futile and costly to your own forces

Anyway, more Russian news:

Russia and Japan continue high level negotiations about the Kuril islands (and other issues): Defense, Foreign Ministers Of Japan, Russia Meet In Tokyo

It is alleged that rich Russians have invested some $100 million in Trump buildings: SPECIAL REPORT: Russian elite invested nearly $100 million in Trump buildings, records show

Meanwhile, after a Democratic Senator proposed a bill for Justice Department to investigate RT in America, Russian parliament now, in turn, wants to investigate US media in Russia: Russian parliament orders probe of U.S. media in Moscow

And Russian conservationists are working to save endangered Siberian snow leopards: Russian Conservationists Launch Survey of Elusive Snow Leopard

 

Ah, I see. That's very interesting. Well, Putin really got on my nerves when he allowed the Russian citizens to discriminate against LGBTs. That scares me. I also wonder what's become of his wife. I hope he didn't kill her as Stalin is alleged to have killed one of his wives. He really seems misogynistic. When he first came in, we thought he would be better than his predecessor. Well, maybe he's been good for the economy, but he definitely is focused on making Russia a world power again. Isn't Russia an emerging world power? Or could the Russian Federation become a superpower in the future? That would be interesting, given how its Soviet version was one. I always thought China would succeed the US as a superpower by the 2040s or so, but it looks like we're going to have many world powers around the globe soon.

Putin's nationalism certainly seems to help his popularity over there. I mean, who can blame anyone for loving their country, but he's like an ultranationalist. Some consider him a fascist of sorts. How did he insert spies throughout society? I heard he even has spies in the Orthodox Church. The guy must be really patient.

Eh, the Chechen thing is complex. I'll have to give my opinion of it later. I think many Eastern and Central European ethnic groups and states are used by Russia and world powers. I think some groups need to become real nation-states rather than suffer under the domination of larger powers. Just as Palestine doesn't deserve to be under the boot of Israel.

But don't get me wrong. I disagree with Putin on almost everything and I find him disturbing. But I actually agreed with him once. He opposed Obama and Kerry's attempt to wage open war with Syria in 2013. Yeah, he was doing it for selfish reasons, but at least someone was doing it. Plus, I am of the basic opinion that we cannot force our values on Russia or any country for that matter. That's ethnocentric and stupid. I may not like how Putin treats LGBTs or what he says about them, but it's like how I hate the near-totalitarian Saudi monarchy. I can't stand them, but I'm not in favor of overthrowing anyone unless they are a true existential threat to my own country. I'm not an imperialist.

 

Well, Lyudmila, the ex-wife, is okay, she has moved back to St. Petersburg, started running her own business, even found herself a new man, who is way younger than her



And I agree on Syria. Assad is the lesser of many evils there. Secular dictator is better than Islamist theocrats and fanatics any day. I have a friend, Hassan, from high school here, whose family all came here to Canada from Iraq, as refugees, after the US invasion. He always told me, under Saddam, Iraq was a MUCH nicer place, safer place, like, you could go out for a pleasant walk at night in Baghdad. And now, what?

As for LGBTs, yes, they have a hard time in Russia too. Its thanks to the new influence of the Orthodox Church, of course... Spies in the Church? Well, Patriarch Kirill himself was a KGB snitch, back in the Soviet era. Probably why gets along with Putin so well

 

I've heard, the further you go east in Russia, opinions on LGBT change and become quite liberal.

 

Not sure about that... I recall an incident in a mall in Siberia, where a bunch of guys tried to do some sort of performance of Scottish music or something, wearing kilts, and were physically attacked by other people who thought they were gays or transvestites wearing skirts lmao

Yep, it was for St. Patrick Day in 2014:

Siberia Patrick’s group mistaken for gay activists attacked

haha God bless Russia...

 

Yeah, I know I shouldn't laugh at that but it reminds me so much of my childhood. When I was 14 I walked home wearing a floral print shirt. They were fashionable at the time but not on the estate I where I lived, where the only acceptable fashion was a tracksuit or maybe jeans & t-shirt. A guy - a fully grown man in his 30s - stopped his car, got out, punched me in the face - breaking one of my front teeth in the process - and told me that if he saw me wearing '****y' clothes again he'd ****ing kill me

As much as I know it makes many people's lives unbearable, I can't help finding that kind of senseless thuggery very, very funny.

 

****ing provocative !

 

There is a great Russian TV show I sometimes watch (well... "great" is a stretch here, I bet Western audience would be shocked by a lot of it, actually, lol), which is a perfect window into the psyche of modern Russian youths.

Zakon Kamennykh Dzhungley (ZKD) or 'Law of the Stone Jungle'.

It's about four young guys who live in one of the desolate suburbs of Moscow (another funny thing about Russia, unlike in the US, over there, the rich and nice neighborhoods are IN the inner city; the "ghettos" are in the burbs lol)

and these old friends from kindergarten decide to join together to become a gang. There will be others, but they join later in the show, these four are the core, the originals, most o the plots revolve around them.

Boy in blue jacket is "Zhuk", Anton Zhukov.

Spoiler

He is the toughest of them, an MMA fighter who fights for money in illegal underground no rules leagues

who never goes anywhere without his brass knuckles


In one of the early episodes, he is chased by a cop, whom he ambushes in some dark alley, beats the poor guy half to death, leaving him unconscious, and takes his gun, which is why he is the only one of them, for a long time, also, who has a gun

Guns are much harder to acquire in Russia than in US. Just having one gets you much respect. And carrying around a Makarov PM pistol, which you could only get your hands on but literally taking it from a cop, like this Zhuk did... well, that marks you as a certified badass, loads and loads of street cred for that lol

He doesn't seem to have a family (it is hinted that his father was a mobster who was killed in one of the many turf wars and his mother died in the crossfire in that same hit...), only person he truly loves is his beautiful girlfriend, Irina



Once, Irina is abducted by bad people, a couple (literally husband an wife) of serial killers, and Anton goes there and ****ing wastes them both and saves his girl: https://rutube.ru/video/bc8689fa20de783094309939ac8a409b/

Message to boys being - be like that. Message to girls - date guys like that lol

Anton is the oldest of them, I believe. He is not, however, their leader.

That would be Timofei "Tim" Gordeev, the next boy, in leather jacket

Spoiler

He is in it for the money

the girls (his Elena is Irina's younger sister, funnily enough lol)

and the chance to beat people with a baseball bat, which he seems to rather enjoy

haha

He ran away from home at young age, from an abusive father, a veteran of the war in Chechnya who has PTSD-type syndrome, and is violent towards Tim's mother and towards Tim and his sister also. At one point in the show, Tim, now a tough-as-nails gangsta, comes home, handcuffs his dad to his bed, and beats him with a stick (a fold-up truncheon, I think), and threatens that if dad ever puts his hands on his mom or sister ever again, he (Tim) will return and kill him. Nice family, in short lol

Then, there is Konstantin, Kostya Tsyplyakov ("Tsypa"), he is the kid at very right in the pic.

Spoiler

He grew up in a Children's Home, a state orphanage; never knew his parents, I gather he is a refusenik, an abandoned baby.

His gilfriend is Lisa, Tim's hot Goth/Punk sister


And he later finds a long lost big brother, Vadim, a nasty prick, gangster, drug dealer, pimp


Vadim wants Kostya to eventually inherit his criminal empire. He, in fact, pulls and entices the young lad further to the... err... Dark Side

Shows him piles and piles of cash


"One day, all this **** will be yours!"

He also (this is earlier in the show, before he gets involved with Lisa), when Tsypa confesses to him that he'd never been with a girl, which actually pisses Vadim off, he is embarrassed by it lol He actually gets one of his strippers to... well... teach the boy the ropes, so to speak: http://lawjungle.ru/uploads/posts/2015-03/1425412048_cypa-2.jpg

Only posting link, not open photo. Click only if wish lol And, yes, believe it or not, this is a TEEN show on Russian TV lmao

As the show goes on, and the gang works for Vadim, delivering drugs for him, and doing other jobs, and as other boys join, and the gang grows bigger, a competition develops, between Tim and Tsypa, over who is the boss.

Sasha (Alexander), a corrupt cop who also works for Vadim and doesn't like Tsypa, tries to cause trouble between the boys, he goads Tim against Tsypa

Asks him, you know, are you gonna take all this ****? Is he the boss now, because you guys work for his brother? That sort of stuff.

Tsypa later learns of it and... blows up Sasha's car, as a message

lmao I do like this kid

Last kid is Gosha (short for Grigory), he is more or less a good kid from a decent family, only one of them who has normal parents who try all they can to keep him on a straight path, but his friends drag him into all the bad **** anyway. He is the youngest of them too, of course, so, that doesn't help either.

These boys have basically two sets of enemies, the police, who are out to bust them and spoil their fun

Spoiler

And other gangs, especially - the "Southerners", i.e. Muslim guys from North Caucasus, led by this guy, Gasan

They are big rivals, Tim and Gasan, and have a huge brawl in one episode. In another, where the above pic is from, Zhuk attacks Gasan, after Irina is kidnapped, because he thinks the Southerners are responsible. They even pull guns on each other, as you see, but Gasan, eventually, convinces him his people had nothing to do with the kidnapping, and even helps him find that nasty couple I mentioned above, who actually have his girlfriend. Later, in another episode, when Zhuk is in jail, and then Gasan is brought into his cell, and other, Slavic, inmates want to beat Gasan, Zhuk remembers this, that Gasan helped him save Irina once; and stands up for him, against like almost a dozen, older, bigger men. Risks his life, basically, but the cell's pakhan (prison gang boss), apparently, develops a respect for Zhuk for this and tells his guys to back off and leave Zhuk and Gasan alone.

I love this, because it really shows the dynamics in this neighborhood, like many other such hoods around Moscow, you have poor working class Slavs, Muscovites and migrants from other areas of Russia; and also poor Muslim migrants from Caucasus and Central Asia. Youth from both groups have own gangs and such, and they violently fight each other. But, they can also develop connections that reach between the two communities, they can stand up for each other against outsiders. Neighborhood transcends ethnic or religious affiliation. It was very nicely shown there...

Very interesting show, overall. Not something I thought would ever be allowed to be showed. There is on episode, for example, where Vadim comes right into his crooked cop, Sasha's office, and bullies him and treats him like crap, like his own total bitch, pardon me. And tells him, when Sasha gets upset about Vadim smoking a joint and waving around a handgun in his office, don't worry, bro, your superiors don't give a crap, they are too busy getting paid by MY superiors (meaning, in the mafia lol)

Many people are angry about this show. Glorifying crime and violence among youth, they say, why? What is the point? Old folks think this is the post-Soviet degradation of society lol "Wasn't like that 40 years ago!" they say hehe

I don't know. For me, shows like this help understand how Russians think. I dare say majority of the country lives in poor, highly criminalized neighborhoods and towns, like those boys above. Millions of boys really are growing up like this. You wonder why Putin's own thuggish behavior is accepted as normal by mot people in Russia, well, its because, with this kind of upbringing, it DOES seem perfectly ****ing normal to them...

 

Looks like Diego Luna and Adam Driver had a kid.