In Which We Learn New Things About Russia

goman wrote:

Georgia is in Europe. Not Asia.

Wait a second. Europe is not really a continent. More of a Peninsula.

The established opinion disagrees with that.

Prederick wrote:

Journalist Dies In Police Custody

Should we make this a "In Which We Learn New Things About Eastern Europe" catch-all? Because it certainly seems at times that if you're talking about Poland/Latvia/Ukraine/Georgia/Belarus/parts of the Balkans, you're still talking about Russia.

Yep, making this an Eastern European "catch-all" would be nice. Especially because, in contrary to what you've said, we can (and should) talk about EE countries outside of Russian context.

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

On a different note: first public test flight of Russian 5th generation fighter jet PAKFA/T-50/Raptorski/F-22 Killa/F-35 Killa is scheduled for January 29th.

And NATO named it Firefox. Now all we need is a washed-up ex-military pilot from Vietnam Iraq to steal it, and we'll be safe from Communism the Mafia for another decade.

Aetius wrote:
Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

On a different note: first public test flight of Russian 5th generation fighter jet PAKFA/T-50/Raptorski/F-22 Killa/F-35 Killa is scheduled for January 29th.

And NATO named it Firefox. Now all we need is a washed-up ex-military pilot from Vietnam Iraq to steal it, and we'll be safe from Communism the Mafia for another decade.

Only if it uses mind-reading to fly it. And of course, the washed-up pilot will have to think in Russian.

PAK FA takes to the skies in a maiden flight!!

IMAGE(http://www.militaryparitet.com/editor/assets/new/1ac80a47cd47.jpg)

Pundits are coming out of woodwork to call into question the real visibility of the canopy and the anti-radar properties of the messy undercarriage gaping airs scoops.

Overall, looks good!! Unmistakably Sukhoi, but the F-22 influences are clearly evident.

Prederick wrote:

Stray Dogs In Moscow

A beautiful fashion model who, according to another report, "was looking quite glamorous: she was wearing a hat made of black velvet, a blue fur-trimmed coat, a short skirt and tall boots," pulls out a kitchen knife and guts a stray dog. Can you get more Russian than that?

And, yes, I do find her intimidating.

Ah Firefox, one of the books seared into into my memory. Clint is actually far too cool compared to the character in the book but its actually pretty faithful adaptation. Scenes like this are done far better in the book which is a great airport novel;

Still, good movie.

Quintin_Stone wrote:
Aetius wrote:
Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

On a different note: first public test flight of Russian 5th generation fighter jet PAKFA/T-50/Raptorski/F-22 Killa/F-35 Killa is scheduled for January 29th.

And NATO named it Firefox. Now all we need is a washed-up ex-military pilot from Vietnam Iraq to steal it, and we'll be safe from Communism the Mafia for another decade.

Only if it uses mind-reading to fly it. And of course, the washed-up pilot will have to think in Russian.

They've already got a deal to sell it to India. Better find someone who can think in Hindi, too.

Rat Boy wrote:

They've already got a deal to sell it to India. Better find someone who can think in Hindi, too.

Goes further than a sale. India is a now partner in the program. The Russkies don't have the budget to build this thing by themselves. For all the talk about Russia as a returning threat, their economy is smaller than Italy's. It was big news when they ordered 48 new fighters after not buying anything new for years.

Russians Rally Around A Falling Enclave

Once a charming neighborhood of about 200 single-family homes, a rare sight in a city dominated by hulking apartment blocs, Rechnik has become a battleground in a long-running fight between the government and homeowners over Russia’s ambiguous land laws.

The Soviet government set aside the plot of land on the Moscow River as a gardening collective in the 1950s. Residents claim that Soviet-era permits, which many bought or inherited from the original holders, give them de facto title over the land that their houses stand on. The city says those permits are invalid, and never allowed for the large mansions and quaint cottages that the residents built.

Mr. Luzhkov, who in his 18 years as mayor has not been given to tolerating affronts to his authority, has stood firm. In an interview published Thursday in the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets, he called the residents “impostors” squatting on land that he said was zoned to be a park. “These cottages are located in a protected environmental zone,” he said. “The city has been saying for years that construction in this area was forbidden.”

To prove his resolve, he has promised next to send his bulldozers to a luxury housing development neighboring Rechnik, where several government ministers are said to live.

Critics have accused the mayor, whose wife is a billionaire real estate developer, of using ambiguous land laws to acquire prime property and resell it to private interests. Just over a year ago, several dozen similar homes were destroyed in a neighboring community that was in the same nebulous legal situation.

There are probably very few places on earth that are more corrupt than the mayorate and the government of Moscow. Mayor Luzhkov has level of power, influence, and impunity not enjoyed in any European city since the times of feudal suzerains.

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

There are probably very few places on earth that are more corrupt than the mayorate and the government of Moscow. Mayor Luzhkov has level of power, influence, and impunity not enjoyed in any European city since the times of feudal suzerains.

So, sort of like Daley?

This has nothing to do with politics, or controversy, but it involves Russians, so I have to post it here, especially in lieu of Snowmageddon 2010 here in the U.S.

Some bored residents in Magadan in the far east have come up with a rather novel way to entertain themselves. They're seen here jumping five stories off the top of an apartment block, just for fun. The snow outside was so deep it cushioned their fall. The men were filmed by a neighbor, able to observe this cheaper version of skydiving. But their high jumps were not rated as sport by the police.

Occasionally, one forgets how flipping huge Russia is, and wonders what differences one might find if they were to visit Vladivostok and then Moscow.

Oh, and how is the Kremlin viewing the results of Ukraine's election?

Jumping into snowbanks is not something exotic. You don't have to go as far as Vladivostok to see it, although I never knew anyone would be so crazy as to jump off the roof of a 5-story building, indeed.

Meanwhile....

Technical analysis of PAK FA. The author concludes that Sukhoi appears to have hit the right balance:

As a first tentative assessment and on the basis of the basis of the scarce information as currently available, the PAK FA (T-50-1?) looks like a mix of well-proven solutions from previous Sukhoi designs married to several new ideas, in particular as regards the still superior quality of Russian aerodynamic research.

It is also possible that the significant delay suffered in developing a Russian counterpart to the F-22 could have turned into a blessing in disguise, giving Sukhoi designers a period of reflexion to generate a well balanced design. This would relate in particular to the decision not to push for extreme low observability characteristics at the expense of everything else, including not only flight performance but also acquisition costs and most importantly maintenance requirements and thus operational availability.

Oh come on. Look how happy he is! Singing about.... whatever.

Meanwhile, Medvedev and Putin are dissapointed about the Olympics.

In the spirit of slightly greater coverage of the area, the Ukraine's still having a little trouble and from Nazi to Orthodox Jew in Poland.

In yet other news, several Eastern European countries (Slovakia, Bulgaria and some others) are suing Russian Gazprom for gas crisis from the last year. No links as the sources are mainly in local languages but I'll post updates if something shows up. Both mentioned countries have suffered almost a month with heavily restricted gas supply and industry functioning in the emergency state so I'm interested how this turns out. Gazprom so far claims force majeure as a cause, although the valves have been quite clearly closed on purpose.

The name of that creep is Eduard Hil. Somehow, he was popular in 70s.

The historians are still trying to decide whether Stepan Bandera was an ultranationalist who conveniently engaged in banditism, or a bandit who espoused an ultranationalist ideology out of expedience. His only relevance is due to the fact that Ukraine lacks any other credible pro-independence, nationalist type of figure in its Soviet period. Given that, the nowadays ultranationalists have to do with what they have, which is this unsavory character.

The plight of Eastern European countries, as I see it, is quite simple -- they have to balance their geopolitical orientation between sticking it to Ivan (affirming their NATO aspirations, whoring themselves out for all kinds of "shields" deployments) and at the same time enjoy privileged position in the energy supply chain and the price controls this position affords them. So, on one hand we have Romania eagerly offering its soil for the missile shield sites, and on the other hand accusations of Nord Stream amounting to "Molotov-Ribbentrop 2".

Somebody in Maverick's shop needs to tell them already that the "New Europe" jig is up.

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

"Molotov-Ribbentrop 2".

John LeCarre's got a new book coming out?

1) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/wo... - didn't hear that story
In a nutshell: antisemitism in Poland is something quite... normal. Historically Poland had probably the biggest Jewish population in Europe, so like with every minority there had to be some tensions. But overall we did pretty good, cause it never did turn into nationwide psychosis. Real problems came after 1945. Some of antisemitism you encounter in Poland nowadays is more about tensions that arose and were deliberately kept up during Communist rule. Let me give you an example:
You're probably quite familiar with French 1968, but I guess it isn't widely known that 1968 was also big for Communist states. Famous Polish March 1968 which was centered around protest of students and intellectuals (notabene: in defence of right to stage theatrical play) was brutally resolved by police. To calm down situation regime decided that it needs to vent that fury toward... Jews. That's how antisemitic purges started. In effect tens of thousands of Jews were persecuted and forced to leave Poland.
I think it's pretty illustrative and explains why in some parts of society those antisemitic leanings live to this day.

On the bright side: many, many Poles love Jews. Of all European cultures we were the one that functioned in closest symbiosis with Jewish tradition for all past centuries. And now that they're gone, we've really come to appreciate them. I think that there's a big, Jew-shaped hole in Polish soul

2)

Prederick wrote:

the Ukraine's still having a little trouble

I think it's gong to get resolved pretty quickly, Tymoshenko is just trying to play on his nerves (that's basically what they all were doing for past five years so no doubt Ukrainians can't be arsed about it ;]) but she will give up eventually cause she has no real power anymore.

3) Stiepan Bandera. That's an interesting one, mainly from sociological and historical viewpoints that I won't get into cause they're quite meandrous (is that a word?) and boring to not locals, I presume. His figure caused a much of upheaval last year and cast a shadow over (until then perfect) relations between Ukraine and Poland. It's another Katyń-like Gordian knot where you don't know whether give up in the name of good relations or put up a fight in the name of historical truth.
It's gotten to really ridiculous points where Ukrainians tried to organise... a cycling race for kids in the name of Stiepan Bandera through Poland. I kid you not.
Like I said, it's an interesting story but it would took me few paragraphs to even touch the subject, and I'm not sure you guys are that interested in it.

4) I wanted to post this weeks ago but forgot to:
It started with this. Then matter got quickly resolved: thieves found, sign restored. But then interesting story emerged: it was connected to Swedish neo-nazis. Finally, even Interpol got involved. Swedish police was able to track down alleged mastermind behind it all, Anders Högström, and now there's talk about extradicting him to Poland, which seems unlikely.
Anyway, it's an interesting story.

postscriptum: Wow, this post is really depressing.

Indian-Russian cooperation is awesome, but far from smooth:

Hindustan Times.

Probably not how you want to instruct the public.

Paleocon wrote:

Probably not how you want to instruct the public.

In other news, Martians have invaded New Jersey.

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

Continuing "In The Russia and Around It" theme...

Guardian

Former Waffen SS servicemembers and their sympathizers openly march through Latvian capital Riga (wassup, Most!) in celebration of Remembrance Day.

IMAGE(http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Media/Pix/pictures/2010/3/13/1268498115324/Latvia-SS-001.jpg)

Aivar Ovolz wrote:

"There was nothing voluntary about it. We had no choice. It was join the legion or go into the forests and join the partisans."

Then join the partisans. If you hadn't figured out by 1944 that the Nazis were the scourge of humanity AND that they were going to get the sharp end of a T34 up the ass, you deserve the better part of a decade rotting in a gulag.

For a Latvian, choosing between the SS and the Soviet government is like choosing between which scumbag is going to bone you in your anal region. The article does little to put the conflict into context.

Continuing "In Russia and Around It" theme...

Guardian

Former Waffen SS servicemembers and their sympathizers openly march through Latvian capital Riga (wassup, Most!) in celebration of Remembrance Day.

IMAGE(http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Media/Pix/pictures/2010/3/13/1268498115324/Latvia-SS-001.jpg)

Funkenpants wrote:

For a Latvian, choosing between the SS and the Soviet government is like choosing between which scumbag is going to bone you in your anal region. The article does little to put the conflict into context.

Once again. Think 1944. If, by then, you hadn't figured out where the war was going and what was happening to folks in SS uniforms, you'd be a retroactive candidate for the Darwin Awards.

edit: I would think that folks that served in the SS would rather folks allowed their embarrassment to die with them.

Paleo, it all comes down to who's pointing the gun at you at the time. And when you've been abused that badly by the Soviets for that long, they probably all look about the same. And it's not like they had our 20:20 hindsight on the war's eventual outcome.

Malor wrote:

Paleo, it all comes down to who's pointing the gun at you at the time. And when you've been abused that badly by the Soviets for that long, they probably all look about the same. And it's not like they had our 20:20 hindsight on the war's eventual outcome.

By 1944, it should have been pretty obvious to anyone who was paying attention that the Germans were going to lose that war. Gottlob Biedermann (a German officer who miraculously survived the entire Eastern Front conflict) described in vivid detail how by then the nazis were routinely abandoning vehicles because they were out of fuel, towing vehicles to within yards of conflict zones in order to save diesel, and were starving and out of ammunition even when ostensibly in supply. His descriptions of how "fat and arrogant" the Russian soldiers were in comparison were dripping with indignation.

You'd have to be pretty clueless not to realize who the winning team was that late in the game.