Ukraine Megathread: Crimea River Build a Bridge, Get Over It

[Assorted Sucrose-Based Lifeforms]

I could care less how Russians in Russia live. Just leave Estonia alone.

Wait, so you do care?

[Teemant]

I could care less how Russians in Russia live. Just leave Estonia alone.

Wait, so you do care?

Woops. It should be couldn't.

[Jinwoy]

Lol

Do you ever have anything reasonable to say?

I find funny how most of the Soviet Union/Russian fanboys live nowhere near Russia.

Const, Shof and Lytt are all from Russia. Shof is the only one out of Russia, in California.
I'm not even Russophilic, I'm just generally Pro-Russia these days.

Apart from that, the only people benefiting from the capitalisation of Russia aaaare, drumroll please, the rich.
That's right. Living Standards have fallen for the majority of the Post-Soviet Russian people, and this is reflected in their elections (CPRF second place? That doesn't sound right for people who are supposed to hate Communists!)

[West Aurelia]

Do you ever have anything reasonable to say?

I find funny how most of the Soviet Union/Russian fanboys live nowhere near Russia.

Const, Shof and Lytt are all from Russia. Shof is the only one out of Russia, in California.
I'm not even Russophilic, I'm just generally Pro-Russia these days.

Apart from that, the only people benefiting from the capitalisation of Russia aaaare, drumroll please, the rich.
That's right. Living Standards have fallen for the majority of the Post-Soviet Russian people, and this is reflected in their elections (CPRF second place? That doesn't sound right for people who are supposed to hate Communists!)

Constantinopolis is Russian? I recall him saying that he couldn't read Russian...

[Teemant]

Do you ever have anything reasonable to say?

I find funny how most of the Soviet Union/Russian fanboys live nowhere near Russia.

Const, Shof and Lytt are all from Russia. Shof is the only one out of Russia, in California.
I'm not even Russophilic, I'm just generally Pro-Russia these days.

Apart from that, the only people benefiting from the capitalisation of Russia aaaare, drumroll please, the rich.
That's right. Living Standards have fallen for the majority of the Post-Soviet Russian people, and this is reflected in their elections (CPRF second place? That doesn't sound right for people who are supposed to hate Communists!)

Are you stupid? Russia isn't even normal capitalistic country. Huge corruption, laws doesn't work, unfair competition etc. No wonder it failed.

[Teemant]

Const, Shof and Lytt are all from Russia. Shof is the only one out of Russia, in California.
I'm not even Russophilic, I'm just generally Pro-Russia these days.

Apart from that, the only people benefiting from the capitalisation of Russia aaaare, drumroll please, the rich.
That's right. Living Standards have fallen for the majority of the Post-Soviet Russian people, and this is reflected in their elections (CPRF second place? That doesn't sound right for people who are supposed to hate Communists!)

Constantinopolis is Russian? I recall him saying that he couldn't read Russian...

I have understood that Constantinopolis is a religious person. If he would have lived in Soviet Union KGB would have paid him a visit.

[Jinwoy]

Constantinopolis is Russian? I recall him saying that he couldn't read Russian...

I have understood that Constantinopolis is a religious person. If he would have lived in Soviet Union KGB would have paid him a visit.

I think you have a misunderstanding of religion in the post-Stalin USSR.

[Jinwoy]

Const, Shof and Lytt are all from Russia. Shof is the only one out of Russia, in California.
I'm not even Russophilic, I'm just generally Pro-Russia these days.

Apart from that, the only people benefiting from the capitalisation of Russia aaaare, drumroll please, the rich.
That's right. Living Standards have fallen for the majority of the Post-Soviet Russian people, and this is reflected in their elections (CPRF second place? That doesn't sound right for people who are supposed to hate Communists!)

Are you stupid? Russia isn't even normal capitalistic country. Huge corruption, laws doesn't work, unfair competition etc. No wonder it failed.

So you are now saying that living standards have fallen? Can you make up your mind please?

[Teemant]

I have understood that Constantinopolis is a religious person. If he would have lived in Soviet Union KGB would have paid him a visit.

I think you have a misunderstanding of religion in the post-Stalin USSR.

I think you don't even have idea what you're talking about. Religion was almost non-existent in Soviet Union during 80s.

[Teemant]

Are you stupid? Russia isn't even normal capitalistic country. Huge corruption, laws doesn't work, unfair competition etc. No wonder it failed.

So you are now saying that living standards have fallen? Can you make up your mind please?

Did I say that?

[United commonwealth of ayrshire]

I think you have a misunderstanding of religion in the post-Stalin USSR.

I think you don't even have idea what you're talking about. Religion was almost non-existent in Soviet Union during 80s.

Religion has always been pretty big in Russia to be fair. The official policy was state atheism but there were still a heck of a lot of practising Orthodox Christians in there. Not to mention the Muslims in the South of the country too, who even defied Lenin by continuing to practice it openly.

[Teemant]

I think you don't even have idea what you're talking about. Religion was almost non-existent in Soviet Union during 80s.

Religion has always been pretty big in Russia to be fair. The official policy was state atheism but there were still a heck of a lot of practising Orthodox Christians in there. Not to mention the Muslims in the South of the country too, who even defied Lenin by continuing to practice it openly.

Religion wasn't big during Soviet Union. There might have been religious people living in Siberia or some remote location (that was far from Moscow or Leningrad). Of course there were secretly religious people too. But people who still went to church were closely watched.

[United commonwealth of ayrshire]

Religion has always been pretty big in Russia to be fair. The official policy was state atheism but there were still a heck of a lot of practising Orthodox Christians in there. Not to mention the Muslims in the South of the country too, who even defied Lenin by continuing to practice it openly.

Religion wasn't big during Soviet Union. There might have been religious people living in Siberia or some remote location (that was far from Moscow or Leningrad). Of course there were secretly religious people too.

Yes. Quite a lot of secret religious people. And millions of practicing Muslims. And Siberia does actually have quite a lot of people in it- about 40 million to be precise. That's a lot of religious people

[Jinwoy]

Religion has always been pretty big in Russia to be fair. The official policy was state atheism but there were still a heck of a lot of practising Orthodox Christians in there. Not to mention the Muslims in the South of the country too, who even defied Lenin by continuing to practice it openly.

Religion wasn't big during Soviet Union. There might have been religious people living in Siberia or some remote location (that was far from Moscow or Leningrad). Of course there were secretly religious people too. But people who still went to church were closely watched.

The leaders of the Moscow Patriarchate were, more often than not, ex-KGB or serving KGB agents.

[Dalcaria]

Do you ever have anything reasonable to say?

I find funny how most of the Soviet Union/Russian fanboys live nowhere near Russia.

Const, Shof and Lytt are all from Russia. Shof is the only one out of Russia, in California.
I'm not even Russophilic, I'm just generally Pro-Russia these days.

Apart from that, the only people benefiting from the capitalisation of Russia aaaare, drumroll please, the rich.
That's right. Living Standards have fallen for the majority of the Post-Soviet Russian people, and this is reflected in their elections (CPRF second place? That doesn't sound right for people who are supposed to hate Communists!)

Wait, has that seriously been confirmed? Because if they are, how many of us were calling that like last year! Bear in mind, there's nothing wrong with being Russian, but the point of folks like me is it does kind of create a point of bias. Not that there's anything wrong with having a bias, but once you start calling sources like BBC and Reuters biased, one starts too question your credibility.

Once more for the record, I'm a Canadian national, ethnically British (with a bit of French). I honestly have no reason to be biased against Russia. In fact, I used to cheer for them at the Olympics, hoping they would be Canada of all things! Course, that changed a tad when Putin started making anti-homosexual and "pedophilia" "propaganda" laws. I've always found it rather curious that he lumped homosexuality in with pedophilia. I guess that's just "Russian values"? A "stupid westerner" couldn't possibly understand (despite the number of Russians who don't share these "values").

Frankly, I'm a little lost for what "Pro-Russian" even is these days. I did a look on wikipedia about Chechnya. Turns out their current President (as I understand it, each separate region in Russia has a "president", though I'm assuming they are in effect more like Governors or Premiers) is an ex-rebel of some kind, a Muslim one. In fact, he's also a member of the United Russia Party! Funny how popular that party seems to be.... Everywhere? Even more interesting was the President's thoughts on the Charlie Hebdo incident. Didn't really sound like it was echoing the thoughts of people who reject religious extremism. Oh, and then there was that article (was it CNN or NY Times? Gotta go back an look) about the wedding parties this guy went to. Chunks of gold for wedding presents, throwing money at child dancers (and I stress CHILD DANCERS), really interesting stuff. In case any of you are curious, typically this would warrant a corruption investigation in most other countries. Oh, and a child abuse investigation perhaps. Just saying.

It's stuff like this that does make it easy to point blame at Chechnya for everything, isn't it? Curious that Putin hasn't tried to reign in his party members a little better, seems good enough at doing that with his opponents.

[Jinwoy]

So you are now saying that living standards have fallen? Can you make up your mind please?

Did I say that?

are you seriously implying that high corruption and high living standards can go hand in hand, or are you willing to admit that for the majority of people that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a loss?

[Teemant]

Did I say that?

are you seriously implying that high corruption and high living standards can go hand in hand, or are you willing to admit that for the majority of people that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a loss?

Still HDI and GDP PPP per capita have risen. For example most of the people now actually can own a car (instead of waiting in lines 10 years and never even having a money to buy a cheap car).

[Dalcaria]

Religion has always been pretty big in Russia to be fair. The official policy was state atheism but there were still a heck of a lot of practising Orthodox Christians in there. Not to mention the Muslims in the South of the country too, who even defied Lenin by continuing to practice it openly.

Religion wasn't big during Soviet Union. There might have been religious people living in Siberia or some remote location (that was far from Moscow or Leningrad). Of course there were secretly religious people too. But people who still went to church were closely watched.

If religion "wasn't big" during the Soviet era, one would expect Russia to be more like Japan or China than, well, Russia. Though Russia does seem a bit odd to me in terms of religion. From the outside looking in, I could almost mistake a lot of them for being "Cultural Christians" (refer to Anders Brevik for more on that), but I haven't seen enough of their religiousness being practiced to say for sure. Either way, religion may have been banned during the Soviet era, but that doesn't mean it was any less influential.

[Teemant]

Religion wasn't big during Soviet Union. There might have been religious people living in Siberia or some remote location (that was far from Moscow or Leningrad). Of course there were secretly religious people too. But people who still went to church were closely watched.

The leaders of the Moscow Patriarchate were, more often than not, ex-KGB or serving KGB agents.

Doesn't it ring any bells if church staff was KGB agents. This shows the attitude towards church.

[Teemant]

Religion wasn't big during Soviet Union. There might have been religious people living in Siberia or some remote location (that was far from Moscow or Leningrad). Of course there were secretly religious people too. But people who still went to church were closely watched.

If religion "wasn't big" during the Soviet era, one would expect Russia to be more like Japan or China than, well, Russia. Though Russia does seem a bit odd to me in terms of religion. From the outside looking in, I could almost mistake a lot of them for being "Cultural Christians" (refer to Anders Brevik for more on that), but I haven't seen enough of their religiousness being practiced to say for sure. Either way, religion may have been banned during the Soviet era, but that doesn't mean it was any less influential.

Religion has made a comeback in Russia during Putin era. Now religion is promoted...

[United commonwealth of ayrshire]

are you seriously implying that high corruption and high living standards can go hand in hand, or are you willing to admit that for the majority of people that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a loss?

Still HDI and GDP PPP per capita have risen. For example most of the people now actually can own a car (instead of waiting in lines 10 years and never even having a money to buy a cheap car).

When communism fell, Russia nearly fell with it. The economy shrunk by half or something in like 5 years. GDP per capita has risen now but Russia is nowadays like Saudi Arabia- A huge amount of wealth, concentrated in the hands of a few hundred oligarchs. Most poorer Russians, as confirmed by polling, prefer the more egalitarian days of the USSR to the corrupt rump state that Russia is now.

[Jinwoy]

Const, Shof and Lytt are all from Russia. Shof is the only one out of Russia, in California.
I'm not even Russophilic, I'm just generally Pro-Russia these days.

Apart from that, the only people benefiting from the capitalisation of Russia aaaare, drumroll please, the rich.
That's right. Living Standards have fallen for the majority of the Post-Soviet Russian people, and this is reflected in their elections (CPRF second place? That doesn't sound right for people who are supposed to hate Communists!)

Wait, has that seriously been confirmed? Because if they are, how many of us were calling that like last year! Bear in mind, there's nothing wrong with being Russian, but the point of folks like me is it does kind of create a point of bias. Not that there's anything wrong with having a bias, but once you start calling sources like BBC and Reuters biased, one starts too question your credibility.

Once more for the record, I'm a Canadian national, ethnically British (with a bit of French). I honestly have no reason to be biased against Russia. In fact, I used to cheer for them at the Olympics, hoping they would be Canada of all things! Course, that changed a tad when Putin started making anti-homosexual and "pedophilia" "propaganda" laws. I've always found it rather curious that he lumped homosexuality in with pedophilia. I guess that's just "Russian values"? A "stupid westerner" couldn't possibly understand (despite the number of Russians who don't share these "values").

Frankly, I'm a little lost for what "Pro-Russian" even is these days. I did a look on wikipedia about Chechnya. Turns out their current President (as I understand it, each separate region in Russia has a "president", though I'm assuming they are in effect more like Governors or Premiers) is an ex-rebel of some kind, a Muslim one. In fact, he's also a member of the United Russia Party! Funny how popular that party seems to be.... Everywhere? Even more interesting was the President's thoughts on the Charlie Hebdo incident. Didn't really sound like it was echoing the thoughts of people who reject religious extremism. Oh, and then there was that article (was it CNN or NY Times? Gotta go back an look) about the wedding parties this guy went to. Chunks of gold for wedding presents, throwing money at child dancers (and I stress CHILD DANCERS), really interesting stuff. In case any of you are curious, typically this would warrant a corruption investigation in most other countries. Oh, and a child abuse investigation perhaps. Just saying.

It's stuff like this that does make it easy to point blame at Chechnya for everything, isn't it? Curious that Putin hasn't tried to reign in his party members a little better, seems good enough at doing that with his opponents.

I don't quite understand what you are saying, but Putin didn't the draft the bill - the State Duma did. And the State Duma passed it. From a populist standpoint, Putin has to either sign the bill or face problems within his party. I don't think he is necessary anti-Homosexual, he just doesn't feel empathy for them/is apathetic towards him.
I don't necessarily agree with that law, like most of Russia's internal policies, and upwards of a year (and a bit now) ago I was heavily criticising of Russia. I still am critical of its internal policies.
But there's something not quite right when everyone starts criticising Russia like a hangman patsy when the US has, arguably, done more worse without the entire world coming down with crippling sanctions.

Not even going to mention how the US has, and continues to support, regimes which have far far far far worse LGBT/human rights than Russia (Saudi Arabia, anyone?).

[Jinwoy]

The leaders of the Moscow Patriarchate were, more often than not, ex-KGB or serving KGB agents.

Doesn't it ring any bells if church staff was KGB agents. This shows the attitude towards church.

The main religions of pre-revolutionary Russia persisted throughout the entire Soviet period, but they were only tolerated within certain limits. Generally, this meant that believers were free to worship in private and in their respective religious buildings (churches, mosques, etc.), but public displays of religion outside of such designated areas were prohibited. In addition, religious institutions were not allowed to express their views in any type of mass media, and many religious buildings were demolished or used for other purposes.

[Jinwoy]

Still HDI and GDP PPP per capita have risen. For example most of the people now actually can own a car (instead of waiting in lines 10 years and never even having a money to buy a cheap car).

When communism fell, Russia nearly fell with it. The economy shrunk by half or something in like 5 years. GDP per capita has risen now but Russia is nowadays like Saudi Arabia- A huge amount of wealth, concentrated in the hands of a few hundred oligarchs. Most poorer Russians, as confirmed by polling, prefer the more egalitarian days of the USSR to the corrupt rump state that Russia is now.

Pretty much this.

[Teemant]

Wait, has that seriously been confirmed? Because if they are, how many of us were calling that like last year! Bear in mind, there's nothing wrong with being Russian, but the point of folks like me is it does kind of create a point of bias. Not that there's anything wrong with having a bias, but once you start calling sources like BBC and Reuters biased, one starts too question your credibility.

Once more for the record, I'm a Canadian national, ethnically British (with a bit of French). I honestly have no reason to be biased against Russia. In fact, I used to cheer for them at the Olympics, hoping they would be Canada of all things! Course, that changed a tad when Putin started making anti-homosexual and "pedophilia" "propaganda" laws. I've always found it rather curious that he lumped homosexuality in with pedophilia. I guess that's just "Russian values"? A "stupid westerner" couldn't possibly understand (despite the number of Russians who don't share these "values").

Frankly, I'm a little lost for what "Pro-Russian" even is these days. I did a look on wikipedia about Chechnya. Turns out their current President (as I understand it, each separate region in Russia has a "president", though I'm assuming they are in effect more like Governors or Premiers) is an ex-rebel of some kind, a Muslim one. In fact, he's also a member of the United Russia Party! Funny how popular that party seems to be.... Everywhere? Even more interesting was the President's thoughts on the Charlie Hebdo incident. Didn't really sound like it was echoing the thoughts of people who reject religious extremism. Oh, and then there was that article (was it CNN or NY Times? Gotta go back an look) about the wedding parties this guy went to. Chunks of gold for wedding presents, throwing money at child dancers (and I stress CHILD DANCERS), really interesting stuff. In case any of you are curious, typically this would warrant a corruption investigation in most other countries. Oh, and a child abuse investigation perhaps. Just saying.

It's stuff like this that does make it easy to point blame at Chechnya for everything, isn't it? Curious that Putin hasn't tried to reign in his party members a little better, seems good enough at doing that with his opponents.

I don't quite understand what you are saying, but Putin didn't the draft the bill - the State Duma did. And the State Duma passed it. From a populist standpoint, Putin has to either sign the bill or face problems within his party. I don't think he is necessary anti-Homosexual, he just doesn't feel empathy for them/is apathetic towards him.
I don't necessarily agree with that law, like most of Russia's internal policies, and upwards of a year (and a bit now) ago I was heavily criticising of Russia. I still am critical of its internal policies.
But there's something not quite right when everyone starts criticising Russia like a hangman patsy when the US has, arguably, done more worse without the entire world coming down with crippling sanctions.

Not even going to mention how the US has, and continues to support, regimes which have far far far far worse LGBT/human rights than Russia (Saudi Arabia, anyone?).

Critical of internal policies but supporting Russian foreign politics? I think it is clear now. It's that case again - people who support Russia trying to act badass in international politics but would never want to live in a country like this themselves. They always wish Russia for other people.

Is this mental thing? Do they will more manly and powerful supporting Russia? I think it should be researched what this phenomenon is.