Russian Discussion Thread I

[Shrillland]

The Midterms were yesterday and, surprise, surprise, United Russia stays in the lead.

Although the Centre-right New People Party did get into the Duma for the first time, they, like the other parties, are basically Putinist sycophants. Oh, and there's evidence the vote was rigged. Again.

I dont like this vote, i have 0 proofs about rigging of any kind, but i dont like results so it must be rigged. Liberals are baffling indeed.

Not a question of what I think, it's right there in the article:

Golos, an election watchdog accused by authorities of being a foreign agent, recorded thousands of violations, including threats against observers and ballot stuffing, blatant examples of which circulated on social media. Some individuals were shown on camera appearing to deposit bundles of votes in urns.

[Czervenika]

Politically, modern Russia sucks. Especially with its bigoted laws towards women and LGBTQA+ individuals.

[Cosmic79]

Politically, modern Russia sucks. Especially with its bigoted laws towards women and LGBTQA+ individuals.

Yeah, but what can you do about it? It's an aggressive monarchy that is backed by ultra-rich families and owns a very beefy military force to bully its neighbors with. I guess it sucks to live in Russia, but not everyone can just leave.

[Immortan Khan]

Politically, modern Russia sucks. Especially with its bigoted laws towards women and LGBTQA+ individuals.

Yeah, but what can you do about it? It's an aggressive monarchy that is backed by ultra-rich families and owns a very beefy military force to bully its neighbors with. I guess it sucks to live in Russia, but not everyone can just leave.

Russia isn't a monarchy.

[Czervenika]

Politically, modern Russia sucks. Especially with its bigoted laws towards women and LGBTQA+ individuals.

Yeah, but what can you do about it? It's an aggressive monarchy that is backed by ultra-rich families and owns a very beefy military force to bully its neighbors with. I guess it sucks to live in Russia, but not everyone can just leave.

An oligarchy, yes, but not a monarchy.

[Cosmic79]

Yeah, but what can you do about it? It's an aggressive monarchy that is backed by ultra-rich families and owns a very beefy military force to bully its neighbors with. I guess it sucks to live in Russia, but not everyone can just leave.

An oligarchy, yes, but not a monarchy.

Yeah an oligarchy is a better term of it. In any case, there isn't much that can be done about it. The movement centered around Navalny is proof that the only way you can avoid this mafia rule is by leaving the country. Change from within will never happen, their militarized police will always overpower and eagerly brutalize any Russian who doesn't approve of their masters. And the elections/party system is an insult to real ones. All approved parties are state controlled opposition.

[Keira]

Oh nice. I was looking for this thread a few weeks/months ago. I wanted to share a video, but ended up sharing it with Laka only. Anyway, here it is - РОССИЯ: СТРАНА БЕЗРАЗЛИЧИЯ (2021) (RU/EN).

Слава Украине и Прибалтике!
Hail NATO!

OK, I'm out.

[Keira]

I am transcribing words from Cyrillic to Latin alphabets. There is no one correct way to transliterate this. Would you prefer that I used "Київ", "Великий Новгород", "Україна", "Беларусь", and "Калининград"? I personally think this would make it more confusing for the many readers who are not familiar with Cyrillic.

That's not what you're doing, lol.

"Kijów" is literally just the Polish name. If you're going to pretend to be rendering how natives say it, then write Kyiv. Same goes for the others. In fact, if you didn't want to confuse people, why the fuck are you writing "Królewiec" instead of Kaliningrad?

Again I ask: why are you being so weird about this?

The guy is obviously a polak irredentist, simple as that.

[The North Polish Union]

I am transcribing words from Cyrillic to Latin alphabets. There is no one correct way to transliterate this. Would you prefer that I used "Київ", "Великий Новгород", "Україна", "Беларусь", and "Калининград"? I personally think this would make it more confusing for the many readers who are not familiar with Cyrillic.

That's not what you're doing, lol.

"Kijów" is literally just the Polish name. If you're going to pretend to be rendering how natives say it, then write Kyiv. Same goes for the others. In fact, if you didn't want to confuse people, why the fuck are you writing "Królewiec" instead of Kaliningrad?

Again I ask: why are you being so weird about this?

"Kyiv" is simply the modern English transliteration. During Soviet times when Russian (and not Ukrainian) was used for Ukrainian(!) place names, the common English transliteration was "Kiev". Once again, there is not a single correct method of transcription for Cyrillic to Latin alphabets.

As for "Kaliningrad", I refuse to refer to the city by the name of a genocidal war criminal who was responsible for the Katyń slaughter. Would you prefer the Lithuanian "Karaliaučius"?

What evidence is there that Russians are genetically related to the Slavs? Show it to me.

Knock yourself out.

I have looked at your source. It is interesting how while it asserts that Russians are Slavs, much of it and the references do little to support this. The articles says studies "uphold the traditionally held genetic differentiation between Northern and Southern Russians, with the decisive ethnic element being the Finnic one, more important in the north, the southern population having substantial - generally unacknowledged in historical debates about Russian ethnogenesis - Germanic influence." So it appears that northern Russians descend from the Finnish tribes, while only the southern Russians are from the Viking Rus'; either way that does not make the Russians Slavs. It is unfortunate that the article it is citing is behind a paywall.

Let's look at another of the sources for the Wikipedia article, source 7. The study says that "one can conclude that we were not able to find any specific combinations of unique mtDNA haplotypes and their subclusters
clearly distinguishing Russians [...] from the neighboring European populations such as Germans and Finns. This trend was also noted in a previous study on the HVS I-RFLP variation in Russians in comparison with Western and Eastern European populations (Malyarchuk & Derenko, 2001)."

Differently, when comparing Russians and Poles it says "In the present study, we have found that Poles and Russians are characterized by the same West Eurasian mtDNA haplogroups which describe at least 95% of mtDNA variations in Europe and the Near East (Torroni et al. 1996; Richards et al. 1998, 2000)."

This is very curious, it seems that Russians are not different from Germanic and Finnic peoples but the only similarity Poles share with Russians are also shared with Lebanese (do you think Lebanese are Slavic?). Hmmm.

I already explained earlier that there is a Slavic influence in Russian thanks to the use of Old Church Slavonic as a liturgical language, just as there is Latin influence on English and other non-Romance Western European languages for the same reason. This doesn't make the language itself Slavic.

I don't think you understood what I said. Russian has the greatest claim to being the direct successor to the old East Slavic language. If it's not Slavic, then neither are Ukrainian or Belarusian. But it is Slavic and you'd be laughed out of a linguistics department for suggesting otherwise.

As I have mentioned earlier, English can make a claim to being a descendant of Latin but it is not a Romance language like Italian or Spanish. Do the Arabic influences on Spanish make it a Semitic language? Just since Old Church Slavonic was used in the liturgy and from that influenced the common spoken language does not make Russian a Slavic language.

Who said that I am sympathetic to the Germans? In any case, they do not falsely claim a shared cultural heritage, and use that claim to push bloodshed and oppression on the neighbors. The Russians are not culturally Slavic either, any more than the Germans are.

I mean this is what I mean, you're treating the Russians far worse for dumb and insane reasons.

How am I "treating the Russians far worse for dumb and insane reasons"? The Germans did not invade Ukraina within the last 10 years. Russia today is a far greater threat to me than the Germans, and their propaganda of claiming shared culture to justify oppression needs to be challenged.

I am transcribing words from Cyrillic to Latin alphabets. There is no one correct way to transliterate this. Would you prefer that I used "Київ", "Великий Новгород", "Україна", "Беларусь", and "Калининград"? I personally think this would make it more confusing for the many readers who are not familiar with Cyrillic.

In English, the language you are communicating in, there are approved transliterations. You aren't using the English spelling but the Polish one.

Many times the "approved transliterations" are not good. "Ukraine" is a bad transliteration of "Україна", as can be seen from the final vowel. "Białoruś" is in line with the actual Latin alphabet of the language (Łacinka) in use since the 1500s. The current "standard" for Anglicization is a dated relic from the days of the USSR, when only Russian was used for transliteration of names and places, even if those places and names had little to do with Russian themselves, such as the Tajiks! Since the country is independent now, I no longer use Russian to transliterate their names

[The North Polish Union]

That's not what you're doing, lol.

"Kijów" is literally just the Polish name. If you're going to pretend to be rendering how natives say it, then write Kyiv. Same goes for the others. In fact, if you didn't want to confuse people, why the fuck are you writing "Królewiec" instead of Kaliningrad?

Again I ask: why are you being so weird about this?

The guy is obviously a Polish irredentist, simple as that.

This is not the case. I support Promethean ideology and Intermarum federation, not irredentism.

[Keira]

The guy is obviously a Polish irredentist, simple as that.

This is not the case. I support Promethean ideology and Intermarum federation, not irredentism.

Intermarium IS Polish irredentism lol. Even if it wasn't a Piłsudskite idea (which it is), Intermarium would be dominated by Poles and turn into PLC 2 where Poles would be trying to polonise everything they can. Blegh.

[Duvniask]

That's not what you're doing, lol.

"Kijów" is literally just the Polish name. If you're going to pretend to be rendering how natives say it, then write Kyiv. Same goes for the others. In fact, if you didn't want to confuse people, why the fuck are you writing "Królewiec" instead of Kaliningrad?

Again I ask: why are you being so weird about this?

"Kyiv" is simply the modern English transliteration. During Soviet times when Russian (and not Ukrainian) was used for Ukrainian(!) place names, the common English transliteration was "Kiev". Once again, there is not a single correct method of transcription for Cyrillic to Latin alphabets.

No fucking Ukrainian pronounces it like Kijów [ˈkijuf], as is done in Polish. It is not a transcription, because it's not the same sounds being used (btw, you're now saying transliteration, which is different but also wrong). You have no reason to call it this other than some weird extension of whatever irredentist fantasies you might harbor. Ukrainian has had its own official transcription since 1991.

As for "Kaliningrad", I refuse to refer to the city by the name of a genocidal war criminal who was responsible for the Katyń slaughter. Would you prefer the Lithuanian "Karaliaučius"?

The guy was basically a figurehead with no real power whose own wife was targeted in the Great Purge. There are worse people in history to have had cities named after them.

[Keira]

Knock yourself out.

I have looked at your source. It is interesting how while it asserts that Russians are Slavs, much of it and the references do little to support this. The articles says studies "uphold the traditionally held genetic differentiation between Northern and Southern Russians, with the decisive ethnic element being the Finnic one, more important in the north, the southern population having substantial - generally unacknowledged in historical debates about Russian ethnogenesis - Germanic influence." So it appears that northern Russians descend from the Finnish tribes, while only the southern Russians are from the Viking Rus'; either way that does not make the Russians Slavs. It is unfortunate that the article it is citing is behind a paywall.

Let's look at another of the sources for the Wikipedia article, source 7. The study says that "one can conclude that we were not able to find any specific combinations of unique mtDNA haplotypes and their subclusters
clearly distinguishing Russians [...] from the neighboring European populations such as Germans and Finns. This trend was also noted in a previous study on the HVS I-RFLP variation in Russians in comparison with Western and Eastern European populations (Malyarchuk & Derenko, 2001)."

Differently, when comparing Russians and Poles it says "In the present study, we have found that Poles and Russians are characterized by the same West Eurasian mtDNA haplogroups which describe at least 95% of mtDNA variations in Europe and the Near East (Torroni et al. 1996; Richards et al. 1998, 2000)."

This is very curious, it seems that Russians are not different from Germanic and Finnic peoples but the only similarity Poles share with Russians are also shared with Lebanese (do you think Lebanese are Slavic?). Hmmm.

I mean, even aesthetically, Russians look pretty Slavic. They mostly look like a Germanic-Finnic-Slavic mix, a lot like the neighbouring Balts. The main difference is that there's quite a bit of Turkic and Caucasian admixture as well. Still, they're not too different from Poles, so I don't get why you're arguing about this. Just because Kievan Rus was founded by Nordic folk and ruled by them for a while, doesn't mean that the populace suddenly became genetically 100% Nordic.

Do you think Poles are somehow purely genetically Slavic? The first time I saw Greta Thunberg, I genuinely thought she was Polish. I'm so used to seeing Poles in UK who share 99% of her facial structure, I couldn't believe she was Swedish. It seems northern and western Poland has a lot of Germanic admixture. Some of your folk also look Baltic, meaning a Slavic-Finnic mix is present, too. And, of course, don't forget the massive Ashkenazi Jewish genetic heritage.

[Czervenika]

I have looked at your source. It is interesting how while it asserts that Russians are Slavs, much of it and the references do little to support this. The articles says studies "uphold the traditionally held genetic differentiation between Northern and Southern Russians, with the decisive ethnic element being the Finnic one, more important in the north, the southern population having substantial - generally unacknowledged in historical debates about Russian ethnogenesis - Germanic influence." So it appears that northern Russians descend from the Finnish tribes, while only the southern Russians are from the Viking Rus'; either way that does not make the Russians Slavs. It is unfortunate that the article it is citing is behind a paywall.

Let's look at another of the sources for the Wikipedia article, source 7. The study says that "one can conclude that we were not able to find any specific combinations of unique mtDNA haplotypes and their subclusters
clearly distinguishing Russians [...] from the neighboring European populations such as Germans and Finns. This trend was also noted in a previous study on the HVS I-RFLP variation in Russians in comparison with Western and Eastern European populations (Malyarchuk & Derenko, 2001)."

Differently, when comparing Russians and Poles it says "In the present study, we have found that Poles and Russians are characterized by the same West Eurasian mtDNA haplogroups which describe at least 95% of mtDNA variations in Europe and the Near East (Torroni et al. 1996; Richards et al. 1998, 2000)."

This is very curious, it seems that Russians are not different from Germanic and Finnic peoples but the only similarity Poles share with Russians are also shared with Lebanese (do you think Lebanese are Slavic?). Hmmm.

I mean, even aesthetically, Russians look pretty Slavic. They mostly look like a Germanic-Finnic-Slavic mix, a lot like the neighbouring Balts. The main difference is that there's quite a bit of Turkic and Caucasian admixture as well. Still, they're not to different from Poles, so I don't get why you're arguing about this. Just because Kievan Rus was founded by Nordic folk and ruled by them for a while, doesn't mean that the populace suddenly became genetically 100% Nordic.

Do you think Poles are somehow purely genetically Slavic? The first time I saw Greta Thunberg, I genuinely thought she was Polish. I'm so used to seeing Poles in UK who share 99% of her facial structure, I couldn't believe she was Swedish. It seems northern and western Poland has a lot of Germanic admixture. Some of your folk also look Baltic, meaning a Slavic-Finnic mix is present, too. And, of course, don't forget the massive Ashkenazi Jewish genetic heritage.

I'm of Eastern European descent myself and so many assume I'm either Ashkenazi, Turkish, or even Levantine Arab.

[Ansarullah]

Russia supports Islamic resistance movements like Hezbollah and countries like Iran, pretty based to me, couldn't really care less what they do in their own country in regards to social policy or anything

[Keira]

I mean, even aesthetically, Russians look pretty Slavic. They mostly look like a Germanic-Finnic-Slavic mix, a lot like the neighbouring Balts. The main difference is that there's quite a bit of Turkic and Caucasian admixture as well. Still, they're not to different from Poles, so I don't get why you're arguing about this. Just because Kievan Rus was founded by Nordic folk and ruled by them for a while, doesn't mean that the populace suddenly became genetically 100% Nordic.

Do you think Poles are somehow purely genetically Slavic? The first time I saw Greta Thunberg, I genuinely thought she was Polish. I'm so used to seeing Poles in UK who share 99% of her facial structure, I couldn't believe she was Swedish. It seems northern and western Poland has a lot of Germanic admixture. Some of your folk also look Baltic, meaning a Slavic-Finnic mix is present, too. And, of course, don't forget the massive Ashkenazi Jewish genetic heritage.

I'm of Eastern European descent myself and so many assume I'm either Ashkenazi, Turkish, or even Levantine Arab.

There's many types of "Eastern European". If you're something like Romanian or Albanian, then I can totally see that. Based on your nation's name, I'm guessing you're Polish or Czech, though. If you pass as east Mediterranean, you may have Balkan/Jewish/Romani/other ancestry you're unaware of.

Personally, I'm Lithuanian with a bit French (and possibly an even smaller bit of Germanic), and I often pass as English in UK. So, like, there's that kind of Eastern European, too.

[Novus America]

Russia supports Islamic resistance movements like Hezbollah and countries like Iran, pretty based to me, couldn't really care less what they do in their own country in regards to social policy or anything

The also support the PRC, and are actually on good terms with Israel and Saudi Arabia, despite them siding with Iran in Syria. Russia supports those who benefit it, regardless of what their view of Islam is.

I mean Russia also supports the far right in Europe which generally is not know for its love of Islam…

[Ansarullah]

The also support the PRC

And?

and are actually on good terms with Israel and Saudi Arabia

Doesn't matter whether or not they're on "good terms". Russia supports Iran and Assad, and various other resistance movements, actively. If nothing else, they don't call them terrorists 24/7 and that's good enough for me.

Russia supports those who benefit it, regardless of what their view of Islam is.

I still don't care. It mutually benefits us both, and I'm happy with the way Russia is acting towards us. I'm not saying Russia does anything it does out of love for Islam or for God or anything, I know what their real aims are. It just happens to be the same as ours.

I mean Russia also supports the far right in Europe which generally is not know for its love of Islam…

Muslims shouldn't be in Kuffar countries. I couldn't care less if it was the far-left or the far-right; let them say whatever they want about us. All Muslims should live in Muslim countries; Islam does not fit in with secularism.

[Czervenika]

Muslims shouldn't be in Kuffar countries. I couldn't care less if it was the far-left or the far-right; let them say whatever they want about us. All Muslims should live in Muslim countries; Islam does not fit in with secularism.

At least you're honest about this. Most Muslims I encounter accuse people of being Islamophobic if they point this out.

[Ansarullah]

Muslims shouldn't be in Kuffar countries. I couldn't care less if it was the far-left or the far-right; let them say whatever they want about us. All Muslims should live in Muslim countries; Islam does not fit in with secularism.

At least you're honest about this. Most Muslims I encounter accuse people of being Islamophobic if they point this out.

I can't tell if you're saying that in a negative way towards Islam or not, but I atleast respect that you can see that Muslims don't fit in to any secular country, period.

[Czervenika]

At least you're honest about this. Most Muslims I encounter accuse people of being Islamophobic if they point this out.

I can't tell if you're saying that in a negative way towards Islam or not, but I atleast respect that you can see that Muslims don't fit in to any secular country, period.

Not at all. I have nothing against Muslims as a people, but I have seen for awhile that most of what they preach just isn't very compatible with modern western values.

[Ansarullah]

Not at all. I have nothing against Muslims as a people, but I have seen for awhile that most of what they preach just isn't very compatible with modern western values.

It's not, at all. If you try and combine Islam and secularism, you are an apostate. If you preach true Islam, you'll be called an extremist, a Wahhabist, a Salafist, whatever label the media gives you (see the way the media treats Zakir Naik, Assim al Hakeem and Ismail Menk for examples). That's exactly why we should stay in our own countries while you atheists, agnostics, Jews, Christians etc stay in yours.

[Czervenika]

Not at all. I have nothing against Muslims as a people, but I have seen for awhile that most of what they preach just isn't very compatible with modern western values.

It's not, at all. If you try and combine Islam and secularism, you are an apostate. If you preach true Islam, you'll be called an extremist, a Wahhabist, a Salafist, whatever label the media gives you. That's exactly why we should stay in our own countries while you atheists, agnostics, Jews, Christians etc stay in yours.

Well, I don't really think many Christian values are compatible with modern western values either, but that's another topic entirely. With Islam it's just more visible since secularism is not really a thing in Islamic countries (likely for the reasons you stated).

[The Hazar Amisnery]

Russia is based

[Ansarullah]

Well, I don't really think many Christian values are compatible with modern western values either, but that's another topic entirely. With Islam it's just more visible since secularism is not really a thing in Islamic countries (likely for the reasons you stated).

The words "Islamic" and "Secular" do not go together. I am personally not a Christian or very knowledgeable on Christianity, so I won't comment on whether or not it's compatible with secularism.