Maslenitsa in Moscow

Maslenitsa isn’t just in Russia anymore! Maslenitsa celebration in Melbourne, Australia in 2006.

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Despite the world crisis, Moscow is hosting the traditional Maslenitsa Pancake Week Festival in the week preceding the beginning of the Easter Lent, from 23 February to 1 March. The Pancake Week Festival is a big event in the cultural life of Moscow and the whole of Russia. Grigori Antyufeyev, the Chairman of the Moscow Tourism Committee, spoke at a news conference in Moscow on Thursday. “Pancake Week has become a flamboyant national holiday in recent years and is celebrated with as much glitz as New Year. ‘Pancake Week’ in Moscow has been included in international catalogues of festivals and holidays in Europe and the world, and the holiday is attracting ever more interest abroad. On Shrove Sunday, the Sunday before Lent, and this is 1 March this year, London is hosting a Pancake Festival at the initiative of City Mayor Boris Johnson. The event, to be held with the participation of Moscow government officials, presents a good opportunity for the British public to learn more about Russian cultural traditions, which originated more than one thousand years ago”.

Not only Russian Orthodox celebrate at this time, but, so do our Greek co-religionists! A scene from the closing ceremony of the Patras Festival, which is much like our Russian maslenitsa. Yiasou! Opa!

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On the programme of the Pancake Week Festival in Moscow are outdoor festivities, folk and pop concerts, theatrical shows, games, rides on horseback, Pancake rituals, and of course, feasts featuring traditional blini or pancakes and other treats from the Russian cuisine. The Pancake Week Festival originated in pre-Christian Russia as a holiday to say good-bye to winter and to welcome in spring. The symbol of the festival was a straw doll that was in the center of festivities first and was burned in a fire after. Blini or pancakes were a necessary ingredient of the holiday, round-shaped, golden-brown, and hot, they symbolised the sun.

During the Pancake Week, which is just before Lent, believers don’t eat meat, but, on Wednesday and Friday they are allowed to drink milk and eat eggs and cheese. The Orthodox Church warns, however, that merry-making should not be the ultimate aim of Pancake Week, although the feast unites people through warmth and hospitality, according to Fr Georgy, a spokesman for the Moscow Patriarchate. Moscow has always been famous for its openness and hospitality. Any passer-by was welcome to have a treat. Pancake Week is a time to see friends, rebuild ruined relations, and forget old grievances. The festive friendly atmosphere encourages unity and accord, which is so crucial at a time of financial and social downturn.

13 February 2009

Voice of Russia World Service

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=40426&cid=59&p=13.02.2009

Global Economic Crisis Seen as Top Security Threat to America

US intelligence agencies reported this week that the global economic crisis has become the biggest US national security concern. The crisis, the report said, is causing instability in a quarter of the world’s countries and threatening destructive trade wars. Thus, the global economic turmoil has apparently upstaged world terrorism in the intelligence agencies’ latest assessment of threats to the United States. That dramatic shift is apparently a reflection of the depth of the unfolding recession, but, also, by implication, of the progress made in the war against terrorism and the Obama administration’s enlarged definition of national security.

National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair told a Senate panel this week that if the crisis lasts more than two years, it could cause some nations’ governments to collapse. A former war-fighting Navy commander-turned-National Intelligence Director, Mr Blair told startled Senators that a number of allies the United States depends on might no longer be able to afford to meet their own defence and humanitarian obligations. Mr Blair said the financial meltdown, which started in the United States and quickly spread to other countries, already has eroded confidence in American economic leadership and belief in free markets. “Time is probably our greatest threat. The longer it takes for the recovery to begin, the greater the likelihood of serious damage to US strategic interests”, he told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday. Blair’s lengthy statement opened with a detailed description of the economic crisis. It was in sharp contrast to such national threat briefings in the previous years, which focused first on traditional threats and battlefields like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

One reason for the new ranking, according to experts, is progress made in the last year against al-Qaeda. A year ago, this terrorist group was said to have reconstituted its operations in the lawless tribal area between Pakistan and Afghanistan. But, apparently, that has changed. Mr Blair admitted, however, that the organisation is far from beat, but, said that sustained pressure to force al-Qaeda out of the tribal areas could seriously undermine the organisation. The US intelligence chief also made it clear the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated, and that the Taliban insurgency has expanded despite US and international efforts to stem it. He laid much of the blame for this on the government in Kabul, which was unable to provide basic services and gainful employment, which he said erodes its legitimacy and increases the influence of the warlords and the Taliban.

In former days, the emphasis in a report of this sort fell on the analysis of external problems the United States was confronted with. These concerned anti-terrorism effort, the danger of the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and political confrontation with separate governments and states. Now, the emphasis has shifted to economy. Economic issues are causing the greatest concerns, and not only with American intelligence. President Obama, too, is calling for urgent measures to save the US economy. Otherwise, the USA is in for a disaster.

According to Mr Blair’s report, by 2025 China and India will outstrip in GDP growth all other countries, except for the United States and Japan. Based on the results of annual GDP growth rates in 2007, China outstripped the United States 6 times and India 4-and-a-half times. The European Union is ahead of the United States by 1.5 times. This is clear evidence that the idea of a unipolar world is falling into oblivion under the impact of a powerful financial and economic crisis that struck in 2008 and is still going on. As the worlds unfolds towards multi-polarity, experts talk of the growing economic potentials of Russia, Brazil, and South Africa. Some experts expect a fast pace of economic development in Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Group-based economic and political centres will spring up, and even though the centres will follow an uneven pattern of development, the system of their existence will stay steady.

As a result, we are witnessing a new turn in global development. The world was multi-polar before the Second World War, and it became bipolar after the war, split by a confrontation between two super-powers, the United States and the Soviet Union. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the world was unipolar for some time, with only one super-power left, the United States. Now, there is yet a new turn in history. Whilst the United States continues to stay the most politically, economically, and militarily powerful country, new global centres are emerging, whose influence will grow steadily. Mr Blair acknowledged this in his report to the Senate.

14/16 February 2009

Yuri Reshetnikov

Eduard Sorokin

Voice of Russia World Service

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=40552&cid=87&p=13.02.2009

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=40564&cid=87&p=16.02.2009

Editor’s Note:

These two articles were so interrelated that the only logical thing to do was to conflate them. There’s a new world ’round the bend… what it shall bring, no one knows, certainly, not me! Does anyone have a working crystal ball to be let out?

BMD

Who Is To Blame?

Alan Greenspan (1926- ), former Chairman of the US Federal Reserve System. He is only a scapegoat, the real culprits were Bush and Cheney. Thank you, George and Richard! We just LOVE the prosperity you bequeathed us!

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Policymakers and political columnists identified the man who bears the blame for the perilous condition of the American and the global economy. 82-year-old Alan Greenspan, who spent a decade-and-a-half at the helm of the Federal Reserve System of the United States, was assigned the role of the scapegoat. An influential American magazine covering money and capital investment, Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, blames the financial bubble which burst to trigger off the crisis entirely on Mr Greenspan. Alan Greenspan opens the culprits’ list of the British Guardian. Financial darling of three Presidents of the United States, Mr Greenspan doubtlessly bears his share of blame for the irresponsible and dangerous moves which resulted in the current crisis. So does money-grubbing Wall Street. But, it would be unwise and improper to put all the blame on the handful of people whose names were listed in this negative context by the western media. It is not intentional or unintentional moves by certain individuals, but, rather, a chance combination of a few important factors that triggered off the crisis.

Current developments show that the unbearable burden of the arms race played the biggest role in this chance combination of several factors. A refusal to spend billions of dollars on a drawn-out arms race is what enabled the Clinton administration to hand a definitely surplus budget down to George W. Bush. It is considered bad manners on the banks of the Potomac to discuss the uncalled-for U-turn that the Bush-Cheney team was quick to execute for the purpose of re-starting the arms race. It is important to point out, though, that military spending ballooned two years before the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington and three years before the invasion of Iraq and the beginning of full-scale action in Afghanistan. The Bush administration decided to re-start the arms race before launching any antiterrorist action; it was used as a smokescreen for this arms race.

US military spending grew 62 percent under the Bush administration. No other administration of the post-World War II years allocated so much money for the Pentagon. The military spending of the United States tops the sum total of the military budgets of all other nations taken together. As a result, the surplus budget of the pre-Bush years gave way to a steadily growing budget deficit. Because of the reckless attitude of the Bush-Cheney team, the United States started living on borrowed money. Its 10 trillion dollar (351.939 trillion roubles. 7.816 trillion euros. 6.999 trillion UK pounds) public debt will weigh down as a heavy burden on this and, experts say, at least two more generations of Americans. With billions of dollars disappearing in the black hole of two wars, there was no way to avert the crisis.

The bankrupt Republican administration chose a very special way to show its friendly regard to those who would bow it out of the White House. What it made sure to do before bowing out was to saddle the Obama administration with a mammoth 3 trillion dollar (105.582 trillion roubles. 2.345 trillion euros. 2.1 trillion UK pounds) budget for 2009. More than half a trillion dollars (17.597 trillion roubles. 391 billion euros. 350 billion UK pounds) is meant for the Pentagon. In other words, the arms race is to continue. It was said at the Senate hearings into this year’s budget that the first thing the administration to come would have to do is clear the mess left by the outgoing team. Will President Obama be able to clear this mess? Will he agree to do what his predecessor expects him to do, continue an arms race that threatens the world and weighs down, as an unbearable burden, on the American economy? The course of domestic and international developments depends, in a great measure, on his answer to that question.

14 February 2009

Valentin Zorin

A View from Moscow

Voice of Russia World Service

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=40548&cid=170&p=14.02.2009

Russia Confirms that Lavrov and Clinton could Meet on 6 March

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (1950- )

On Monday, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Hillary Clinton, the new US Secretary of State, could hold their first meeting on 6 March, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said, confirming earlier reports. “Different options are being considered. This date is among them”, he said. Francisco Javier Solana de Madariaga, the EU foreign policy chief, was reported to have said last week that top Mrs Clinton planned to meet with Mr Lavrov on 6 March in Geneva following a gathering of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels. The meeting is seen as a sign of a thaw in relations between Moscow and Washington, which are strained over a host of issues, including US plans to deploy missile shield elements in Central Europe, which Russia strongly opposes.

Media reports said the new US administration is seeking a compromise on the missile shield dispute and Russia’s cooperation in preventing Iran from building a nuclear bomb, one of the reasons cited for the missile shield. Speaking about “signals sent by the US administration”, Mr Ryabkov agreed that removing concerns about Iran’s nuclear program would pave the way for “more profound talks on cooperation on missile defence”.  He said that Russia has shown no signs it will toughen its position on Iran at the current time. But, he said that international mediators in the long-running denuclearisation talks should step up diplomacy with Tehran as “there is no alternative to political talks in addressing grounded international concerns about Iran’s compliance with UN resolutions”.

16 February 2009

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20090216/120167715.html