Ukrainian President Yanukovich said the State would not Interfere in Internal Church Affairs

The Kievo-Pecherskago Lavra, the centre of the canonical UOC/MP… the beating heart of Russian Orthodoxy in the Ukraine.

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Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich pledged that the state would not intervene in internal Church affairs. “The Ukrainian government won’t interfere in the internal Church affairs, but we must always have to try to contribute to any reconciliation and to help in overcoming opposition and misunderstanding”, he said at a meeting of the Humanities Council of the President of the Ukraine in Kiev. Yanukovich identified the main task in the humanitarian sphere as the creation of favourable conditions for the realisation of the spiritual mission of the Church. Moreover, he said that, for the Ukrainian state, “All churches and religious organisations are both equal and ordinary. Separation of the people on religious, national, or linguistic grounds is a grave sin”, Yanukovich was quoted as saying in the Ukrainian edition of the newspaper Kommersant on Friday.

14 May 2010

Interfax-Religion

http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=35553

Editor’s Note:

If one reads between the lines, there’s going to be no joy in Mudville; Mighty Casey has struck out. That’s to say, the free ride that the autocephalist schismatics and the Uniates have received from the government for twenty years is over. If the government takes a “hands-off” attitude, it’ll only strengthen the position of the canonical UOC/MP. As it stands, there are anecdotal reports that autocephalists are returning to the canonical Church and the Uniates are bitching and moaning about “unequal treatment”.  Note well Yanukovich’s remark, “Separation of the people on religious, national, or linguistic grounds is a grave sin”… this means that he’ll aid the canonical Church in healing the present schism. It also means that he’ll restrict the Uniates to Galicia. This spoke volumes. Ding, dong, the witch is dead… it’s about time. The Ukrainian people deserved better than what they got… and it looks like they’re getting it. Ura for Viktor Fyodrovich!

BMD

 

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The People’s Victory

Sheikhenur Mulin, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War

Russian bloggers noted the 65^th anniversary of the Great Victory. On 9 May, many others remembered their loved ones who fought in the Great Patriotic War. For example, Anatoly Chubais wrote in his blog about his father, Boris Matveyevich, who fought at the front for four years:

He served in the Fourth Tank Army, going all the way from Moscow to Berlin. On 2 May 1945, he took part in the capture of Berlin, then, they turned southwards, and on 8 May, he participated in the liberation of Prague. He was awarded eight medals, including two Orders of the Patriotic War (both First and Second Class), and three Orders of the Red Star. However, of all his awards the one he prized most was his Medal “For Valour”, which he received early in the war for preventing a panic in his tank column.

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Залпом! Down the hatch! VOV vets drink a toast…

A poster with the user-name “operator”, during the pre-holiday period, keep the public informed of the activities of the search group “Demyansk” on the site of some of the most hard-fought terrible battles of 1942. He wrote:

8 May 2010. Today is an important day. We gave some of our fighters solemn burial… An honour guard of young policemen fired a volley. Incidentally, some of our guys were vets of the war in Chechnya, one of whom was wounded. You didn’t have to tell ‘em anything, for they knew what war is like, for they had lost friends and comrades… Women were crying, grizzled old peasants bowed from the waist, and young guys stood in strict order. Of course, Anatoly Stepanovich Pavlov, the leader of the search team was there. As usual, he tried to be inconspicuous and hide in the rear, but everyone thanked him with tears in his eyes. They had to beg him to allow them to take his picture. An incredible man… he gives his all to his work, but he shuns the limelight.

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VOV veteran in Gorky Park

“Michael” posted the following:

For the fifth consecutive year, I marked Victory Day by going to Gorky Park to talk with veterans, then, I posted a photo essay on my LJ blog. It’s amazing… every time that I’ve talked with front-line veterans, despite the great suffering that they went through, it struck me that their hardships did a lot to strengthen them.

For example, Lydia Semyonovna Tereshchenko was a military feldsher (assistant doctor). Her baptism of fire took when she was only 19-years-old, near Moscow, with the 146^th Rifle Division. Near Volokolamsk, she was wounded in the leg, but refused hospitalisation for it. She received the Medal for Bravery during the Battle for Moscow for her heroism on the battlefield; she provided medical assistance to more than 150 men. In the spring of 1942, in the harsh battles fought on Zaitseva Gora (Rabbit Hill), she was always at the front. She ended the Great Patriotic War in Königsberg. Then, with her husband, she was transferred to the front against the Japanese. She said that the most horrible days were the battles near Moscow.

Nikolai Dmitrievich Kubyshkin… he fought in a reconnaissance unit, earning seven “gongs”. He started his war when he was 17, at the front before Rzhev, one of the toughest areas on the Western Front. Then, he was at the Kursk Bulge, the liberation of Bobruisk, and the assault on Danzig. In 1945, in Germany, he “captured a city by phone”, Nikolai Dmitrievich smiled and said, he called the mayor of the next city on, told them to hoist the white flag, drove into the city, and accepted their surrender. Unfortunately, I can’t show this LJ entry to Nikolai Dmitrievich, he has only 2 percent of his vision left.

14 May 2010

Sergei Varshavchik

RIA-Novosti economic commentator

RIA-Novosti

http://www.rian.ru/analytics/20100514/234397685.html

Young boy with Soviet naval ensign in Sevastopol… shall the circle be mended and shall we see the end of Galician Uniate nationalism and its thuggery? One hopes so…

Editor’s Note:

I edited this piece to half its original length. One section was a disjointed ramble on the Victory Day parade; another was something about cops and booze in the park; and another was a little fluff about the fireworks. I wanted to give ya the “meat n’ potadahs”.

THIS is the real deal… real vets… real stories… real heroism… no fuss… no muss… no BS. THIS is why we owe these vets a big THANK YOU… they smashed the Nazi hydra… yes, Virginia, there were worse things than the GULag… they were called Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz… amongst others. Never forget what the Nazis did… they did their murders in FOUR SHORT YEARS… it takes the breath away. Shut up any “Holocaust Denier”… the ordinary soldiers who liberated the camps will attest to the reality of the Fascist Horror. Talk to them… you’ll hear the truth, straight up and with no mixer.

The next time that you see a World War II vet, shake their hand. You owe them your life, literally…

BMD

Russia Will Officially Celebrate the 150th Anniversary of the Birth of Graf Pyotr Stolypin

Graf Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin (1862-1911), Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister) 1906-11, assassinated in Kiev by a leftist, but many believe that the gunman was hired by rightist elements who feared the implementation of Pyotr Arkadyevich’s policies and his closeness to the tsar.

President Dmitri Medvedev signed a decree for an official celebration of the 150^th anniversary of the birth of Graf Pyotr Stolypin in 2012. “Given the significance of Pyotr Stolypin in Russian history, and in connection with the 150^th anniversary of his birth in 2012, the president accepts the proposal of the RF Government to celebrate this anniversary, and requests the Cabinet of Ministers to form a steering committee for the preparation of the celebration”, the document said. According to ITAR-TASS, the decree directs the government to prepare and carry through a plan of major events to mark the occasion.

13 May 2010

Voice of Russia World Service

http://rus.ruvr.ru/2010/05/13/7753975.html

Pyotr Arkadyevich’s grave at the Kievo-Pechersk Lavra in Kiev… dare we hope that it shall be under the tricolour yet again?

Editor’s Note:

Wow… the Russian government is going to OFFICIALLY celebrate the anniversary of the birth of Graf Stolypin, perhaps the most effective late Tsarist prime minister to serve under St Nikolai II. Hey… let’s have an order of Crow Supreme for Agafangel Pashkovsky and all those who left the ROCOR with misgivings about the reconciliation. No… SUPERSIZE it. If this doesn’t prove the reality of post-Soviet Russia to these sorts, nothing shall, and I predict (sadly) that the hardheads will spin off into irrelevancy… they’ll be a new sect of right wing Popovtsy Old Ritualists (just as Paffhausen and his HOOMie/Platina pals will spin off into a left wing Popovtsy schism (with dutiful reference to JP’s gurus Podmoshensky and Matthew Tate and his puppeteers Benjamin Peterson and Bobby K) in due course).

For all decent and sane folks… this is GOOD news. It means that the healing is well advanced…

BMD

The Rescue Work at Raspadskaya Goes On…

Governor Aman Tuleyev (1944- ) of Kemerovo Oblast (right) with Emercon spokesman

Rescuers brought the bodies of all 66 known dead in the methane explosions at the Raspadskaya Mine in Kemerovo Oblast to the surface and identified them, according to a spokesman at the Siberian Regional Centre for Emercon. Work on the site of the tragedy continues, with 543 Emercon personnel on the scene with 99 pieces of major equipment. RIA-Novosti reports that Emercon has brought in two teams with specially trained dogs. According to the oblast commission to assist the bereaved families, the average age of the victims of the explosions at the mine was only 30-years-old. They pointed up that the assistance announced by the federal and oblast authorities and the owners will commence nine days after each funeral. “Every bereaved family will be assisted by a concilium of three members, someone from the oblast administration, a local civil servant, and a medical doctor. We will spare family members the bother of filing documents for various types of assistance. We will take care of these for them. There are many young families amongst the grief-stricken”, a spokesman for the commission said. Aman Tuleyev, the governor of Kemerovo Oblast, established an oblast commission to develop a separate children’s programme. Each child of the deceased miners and rescuers will be covered by the owner of the mine until they are 23-years-old, in particular, such children will receive a scholarship equal to the average monthly wage of a miner until they reach the age of 23. In addition to a payment of a million roubles (32,938 USD 26,579 Euros 22,653 UK Pounds) from the owner of the mine, each family shall receive an average annual pension equal to the salary of a miner plus a bonus equal to three monthly pay cheques. This does NOT count the amount coming from federal allotments. ITAR-TASS reported that the owners will also organise annual sanatorium treatments and addressed all the housing concerns for victims’ families.

The grieving family of Aleksandr Gorbunov, one of the miners killed in the Mezdurechensk Mine explosion… never forget that none of them were nameless ciphers… spare a prayer for them, please.

Investigators in Kemerovo Oblast seized documents relating to the management of the Raspadkaya Mine. They will be sent to Moscow, where a board of independent mining and technical experts will examine them. On Friday, Aleksandr Bastrykin, the head of the Office of the General Procurator, met with the families of the miners and rescuers who were killed in the mine explosion. “Having listened carefully to the views and arguments of relatives of the victims of the alleged causes of the accident, the chairman of the Investigative Committee said that they would search thoroughly for the causes of this serious accident, which claimed so many lives. The Committee is interested in how to identify all the perpetrators”, said a spokesman for the RF SKP. The news agency RBK reported it is very important to the families of the victims that investigators find the cause of the tragedy and make proper conclusions so that a similar accident never happens again.

Keeping vigil at the mine…

Aman Tuleyev, the Governor of the Kuzbass, said that one of the 66 victims on the night of 9 May, when two explosions at ripped through the Raspadskaya mine was not an employee and not on the official list of those underground. Investigators are trying to find out why this man was in the mine. “This man had retired from the mine three years ago. Rescuers found two knives and a coil of copper wire by his body. Perhaps, it could have been a case of theft, but that remains to be determined”, Mr Tuleyev said. On Thursday, at 23.00 OSK (20.00 MSK 16.00 UTC 12.00 EDT 09.00 PDT), all rescue personnel came to the surface. According to an Emercon spokesman quoted by RIA-Novosti, further rescue work will be suspended for at least a week because of fires and high concentrations of methane could cause further explosions.

Emercon rescue personnel don respirators before going into the mine

Rescuers continue to measure the level of methane concentration at the entrance to the Raspadskaya mine, which has a depth of 460 metres (1,510 feet), and they believe there is a continuing threat of another explosion. “We’re continually monitoring the air in various sections of the mine. Right now, the work is very stressful because of the dicey situation. We’re taking samples for testing, and we have a special laboratory for chemical analysis”, said Dmitri Mikhalin, the commander of the Emercon mine rescue team from Novokuznetsk. He went on to say that early on Friday morning his team descended into the shaft to a depth of 460 metres to the sixth level, which is where the fire is burning. “I’d say that it’s pretty bad down there. There are a lot of fumes, warped concrete slabs, rocks all over, and a lot of coal dust. It’s so dark that you can’t your own hand in front of you. We’re connected with ropes and our respirators give us only a limited time in the pit”, he said. Nevertheless, tomorrow morning, his group will resume sampling the air in the shaft. “We’ll go in for a quick inspection”, Mikhalin said, adding that this is just to verify the measurements, which will go on constantly. Earlier Friday, an official at Emercon, Pavel Plat, said that they suspended all efforts to extinguish the fires in the mine for the time being, and that they ordered all rescue personnel to the surface due to the threat of explosions. According to Mr Plat, rescue efforts could resume within a week, due to reduced risks from fumes and fire. Interfax reports that Level 6 of the mine is still on fire and the concentration of methane exceeds the permissible level. On Saturday, portions of the mine would be flooded with the water, in places where Emercon experts detected large accumulations of methane.

14 May 2010

Voice of Russia World Service

http://rus.ruvr.ru/2010/05/14/7805904.html

http://rus.ruvr.ru/2010/05/14/7824635.html

http://rus.ruvr.ru/2010/05/14/7840049.html

http://rus.ruvr.ru/2010/05/14/7841078.html