Voices from Russia

Wednesday, 12 December 2012

Putin Sez Re-Educating Youth Is Answer to Russia’s Moral Crisis

00 Vladimir Putin. 06.12. judo dojo. kids

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On Wednesday, in his state-of-the-nation address in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin said that Russian society lacks the “spiritual braces” to hold it together, and that we should look to education and “traditional values” to change that situation, saying, “It pains me to speak of this… but Russian society today lacks spiritual braces… kindness, sympathy, compassion towards one another, support, and mutual assistance; it lacks those qualities that always made us stronger throughout our long history”.

Putin went on to say that whilst government interference in people’s convictions and views smacks of “totalitarianism” and is “absolutely unacceptable”, the state should focus on strengthening society’s “spiritual-moral foundation” through education and youth policy. He instructed the government to prepare a supplementary educational programme focusing on “vospitanie”… a Russian cultural concept that refers to preparing young people for adulthood, usually through moral upbringing and conferring rules of etiquette, values, and traditions. Putin pointed up that schools are losing out, in terms of impact on young people, to the internet and electronic media, and that we should restore the “unconditional value” of the schools by updating their curricula and by offering a wide range of electives, accessible to all children, regardless of family income.

He also stressed the importance of teaching history and Russian language and emphasised the need to strengthen national identity, in part through connecting “historical epochs into a single whole”. In that vein, Putin proposed creating a memorial to the heroes of World War I and restoring famous tsarist-era military units, including the Preobrazhensky and Semyonovsky regiments, founded by Pyotr Veliki. Whilst Putin didn’t explicitly refer to religion during the live broadcast on state television, the camera panned to a group of clerics as he spoke of support for “traditional values”. Without elaborating, Putin said, “We must wholly support institutions that are the bearers of traditional values and have historically proven their ability to transmit them from generation to generation”. He also praised grassroots charity activism, which is on the rise in Russia, and promised a separate meeting with volunteers in the unspecified near future.

12 December 2012

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20121212/178101146.html

Editor’s Note:

There are four towering figures in the history of the Russian stateIvan Grozny, Pyotr Veliki, Vladimir Lenin, and Vladimir Putin. Ivan founded the modern Russian state as we know it. Pyotr set out Russia as a member of the Great Powers. Lenin launched Russia on a course of being at the forefront of the modern world. VVP… even though he’s still in power, he has earned his place in history as the Great Preserver. Gorbachyov was the Great Destroyer… he ripped apart the Soviet state, making the present world of American-fomented permanent warfare possible.

VVP is taking the good from all epochs of Russian history… including the Soviet Union. No future history or ideology in Russia will be able to deny the great achievements and glories of the Soviet state. Indeed, to try to destroy the Soviet legacy is insane… much good came from it, and the present radical rightwing deviation in world history is ending. The grasping oligarchs want MORE… and they don’t care if they crush the rest of us under to do so. It’s most advanced in the USA… since 1981, the country’s been on a radical libertarian course that led directly to the 2007 Great Meltdown.

VVP, on the other hand, is weaving together a New Russian/Eurasian synthesis that’ll replace the present oligarch system in due course. Whatever his personal fate, he has his place in history. He saved Russia from cultural subservience to the USA and the West, and that’s a good thing in itself. Any man who’s remained at the helm of a major power for twelve years is no lightweight, no matter what you might think of him.

The New Synthesis is becoming clearer… a Russia that is:

  • Socialist
  • Religious
  • National-minded

We are on the verge of a New Soviet Union… but it won’t be called that. However, it WILL oppose the greed of Godless America. Yes… America’s godless… it doesn’t follow the Christianity of the Ages, all too many follow a made-up phony pseudo-religion of a tribal deity called Jayzuss who anoints America as the leading country of the world and who hands out “prosperity blessings” (I kid you not, the Evangelicals truly believe such mind-numbing treacly rot).

Reflect on this, some Orthodox here want to ally us with god-denying Evangelicals… that means that America is a hotbed of Sergianism… sucking up to the powers-that-be for personal advancement. I could name them, but I think that you know them. A Russian monk in exile once said, “What started in Russia will finish in America”. That is, godlessness will reach its apogee in the USA… after seeing the antics of Franklin Graham, Grover Norquist, Willard Romney, George W Bush, and the Tea Party, one can see that the good monk was correct. Remember, most Russian communists are believing Orthodox Christians… most American crapitalists are unbelievers (notice their actions, not their words). Do ponder that.

BMD 

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12 December 2012. Fun From the Russian Web… Did You Know?

00a Did you know... Banana. 12.12.12

Do you want to have a baby boy? Eat a banana! It sounds incredible, but it remains a fact. If a woman eats a lot of bananas in the first trimester of her pregnancy, then, she has a 58 percent greater chance of having a boy. Logically, this just can’t be… but it’s a fact, nonetheless. The experiment was carried out more than once, and the results didn’t change.

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00.1e dog and cat. 10.08.12

Animals can sense danger. Before disasters occurred, people observed that cats and dogs got nervous, and started whining. As it turns out, animals can hear ultrasound, which emanates from the earth for a few hours prior to a natural disaster. They also sense vibrations through the earth’s crust with their paws. Scientists advise that residents of seismically-active zones should keep animals at home and closely observe their behaviour. If a pet is nervous for no good reason and behaves abnormally, you should take care of your own security.

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sleeping-cat4

Sleep on it… this proverb is often found in Russian folk tales, and grandmas often remind distraught mothers of this, when there’s trouble with the kids. Scientists confirmed the truth of this folk-wisdom. To make right decisions, you need good-sense and understanding, and a good night’s sleep would certainly help that. Researchers posed difficult problems to subjects late at night. According to the results, those who left the decision to the morning, 50 percent gave more correct answers than those who took on the task immediately. In addition, it was observed that working at night is only one-fifth as effective as labour done during the day.

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There be some wild n’ woolly shit out there… that’s our world. Just when ya thought ya had it all figured out…

BMD

Is This the Beginning of the End of Romania’s Russophobia?

00 traian basescu president of romania

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One wouldn’t call the relations between Bucharest and Moscow sunny, and it’s obvious that Romanian President Traian Băsescu played a major role in shaping the current situation. The Romanian leader has been memorable for his praise of Nazi criminals as well as his public statement that, in 1941, he would’ve given the order to attack the USSR. The actions and statements made by lower ranking officials seemed like “innocent mischief”, but they weren’t that innocent. Such positions of the Romanian leadership couldn’t go without political and economic consequences.

After the parliamentary opposition managed to form a majority and a coalition government, signs of an improvement in Romanian-Russian relations began to appear. Prime Minister Victor Ponta, unlike Băsescu, exhibits no signs of pathological Russophobia and even creates the impression of being a rational politician. However, some of the members in the new government still prefer to deal with Moscow by using derisory rhetoric. Titus Corlăţean, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, stands out in particular, having begun a tough and quite lengthy argument with Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin. The Russian government’s desire to open a consulate on the territory of Transnistria served as the apple of discord.

In the context of the historically-complex relations between Moscow and Bucharest, the mere fact that a political faction won the parliamentary election with a huge majority of votes, and didn’t show aggressive Russophobia, can already be considered as a major step forward. Băsescu used all his power to give the domestic political struggle a geopolitical aspect; he used accusations that the opposition leaders were trying to push Romania from its pro-European and pro-American course as the basis of his party’s election campaign. It’s worth mentioning that, for the first time in the history of post-socialist Romania, the accused didn’t rush to make excuses regarding their alleged love for Russia, but counterattacked with a proposal to Romanian society to seriously consider the question, “Is it that bad to have good relations with Russia and China?”

Speaking on air on the most popular news TV channel, one of the leaders of the Social Liberal Union and the chairman of the Romanian parliament’s upper chamber, George-Crin-Laurenţiu Antonescu, stated that he wasn’t going to bring up the same arguments over and over to prove that he was a pro-European politician and that he found it necessary to once and for all end the rumours related to Romania’s geopolitical course, saying, “The USA has serious economic and political ties with Russia and China. Russia is Germany’s main economic and political partner. At the same time, Romania’s president wrote on Facebook, ‘Don’t vote for such and such because they will lead us towards Russia and China!’ The whole world is laughing at us! I don’t feel comfortable when I meet Russian and Chinese diplomats. We insult these countries by the mere fact of such public discussions”.

It’s possible that the economic crisis and the generational change in Romanian politics will lead to a more pragmatic attitude and less Russophobia in relations between Bucharest and Moscow. There’s a chance that the example given by the Western countries, which found ways to effectively cooperate with Russia, will encourage a new generation of Romanian politicians to search for ways to establish a mutually-beneficial dialogue by throwing aside the heavy-handed behaviour of their predecessors.

12 December 2012

Valentin Mândrăşescu

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_12_12/The-beginning-of-the-end-of-Romania-s-Russophobia/

Armenia Offers Good Odds on Doomsday Bets

cookie-the-bookie-2

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So you think that the world-as-we-know-it has only 10 days left and counting? If you act now, with a bet in Armenia, you could win 888 drams (67 Roubles. 2.20 USD. 1.70 Euro. 1.35 UK Pound) per 1 dram {One dram is infinitesimal; it’s 13.25 to 1 Rouble, 407.09 to 1 USD, 529.39 to 1 Euro, and 657.29 to 1 UK Pound: editor}. On Tuesday, Armenian bookmaker Vivaro, the latest bookie to join the end-of-the-world craze, offered 888-to-1 odds on doomsday happening on 21 December. Several other online bookmakers are currently taking the same bet, although their odds hover around 500-to-1, which makes the Armenian offer more attractive.

Aptly titled bookmaker Quirkybet.com had offered million-to-one odds for the 2012 doomsday, but the bet was removed from the bookmaker’s website as of Tuesday evening. It remained unclear whether the bookmaker had any insider information. Past ends-of-the-world did attract a 1,000,000-to-1 bet on at least one occasion. In 2008, when the Large Hadron Collider went online, it led to expectations that it’d create a black hole that would swallow the Earth. The bookmaker William Hill earned 119 UK Pounds (5,878 Roubles. 192 USD. 147 Euros) at the time.

Australian bookmaker Sportsbet also offered the opportunity to bet on the exact method of how the Apocalypse will occur next week. “Spread of a new incurable killer virus” leads with odds of 21-to-1, whilst “eaten alive by zombies” is the least-likely option with the potential payout of A$1,001 (32,320 Roubles. 1,057 USD. 810 Euros. 654 UK Pounds) per A$1 (32 Roubles. 1.05 USD. 0.80 Euro. 0.65 UK Pound) bet. Options on offer also include “another Big Bang”, “engulfed in lava”, and “alien invasion”. None of the bookies explained how winners could cash in their bets in a post-apocalyptic world, although Sportsbet admitted it could be problematic.

11 December 2012

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/world/20121211/178080113.html

Editor’s Note:

I don’t know what odds Cookie the Bookie’s offering on this one… you’ll have t’ ask him. Any road, the “flag is up” on 21 December, and we SHALL know, won’t we? As for me, I expect to tip the jug on 22 December, God willing… I have a slight suspicion that I’m not alone in thinkin’ that way…

BMD

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