Russian attacks over Georgia

[ezodisy]

Ya know, it's not that complicated - all you have to do is get a visa, a ticket and go 

Yeah well, you never know what might happen. I like to think I might go sooner but it depends when I fulfil something. I'd like to spend some time there, like you are doing, and not have to worry about rushing back for anything in particular. How's the Moscow musical life and countryside?

[knight66]

I agree with that Lethe.

Some very interesting posts, thanks. I have not written much here, but it looks like it is turning out pretty much as I indicated at the start of this thread. My opinions key in very much with mozartsneighbour. Even if this situation calms down soon, we have all been warned.

Mike

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Granted that the situation with the breakaway of South Ossetia and the other province is complicated, and Georgia is not simply an "innocent victim".
But if you think Russia is at all concerned with liberating their Russo-Ossetian brothers, then you are missing the point.

Well, I'm not going to dispute that. I've always thought the notion of "humanitarian intervention" was a crock, no matter who's doing it.

To think the West should not take in these states, like Georgia, into its camp, including NATO, because that will work up the Russians and lead them on a more aggressive foreign policy, is foolish.

To repeat myself a little - a military alliance requires one country to go to war for another. Do you really think Americans should be ready to die in order to preserve the territorial integrity of Georgia? That's what it boils down to.

Also - who actually wants into NATO anyway? For example, the majority of Ukrainians are against NATO membership for their country; only 20-25% are in favor. It's only their current political leadership that is really pushing the idea. But in Western media, this gets translated as, "Ukraine wants into NATO!"

Russia is run, both politically and economically, by ex-KGB thugs. If you think that is an exaggeration -- read The Economist's issue of about 1 year ago with the cover on the people who rule Russia, it will scare the hell out of you. If you think Bush and the neo-cons are nasty, prepare to go into another whole different league.

There are plenty of nasty, corrupt people in positions of power here, many of them with backgrounds in the security organs and the Communist Party. That is simply the norm for post-Communist states, especially the ones that emerged from the USSR itself.

As for the Economist article, I think I know the one you're referring to. This eXile article shoots a few holes in it:

http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=10127&IBLOCK_ID=35

To get a good feel on what's really going on here, I think this piece by Princeton historian Stephen Kotkin is one of the best summaries I've read:

http://www.fpri.org/enotes/200703.kotkin.russiademocracydictatorship.html

The main thing the West can do about this, besides bundling those countries into our camp and being firm, is to cut at the source of Russia's resurgence and of the EU's dependence on Russia -- oil and gas.

I've already disagreed with you about the "camp," but I certainly agree on the need for energy independence. It'll be good for the West, and good for Russia in the long run, because at that point they won't be able to just turn the spigot and take the lazy man's way to riches.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

How's the Moscow musical life and countryside?

1. Very complicated. There are more orchestras and ensembles than I can keep track of. Most the concerts I go to are at the Great Hall of the Conservatory (Большой зал Консерватории), or its chamber music offshoots. Of course one gets to hear the major Russian conductors & soloists (Rozhdestvensky, Gergiev, Polyansky etc) plus ones I've never heard of, plus foreigners. Programming tends to be fairly conservative and Russocentric, but there are deviations - for example, Rozhdestvensky conducted a nice Nielsen mini-festival last year; and I went to an all-Arvo Pärt concert on the occasion of his 70th birthday. So there's all kinds of stuff. Sometimes the programming decisions are rather strange - e.g. a concert consisting of 3 cello concertos - (bit of overkill I think).

2. If you mean countryside around Moscow, I rarely spend time there. It has its attractions, but I'd rather go to someplace completely different & far away (like Karelia or Kazan, to mention 2 places I've been to).

[mozartsneighbor]

Well, I'm not going to dispute that. I've always thought the notion of "humanitarian intervention" was a crock, no matter who's doing it.

To repeat myself a little - a military alliance requires one country to go to war for another. Do you really think Americans should be ready to die in order to preserve the territorial integrity of Georgia? That's what it boils down to.

Also - who actually wants into NATO anyway? For example, the majority of Ukrainians are against NATO membership for their country; only 20-25% are in favor. It's only their current political leadership that is really pushing the idea. But in Western media, this gets translated as, "Ukraine wants into NATO!"

There are plenty of nasty, corrupt people in positions of power here, many of them with backgrounds in the security organs and the Communist Party. That is simply the norm for post-Communist states, especially the ones that emerged from the USSR itself.

As for the Economist article, I think I know the one you're referring to. This eXile article shoots a few holes in it:

http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=10127&IBLOCK_ID=35

To get a good feel on what's really going on here, I think this piece by Princeton historian Stephen Kotkin is one of the best summaries I've read:

http://www.fpri.org/enotes/200703.kotkin.russiademocracydictatorship.html

I've already disagreed with you about the "camp," but I certainly agree on the need for energy independence. It'll be good for the West, and good for Russia in the long run, because at that point they won't be able to just turn the spigot and take the lazy man's way to riches.

Thanks, the Kotkin article is quite interesting, though nothing very new.
The eXile article seems to me rather ineffective. They raise a few quibbles here and there, rant a bit, slander the Economist and generally the British upper-class in a silly way, but don't deal with any substance.

Russia is ruled by people and in a way that is toxic and disgusting, and there are numerous symptoms of that disease in the Russian body politic:
-- journalists shot in the streets
-- inconvenient dissidents poisoned with plutonium
-- a conviction that it can still dictate policy to sovereign countries in Eastern Europe, and if necessary threaten military action and even nuclear attacks
-- a rancid kind of nationalism, often with religious overtones: I have read and heard Russian nationalist rhetoric, and it is completely psychotic. A great of deal mystical mumbo-jumbo about "Mother Russia" being the salvation of the world. American nationalism based on pride of their creative society and enduring democracy, and the belief in exporting that democracy abroad, may be a bit arrogant, but at least it is something that is grounded on some actual things, if a bit naive. The belief in Russia having anything to contribute to the salvation of the world demonstrates a level of nationalistic psychosis that only occurs in truly screwed up places.
-- no freedom of religion: protestants, catholics, and others are impeded from proselytizing and there are laws stopping the spread of any religion but the orthodox.
-- the orthodox church is now a nationalistic state tool, with the patriarch conducting blessing ceremonies with new nuclear weapons. Also look up article in Wall Street Journal about orthodox priest that defended one of those imprisoned oligarchs and criticized Putin, and was promptly defrocked and only given a job as a street sweeper after he had signed a humble retraction.
-- the media and the intelligentsia are quiet as mice and say nothing out of tone

Going on to that "camp" you disapprove of and NATO.
I would not have Western forces fighting for South Ossetia.
But that is not the only thing in play -- Russia is making threats of military action towards Poland and other Eastern European sovereign states that are part of the EU, presuming to bully them into not installing defensive weapons on their territory.
Then, as a follow up to the question of the South Ossetians being more Russian, and Russia being entitled to absorb them -- where does it stop? The Baltic states have very large Russian minorities. I read they were greatly alarmed at these latest developments.
Shall we just stand by in case Russia develops an appetite for some more pieces of its former empire?
Or are you such a narrow isolationist that you think American troops should only be employed when foreign troops land on the banks of the Potomac?

I am sure you have a pleasant life in Russia. I am sure you know many wonderful Russian people. I live in Austria and I know wonderful people who lived at the time of Hitler. One of them is my boyfriend's grandfather who fought at Stalingrad -- he is the sweetest most tolerant person. But that does not change the nature of the regime he lived under, the people who ruled it, or the aims of the army he fought in.
Most people do not have enough independence of mind or courage to recognize or oppose a bad regime that rules their country -- many of them are still nice people. Doesn't change the nature of the regime though.
And your expat bubble lifestyle maybe doesn't bring you into contact into some of the more unsavory aspects of today's Russia.
Hell, I lived through most of the Bush years in the US and had a great life, and I think a great of the American people in general. But I have never kidded myself that the Bush administration is not disastrous and sometimes bordering on the illegal and certainly callous in their outlook and actions.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Well, neighbor of Mozart, I didn't really intend to spend all afternoon answering your post - but what the hell, it's fun 

Russia is ruled by people and in a way that is toxic and disgusting, and there are numerous symptoms of that disease in the Russian body politic:
-- journalists shot in the streets

The killing of journalists began just after the USSR collapsed (i.e. in Yeltsin's time), and has been going on ever since. This is a phenomenon which Putin inherited; he didn't create it. These killings seldom, if ever, have anything to do with the government; rather, they are connected to business and organized crime, and areas of unrest (like Chechnya). For example – Paul Klebnikov, the Forbes editor gunned down in 2004, wasn't a critic of Putin; he was a supporter of him. Almost certainly, his murder was connected to either his book about a Chechen warlord, or his book about exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky.

A friend of mine expressed it best: "Nobody is killed here for expressing an opinion; rather, they are killed for writing about someone else's money." That's because Russia's two biggest problems are the high level of corruption, and the lack of a well-functioning legal system.

-- inconvenient dissidents poisoned with plutonium

The word you're looking for is "polonium," and this extremely murky case is far from being resolved. For a view which contradicts the standard Western one, I recommend this article:

http://www.nysun.com/foreign/specter-that-haunts-the-death-of-litvinenko/73212/


-- a conviction that it can still dictate policy to sovereign countries in Eastern Europe, and if necessary threaten military action and even nuclear attacks

I don't argue with this. In terms of foreign policy, they are very good at scaring their neighbors and shooting themselves in the foot in the process.


-- a rancid kind of nationalism, often with religious overtones: I have read and heard Russian nationalist rhetoric, and it is completely psychotic.

Again, this is a general hangover from post-communism. The neighboring countries have their own versions of such rhetoric. None of it means very much to the average person in the street.

-- no freedom of religion: protestants, catholics, and others are impeded from proselytizing and there are laws stopping the spread of any religion but the orthodox.

About proselytizing precisely, I don't know; state religious policy changes quite often here. If you're actually interested in reading up on it, here's a report:

http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/9061-33.cfm

Otherwise, your claim that there is "no freedom of religion" is absurd. Certainly the Catholic cathedral, where I sometimes go to concerts, is thriving. So are the various Protestant churches, the synagogues, and the mosques. It's not just onion domes on the skyline. No one cares what house of worship you visit.

-- the media and the intelligentsia are quiet as mice and say nothing out of tone

Wow – you have no idea how wrong this statement is. I can go to a kiosk 5 minutes from my home and openly buy publications expressing every anti-government opinion you can think of, whether it's liberal, conservative, communist, fascist, you name it. I can go to my local American-style mega-bookstore and buy the books of opposition politicians like Irina Khakamada and dissidents like Vladimir Bukovsky, and nobody will stop me. Anyone who thinks the intelligentsia is "quiet as mice" hasn't spent much time with them lately.

Then, as a follow up to the question of the South Ossetians being more Russian, and Russia being entitled to absorb them -- where does it stop? The Baltic states have very large Russian minorities. I read they were greatly alarmed at these latest developments.

I know a few things about the Baltic case, having written last year an article on Baltic Russian identity formation. Basically, it takes two to tango. Unlike in Ossetia, there are no separatist movements of any kind in the Baltics, and the Russians living there (with the exception of some Soviet diehards) tend to be pretty cynical toward the Russian government anyway. So it's not really a comparable case.

Shall we just stand by in case Russia develops an appetite for some more pieces of its former empire?
Or are you such a narrow isolationist that you think American troops should only be employed when foreign troops land on the banks of the Potomac?

I believe the purpose of the United States Armed Forces is to protect and defend the United States, not to "spread freedom," and certainly not to extend security guarantees to an ever expanding list of foreign countries. If you want to call that isolationism, I won't object.

And your expat bubble lifestyle maybe doesn't bring you into contact into some of the more unsavory aspects of today's Russia.

Apart from what I write on this site, you have no idea what my lifestyle is. I ride the Metro like everyone else, visit out-of-the-way places, live in a normal apartment, shop at local markets, read local media. How is this a "bubble"?

Hell, I lived through most of the Bush years in the US and had a great life, and I think a great of the American people in general. But I have never kidded myself that the Bush administration is not disastrous and sometimes bordering on the illegal and certainly callous in their outlook and actions.

Glad we agree on something.

[ezodisy]

Thanks, the Kotkin article is quite interesting, though nothing very new.
The eXile article seems to me rather ineffective. They raise a few quibbles here and there, rant a bit, slander the Economist and generally the British upper-class in a silly way, but don't deal with any substance.

Russia is ruled by people and in a way that is toxic and disgusting, and there are numerous symptoms of that disease in the Russian body politic:
-- journalists shot in the streets
-- inconvenient dissidents poisoned with plutonium
-- a conviction that it can still dictate policy to sovereign countries in Eastern Europe, and if necessary threaten military action and even nuclear attacks
-- a rancid kind of nationalism, often with religious overtones: I have read and heard Russian nationalist rhetoric, and it is completely psychotic. A great of deal mystical mumbo-jumbo about "Mother Russia" being the salvation of the world. American nationalism based on pride of their creative society and enduring democracy, and the belief in exporting that democracy abroad, may be a bit arrogant, but at least it is something that is grounded on some actual things, if a bit naive. The belief in Russia having anything to contribute to the salvation of the world demonstrates a level of nationalistic psychosis that only occurs in truly screwed up places.
-- no freedom of religion: protestants, catholics, and others are impeded from proselytizing and there are laws stopping the spread of any religion but the orthodox.
-- the orthodox church is now a nationalistic state tool, with the patriarch conducting blessing ceremonies with new nuclear weapons. Also look up article in Wall Street Journal about orthodox priest that defended one of those imprisoned oligarchs and criticized Putin, and was promptly defrocked and only given a job as a street sweeper after he had signed a humble retraction.
-- the media and the intelligentsia are quiet as mice and say nothing out of tone

Going on to that "camp" you disapprove of and NATO.
I would not have Western forces fighting for South Ossetia.
But that is not the only thing in play -- Russia is making threats of military action towards Poland and other Eastern European sovereign states that are part of the EU, presuming to bully them into not installing defensive weapons on their territory.
Then, as a follow up to the question of the South Ossetians being more Russian, and Russia being entitled to absorb them -- where does it stop? The Baltic states have very large Russian minorities. I read they were greatly alarmed at these latest developments.
Shall we just stand by in case Russia develops an appetite for some more pieces of its former empire?
Or are you such a narrow isolationist that you think American troops should only be employed when foreign troops land on the banks of the Potomac?

I am sure you have a pleasant life in Russia. I am sure you know many wonderful Russian people. I live in Austria and I know wonderful people who lived at the time of Hitler. One of them is my boyfriend's grandfather who fought at Stalingrad -- he is the sweetest most tolerant person. But that does not change the nature of the regime he lived under, the people who ruled it, or the aims of the army he fought in.
Most people do not have enough independence of mind or courage to recognize or oppose a bad regime that rules their country -- many of them are still nice people. Doesn't change the nature of the regime though.
And your expat bubble lifestyle maybe doesn't bring you into contact into some of the more unsavory aspects of today's Russia.
Hell, I lived through most of the Bush years in the US and had a great life, and I think a great of the American people in general. But I have never kidded myself that the Bush administration is not disastrous and sometimes bordering on the illegal and certainly callous in their outlook and actions.

I don't remember who it was--Dostoevsky I think, though perhaps Tolstoy and probably others--who went on to say that Russian people and the Russian character needs a certain control and will not prosper (for lack of a better term right now) under complete "freedom". There is perhaps a small amount of truth in that. I'm not sure, perhaps our native Russian member here can offer his or her opinion. You obviously know a lot about about the outside of the Russian political situation -- my point, by mentioning Dostoevsky above, is how much you know about the native internal organs, because I get the feeling, wrong as it may be, that you're skimming over it or perhaps missing it entirely. Seems a little gun-ho on your part, honestly (pot...kettle). When I have some time later I will look at your first long post.

Bruno thanks for the links. Two new sites for me, will go through those next week. I hope the woman you regaled at the Petersburg Dostoevsky hotel last year is still enjoying the finest in American intelligence! 

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Seems a little gun-ho on your part, honestly (pot...kettle).

It's gung-ho, actually. But in the circumstances the mistake is very apt!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gung-ho

[knight66]

Spitvalve, Thanks, also Tony.

Mike

[ezodisy]

It's gung-ho, actually. But in the circumstances the mistake is very apt!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gung-ho

lol! Hardly a day passes when you (I mean myself) fail to realise how stupid you are Stick with me and I'll soon be able to fill most of your online time with my mistakes 

[mozartsneighbor]

Well, neighbor of Mozart, I didn't really intend to spend all afternoon answering your post - but what the hell, it's fun 

Russia is ruled by people and in a way that is toxic and disgusting, and there are numerous symptoms of that disease in the Russian body politic:
-- journalists shot in the streets

The killing of journalists began just after the USSR collapsed (i.e. in Yeltsin's time), and has been going on ever since. This is a phenomenon which Putin inherited; he didn't create it. These killings seldom, if ever, have anything to do with the government; rather, they are connected to business and organized crime, and areas of unrest (like Chechnya). For example – Paul Klebnikov, the Forbes editor gunned down in 2004, wasn't a critic of Putin; he was a supporter of him. Almost certainly, his murder was connected to either his book about a Chechen warlord, or his book about exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky.

A friend of mine expressed it best: "Nobody is killed here for expressing an opinion; rather, they are killed for writing about someone else's money." That's because Russia's two biggest problems are the high level of corruption, and the lack of a well-functioning legal system.

-- inconvenient dissidents poisoned with plutonium

The word you're looking for is "polonium," and this extremely murky case is far from being resolved. For a view which contradicts the standard Western one, I recommend this article:

http://www.nysun.com/foreign/specter-that-haunts-the-death-of-litvinenko/73212/


-- a conviction that it can still dictate policy to sovereign countries in Eastern Europe, and if necessary threaten military action and even nuclear attacks

I don't argue with this. In terms of foreign policy, they are very good at scaring their neighbors and shooting themselves in the foot in the process.


-- a rancid kind of nationalism, often with religious overtones: I have read and heard Russian nationalist rhetoric, and it is completely psychotic.

Again, this is a general hangover from post-communism. The neighboring countries have their own versions of such rhetoric. None of it means very much to the average person in the street.

-- no freedom of religion: protestants, catholics, and others are impeded from proselytizing and there are laws stopping the spread of any religion but the orthodox.

About proselytizing precisely, I don't know; state religious policy changes quite often here. If you're actually interested in reading up on it, here's a report:

http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/9061-33.cfm

Otherwise, your claim that there is "no freedom of religion" is absurd. Certainly the Catholic cathedral, where I sometimes go to concerts, is thriving. So are the various Protestant churches, the synagogues, and the mosques. It's not just onion domes on the skyline. No one cares what house of worship you visit.

-- the media and the intelligentsia are quiet as mice and say nothing out of tone

Wow – you have no idea how wrong this statement is. I can go to a kiosk 5 minutes from my home and openly buy publications expressing every anti-government opinion you can think of, whether it's liberal, conservative, communist, fascist, you name it. I can go to my local American-style mega-bookstore and buy the books of opposition politicians like Irina Khakamada and dissidents like Vladimir Bukovsky, and nobody will stop me. Anyone who thinks the intelligentsia is "quiet as mice" hasn't spent much time with them lately.

Then, as a follow up to the question of the South Ossetians being more Russian, and Russia being entitled to absorb them -- where does it stop? The Baltic states have very large Russian minorities. I read they were greatly alarmed at these latest developments.

I know a few things about the Baltic case, having written last year an article on Baltic Russian identity formation. Basically, it takes two to tango. Unlike in Ossetia, there are no separatist movements of any kind in the Baltics, and the Russians living there (with the exception of some Soviet diehards) tend to be pretty cynical toward the Russian government anyway. So it's not really a comparable case.

Shall we just stand by in case Russia develops an appetite for some more pieces of its former empire?
Or are you such a narrow isolationist that you think American troops should only be employed when foreign troops land on the banks of the Potomac?

I believe the purpose of the United States Armed Forces is to protect and defend the United States, not to "spread freedom," and certainly not to extend security guarantees to an ever expanding list of foreign countries. If you want to call that isolationism, I won't object.

And your expat bubble lifestyle maybe doesn't bring you into contact into some of the more unsavory aspects of today's Russia.

Apart from what I write on this site, you have no idea what my lifestyle is. I ride the Metro like everyone else, visit out-of-the-way places, live in a normal apartment, shop at local markets, read local media. How is this a "bubble"?

Hell, I lived through most of the Bush years in the US and had a great life, and I think a great of the American people in general. But I have never kidded myself that the Bush administration is not disastrous and sometimes bordering on the illegal and certainly callous in their outlook and actions.

Glad we agree on something.

Thanks for the reply and the insights on the media and intelligentsia and on the Baltic case. Very interesting.

When I referred to the journalists murdered I was referring to, among others, Anna Politkovskaya:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Politkovskaya_assassination

I think her own words are quite eloquent:
"We are hurtling back into a Soviet abyss, into an information vacuum that spells death from our own ignorance. All we have left is the internet, where information is still freely available. For the rest, if you want to go on working as a journalist, it's total servility to Putin. Otherwise, it can be death, the bullet, poison, or trial - whatever our special services, Putin's guard dogs, see fit."

And, yes I did polonium. Sorry!
Again Litvinenko was pretty clear in his mind, as he was dying, who had poisoned him: Putin. He wrote:
"You may succeed in silencing me but that silence comes at a price. You have shown yourself to be as barbaric and ruthless as your most hostile critics have claimed. You have shown yourself to have no respect for life, liberty or any civilised value. You have shown yourself to be unworthy of your office, to be unworthy of the trust of civilised men and women."
And Litvinenko was an ex-member of the FSB, successor of the KGB, so I am inclined to think he wasn't exactly just making a wild guess.

And another neighbor that has suffered from the excessive interest of the Kremlin has been Ukraine -- there was another very entertaining poisoning in that case as well. Yushchenko poisoned with dioxin because he contested the electoral victory of his pro-Russian-puppet rival -- the suspected poisoners with connection to Ukrainian and Russian secret services are hiding out where?
Russia, but of course.

This is just a whole lot of assassinations and poisonings, done on a very elaborate scale, always in the case of people standing in the way of Kremlin interests. Of course, neither I nor anyone have conclusive proof -- but you don't need to be a conspiracy theorist to smell a rat, one with residence directly on the Red Square.

And in my estimation, if other religions are impeded from proselytizing, then that is not freedom of religion. It's like saying you can have contrary opinions, just as long as you don't share them with anyone but your family.

But I stand corrected on some other things, and I appreciate your insights. Sorry to have made any assumptions about your lifestyle, that was foolish -- I guess I have just met too many expats, and my reaction is just a bit knee-jerk.

I am also glad we agree on the Bush administration!

Hope to see you (or read you) around. 

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Hope to see you (or read you) around. 

Yes, nice talking to you. I just want to comment briefly on those cases you mentioned, then I'll shut up for the night.

My view is that I do not blame or absolve anyone for any of these in particular - these cases have so many angles to them, and have been played so much for PR (check, for instance, Berezovsky's involvement in managing the media response in the Litvinenko case), that I don't want to draw any firm conclusions from them.

Take the latest twists in the Yushchenko case - Yu. is now blaming his former campaign manager for poisoning him; meanwhile his former campaign manager is saying it was just food poisoning. Do I know who did it? No, and I'm not gonna guess.

Just another day in the world of post-Soviet politics.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I think I have witnessed (am witnessing) one of the best discussions on GMG.

My compliments to all concerned.

[Sarastro]

Bush

Bush is falling into oblivion soon, I am more excited at who is going to take him over.

[ezodisy]

then you are missing the point.

To think... is foolish

it is determined to impose...

Russia is run...by ex-KGB thugs

it will scare the hell out of you.

prepare to go into another whole different league.

Russia, ruled by ex-torturers and totalitarian scum

I took a moment to highlight just some of the comments that, thankfully, wouldn't even make it into The Sun. By all means go ahead and debate, just try to stick to facts, because this wide-eyed, foaming-at-the-mouth claptrap above, coming as it does from someone who appears so aggressively pro-Western, really is quite embarrassing. I happen to have a somewhat tenuous link to one of the ousted Russian oligarchs who now lives in London, and though I don't know this for certain, I can guess that he would be interested in using some of the above for one of his post-dinner speeches, so if you're willing to farm it out you just might, quite ironically, become one of the leading voices of New Russia.

Your points about wind power and renewable resources are more interesting. I have a small vested interest in a leading UK manufacturer of electric vehicles and would like to hear what you think of this burgeoning industry, one which looks likely to take off with recent governmental backing and expected purcashing/tax cuts over the coming months and years.

[Sarastro]

How is this a "bubble"?

But you never forget that as long as you have your American passport in the pocket, your life is different.

Although I am flattered by what Spitvalve wrote and freaked out at Mozartsneighbour's based-on-the-media post, they are both right in some ways. The truth is neither and much more complicated. Certainly, there are many problems in Russia, as in many other countries; the Soviet and nationalistic heritage is present, somewhat substantially, but in spite of all this it is not that scary as the Western think. And, after all, it is my Sweet Home.

I like talking about new sources of energy more. Not because I am concerned about Russian gas monopoly but because of the polluted environment - in that case it doesn't really matter who's stronger, we just all die. Recently I've read a book about pollution-linked diseases and thought of considering a career in environmental or fuel engineering - at least a small asset in the gigantic progress.

Mozartsneighbor, is your job related to the search of new energy sources?

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

I happen to have a somewhat tenuous link to one of the ousted Russian oligarchs who now lives in London, and though I don't know this for certain, I can guess that he would be interested in using some of the above for one of his post-dinner speeches, so if you're willing to farm it out you just might, quite ironically, become one of the leading voices of New Russia.

Yes, the whole issue of the oligarchs v. Putin, and their media clout & ability to shape the debate, is something few foreigners are aware of.

But you never forget that as long as you have your American passport in the pocket, your life is different.

Yeah, I don't have to pay bribes, and I can go home when things get bad 

[johnQpublic]

Scott....that is you now as Spitvalve I hope....thanks for the insight about Russian media being able to diasgree with the government. That is opposite of what the American  media has said over the last few years.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Scott....that is you now as Spitvalve I hope....thanks for the insight about Russian media being able to diasgree with the government. That is opposite of what the American  media has said over the last few years.

Yeah that's me, JQP.

I find about 70% of what the American media writes about Russia to be quite clueless, not just regarding politics. One of my favorite examples was in 2006 during the Shostakovich anniversary year. An article in the Chicago Tribune said that DSCH was neglected and forgotten in Russia, and there was only one concert dedicated to him in Moscow. I still can't understand how the poor reporter missed the complete symphony and quartet cycles, as well as the operas, conferences and seminars that went on here all that year.

I should add the caveat that Russian TV is indeed highly slanted and state-controlled. But you can find anything you want in print or on the Internet.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Interesting article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/18/washington/18diplo.html?th&emc=th