27/07/07 – News section
Sex for the motherland: Russian youths encouraged to procreate at camp
By EDWARD LUCAS
Remember the mammoths, say the clean-cut organisers at the youth camp’s mass wedding. “They became extinct because they did not have enough sex. That must not happen to Russia”.
Obediently, couples move to a special section of dormitory tents arranged in a heart-shape and called the Love Oasis, where they can start procreating for the motherland.
With its relentlessly upbeat tone, bizarre ideas and tight control, it sounds like a weird indoctrination session for a phoney religious cult.
But this organisation – known as “Nashi”, meaning “Ours” – is youth movement run by Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin that has become a central part of Russian political life.
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Nashi’s annual camp, 200 miles outside Moscow, is attended by 10,000 uniformed youngsters and involves two weeks of lectures and physical fitness.
Attendance is monitored via compulsory electronic badges and anyone who misses three events is expelled. So are drinkers; alcohol is banned. But sex is encouraged, and condoms are nowhere on sale.
Bizarrely, young women are encouraged to hand in thongs and other skimpy underwear – supposedly a cause of sterility – and given more wholesome and substantial undergarments.
Twenty-five couples marry at the start of the camp’s first week and ten more at the start of the second. These mass weddings, the ultimate expression of devotion to the motherland, are legal and conducted by a civil official.
Attempting to raise Russia’s dismally low birthrate even by eccentric-seeming means might be understandable. Certainly, the country’s demographic outlook is dire. The hard-drinking, hardsmoking and disease-ridden population is set to plunge by a million a year in the next decade.
But the real aim of the youth camp – and the 100,000-strong movement behind it – is not to improve Russia’s demographic profile, but to attack democracy.
Under Mr Putin, Russia is sliding into fascism, with state control of the economy, media, politics and society becoming increasingly heavy-handed. And Nashi, along with other similar youth movements, such as ‘Young Guard’, and ‘Young Russia’, is in the forefront of the charge.
At the start, it was all too easy to mock. I attended an early event run by its predecessor, ‘Walking together’, in the heart of Moscow in 2000. A motley collection of youngsters were collecting ‘unpatriotic’ works of fiction for destruction.
It was sinister in theory, recalling the Nazis’ book-burning in the 1930s, but it was laughable in practice. There was no sign of ordinary members of the public handing in books (the copies piled on the pavement had been brought by the organisers).
Once the television cameras had left, the event organisers admitted that they were not really volunteers, but being paid by “sponsors”. The idea that Russia’s anarchic, apathetic youth would ever be attracted into a disciplined mass movement in support of their president – what critics called a “Putinjugend”, recalling the “Hitlerjugend” (German for “Hitler Youth”) – seemed fanciful.
How wrong we were. Life for young people in Russia without connections is a mixture of inadequate and corrupt education, and a choice of boring dead-end jobs. Like the Hitler Youth and the Soviet Union’s Young Pioneers, Nashi and its allied movements offer not just excitement, friendship and a sense of purpose – but a leg up in life, too.
Nashi’s senior officials – known, in an eerie echo of the Soviet era, as “Commissars” – get free places at top universities. Thereafter, they can expect good jobs in politics or business – which in Russia nowadays, under the Kremlin’s crony capitalism, are increasingly the same thing.
Nashi and similar outfits are the Kremlin’s first line of defence against its greatest fear: real democracy. Like the sheep chanting “Four legs good, two legs bad” in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, they can intimidate through noise and numbers.
Nashi supporters drown out protests by Russia’s feeble and divided democratic opposition and use violence to drive them off the streets.
The group’s leaders insist that the only connection to officialdom is loyalty to the president. If so, they seem remarkably well-informed.
In July 2006, the British ambassador, Sir Anthony Brenton, infuriated the Kremlin by attending an opposition meeting. For months afterwards, he was noisily harassed by groups of Nashi supporters demanding that he “apologise”. With uncanny accuracy, the hooligans knew his movements in advance – a sign of official tip-offs.
Even when Nashi flagrantly breaks the law, the authorities do not intervene. After Estonia enraged Russia by moving a Soviet-era war memorial in April, Nashi led the blockade of Estonia’s Moscow embassy. It daubed the building with graffiti, blasted it with Stalin-era military music, ripped down the Estonian flag and attacked a visiting ambassador’s car. The Moscow police, who normally stamp ruthlessly on public protest, stood by.
Nashi fits perfectly into the Kremlin’s newly-minted ideology of “Sovereign democracy”. This is not the mind-numbing jargon of Marxism-Leninism, but a lightweight collection of cliches and slogans promoting Russia’s supposed unique political and spiritual culture.
It is strongly reminiscent of the Tsarist era slogan: “Autocracy, Orthodoxy and Nationality”.
The similarities to both the Soviet and Tsarist eras are striking. Communist ideologues once spent much of their time explaining why their party deserved its monopoly of power, even though the promised utopia seemed indefinitely delayed.
Today, the Kremlin’s ideology chief Vladislav Surkov is trying to explain why questioning the crooks and spooks who run Russia is not just mistaken, but treacherous.
Yet, by comparison with other outfits, Nashi looks relatively civilised. Its racism and prejudice is implied, but not trumpeted. Other pro-Kremlin youth groups are hounding gays and foreigners off the streets of Moscow. Mestnye [The Locals] recently distributed leaflets urging Muscovites to boycott non-Russian cab drivers.
These showed a young blonde Russian refusing a ride from a swarthy, beetle-browed taxi driver, under the slogan: “We’re not going the same way.”
Such unofficial xenophobia matches the official stance. On April 1, a decree explicitly backed by Mr Putin banned foreigners from trading in Russia’s retail markets. By some estimates, 12m people are working illegally in Russia.
Those who hoped that Russia’s first post-totalitarian generation would be liberal, have been dissapointed. Although explicit support for extremist and racist groups is in the low single figures, support for racist sentiments is mushrooming.
Slogans such as “Russia for the Russians” now attract the support of half of the population. Echoing Kremlin propaganda, Nashi denounced Estonians as “fascist”, for daring to say that they find Nazi and Soviet memorials equally repugnant. But, in truth, it is in Russia that fascism is all too evident.
The Kremlin sees no role for a democratic opposition, denouncing its leaders as stooges and traitors. Sadly, most Russians agree: a recent poll showed that a majority believed that opposition parties should not be allowed to take power.
Just as the Nazis in 1930s rewrote Germany’s history, the Putin Kremlin is rewriting Russia’s. It has rehabilitated Stalin, the greatest mass-murderer of the 20th century. And it is demonising Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s first democratically-elected president. That he destroyed totalitarianism is ignored. Instead, he is denounced for his “weak” pro-Western policies.
While distorting its own history, the Kremlin denounces other countries. Mr Putin was quick to blame Britain’s “colonial mentality” for our government’s request that Russia try to find a legal means of extraditing Andrei Lugovoi, the prime suspect in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.
Yet the truth is that Britain, like most Western countries, flagellates itself for the crimes of the past. Indeed, British schoolchildren rarely learn anything positive about their country’s empire. And, if Mr Putin has his way, Russian pupils will learn nothing bad about the Soviet empire, which was far bloodier, more brutal – and more recent.
A new guide for history teachers – explicitly endorsed by Mr Putin – brushes off Stalin’s crimes. It describes him as “the most successful leader of the USSR”. But it skates over the colossal human cost – 25m people were shot and starved in the cause of communism.
“Political repression was used to mobilise not only rank-and-file citizens but also the ruling elite,” it says. In other words, Stalin wanted to make the country strong, so he may have been a bit harsh at times. At any time since the collapse of Soviet totalitarianism in the late 1980s, that would have seemed a nauseating whitewash. Now, it is treated as bald historical fact.
If Stalin made mistakes, so what? Lots of people make mistakes.
“Problematic pages in our history exist,” Mr Putin said last week. But: “we have less than some countries. And ours are not as terrible as those of some others.” He compared the Great Terror of 1937, when 700,000 people were murdered in a purge by Stalin’s secret police, to the atom bomb on Hiroshima.
The comparison is preposterous. A strong argument can be made that by ending the war quickly, the atom bombs saved countless lives.
Franklin D Roosevelt and Harry Truman may have failed to realise that nuclear weapons would one day endanger humanity’s survival. But, unlike Stalin, they were not genocidal maniacs.
As the new cold war deepens, Mr Putin echoes, consciously or unconsciously, the favourite weapon of Soviet propagandists in the last one.
Asked about Afghanistan, they would cite Vietnam. Castigated for the plight of Soviet Jews, they would complain with treacly sincerity about discrimination against American blacks. Every blot on the Soviet record was matched by something, real or imagined, that the West had done.
But the contrasts even then were absurd. When the American administration blundered into Vietnam, hundreds of thousands of people protested in the heart of Washington. When eight extraordinarily brave Soviet dissidents tried to demonstrate in Red Square against the invasion of Czechoslovakia, in 1968, they were instantly arrested and spent many years in labour camps.
For the east European countries with first-hand experience of Stalinist terror, the Kremlin’s rewriting of history could hardly be more scary. Not only does Russia see no reason to apologise for their suffering under Kremlin rule, it now sees the collapse of communism not as a time of liberation, but as an era of pitiable weakness.
Russia barely commemorates even the damage it did to itself, let alone the appalling suffering inflicted on other people. Nashi is both a symptom of the way Russia is going – and a means of entrenching the drift to fascism.
Terrifyingly, the revived Soviet view of history is now widely held in Russia. A poll this week of Russian teenagers showed that a majority believe that Stalin did more good things than bad.
If tens of thousands of uniformed German youngsters were marching across Germany in support of an authoritarian Fü
Edward Lucas is author of the forthcoming The New Cold War And How To Win It
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73 comments
TErr
August 3, 2007 at 2:23 pm (UTC 0)
Ray D. Noper said…
It is absolutely wrong to equalize faschist Germany and USSR. Yes, they were both bad for Estonia, because both sides never expected it to be independent. And you are right to feel insulted. But the world is larger then Estonia and goes outside it�s borders. You buy no way can deny the fact that the USSR really liberated Europe and overpayed by lives of it�s people fighting devil alone till 1944 and giving the key contribution into the common victory.
Whatever Stalin planned for Estonia, it is wrong to hold officers and soldriers responsible for that. I repeat, they died fighting nazi and not invading Estonia. All the monuments like the Bronze S. conmemorate only the fact of their heroic death fighting nazi.
You also got wrong my words about you gov. �desicions and respect�. No, they didn�t have to ask for no ones approval and formally were not obliged to show respect to anybody. Formally, yes… My point is that your authotities had a way to solve this problem, showing respect ad presrving their country�s self-esteem. It�s pure art of international relations. But your gov. deliberatly went hard and disrespectfull way, that�s what I condemn it for.
�Oh, yes. You cannot not insult Russia (NB! not Russians, Russia as a state) if you do anything without asking Kremlin�
� Kremlin never pretended that Esonia has to ask it�s permission. These are sick illusions your leaders have. If I am wrong give me exact reference on any our statement. But, yes you can not insult Russia or it�s people.
2 Giustino
�If it was our intention to “russify” you, 55 years would be more than sufficient…
You don’t even have a two-lane highway to Vladivostock. You’re not that efficient�
- you compare the uncomparable. It was all a matter desicion, we didn�t beacuse we didn�t wanr to. BTW it was against the SU Constitution.
�Could it be the same under Germans and after Hitlers’ death if they won? – I doubt so, they hardly tolerated non-germans.
The Germans allowed Danish, Swedish, and, yes, Estonian authorities to function locally under occupation. Flags were not banned (as they were under Stalin). We all know of Hitler’s plans, but he never got to carry them out. So what can we say about something that never actually happened.�
- does that mean that you would tolerate Estonia under nazi, if there were no other choise? If yes, then the further civilized dialog is over.
�Making them �non-citizens� and �foreigners�, forcing to study estonian was very inhuman and unjust.
Making Estonians, or even foreigners like me, speak Russian in a country where most people speak Estonian is unjust.�
- yes, it was unjust, though it gave you access to russian culture. But what that people�s fault, why to revenge on them?
who or what organization recognized some parallel exile Estonian gov.? How could it be technically possible with USSR recognized in it�s borders?
The USSR was never recognized in its borders by most Western countries. Stalin asked many times for Churchill and Roosevelt to recognize his territorial gains in the Baltics. They never recognized it.
- do you ubderstand what you wrote? It is absurd. I repeat, the post-war SU borders were agreed by USA and GB, and USSR was recognized by all Int. Org.
Ray D. Noper
August 3, 2007 at 2:36 pm (UTC 0)
Did I say Estonia ? USSR was bad for all Eastern Europe, Russia itself notwithstanding. USSR liberated Europe as much as Wermacht…
Those soldiers died invading new territories for their country. What they thought they were doing is irrelevant. They died heroically, maybe, I won’t say they didn’t, all I’m saying, the reasons they died weren’t so heroic at all…
It wasn’t hard and disrespectful until Kremlin-financed Nashists (yes, they were there – I have talked with some Russian students who were offered money to go protesting in Tallinn) went and provoked the riots and looting… I do not say all Estonian government did was absolutely right but reactions after the looting started were correct and just.
Anyway, about your answers to Giustino…
Transportation of civilians both ways, in and out of occupied territory is and was against international law. Anyway, any document – even constitution – wasn’t exactly something that would have mattered when SU high officials wanted to do something…
I understand that you tolerated Estonia under Soviet occupation ? If yes, then the further civilized dialog is over.
Nobody is making noone speak no specific language. They have a choice.
And no, the borders weren’t agreed by US and UK. It was accepted as a “sensible transition period” just as Austria, but as we can see from the diagram above, sensibility was not the strongest feature of Soviet Union
AndresS
August 3, 2007 at 2:40 pm (UTC 0)
2 cabrero:
do you ubderstand what you wrote? It is absurd. I repeat, the post-war SU borders were agreed by USA and GB, and USSR was recognized by all Int. Org.
According to the U.S State department you are incorrect. I quote: “The United States never recognized Soviet sovereignty over Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania.”
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5377.htm
The US (among others) did not recognize the control of the Baltics by the USSR and thus did not recognize the SU borders.
Ray D. Noper
August 3, 2007 at 2:41 pm (UTC 0)
Oh, I understood finally why the dialog here… We have different semantics, people. We mean ‘liberate’ as ‘make free’ and ‘free’ as ‘do what we want to do’. The Soviet (and modern Russian) paradigm is that ‘liberate’ means ‘put under our rule’ and ‘free’ means ‘do what we want you to do and be quiet or die’. Yeah, that was easy, sorry folks – cabrero, ruslana, rusak etc., just didn’t understand the putinista way of doublespeak…
TErr
August 3, 2007 at 4:05 pm (UTC 0)
No, we do have the same semantics. Yes, ‘liberate’ is ‘make free’. And USSR did make Europe free of nazi, which by no way could be an option. What happened then does not eliminate the positive role of the SU and heroism of the soviet people.
“I understand that you tolerated Estonia under Soviet occupation ? If yes, then the further civilized dialog is over”
- read my initial post, I asked, if there were “no other choyse”.
“It wasn’t hard and disrespectful until Kremlin-financed Nashists (yes, they were there – I have talked with some Russian students who were offered money to go protesting in Tallinn) went and provoked… “
- don’t mix-up the desire to protest and looting. Those who came to protest are not responsible for those who loot. Your police did the right thing to maintain public order, and I admit it. The situation went out of control because that’s how it often happens during mass protests. So don’t put in the same line “Nashi” and maradeurs.
Transportation of civilians both ways, in and out of occupied territory is and was against international law.
- again, why should simple people be responsible for that?
P.S.
“I understand that you tolerated Estonia under Soviet occupation” – I wont be hypocrite, and say that, yes, I did tolerate, and the disintegration of the SU was a sad thing for me. But still, I admit that it was not fair for you, and you had right for independence. So enjoy it and build normal relations with neighbors. And a deliberate demonstration of disrespect is not necessary to prove your independence again and again.
Giustino
August 3, 2007 at 8:26 pm (UTC 0)
What happened then does not eliminate the positive role of the SU and heroism of the soviet people.
The Soviets killed more Estonians than the Germans did. So much for heroism. Soviet battalions murdering civilian families isn’t heroic. They are investigating another one of these crimes right now.
http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/18402/
Security police have launched an investigation into alleged war crimes involving the slaughter of civilians in the Estonian countryside in the summer of 1941.
The investigation was prompted after a member of the public contacted prosecutors with his own research into killings in the village of Metsakivi in Tartumaa county.
According to the researcher’s information, members of the Red Army’s so-called ‘destruction battalion’ massacred an unknown number of civilians while retreating from the German invasion. Among the dead was an entire family, including a three-year old boy.
And people really ask why they moved that monument?
TErr
August 3, 2007 at 9:31 pm (UTC 0)
The Soviets killed more Estonians than the Germans did.
- I would appreciate if you give reference on some source of this number, also describing who were those estonians – civilians or nazi colaborators.
There is such a thing like presumption of innocense. You can use that Local sleuth’s research argument after the investigation is over and presents reliable proof.
rusak
August 4, 2007 at 5:26 am (UTC 0)
Finally, to rub some salt in your gaping Russian wounds, Mart Laar got more than 9,000 in votes in Russian populated Lasnamäe district of Tallinn in March.
Lasnamäe is about 1/3 Estonian. You have any evidence that those 9000 votes were specifically Russian and not Estonian? Do ballots in Estonia have ethnicity of the voter on them or what?
Some ethnic Russians voted for the most right wing party in Estonia in March. Some ethnic Russians in Estonia put their kids in Estonian-language kindergartens. How do I know this? Because my kid goes to kindergarten here.
That is not a valid argument. “Some ethnic Russians”? How many, 5? We could talk about “some Estonians” and you would say that those are just national traitors, confused and mentally disturbed people.
I am on the side of Finland, Estonia, Ireland, Iceland, and all the states that emerged from the crumbling empires of the first half of the last century.
Why, what are you reasons? You on their side all the time, regardless of the circumstances or anything?
Why are you such a negative and vengeful person? I
Negative and vengeful is a pretty good way to describe Estonian policy toward the Russian minority.
And don’t tell me that Russians are not citizens because, like I said, only 8 percent of people in Estonia lack citizenship, and 25 percent – 8 percent is 17 percent, son.
False. Over 16% (as of July, 2007) of the population does not have Estonian citizenship, and thus can’t vote in parliamentary elections. From various sources I’ve seen, nearly 2/3 of Russians do not have Estonian citizenship. However, I don’t even propose that all the Russian-speakers automatically be given citizenship. I think they should just go through the procedures and gain citizenship that way. It will help justify what they do later on. Although the Russian population was certainly screwed over in terms of their voting power because so many of their elderly people (who would otherwise be reliable, consistent voters) were essentially disqualified from the voting process.
So Russians are voting in Estonia. they are just not voting for pro-Kremlin parties. In fact most I have spoken with see the Kremlin is a self-interested meddler that hurts them more than helps them.
Now that’s got to hurt. Your own ‘compatriots’ deserting you.
You are completely out of touch with reality regarding Russians in Estonia (or anywhere else for that matter). It’s really “wonderful” how you manage to get just about everything backasswards. It’s crazy and sad that you live in such close proximity to this Russian population in Estonia and yet know next to nothing about them.
That statement about “voting but not for pro-Kremlin parties” is just nonsense. You are deluding yourself. I don’t even know where to start here. I’m not even asking you to believe what I say but what I say is the verifiable truth, I can prove it. If you knew Russian, you could go online and find out for yourself, obtain at least a general sense of what this community is thinking, what their views and concerns are, etc. I have done this, but what exactly have you done? I can just imagine what your “sources” are.
0. Why does everything have to be about “the Kremlin” with you? Oh, I know, it’s a convenient non-argument – “those damn Russians don’t have any legitimate grievances or anything, it’s all just the Kremlin’s tricks…” Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.
1. What “pro-Russian” parties??? Do you mean the “Russian parties” or what? There are many reasons why the Russian voters have not supported them but their “pro-Kremlin”-ness has nothing to do with it. The main reasons I have seen given are that: they think they wouldn’t be able to change anything anyway; that this would weaken the less anti-Russian Estonian parties, strengthen the nationalists, and result in Estonian parties allying against them; that their economic program is unappealing; lack of charismatic, capable, trustworthy leadership. Many talk about how weak they are in terms of their party organization, about how they don’t have enough money. As far as pro-Kremlin or not, if anything, a common complaint is that the Kremlin hasn’t actually supported them in any meaningful way. It’s really a shame too, because the Kremlin could give them the help they need.
If the Kremlin supported any party in Estonia it is the Center party, which basically amounts to selling out the Russian minority, again. The Russians in Estonia have voted mainly for the Center party. However, I don’t see any real support for the Centrists. Their support is mainly along the lines of “the lesser evil,” “the best of a bad bunch,” “the least anti-Russian,” “the only real choice we have.” The Centrists are the only major party that has even pretended to care about the Russian minority. That’s pretty much why non-pensioners have voted for them. The word “protect” is used a lot – people hope that they will “protect the Russians here”. I mean, just think about what that says about how Russians perceive all these Estonian initiatives – initiatives that definitely aren’t for the Ests, just against the Russians. They perceive them as attacks against their community –basically part of a policy of “soft ethnic cleansing” with the intention to make the Russians feel so unwelcome and uncomfortable that most will just leave and the rest can be assimilated. And that’s basically what it is.
Some Russians voted for other parties, such as Reform. They generally explain such a choice in terms of economic considerations. They “liked their economic plans” etc. Many people wanted to believe that “economics will solve our problems”, that the Est nationalists aren’t really serious, it’s all just politics, they won’t actually go through with all that stuff, the Bronze Soldier won’t be moved, it’s against the constitution anyway, etc, etc. They tried to go along with “Estonian society” and in return it spat in their face. The Estonian apartheid state should have at least waited after May 9 to move that damn monument. It would have signaled a kind of little “nod” toward the Russian community that would have gone a long way with many. Instead it did the opposite, and that’s the story of the last 15 years.
2. Weren’t you crying not long ago about “moderate Russians” (ha-HA!) not condemning the rioting? Where were your 9000 Laar voters then? You say that at least 9000 Russians vote for Est nationalists (and presumably support them to this day?) – then I would have to assume at least 1000 of these wonderful human beings have internet access. But I’m not going to ask about thousands, just show me 5 of these individuals talking together in the same place.
3. You’re saying that Russians don’t support “pro-Kremlin parties”, vote for Est nationalist parties, basically “doing the right thing” and putting their fate in the hands of this Estonian society? So why then does this society treat them so poorly? Not one minister in the cabinet and all that. Even the Russians who can vote in parliamentary elections do not have their 10% or whatever of representation in the system because discrimination is the system in Estonia.
Ruslanas
August 4, 2007 at 10:04 am (UTC 0)
Since CABRERO put some comments I would like to answer you.
‘We did not suffer a defeat. Yes, we lost a lot of what we built politically and economically during the Soviet era, but it was not a defeat. It was a result of changes, initiated from inside. Most people in the new Russia initially welcomed it, saw the new perspectives, and accepted how wrong the old ideology was. In contrary, Weimar Germany was defeated in a war, totaly exhausted and forced to sign a humiliating peace treaty.’
Russia suffered a different defeat, since the Cold War was a different from the WWI. The USSR lost the Cold War, during which, you might remember, not a single shot between USSR bloc and the Western block was made. I am not talking about the battles, which were fought on the ground of the 3rd World. But defeat was total. Since Russia cannot imagine its existence without empire, the Russian minds perceived the ‘shrinking territory’ as a total humiliation by 1990, as the Germans in Weimar republic done. Only if Kremlin could stop this it would have done it. The August coup could not materialise because the Army and the Siloviki were demoralised, as a defeated armies usually is. Extent of this could be seen at the first Chechen War since the glorious Soviet army, which turned into the Russian army, could not even defeat few Chechen fighters. If you call few of the intelligentsia who in your words ‘initially welcomed’ Russia’s turn into the normal republic it is true. However, the masses in Russia did not really understand the process, and frankly, they did not care about it. And as it is shown now, they care about ‘rebuilding a glory of Russia’. What kind of nation is ‘standing up from its knees’? Simply a nation, which has been defeated. Which nations’ president is calling the ‘collapse of the USSR the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century’? The president of the defeated county, who wishes to restore it ‘past glory’, or in short its ‘empire’. We live in the 21c. The tanks are not needed for that any longer.
‘-Besdies that, current Russia still lives in the middle of the globalized world, it’s people have free access to information, they are self-aware and dont want to give up their personal freedoms.’
With all due respect the free information in Russia could only be found only on the Internet. Russia is following its ‘guru’ China’s way in restricting the only tribune for a ‘different to that of the Kremlin’s’ opinion. Maybe Echo Moskvy also less than a half of dozen of the periodicals could be called ‘semi free’. Only for know, give it another few years and those venues will be under control. You perfectly know that even though the usage of the Internet is growing the users of it don’t present a critical mass of the voters. The absolute critical mass of voters are watching the Kremlin controlled TV channels. This is the main provider of news to the Russian, and hence the main opinion former. I watch the Russian TV quite a bit, the debate programmes and the news. And well, the situation is getting worse…
‘-I wouldn’t say that Russia had embrionic democracy in 2000. It had the same 10 years of experience as other former SU republics, which by that time considered themselves as “mature” democracies.’
10 years ago Russia achieved some embryonic stages of democracy. It was not perfect but the Russians had a chance to improve it, but they are choosing ‘sovereign democracy’, third way, as BTW Nazis in Germany did.
‘-What made you think that about Putin, besides your personal “logical conclusions”? He or any of his representatives never declared that.’
What made me think that? Well, let me ask you, do you really think that Putin’s ‘reforms’ are creating a liberal democracy in Russia? As far as I understand the Kremlin is creating the ‘sovereign democracy’, as the Fuhrer did back in 30’s.
‘-Who told you that Russians were satisfied by dictatorship? Most people in Russia dont want Stalin or whatever Big Brother back. Or you count those born in 1920′s?’
Russians will never have a Stalinist totalitarian style regime. That would be absurd to say. Nevertheless, an absolute majority of Russians are missing a ‘strong hand’. This is what they are going to get after Putin. Stalin was not only one dictator in the world.
‘-After more than 10 years of almost zero funding any army would need modernization. US and other NATO countries continued that after the Cold War end, so, we have no moral or any right to do that? If you are not agree with the Weapon treaty issue post, why exactly, with reference to the reasons, declared by Russia. For me they seem to be just. Besides that RF declared itself open to renegotiate the conditions and adapt them to the modern reality.’
The Kremlin did not comply with the Treaty. Russian army is still in Goergia, and correct me if I am wrong, in Moldova.
‘-In many developed countries the economies are controlled by a limited number of financial groups, especially the key sectors. You can speculate on high oil and gaz prices topic, Gazprom and e.t.c. But do you question our right to structurise these sectors the way we think it is optimal? Or extra high oil export taxes is a favour?’
I am glad that both agree on one point – Gazprom is the Kremlin and the Kremlin is Gazprom. Well, since we live in the 21c, the Kremlin changed its tactics and at least for know contains itself form using its military forces to restore its former ‘glory’. Putin has created a different type of ‘combatant’ face which is Gazprom. Furthermore, the Kremlin has passed the legislation for a private Gazprom army. Well well, maybe a private Navy for Gazprom will be a next move…
‘-What jewish oligarchs do we erradicate – Vekselberg, Abramovich, Potanin or Fridman?’
What Jewish oligarchs are still left in Russia? I am not stating that in majority occasion they played a positive role in Russia’s life. But a fact is that the Russian oligarchs replaced them.
‘-Please quote any example of “propaganda”. We are not looking for enemies, for we have our own internal problems to solve. Our leaders are not that stupid to rush into a weapon race or any confrontation. Baltic States (at the moment Estonia) and Georgia – if a little doggie barks a lot it is a reason to be afraid, may be its’ rabid… – I was talking about dogs only, no parallels with those countries…’
Please, don’t take this ironical remark personally but it seems that you have no TV at home, or if you have it you watch only the Cold War mongers BBC, CNN, Sky New and other sinful stations. I would suggest you to get a cable and turn the Russian TV channels, with its analytical programmes, talk shows, the news patriotic films etc. Then let me know if you changed your mind on your comment above. No offence.
‘-May be I dont know smth. What neighbours do we “terrorise” and how?’
Ok, where should I start from… Mazeikiu Nafta, Ventspils Nafta, Georgian and Moldovian wines, oil and gaz cuts of for Ukraine, ignition of the disturbances in Tallinn over the Bronze Soldier, cyber war against Estonia, Polish meat… Welcome to the 21c and new methods of ‘terrorising’. Who are organising all those actions. I will give you an answer – the Kremlin. All of those actions caused not because of some ‘invisible hand a almighty market’, it is hand of Kremlin. If you will stand on our way towards restoration of the Empire we will find measures to fight you…
‘-The only massive pogrom-like thing I remember was in Kondopoga, and the authorities prevented its repeat in neighbour cities. People involved are now in court. Besides that dont put it in the same line “pogroms”. If a foreign diaspora does not respect local traditions and laws, and it results in massive fights, it is not a pogrom it is a mere result of u
neasy tensed interethnic relations were both sides share guilt. And the skinhead-type guys are not accepted in our society and in most cases those who assault foreigners are prosecuted and sentenced.’
No massive pogroms in Russia yet, but wait for few years. When a university administration is advising its students with a different colour of the skin not to go to the streets on the Hitler’s birthday… I would say that there is a problem. There is nothing of such magnitude in the ‘fascist’ Baltic states, even though I don’t deny that we don’t have skin heads. Still, few days ago Russian authorities trumpeted a show trial on a Nazi who killed an antifascist in St. Petersburg. It is fare to say that it is better than nothing. But still, Russia you have to do more.
‘-We dont’ rewrite history, this statement is false by nature, and we have no superiority propaganda. Yes, we do proclaim that Russia is a great country and we have a lot to be proud of. Whatever negative passed in our history doesnt make us worse than other states, and we dont deserve the sense of constant guilt as others want – that was the Putins’, not more not less.’
Let me remind you about the last Putin’s meeting with your historians, and his speech on the issue. Great country, well, ask Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians if it was a great country. To be proud of slaughtering of millions of its own citizens for ‘a just cause’… I suppose it is matter of taste. And regarding the guilt. After Germany apologised for what it did to the other nations it became a great nation. And Russia can even tell sorry to us. Once again the Russians are building a glory on the wrong foundations.
‘-Nashi wearing the same T-shirts doesnt’ make them militatnt. The resemblance between them and Hitlerugent is the same as between a tracktor and tank – both have tracks and engine.’
Well my dear friend let me remind you that there was a tractor made first and then a tank later. Just wait and see.
‘-It seems that you are living in the past, not us, and don’t accept other way than US-favoured way. If you know Russian and care so much about our bilateral relations and Russia’s internal affairs don’t base your opinion on American press or Russian opposition publications only. Get out of tank and look around then!’
Let me tell you that we are looking at the West and trying to integrate there as fast as possible because we feel the pulse of Russia very much and begun to ealise that the Baltic States have not much time left. Simply, we are afraid your Putin’s Russia and what is becoming out of it. We were not afraid of Yeltsin’s Russia. And I am concerned about Russia not because I follow only the Western sources of information, I also follow the Russian media. For your information I don’t see any opposition face there. And to be frank, it is worrying us a lot.
‘-Let’s clear some basic issues first:
1. US or European democracy is not a model for the rest of the world to follow, and Western democratic standards do not bear an absolute value to measure other countries.’
I agree to that. Only the mature societies could create and live in the Western liberal democracy. Hence, could you stop calling Russia a ‘democratic country’. It is simply not a democratic country. Anything else, but not a democratic, and this is a pity, even though the Russians had a chance to become such.
‘-2. Every country has the right to develop in it’s own way and the primary concern are national interests like integrity, political stability, economic growth and peoples security and wellbeing. Nothing of that should be sacrificed for illusionary “values”’
You are growing and stable just because your siloviki fat cats receive enough cash from oil. Once it will finish the ‘growth and stability’ will disappear. And then ‘smuta’ again…
‘-3. Being somebody in opposition to a government does not make him always right. And a government is not automatically wrong when it takes suppressive course of action.’
‘Opposition to the rulers of the Kremlin’, a government could function only in democracy. Opposition is weak in Russia, that is a fact, because Russians don’t care about the liberal values. They satisfied with sausage, nice holidays abroad, a flat screen TV, some vodka and let the state to take care about us. The ‘Social Contract’ same as in the Soviet times. But we know what this social contract brought the country to.
‘-Now some general issues concerning Russia
1. In Russia there is freedom to say what you want and to express your opinion. And I assure you it is even more than in the USA. The most typical example is that a US Congress sponsored AM-station “Radio Svoboda” openly shits in the air for the last 17 years giving word to all the opposition representatives and seems to feel OK in general. No one is taking away the broadcasting license. And it’s just the most typical example.’
During one of the Radio Svoboda programmes a Russian communist exclaimed ‘you are the only one venue where we can still go on the air!’ Well, something did change in Russia since the end of the Cold War, but the Radio Svoboda is the same, venue for freedom of speech and mind. I was listening to radio svoboda since the Andropov times. And well, all ‘black male’ on the Soviet system appeared to be not blackmail at all. Think about it.
‘-2. The absence of a strong opposition in Russian politics is not government guilt but opposition’s problem. This clowns had their chance in the last elections to Duma. There were no limitations (except for some insignificant local episodes) on media and money to win peoples hearts, they failed…’
I am not praising a Russian opposition, but if the freedom of speech and demonstration would exist in Russia the situation would be different. Well, if the Kremlin would allow it to happen. But who cares about it in Russia?
‘-3. We are aggressive? How possibly we can be aggressive when for more than a decade we where weakening our offensive potential while you, the West was modernizing and strengthening it’s own. We recently closed our last military base in Cuba while NATO is expanding , building new bases in the CIS republics. Or should I mention Yugoslavia, Iraq, missile defense complex in Eastern Europe?’
There are some questions about the speed of NATO expansion. But the fundamental fault in Russians’ thinking is that this expansion took place not because of some ‘Russian style’ subversion, or occupation. Russia has to realise that the democratic and sovereign nations voluntarily expressed their wish to join the club and had been admitted. On the other hand we also voluntarily made a decision to escape the prison of the nations, since we were occupied and hated every moment of that sentence.
It was very interesting talking to you and I wish you a very nice weekend.
Giustino
August 4, 2007 at 4:30 pm (UTC 0)
Rusak,
Only 8.5 percent of people are stateless. If people chose to take Russian citizenship, that’s their decision as individuals. That 1/3 of Russians that are Russian citizens get to vote for whatever stooge Putin *selects* next year. If I wanted to become an Estonian citizen, I would have to relinquish my American citizenship. Those are the breaks.
As for being a minority and being treated poorly, I live in a town that is 15 percent Russian-speaking. Yet the Russians I see here go to the store and get service in Russian, fill out Russian forms at the bank, and every night can watch Russian on the evening news. What’s more, I have lived here a short time and I do most of everything in Estonian because it’s not that hard to learn. I don’t feel treated poorly, I just accept that when I move to a new country and most people speak a certain language, it’s polite to learn that language.
By the way about TV and the newspapers. How many other countries do that for their minorities? Is there Turkish news on TV every night on the most popular TV channel in Germany? How many British newspapers publish news in Urdu? Even the Finns don’t do that for the local Swedes.
I wrote on my blog along time ago that Estonia should ratify the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and name Swedish, Finnish, and Russian as minority languages that will receive equal protection. But the reality is that the Russians in Estonia already have schooling in their language, already have publicly-subsidized programming in their language, already have the right to discourse in their native language. They already have all those rights outlined by that piece of legislation. So what difference would ratification really make?
If anything it’s the smaller minorities, like the Swedes who have a) been here far longer and b) are smaller in number that need greater protection. But Sweden isn’t on our case about them is it. It should be. Estlandsvensk is a national treasure. It would be a shame if it died out. I don’t harbor such fears about the future of Russian language in Estonia.
TErr
August 4, 2007 at 4:34 pm (UTC 0)
2 Ruslanas
Thank you for answering.
I guess that you are a young man, 27-30, who part life lived abroad and never been to Russia and can only judge it the foreign press publications. In contrary, I am Russian, I lived in Russia all my life and gone through 90’s. On a regular base I watch Russian TV and read newspapers. Besides that I speak several languages, travel to other countries and read sources from different sides. And YOU are trying to explain ME how thing really and Russia are, or what Russians are, or what moods are our society?
Like I told you, Russia have gone through the critical period, when people were demoralized, though not like in Germany. And yes, we did have attempts to form paramilitary organizations, but they didn’t find any support in the society.
Currently Russia is not like that. I traveled through the country and saw people living better, getting back their jobs, factories working again, highways construction and re-construction. Even on my way to dacha for 12 years I always saw a semi-destroyed farm, now it’s new and has a cow herd. People have freedom to talk what they want, pass their free time the way the prefer and so on and so for. And no “social contract”. We have a market economy, and you have to work hard to get a flat TV screen and some vodka. And it’s not all a matter of oil prices, gradually we have growing investments in non-fuel manufacturing economy.
We have free access to information. The fact that TV is not overflowed with opposition declarations or has any 50-50 balance, doesn’t meant anything. We have a lot of debates, expressing opposite opinions, critics of Putin and e.t.c. Besides that there is such a thing like rating. People are tired of politics, they want to relax watching TV. And those who are interested in Casparov’s opinion can get anyway. We have abundance of opposition on radio and paper media.
And yes, we have strong presence of the state in many spheres, and we have more “authocrative” way of executive decision making. But these are specifics of Russian democracy. Actually, there is no ideal democracy anywhere. If you make a deep analysis on US for example this
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0705/S00096.htm you will find that it is a nearly faschist state too.
There is no ideal form of democracy. We have what our country needs now in that particular transition period from chaos to order, and people support it. We approve Putin’s policy and are interested in it’s continuation because of what I said above. And we are not supposed to disapprove it because smbd. in the west is pissed of with Russia defending it’s interests.
From what you commented on Gazprom, Siloviki, oligarchs, gazcuts I can see that you are only getting filtered and reinterpreted information. So I afraid it’s you who falls under propaganda, not me.
For example gaz cuts. Excuse me, if you receive a service for significantly lower price then the rest and don’t pay even for that, then you’ll have it cut. Here no politics, pure market economy…
As for Balts. Like I stated above, we all suffered equally from Stalin, and no nations deserve any special apology. Yes we took away you independence, but in USSR we treated you with respect and like brothers, we invested billions in your economy, popularized your culture, conserved your national identity, gave you formal, but still your own local authorities, gave to balts equal rights a the rest of the soviet citizens. Is that imprisonment, is that how occupants do? Then we accepted your desire to free with no blood shed. So we don’t’ owe you nothing.
Read this, it will seem curious for you
http://www.rpmonitor.ru/ru/detail_m.php?ID=3749
Cheers
Giustino
August 4, 2007 at 4:52 pm (UTC 0)
They perceive them as attacks against their community –basically part of a policy of “soft ethnic cleansing” with the intention to make the Russians feel so unwelcome and uncomfortable that most will just leave and the rest can be assimilated. And that’s basically what it is.
Since 1989 the percentage of Russians in Estonia has dropped from 30.3 percent to 25.6 percent. Where did they all go, and where are they going?
Well the reality is that many moved here for ‘a better living standard’ and they’ve continued to seek that elsewhere — in Germany, in the UK, in the United States. Why would a 30 year pit stop in Estonia change their journey to their ultimate destination — material wealth?
As for the others who choose to remain, they probably won’t be assimilated as most other existing Estonian minorities — like Swedes, Finns, Latvians — haven’t been assimilated. But they will be ‘integrated’ — which means a knowledge of the Estonian language.
In a country where 70 percent of your populationis Estonian, it means that if you want to be a minister or a president, you better know that majority tongue. That is what school reform — where part of the curriculum is in Estonian langauge — seeks to achieve.
How can you criticize Russians being left out of Estonian society AND criticize efforts to enable them to succeed in Estonian society.
You seem to be requesting all Estonians to remain in perpetuity bilingual to serve the Russian minority. That’s not going to happen. Most Estonians I know my age that are 30 and under don’t speak Russian at all. It’s totally foreign here.
So in the end — I don;t agree with the language inspectorate, but I think that Estonia had some hard choices to make in 1991 and judging on its economic position and integration into the EU and NATO, its performed fairly well. I look very much forward to about 8 years from now, when there are no stateless persons in Estonia and the justice minister has one of those long and wily surnames of Russian origin. I don’t like this situation, but Estonia was founded in 1918, not 1991. That’s the de jure. The de facto is finally catching up.
Giustino
August 4, 2007 at 8:26 pm (UTC 0)
Speaking of Russian Estonians, I guarantee you that this guy is going somewhere. I have met him and I had that ‘this guy is going somewhere’ feeling.
Here’s his live journal in Russian and Estonian.
http://www.krishtafovitsh.ee/index.aw/set_lang_id=3
rusak
August 5, 2007 at 1:57 am (UTC 0)
Well the reality is that many moved here for ‘a better living standard’ and they’ve continued to seek that elsewhere — in Germany, in the UK, in the United States. Why would a 30 year pit stop in Estonia change their journey to their ultimate destination — material wealth?
Living standards are about more than just average income.
As for the others who choose to remain, they probably won’t be assimilated as most other existing Estonian minorities — like Swedes, Finns, Latvians — haven’t been assimilated. But they will be ‘integrated’ — which means a knowledge of the Estonian language.
First you say that Swedish is “in danger of dying out”, then this. So which is it?
How can you criticize Russians being left out of Estonian society AND criticize efforts to enable them to succeed in Estonian society.
What do you mean “how”? Very easily. The illness may be bad but the “treatment” might be worse. There is no inherent contradiction in such a position.
You seem to be requesting all Estonians to remain in perpetuity bilingual to serve the Russian minority. That’s not going to happen. Most Estonians I know my age that are 30 and under don’t speak Russian at all. It’s totally foreign here.
You’re trying to tell me that those kindly Ests are doing this for the Russians’ own good, but I’m telling you that they are doing it because they know the Russians will hate it. The Ests don’t need this, it’s not for them, it’s just against the Russians.
I look very much forward to about 8 years from now, when there are no stateless persons in Estonia and the justice minister has one of those long and wily surnames of Russian origin.
Does the discrimination have an expiration date on it or something? I don’t think so.
Speaking of Russian Estonians, I guarantee you that this guy is going somewhere. I have met him and I had that ‘this guy is going somewhere’ feeling.
This guy is a clown. And is this what you meant by “long and wily” surnames? Krishtafovich is not a Russian surname, it’s Polish or Belarusian. This Krishtafovich character is anathema to the overwhelming majority of Russians. He’s basically more of an Est nationalist that the average Est, and this is what you have to offer the Russian minority?
Reading through his articles, he is just a piece of trash and a complete moron. In one of his articles, he writes: “Вы представляете себе, чтобы в каком-нибудь “чуркменистане” задержали бы солдата США и назначили ему подобное наказание?!”
Translation into English: ‘Can you imagine that in some “churkmenistan” they would detain a US soldier and sentence him to a similar punishment?!’ Here he uses the word “churka” combined with “Turkmenistan”. The word churka is comparable to something like “sand nigger” in American English. Decent, respectable people do not use such words in polite company. Yet this was in a supposedly respectable mainstream media outlet. Just to be sure, he says this without a hint of irony or condemnation of bigotry, but rather with righteous indignation! This is without a shadow of a doubt an indecent and disgusting statement, completely out of line. Needless to say, the comments on Russian Delfi did not approve. This guy is completely unfit to represent anyone, he’s a dirtbag, a ridiculous lout.
In his other articles and statements, he rambles on about some big Kremlin conspiracy and all this crap, and the only “evidence” he cites for it is “по слухам” – “according to rumors.” It’s nonsense. He talks about having some “dialogue” as do the likes of you, but you don’t want any real dialogue. The Ests just want the Russians to agree with them and shut up. That’s not a dialogue. Why don’t you try talking to some Russians who don’t agree with the Est nationalist line?
TErr
August 5, 2007 at 4:28 am (UTC 0)
Амиго, No pasaran!!!!
Русские своих не бросают!!!
Россия будет великой экономической и технологической державой. Сегодня мы оставили российский флаг на дне океана, завтра оставим его на Марсе вместе с пустой бутылкой из под водки и скелетом селедки.
А всяким козлам-русофобам останется только дрочить на портрет Гитлера и мямлить про извинения и окуппацию, пока мировое сообщество не пошлет их на хуй с их мудацкими проблемами и не отмахнется как от назойливых мух.
TErr
August 5, 2007 at 4:44 am (UTC 0)
2 Ruslanas
And read this below. I do not give credits to the author. His words just repeat in better english what I think.
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=24987
Rein Kuresoo
August 5, 2007 at 1:03 pm (UTC 0)
Yes, dear diablogers,
Депортация -не самое худшее в этой жизни. Хуже, когда на хуй пошлют.
Deportation is not the worst that can happen to you. It is much worse, when you are sent nahuj.
Ray D. Noper
August 6, 2007 at 6:07 am (UTC 0)
I have a question to the resident know-it-alls here.
Given that we could not insult any nationality, could not claim that the occupation and everything with it was legal and that we Estonia should still keep its sovereignity, also considered that Estonian Republic existed de jure since 1918 (a while in exile) :
What do you suggest is the solution to the problems in Estonia with one specific minority, large one, but still way less than half of the population ?
The solution should be within international legislation, nonviolent and modern; and no, we will not change our constitution also. You wish.
ANY ideas ?
Ray D. Noper
August 6, 2007 at 6:19 am (UTC 0)
Oh yeah, and deportation – like Georgians from a country that couldn’t be named (because some people think everybody are trying to insult them) is not an option. It’s not within international law, and that’s something even sovereign countries and sovereign “democracies” should think about.
Giustino
August 6, 2007 at 8:22 am (UTC 0)
You’re trying to tell me that those kindly Ests are doing this for the Russians’ own good, but I’m telling you that they are doing it because they know the Russians will hate it. The Ests don’t need this, it’s not for them, it’s just against the Russians.
The Estonians living in municipalities like Kohtla-Järve have a constitutional right to interact with the authorities in the state language.
Yet most officials there can’t provide them with that right. They can talk to the Russian part of the population, but not to the Estonian part. That’s why eestlased need protection.
This Krishtafovich character is anathema to the overwhelming majority of Russians. He’s basically more of an Est nationalist that the average Est, and this is what you have to offer the Russian minority?
I don’t offer them anything. In a democracy, leaders are made organically, not by virtue of state command, like someone selects someone to ‘give’ to the Russian minority. Who puts these crazy ideas in your head?
The Russian minority has another outspoken populist named Dmitri Klenski, but he barely got any votes in the last election. They all voted for Savisaar. Some even voted for Ansip.
Mikhail Stalnukhin, head of Narva City Administratin said that Ansip was the best PM Estonia ever had until this past April. You can read his comments here:
http://www.regnum.ru/pressroom/english/press-stalnuhin/
I am sure he’s a lout too.
First you say that Swedish is “in danger of dying out”, then this. So which is it?
Most of them fled the ‘Soviet liberation’ in 1944. Today there’s probably 300 in the whole country. They benefit from the laws on cultural autonomy. But I wouldn’t characterize a minority with 300 members as being in a strong position.
Does the discrimination have an expiration date on it or something? I don’t think so.
All minorities suffer from discrimination. If you ask me, the real discrimination on Estonian society is day-to-day provincialism.
Estonians might not want to do business with Russians, for example, because then they might have to do anything bilingually and that’s a pain in the ass. Who wants to sign contracts in two languages?
Estonians in urban areas don’t want to live near Russians because of perceived social problems like rampant alcoholism, drug use, AIDS.
The society segregates itself. That’s not just because of laws, it’s because of both sides refusal to acknowledge one another. Instead they ignore one another. I mean how could a Russian speaker survive in Estonia for 30 years without doing some major ignoring of the world around them.
The Estonians, for their part, enable this behavior, by thinking of Russians as ‘beyond help’ — people that are either too dumb or just refuse to learn Estonian and participate in democratic society.
Both sides are too often their own worst enemy. They self-segregate. And that has more to do with the attitudes generated in the Soviet era (Russian colonialism, Estonian protectionism) than it does with any law passed by the Riigikogu.
Trust me, if the Riigikogu actually had the power to ‘force’ people to speak a language, this issue wouldn’t exist right now.
Giustino
August 6, 2007 at 8:49 am (UTC 0)
What do you suggest is the solution to the problems in Estonia with one specific minority, large one, but still way less than half of the population?
The short-term situation is in flux. My personal opinion is that in the long-term, as the proportion of Estonians in society continues to rise and Estonian fluency increases, they will feel more comfortable with the public use of minority languages.
Because of the regional layout of the Russian minority, there are only a few municipalities where Russians are a majority. This includes some districts in Tallinn, and five cities in Ida Virumaa county — Jõhvi, Narva, Sillamäe, Kohtla-Järve, and Kiviõli. In Jõhvi and Kiviõli they are a bare majority.
If these cities were able to ensure that Estonians’ right to interact with local authorities, do business, and contribute to social discourse could be guaranteed, then I don’t see why Russian couldn’t be made a ‘regional’ language in those cities — that is, they would have a right to use Russian, as well as Estonian.
Right now they have that right anyway, it’s the inability to offer the same rights to Estonians that is attempting to be corrected. But in the long-run, say 20 years, hoping Russia doesn’t kill everyone here again, it’s hard for me to imagine a less paranoid, more secure Estonia not permitting the use of Russian as a co-official language in a city like Narva.
In Tallinn, administration will continue to function in Estonian, as Estonians make up the majority (56 percent) and continue to grow as a proportion of the population.
Not to mention that this is Estonia. Duh.
Like I said, this is years off, but if Estonians feel comfortable and unthreatened by the use of Russian, then I don’t see why the rising generation — one that has no memory of the Soviet era, at all — wouldn’t oversee more lenient language laws.
As a sidenote, most Russians I have met here in Estonia speak Estonian pretty well. I have met real estate agents and businessmen and IT guys and budding politicians and taxi drivers, and the situation is changing from the bad old days when people were told to ‘speak a human language’ (ie. not Estonian).
I sincerely hope to not slander in anyway these very talented, smart, hardworking people who unfortunately find themselves as a political tool by cynical Russian nationalists and their Estonian counterparts.
Russian Roulette with Muscovy Duck
March 14, 2008 at 8:01 am (UTC 0)
Hi Ed,
I have been a fan of yours for months, ever since I found out about you.
Your article about millions of sex-crazed Hitler Youths splashing in the Seliger Lake is my absolute favourite. It should be taught and even studied in every British and American class on quality Western journalism as practiced by top editors at The Economist:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=471324
Sex for the motherland: Russian youths encouraged to procreate at camp
By EDWARD LUCAS
29th July 2007
You describe your take:
“Nashi sex camp shock horror–latest lurid plug for book”
Why such modesty? You make the Penthouse Forum look like… well, like The Econimist.
Your brutal but brilliant satire exposes Brits as the rival to Sierrans Leone for the title of the stupidest population on Earth [hopefully, nobody from Sierra Leone gets to read my insult].
Start with the article’s main attraction point, its centerpiece: the big detailed photo of about 10 000 girls (not a single male anywhere!)doing calisthenics at the Nashi camp, most dressed in the free handout camp t-shirts with the Nash logo on them:
http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/07_03/putinyouth270707_800x441.jpg
Remind us, from whom you stole this photo without any attribution, Ed. Was it Reuters? Or AP? I recall it was Ponomarev from Reuters but I am too lazy to check…
Now read the rest of the article and then my humble commentary:
———————
Why is it that so many British and American journalists dwell incessantly on the Russian alcoholism problem, and yet, the only Russian habit that they pick up from spending years in Moscow, is alcohol-dependence? Take The Economist’s “Russia, East and Central Europe expert” Ed Lucas, for example. When Ed gets drunk (which appears to be a very frequent event ever since his wet dreams about the breakup of Russia back in 1999 went kaput), he can write and publish the most outlandish stuff, like the time he got drunk in the Russian countryside near a Nashi youth summer camp with 10,000 youngsters (all girls, as the accompanying photo attests), started hallucinating, and turned these 10,000 girls, dressed in baseball caps and t-shirts of various colours , into “millions of sinister young Russians discerningly similar to the
Hitler Youth”, all poised to conquer him and do unspeakable Hitlerite deeds to his sensual yet fragile body. He then turned this drunk dream into a newspaper article to pay for his kids’ upkeep, published in the
Daily Mail, known as the working man’s version of The Economist:
———————————–
Sinister: Millions of young Russians at a youth camp discerningly similar to the Hitler Youth
Nashi’s annual camp, 200 miles outside Moscow, is attended by 10,000 uniformed youngsters and involves two weeks of lectures and physical fitness.
Alcohol is banned. But sex is encouraged, and condoms are nowhere on sale.
———————————–
Absolutely nowhere, Ed? Tampons, condoms and other birth control are usually dispensed in public bathrooms. Did you really search each and every girls’ bathroom and everywhere else in their quarters? You must be very serious about your safe sex.
And since this was a girls’ camp, what Ed tells us is that lesbian sex “is encouraged”. Oh, free encouraged sex with millions of those notorious sex-starved Russian Lolita nymphet lesbians without condoms! Every British man’s dream, just like that Tatooshki singing duo on Eurovision. A perfect topic for the Daily Male.
Yes, Ed, that’s what Hitler Youth movement was all about: wild lesbian orgies. Sinister!
BTW, Ed, did you ever consider the nature of the word “uniform”? If
some of the free camp handout t-shirts in your photo are red, some – white, and the rest – blue, black, DailyMail yellow, green, pink, and even striped, then is it really “uniform”?
Ed, next time you come to USA, try to stay semi-sober when going to spy on a girl scout camp: they are all dressed in a common brown uniform that resembles Nazi Youth much more than Nashi’s summer t-shirts do. Only god knows what the Daily Mail and the Economist rags will write about “billions and billions” (copyright: astronomer Carl Sagan estate) of underage American Nazi amazons poised for the conquest of you and then of the rest of Europe. And when you go to the girls’ bathrooms to check on the availability of condoms, be careful not to get caught: our American law on sex offences is even stricter than Russian.
In Ed’s ominous article, Russia and Nashi in particular assume an image of a super-progressive entities, which not only recognise but heavily promote same-sex marriages. Ed writes:
“Twenty-five couples marry at the start of the camp’s first week and
ten more at the start of the second. These mass weddings, the ultimate expression of devotion to the motherland, are legal and conducted by a civil official.”
There is only one problem: Russians have not heard of the latest American scientific discovery that lesbian sex is highly unlikely to produce viable off-springs:
“Bizarrely, young women are encouraged to hand in thongs and other skimpy underwear – supposedly a cause of sterility… Attempting to raise Russia’s dismally low birthrate even by eccentric-seeming means
might be understandable.”
By lesbian sex?! Russians must be really desperate, Ed. And very-very eccentric.
Ed himself considers teen homosexuality as the greatest threat to democracy:
“But the real aim of the youth camp is not to improve Russia’s demographic profile, but to attack democracy.”
Sadly, Russian female homosexuals seem to be caught up in extremist forms of feminism and man-hatred and go so far as to hunt down their male counterparts:
“Other pro-Kremlin youth groups are hounding gays and foreigners off the streets of Moscow.”
Ed concludes his article on Russian teen lesbianism with the following tirade, done with the famousBritish understatement and humour:
“If tens of thousands of uniformed German youngsters were marching across Germany in support of an authoritarian Fuhrer, baiting foreigners and praising Hitler, alarm bells would be jangling all across Europe. So why aren’t they ringing about Nashi?”
Maybe because Putin is about to kick their asslicking asses into oblivion?
In any case, Ed, sinister, very sinister… And very brilliant. The World shall await your new jangoist doomsday revelations with baited breath.
And good luck on your latest book. I hope the publisher doesn’t spare any expense and uses the best and softest, most sensual pink/yellow paper. Sell the copies in 4-packs – and you’ve got yourself a sure New York Times bestseller hit at summer camps all over the World, including Lake Seliger itself, where the comforts are minimal and the cut-up copies of Komsomolskaya Pravda still rule (sinister, eh?).
Your secret admirer,
Ostap S. B. M. Bender-bey, Jr.
Editor-n-chef of the new “Russian Roulette with Muscovy Duck” establishment
http://lerussophile.blogspot.com/
Russian Roulette with Muscovy Duck
March 14, 2008 at 8:18 am (UTC 0)
And please help yourself to Muscovy Duck – the Great Game of the 21st century.
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