Thinking of Responsibility

About 10 days ago, at the conclusion of the ASEAN summit in California Barack Obama said, in particular:

Russia is a major military. Obviously a bunch of rebels are not going to be able to compete with the hardware of the second-most powerful military in the world.

Surely, sounds not that bad for Russia. Furthermore, in fact, it sounds like Mr. President talks about a kind of counterweight to the first-most powerful military that helps the world to balance on a thin edge of peace (I mean the absence of a world war; unfortunately, all we know there are many local hot and bloody spots in the world).

But just 23 months ago we heard him describing Russia using quite a different wording, the US News and World Report reminded in the same publication. He said then Russia was "a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors, not out of strength but out of weakness".

However, Russia is simply tooooo huge to be able to change itself in the course of just two years. There were no revolutions in Moscow; the Western world conducted just the very same, old as mammoth shit, politics of trying to squeeze Russia out of her spheres of interests. Russia has been remaining just the same, and in more or less the same geopolitical circumstances that some powers always try to make unfavourable.

Thus, a question rises.

There are lots of campaigns for  responsible doing this or that: responsible driving, responsible caring of pets and bringing up children, responsible using natural resources, etc, etc.

And all that responsibility stuff is very important for human beings dwelling on our little Earth, indeed. But there are things that are even more important. Do people care of a responsible presidency in the most powerful military? Do people prefer responsible cooperation to confrontation?

And if they do, why it seems they do not?

Revolution of Looting

That's how the Daily Mail describes the ill fate of the mansion of Viktor Pshonka, the Yanukovich's time General Prosecutor of Ukraine:

Revolutionaries wasted no time, and broke into his mansion for the first time immediately after he fled in 2014.
Inside, they discovered an orgy of kitsch - velvet curtains with gilded stripes, chaise-longues in a faux aquarium, marble busts, four-poster beds and what appeared to be a Faberge egg.
What followed was a free for all, with some individuals walking out with whatever they could carry.
Activists then pleaded with new President Petro Poroshenko to seize Pshonka's opulent home and recover its valuable assets for the impoverished state.
Instead, the country's current pro-EU government did nothing to stop the thieves.
Last October plunderers were able to live for a month and half in Pshonka's luxury home while they tore apart its interior.

 

There's a whole set of such pairs of images, taken from the same spots with a two years interval between.

The DM continuously call the Maidaners 'revolutionaries', following the officially adopted by the West version of 'Revolution of Dignity'.
However, what happened in Ukraine two years ago in no case was a revolution. A revolution leads to a change of social formation: so, the Great French Revolution washed away monarchy (with a true flood of blood, I have to add); two consecutive revolutions in Russia did same things in 1917.

However, the only result of Maidan was a change of political elite; the Yanukovich-supported oligarchy (quite mistakenly considered pro-Russian) was changed with that of Poroshenko, an oligarch himself. So it was just a coup d'état, whatever the mainstream media say.

And now we come to the second part of the definition, 'dignity'. The images in the DM show the exact amount on dignity in that Ukrainian pseudo-revolution.

Just because those 'revolutionaries' the DM is speaking of, calling them also 'all', 'individuals' and 'activists', are just the very same people later called 'thieves', 'looters' and 'plunderers'.

Do you see any unmasked face in the pictures published by the DM?

True revolutionaries do not mask their faces.

Period.

True Russians Are...

Like that:

Here is, Russian police officer Maksim Yakimenko from a small settlement in Krasnoyarsk region.

The local emergency call center of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs got a message about a fire at an entrance to a five-floor apartment house in the settlement of Dubinino, on February 6 at night. The local police officer captain Maxim Yakimenko was among the first people on site. He was not a professional firefighter; but a good local takes care of everything that happens in his district.

The burning building was badly fumigated. Having estimated the situation, within just some minutes he bypassed all apartments, waking sleeping people. He personally assisted 49 dwellers, including 15 minors, to escape from the burning house.

Doing so, Maxim Yakimenko was poisoned with carbon monoxide, and later hospitalized; now his life is out of danger. This is thanks to his prompt, professional and courageous action that the fire did not turn into a tragedy and take any human life.

Source (in Russian).

Should Rhodes Stay?

The BBC informs, Oriel College at Oxford University for some reasons decided to keep the statue of Cecil Rhodes on its building.

Reuters image from the BBC publication.

This decision is strongly opposed by "Rodes Must Fall" campaigners. THis campaign succeeded in South Africa, where a Rhodes statue was removed. The idea was adopted in Oxford by activists students insisting that Rhodes' views were incompatible with the modern 'inclusive culture'.

I have no doubt his views are incompatible. How could we expect it other way, talking about a British imperialistic (and as such, surely white) politician of 19th century?

The matter is that history was just the way it was. One can remove a statue, but no one can change history. History is to be studied, its lessons are to help us here, today, avoid mistakes of the past, and find better ways to future that is supposed to be better than the present and way better than the past.

Human Odessa Cries: Set Vladimir Grubnik Free!

Address of Odessa Human Rights Activists
Concerning Surgeon Vladimir Grubnik

Arrested by the SBU on a Charge of Terrorism

Here goes the full transcript of what the girl says in Russian.

Human rights activists of the city of Odessa are pledging to spread around information on the horrible fate of an Odessa local, whose only fault is that he did not accept categorically the anti-human and lawless political regime in the territory of present Ukraine.

The matter is that Vladimir Yuriyevich Grubnik was brutally arrested in Odessa on October 19, 2015. Grubnik is a candidate of medical sciences, a professor of the Odessa National Medical University, a surgeon of the Odessa City Clinical Hospital No. 11, and a member of the European Association of Endoscopic Surgery.

The Ukrainian authorities charge him with participation in terrorist activity, though he denies this guilt completely. Being arrested, Vladimir was badly beaten; it is visible on photographs, which are attached to the published material. It was followed by methods of physical abuse, content in a punishment cell. At the same time, to the best our knowledge, Vladimir Grubnik has developing symptoms of  tuberculosis, which he suffered before.

#protectDrGrubnik

You Are Welcome to Feel Russia

For quite a while, I have never seen such nice videos about my country.

I am happy there are people able to create such decent pieces.

Here, you are welcome to follow Prof. Günter from Stuttgart, Germany. Don't be misled with the Russian title in YouTube; the video is in good English (with some German accent, so far my Russian ear can get it).

Quite a different, but also very impressive travel did Li Feng from Beijing. By the way, her English is surprisingly good.

I understand perfectly well these videos have something to do with advertising and PR.

But this is advertising I like, and the country I love and belong to wholeheartedly.

I just would like to share my feeling so that you feel Russia at least a bit better :)

What They Say Putin Said

The current year started with a prominent interview of Vladimir Putin to the German Bild. He spoke to German journalists on January 5.

Here goes the "original" German version. Why did I put the word 'original' in the quotation marks? The answer is pretty simple: it is a German text; that means, a translation of the words our president said to the interviewing staff in Russian.

For those of you, who do not speak or even understand German, the title goes: "Why Did Putin Frighten Merkel With His Dog". And the subtitle below: "Vladimir Putin explains his world: the NATO is agressive, Merkel is earnest, and the Russian Crimea is a God's justice".

You like it or not, that's what the Bild wrote in German.

Being a major German paper, they published the English translation of the interview as well. Here it is.

Totalitarianism Now

For many years all those 'political' words like 'democracy', 'communism', 'totalitarianism', 'dictatorship', etc., are just a matter of verbal play. Those who act in favor of the so called 'Western values' are good guys, 'democracies'. Those who dare to play against or at least their own games, are bad ones, 'totalitarian regimes', 'communists' or 'tyrannies'.

Henceforth, the world has, e.g., Saudi Arabia presiding the UN Human Rights Council. Unfortunately, this is not a circus; this is the Orwellian world we live in.

A gem news came from Denmark. One of the best foreign undergraduates at the Aarhus University Marius Youbi was expelled from Denmark back to his native Cameroon for... working too hard.

His crime was from time to time exceeding by 1.5 hours the weekly limit established for part-time jobs done by foreign students.

Nice. Wasn't that one of the basic values of that 'capitalism dream': work harder to achieve more?

Now they play some more 'democracy' in the form of the 'freedom of speech' and sign a petition to let Youbi stay in the country and finish his education — well, he has just two semesters left on his way to his diploma in electrical engineering.

However, the world will undoubtedly go on calling Denmark a 'democracy', and calling Russia kind of 'resurrecting totalitarianism', and calling Saudi Arabia... oops, you'd better don't give names to this honorable country presiding the UN Human Rights Council.

Happy New Year from Russia!

To have a good start for this promising year, just a short video from holy mother Russia.

What do you think we Russians do having consumed our daily liter of vodka?

Falling asleep? Nope. Our balalaikas and matryoshkas can wait for a while, but our BEARS cannot wait for us to have a good time together.

Just like this Pavel plays with his brown friend Dima (diminutive for Dmitry).

Facebook and the Freedom of Speech

Yesterday I posted in my Facebook account the following message:


It's bilingual; the English part reads:

Things are even worse than I thought. Recently, Facebook banned quite a number of respected personalities, including:
Dmitry Puchkov
Zakhar Prilepin
Ruslan Karmanov
Ivan Rakhmetov
Lev Shyaransky
SHAME ON FACEBOOK'S POLITICAL CENSORSHIP!
GET THE UKRAINIAN NAZIS OFF THE RUSSIAN FACEBOOK MANAGEMENT!

At present, this post of me, being far from any 'top-bloggership', has 244 'likes' and 41 'shares', and the count is still going on. That means, not only I see the problem, and do it this way.

Pro-Ukrainian activists seem to completely win the management over the Russian language segment of the social network.

Any possible kind of Russophobic, anti-Russian, anti-Putin propaganda is allowed, including posts that contain all obscenities the russian language is so rich of, including those based on racial or ethnic hatred. However, even the most innocent traces of dislike regarding the sutiation in Ukraine, its foreign and internal policies are usually punished with temporary bans. The five popular accounts I name as examples, are banned for a month now, and these are 'heavy bans', preventing the people even from private messages.

I see the situation as totally intolerable. Instead of uniting people, the Zuckerberg's invention has become a place for political trolling and spreading international hatred; one the basic democratic rights, namely the freedom of speech, is openly biased and suppressed.

Any Facebook user can see it with his or her own eyes: there are many ways to complain for the acivity he or she considers unappropriate. However, it's almost impossible to complain over these complains, to complain over unfair actions of Facebook's authorities.

The top managenet of Facebook, apparently, is not aware of the situation, because such awareness requires good knowledge of Russian. Thus,

Shame on Facebook!
Shame on Zuckerberg!
Stop political censorship in Facebook now!
Get the supporters of Ukrainian Nazis off the Russian Facebook management!