Russia Warns The US

[Justin24]

Russia warned the US about striking Iran. They have not ruled out "Military Action."

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/02/16/D8FQAH2G6.html

 

[yolland]

Russia really seems to be making an effort to muscle back onto the scene lately. It would be wonderful if they prove to have more influence with Iran than Western governments do, but considering their less than exemplary relations with their own Muslim minorities in Chechnya and elsewhere, I am skeptical. However, they are an important trade partner for Iran, and that may count for something.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Russia is moving back into the swing of authoritarian state, the question is not when will a Novaya Russia come to be, but how rapidly the country falls apart.

 

[Teta040]

Well...when the population of Russia is expected to fall back under 100 million people within the next thirty years (at the rate it's going), and that will officially be the lowest figure in something like 800 yrs....and you have LOST a total of 30 million people (or one-eight of your population) since the 30's....according to acclaimed health writer Laurie Garrett, few civilizations recover from that.

I recommend that everyone pick up a copy of her 2000 book "Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health." (It is the follow-up to her acclaimed 1994 bestseller "The Coming Plague." And read her section of the book about Russia ....the section following this, about the U.S, is also VERY instructive reading.) Russia is in MUCH worse shape than anyone realizes. I have read a number of books on post-glasnost Russia but nobody but her has had the guts to go to the real places and publish the raw hard truth.

For starters, take a country where vodka is sold in gas stations and convenience stores like chewing gum or potato chips, and imagine what this does to a people who hardly have jobs...where there IS no health care system per se to speak of, (and we think we have it bad), where most hospitals have periodic electricity blackouts and most lack basic modern equipment such as CAT scan machines or even enough plastic gloves, where something like 60% of all Russian women have had at least 5 abortions (no, I am NOT making this up),...it's a wonder the place has not exploded in flames.....

 

[verte76]

Russia is a fg mess in so many ways. It's sad. The only thing they have going for them is Olympic figure skaters.

 

[nbcrusader]

Russia is a fg mess in so many ways. It's sad. The only thing they have going for them is Olympic figure skaters.

I think they have a little more going for them than figure skating.

 

[Zoomerang96]

For starters, take a country where vodka is sold in gas stations and convenience stores like chewing gum or potato chips, and imagine what this does to a people who hardly have jobs...where there IS no health care system per se to speak of, (and we think we have it bad), where most hospitals have periodic electricity blackouts and most lack basic modern equipment such as CAT scan machines or even enough plastic gloves, where something like 60% of all Russian women have had at least 5 abortions (no, I am NOT making this up),...it's a wonder the place has not exploded in flames.....

i really don't think you know what you're talking about. i'm calling you on it, and i'm going all in.

now, if you really do know, then you'll get all my chips. and an apology.

but 60 per cent of all russian women have not had at least 5 abortions. i'm willing to bet my two left nuts on it.

and selling alcohol at "unusual" places is only unusual to us north americans who are used to things the way we know them. having been to eastern europe twice, i can tell you this is common place in other countries outside of russia too.

and further more, western european mcdonalds (of all places) and other fast food places quite readily have beer on tap.

russia isn't the scary monster you're making it out to be.

 

[A_Wanderer]

The average Russian man has a lower life expectancy than the average Bangladeshi man. HIV is a mounting problem, alcohol and other drug abuse put a big burden and piece by piece ethnic groups have been working to break away, sometimes violently.

Russia is not a monster, it is a ghost.

 

[WinnieThePoo]

someone should close the post / thread , it's fucking terrible

 

[Carek1230]

The only thing Russian I like is Dr Zhiavago, beautiful film

 

[financeguy]

The only thing Russian I like is Dr Zhiavago, beautiful film

Wow.

 

[yolland]

Yeesh.

The Hermitage Art Museum, anyone?
St. Basil's Cathedral?
Tolstoy?
Shostakovich?
Russian Orthodoxy?
Dostoevsky?
Solzhenitsyn?
Tchaikovsky?
Mussourgsky?
Matrioksha dolls?
The Bolshoi Ballet?
Pushkin?
Chekhov?
Turgenev?
Akhmatova?
Bunin?
Rachmaninov?
Stravinsky?
Prokofiev?
Rimsky-Korsakov?
Balalaikas?
The Crimea?

 

[financeguy]

Yeesh.

The Hermitage Art Museum, anyone?
St. Basil's Cathedral?
Tolstoy?
Shostakovich?
Russian Orthodoxy?
Dostoevsky?
Solzhenitsyn?
Tchaikovsky?
Mussourgsky?
Matrioksha dolls?
The Bolshoi Ballet?
Pushkin?
Chekhov?
Turgenev?
Akhmatova?
Bunin?
Rachmaninov?
Stravinsky?
Prokofiev?
Rimsky-Korsakov?
Balalaikas?
The Crimea?

Shostakovich!

 

[the rockin edge]

Wow.

i echo the

 

[DrTeeth]

Yeesh.

The Hermitage Art Museum, anyone?
St. Basil's Cathedral?
Tolstoy?
Shostakovich?
Russian Orthodoxy?
Dostoevsky?
Solzhenitsyn?
Tchaikovsky?
Mussourgsky?
Matrioksha dolls?
The Bolshoi Ballet?
Pushkin?
Chekhov?
Turgenev?
Akhmatova?
Bunin?
Rachmaninov?
Stravinsky?
Prokofiev?
Rimsky-Korsakov?
Balalaikas?
The Crimea?

Get outta here with your culture! Don't you know they eat their babies?

 

[IWasBored]

The only thing Russian I like is Dr Zhiavago, beautiful film

oh, you were serious?




normally, this is where i'd say i hate pasternak, but i think that would go over your head.

 

[Se7en]

hey, you guys forgot bukharin, afinogenov, and stolichnaya.

 

[anitram]

Matrioksha dolls?

I always called them Babushkas. I am Slavic, but I'm not Russian, though, and I've heard both terms used so I'm wondering of maybe Babushka is Ukrainian since all my Ukrainian friends called them that.

I can read and write Russian.

 

[IWasBored]

I can read and write Russian.

me too.

 

[anitram]

I read sooooo slooooowly!

 

[IWasBored]

I read sooooo slooooowly!

i'm insanly slow too. well, i can read at a pretty decent speed, but if i want to actually understand the words it takes forever. i'm taking a class right now where we're reading bulgakov's master & margarita. we're assigned a about 10-15 pages between tuesday and thursday classes, and about 20-30 for the weekends. it's ridiculous how long it takes me to do the readings.

 

[WinnieThePoo]

i'm insanly slow too. well, i can read at a pretty decent speed, but if i want to actually understand the words it takes forever. i'm taking a class right now where we're reading bulgakov's master & margarita. we're assigned a about 10-15 pages between tuesday and thursday classes, and about 20-30 for the weekends. it's ridiculous how long it takes me to do the readings.

try some films , loads of great stuff , comedies , classics , philosophy , + eng subtitles dvds

btw they've tried to make a movie out of Master and Margarita , but it's seems to have a curse of somekind

It's true that Russia has quite a few problems , some of them go back to the fall of Constantinople in 1453

laws are imperfect , people's psychology is the most important one , it's very tough to live there decently , but if you do , it's quite a level ,
people drink , because there are big problems in almost any sphere or part of the society



but it is curable ,

Russian people are very hard working , very spiritual
ambitious , Culture is on the level ( real theatres , are popular in Moscow , beats any freakin cineplex ) , sports
Russia is a stronghold of christianity
Russia is a mix of cultures

and caviar




oh yeah
hockey players

and great traditions of drinking

 

[AvsGirl41]

Russia's military is in such poor shape that I suspect this is more posturing than anything else. Russia has never liked being ignored and they tend to be left out of world affairs due to their weird are we/aren't we Europe persona.

I highly doubt they would ever side against the U.S. and Europe. They would never stack the deck so hard against themselves. Putin is tricky, but he's not stupid. He has no wish to begin another Cold War. Besides, it's always been in his best interests to show solidarity in the "war against terror" because of the Chechen conflict. He was the first one on the phone to Bush after 9/11.

I think a much bigger threat from Russia is their criminal underground. They have no scruples and wouldn't think twice of selling a bomb to a terrorist organization. Just as scary is that the FBI and CIA do not monitor them at all...they come and go as they like in the U.S. Many of the Russian cops here keep pushing them to take notice, but they get blown off.

The country is a mess, but I think it will come back. The people there have been through alot, they deserve some prosperity. Putin has, for better or worse, restored some order and prosperity into the country.

Regarding the abortions thing, it is true that many Russian women have had them. I don't know if it's 60% but it is high. It is certainly higher in places like Uzbekistan where they cannot get birth control. Many, if not all, of these problems existed under the Soviet system, but were simply not talked about. They aren't all a result of the collapse.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Apart from Stolichnaya I have found that Russian vodkas tend to have the lingering flavour of acetone, I think that I will swing towards Polish a bit more.

I am learning Russian on my own and with a Pimsleur method for pronunciation and a Russian friend to check coherence. I have to say that pinning the grammar is the most important part to learning a language, just speaking english we don't think about it but when doing a foreign language it is important.

I have a feeling that Chinese will be a very useful skill to have this century.

 

[IWasBored]

working on it, winnethepoo. i'm trying to scrounge up the time (perhaps the time i spend goofing off online should go to this use) to get over to amherst college. they've got a fair amount of russian films with and without subtitles. someone was going to send me a list of reccomendations, but she appears to have either lost my email address or forgotten completely.

I have to say that pinning the grammar is the most important part to learning a language, just speaking english we don't think about it but when doing a foreign language it is important.

no shit, really? it's pathetic the lack of emphasis that at least american schools put on learning grammar. all the english grammar that i've learned, aside from the instinctual native-speaker stuff, has come from studying other languages.

 

[A_Wanderer]

no shit, really? it's pathetic the lack of emphasis that at least american schools put on learning grammar. all the english grammar that i've learned, aside from the instinctual native-speaker stuff, has come from studying other languages.

You know I have had the exact same experience, I was lost in high school Greek because I didn't have a clue about grammar. Check out bittorents for Russian films, I got Nightwatch without subtitles and I am just beginning to pick up the pieces of the conversations.

 

[IWasBored]

bittorents don't like me.

it was really weird when i was learning finnish. in order to understand the grammar, i found myself translating homework from finnish to russian to english. consequently, i'd forget things like "the" and "is" when translating from english ti finnish because i'd lose them going from english to russian and then finnish. almost like when you take something, run it through an online translator, and then translate it back.

 

[WinnieThePoo]

they've got a fair amount of russian films with and without subtitles. someone was going to send me a list of films

Now these are my favourites and they are avaible on amazon , mmm , i tried not to pick all that traditional BS they give you in tourist shop , this is basically it ( True - love - tears - nerves - fun - irony) , if possible try to watch with russian sound and english subs
don't hesitate with questions


Sci- fi :

Stalker ( by Andrey Tarkovsky , one of his best , based on a novel)

Solaris ( also by andrei takovsky )

Professor Dowell's Testament

Dramas

Burnt By The Sun ( best export by Nikita Michalkov , drama of real people , best work by Oleg Menchikov )

The Cold Summer of 1953 ( true story , great actors , the first "real " film made in 1987 , Truth and nothing but )


True Life / inner circle / humor / philosophy

White Sun Of The Desert ( Alternative russian western ala Sergio Leone , fantastic stuff )

Cuckoo ( now , this one is a bit weird , set during WWII , very good and new )

At Home Among Strangers , A Stranger among its own ( yet another movie set close to sergio leones genre ( in a good way ) , directed by Nikita Mihalkov , one of his first and better movies , fantastic supporting cast )

Autumn Marathon ( film about true soviet life in St Petersburg , funny , cruel , the rain is falling , yellow leaves everywhere , done by Georgy Danelia , great cast , great storyline )

slave Of Love ( another one by Nikita Mihalkov , a love russian hollywood story during civil war , no tough stuff , more philosophy )

Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears ( this one is alright , a bit official , but still a nice story and beautiful russian romance )

comedies

Ivan Vasilievich - Back To The Future ( ivan The Terrible goes nuts )

Operation " Y" and other shurik adventures ( *****)

Gentlemen Of Fortune ( great cast , laughs on crime )

Peculiarities of the National Hunting ( Russia Of The 90's , vodka rules )

Classic

Unfinished Piece For The Player Piano ( based On A.Chekhov - directed by Nikita Mihalkov , great cast , nice views )

A Cruel Romance ( based on love story by author i can't remember , great director Eldar Ryazaonov , awesome cast , all about 19th century Russia )

Oblomov ( based on " A Few Days from the life of I.I. Oblomov " by I. Goncharov , directed by Nikita Mihalkov , awesome cast , very dreamy , close to meditation , inner face of countryside )

 

[cm]

i really don't think you know what you're talking about. i'm calling you on it, and i'm going all in.

I think you might lose this one.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...ve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12222283&dopt=Abstract

Epidemiology of abortions in Russia.

Vikhlayeva EM, Nikolaeva E.

PIP: In Russia, the fact that many women consider abortion their main or only effective means of fertility regulation has led to prevailing high rates of abortion. ... More than 80% of the women had children, but only a third of all previous pregnancies had been carried to term. Most abortions occurred because women were worried about their ability to afford another child or about their health status or that of their husband. In fact, approximately 40% of the women presented with inflammatory diseases and infections of the vulva, vagina, uterus, or adnexes. Most women received their first contraceptive counseling after their first delivery or abortion, but only 30% of urban women and 18% of the rural women were using modern contraceptives (condoms) at the time of the unwanted conception. Most women received their information about contraceptives from the mass media, from medical personnel, or from friends although they indicated they would have preferred to have received sex education in school. Most women decided on their own to have an abortion, and 76% experienced psychological pain in conjunction with the procedure. However, 42.3% indicated they would resort to abortion in the future. This study concluded that the Ministry of Health should make provision of information on contraception a priority.


http://www.waytorussia.net/WhatIsRussia/Women/Facts.html

In Russia, abortion still remains the main method of birth control. Abortion is legally permitted under the following instances: at a woman's request within the 12th week of pregnancy; within 22 weeks if there are social conditions under which pregnancy, child birth and child rearing would become a heavy burden for a woman; and at any time if it is established that pregnancy could harm the health of the mother or the child.
Russia's abortion rate is one of the highest in the world. For every 100 births there are approximately 200 abortions.

http://www.engenderhealth.org/ia/cbc/russia.html

On average, each Russian woman has more than three abortions in her lifetime, and the complications related to abortion account for one-quarter of all maternal deaths in the country.



With a little more research, I think the claim of 'where something like 60% of all Russian women have had at least 5 abortions' appears to be accurate.
Curt

 

[A_Wanderer]

Anecdotaly a Ukranian aqaintance of mine just didn't get why abortion was such a big issue, she cited the example of her grandmother to illustrate that this has been the situation for a good long while.