Georgia makes basically no sense from an HBD perspective.
Georgians aren’t very bright, and GDP growth has been unimpressive
For all the praise heaped upon Georgia by deregulation advocates and libertarians, its institutional miracle hasn’t been accompanied by an economic one; GDP per capita is only about 15% above peak Soviet levels.
This is much better than Ukraine, Moldova, and some Central Asian countries, but much inferior to Armenia and Belarus (to say nothing of oil-rich Azerbaijan).
The roots of this underperformance might have something to do with the low cognitive ability of Georgians demonstrated in IQ tests. Georgia got a PISA-equivalent IQ of just 86 in the latest assessment, an improvement over 81 in the PISA 2009 Plus, when it was near the end of the list alongside countries like Albania and Qatar.
Historical literacy rates before the onset of mass schooling predict modern day IQ pretty well. 242 out of 1,252 conscripts (19%) from the Tiflis Governorate were literate in 1898, considerably lower than the numbers for Russia as a whole, which was approaching 50% by that time.
But some Georgians are pretty bright
Muscovite Georgians are more educated than Muscovites – 49% have higher education, which is higher than for Russian Muscovites with 38%, as of 2001.
| Russians | Ukrainians | Georgians | Azeris | Armenians | Tatars | Jews | TOTAL | |
| Higher education | 38% | 41% | 49% | 24% | 53% | 23% | 67% | 39% |
| Incomplete higher education | 9% | 8% | 5% | 8% | 6% | 11% | 6% | 9% |
| Medium specialized | 26% | 32% | 17% | 18% | 15% | 26% | 20% | 26% |
| Medium | 20% | 13% | 29% | 35% | 21% | 26% | 2% | 19% |
| Incomplete medium | 7% | 5% | ~ | 15% | 6% | 15% | 6% | 7% |
The average IQ of Moscow as Russia’s leading cognitive cluster is around 105. They have also contributed their share of eminent people (e.g. Zurab Tsereteli, Boris Akunin aka Grigol Chkhartishvili). They are not, of course, as prevalent as the Jews, but you still meet a substantial amount of Georgian names in the ranks of the liberal, progressive, pro-Western “Russian” intelligentsia. Did most of the upper part of the Georgian bell curve simply decamp to Russia?
As a share of their population, Georgians contributed as many scientists per capita during the late USSR as the Russians and Armenians (the highest scoring nations apart from the Jews). They were also more overrepresented in the ranks of the CPSU than any other ethnicity apart from the Jews.
No substantial records of cousin marriage
Though (Muslim) Georgians do have a 22% rate of consanguineous marriage in Iran, of which a third were between first cousins.
Low levels of corruption
As a country outside of the Hajnal Line, surrounded by other, highly corrupt countries – 18% of Turks, 24% of Armenians, 34% of Russians, and 38% of Azeris and Ukrainians reported paying a bribe in the past year as of the mid-2010s – one might expect Georgia to be a highly corrupt country. But it’s not. Only 7% of Georgians reported paying a bribe in the past year, a percentage analogous to that in Poland and Estonia, and much lower than even some other East-Central European nations, such as Hungary (22%) and Romania (29%).
Only 2% of Georgian firms said they were expected to provide “gifts” to government officials to “get things done” as of 2012-13, down from 74% a decade earlier.
In terms of the CPI, it increased its rating from an abysmal 18/100 in 2003 to a respectable, Baltic/Czech-level 57/100 by 2016.
Mikheil Saakashvili appears to have overseen a uniquely fast transition from typical post-Soviet corruption levels to those more characteristic of the developed world, at least as pertains ordinary citizens and businesses. Bureaucracy was slashed many times over; organized crime kingpins (“vory v zakone”) were deported to – offloaded onto – Russia.
No other post-Communist state has replicated this turnaround (Estonia was never very corrupt to begin with), and even in Mediterranean states such as Greece and to a lesser extent Italy, local corruption networks have proven remarkably resilient against the assault of EU institutional reform on a timescale of decades.
But Georgians are absurdly overrepresented in the ranks of organized crime.
They constitute 57% of the vory v zakone (“thieves in law”) in Russia, despite making up little more than 0.1% of the population.
For all intents and purposes, the “Russian” mafia is a Georgian one.
This is not specific to Russia – even Ukrainian headlines are full of Georgian vory getting arrested/deported.
In Germany, Georgian immigrants have a higher propensity towards crime than all but Algerian immigrants.
That said, Georgia itself is a relatively civil and peaceable country. This is not surprising; this is a typical pattern for Middle Eastern and North African immigrants in Western Europe, whose criminal instincts are restrained by traditionalism in their home countries but let loose amidst the dissolute anomie of the northern cities. However, another reason is that the Georgians have been purposefully amnestying and deporting their own criminals to Russia and other countries since the time of Saakashvili.
Georgians are extremely conservative and worship Dzhugashvili (Stalin).
This isn’t something that the Western media loves to harp on about.
But Georgians do love their Stalin. In a 2013 poll, some 49% of them have positive emotions towards him, versus 28% of Russians.
If I was a Georgian I too would probably admire the guy who killed millions of Russians many of whom masochistically continue to worship the strong mustachioed Caucasian leader.
The Georgians don’t like homosexuals at all, though their government – like many in Eastern Europe – are forced to tolerate ritualistic gay pride marches to demonstrate their loyalty to the Euro-Atlanticist cause. That said, their attendees risk getting beaten up by bands of violent religious activists.
While even countries like Russia and Bulgaria have some substantial number of atheists, Georgia is almost monolithically religious: 99% believe in God, the highest number in Europe (even in Poland, the North Dakota of Europe, the figure is 86%; 75% in Russia, which turning into a “Christian theocracy” according to the unhinged but now thankfully sidelined nutters at The Moscow Times).
Consequently, it is unsurprising that 90% of Georgians view homosexuality as morally wrong (Russia: 85%), and only 3% support it, the lowest of any Orthodox country – and that’s despite a decade of pro-LGBT propaganda necessitated by its pro-EU/US orientation, whereas in Russia the propaganda was in the inverse direction.
Georgian is an HBD conundrum
Georgia is reasonably clean and civil, but exports an inordinate amount of rather “successful” criminals. Its people are dumb and conservative, and its Muslims practice cousin marriage, but the Georgian diaspora is intelligent and progressive. The country is pro-Western only by geopolitical exingency; the Georgian intelligentsia in Russia veers West without any significant internal conflict.
At first glance, this makes Georgia appear somewhat similar to a range of countries in the Near East, North Africa, and the Caucasus that are pretty poor and stupid, but have managed to produce highly successful (e.g. Lebanon, Armenia, Greece) and/or criminalized (e.g. Lebanon, Algeria, Syria) diasporas.
But most of those places remain dysfunctional dumps.
Except Georgia, which under Saakashvili achieved an institutional transformation towards greater transparency on a scale that seems to have no analogues in either Eastern or Southern Europe. (And made a mockery of Jaychick’s rigid claims about the immutability of the Hajnal Line in the process).
Now there’s been some skepticism (including from myself) that some large percentage of this improvement was illusory or ephemeral. Obviously, there would be much less corruption if you fire half the bureaucracy and cross out 90% of the regulations in one day – basically what Saakashvili did. There were also allegations that he had merely concentrated corruption around himself and his cronies; allegations seemingly confirmed by the pending criminal case against him in Georgia after his ouster (on the other hand, how corrupt could Saakashvili have really been if he ended up crashing at a friend’s apartment in Brooklyn after his exile? Even if he stole just a million or two dollars, that would basically make him a saint by ex-Soviet standards).
And while Georgia hasn’t become a tiger economy – it is hardly expected to with its dismal human capital indicators – it has nonetheless been more successful since the Great Recession that countries with similar low IQ, high brain drain profiles, such as Moldova, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan.
Greater attention to what Georgia did right would definitely be warranted. But they should be forced to take their mafiosi back.
OT
The most reputable Hungarian analyst thinks Fidesz will win a narrow majority on Sunday. But because of the still many unknowns, he’s unsure, it could be a Fidesz loss (though the opposition will probably be unable to form a government), or in a best case scenario even a supermajority for Fidesz. (Just a list: few and unreliable district level data; questions about “strategic voting,” opposition supporters voting for other opposition parties, especially wrt Jobbik vs. leftists; trends, which have generally been unfavorable towards Fidesz in recent weeks; Fidesz has recently been measured stronger than it really was, whether it still holds; etc.)
Basically, what I wrote recently: difficult to predict, but a narrow Fidesz majority looks most likely, with a Fidesz loss more likely than a supermajority, but even the latter possible.
Corruption matters, because it makes quality of life worse than would follow from income levels. So it must be minimized even if it doesn’t result in a huge improvement in GDP numbers or anything.
I actually think corruption results in some permanent GDP loss (like the lack of free trade), but not a loss of growth. I.e. GDP chart will always be X% lower than the alternative with no corruption, but it will run parallel to the hypothetical non-corruption GDP.
Georgians are interesting people indeed, just look at their Elven alphabet.
As for the religiousness, people always feel closer to God when they are in the mountains.
the CPI can be argued to be corrupt itself, used as a political tool to bolster opposition (as in Slovakia, Hungary, Poland). It is quiet possible, that Saakashvili just got some ‘help’ through his reign from the authors of the index. While they can offer some insights, I regard the methodology of TI and the likes quiet dubious. Just look what they do at the World Bank>https://www.cgdev.org/blog/world-banks-misleading-defense-doing-business-index
This is in line with most of the research I have seen on the topic (and there is a LOT of papers on the topic) It comes down to what variables your model includes. If you factor in ‘political stability’ for example, one can come to the conclusion that corruption doesn’t even matter much – if you have a long term stable gov/regime, one can expect price standardization in corruption and when the price level is stable, it just becomes another transaction cost for firms. Predictability is a quality of it’s own.
I would agree, that it generally shouldn’t impede growth, but the GDP loss depends on where the money is spent. The permanent loss is definitively the case in Russia.
I have greater issue with the ambiguity of the definition of corruption. It is very culture-specific I imagine. Is the legal practice of lobbying considered corruption? as opposed to informal lobby networks or national industry chambers of commerce, which literally engage in corruption but are very legal everywhere?
This is true for other similar indexes as well, such as “press freedom”.
Countries with much better pluralism in the media are far behind countries where many important topics are taboo and are at best discussed only in fringe publications without being allowed in the mainstream.
This is both true when you look at big countries like USA and Russia, or small countries like say some Baltic state vs some Balkan one.
Russian mainstream media is unironically more free than US media. In each talk show on the main TV channels there are western or pro-western guests representing the mainstream western point of view. There have been Ukrainian “nazis” on Russian talk shows and not once or twice. I can’t even imagine a regular Russian man representing the mainstream Russian point of view (as opposed to some professional russophobe like Kasparov) being invited to a talk show on Fox News or CNN.
Or let’s take Estonia and Bulgaria – 12th and 109th, respectively, in the 2017 press freedom index.
In Bulgarian media, people can freely present and discuss different view points on any topic, like for example what should be the attitude towards Russia or towards national minorities. In Estonia, suggesting that maybe Russia isn’t so bad or that 6% of the population not having citizenship because of their ethnicity is not very European is completely taboo.
Maybe so, but Georgia is still a dysfunctional dump. Seems like ritual supplications before ‘institutional transformation’ and ‘transparency’ don’t actually cure dysfunctional dumpsters.
Economically Georgia is at least more successful than Ukraine, Moldova and Armenia.
Their economy is in the typical weak situation of a FSU country that does not have oil/gas and has neither been absorbed into the EU (like the Baltics were).
The economies of Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan, are way ahead, but we have to admit the primary reason is the vast oil/gas and natural resources to export, which make up most of the annual budget.
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are ahead because they were integrated with the European Union economy.
What is the best performing, non-EU economy in post-Soviet space, that does not have vast oil/gas exports? Belarus.
Really Belarus deserves a lot more attention and credit, than currently received.
No one is lacking citizenship because of their ethnicity as ethnic Russian who pass the language tests are granted citizenship. Essentially the entire Estonian population agrees that the minorities who refuse to learn the language should not be given citizenship and there is no alternative viewpoint being suppressed there.
There is actually a disturbing globalist ideological convergence going on in Estonian media which is now presenting a totally uniform narrative of “Putler hacked Drumpf into power” etc and you do indeed see the media increasingly leaving out opinions like opposition to the multiculti to create the same manufactured consensus on rainbow globalism that we’ve already seen in the West. This isn’t true on the citizenship question, though, as the consensus is already there and needs no propaganda to support it.
There’s also not much need to suppress pro-Russian opinions when such opinions are more fringe than alien abductions. I don’t think in all of thousand years there has been such a wide consensus that Russia has nothing to offer to its Western neighbors. Moscow keeps trying to reconnect with our leftists when the left has entirely turned against Russia and in the process alienates everyone else. Romanovs had their supporters, February liberals had their supporters, communists had their supporters but now? No one besides paid opportunists.
I want to know if Georgians should be considered white or not? Do the Georgians consider themselves white, likewise do Russians see them as white. If a Russian woman is seen with a Georgian man how well will that be regarded by the non SJW crowd?
Keep us updated as the election comes closer, reiner. The sheer hatred against Orban in the Western press means that virtually all of the coverage of the election will be essentially useless. Furthermore, you’re far from an Orban fanboy, which lends you a more independent perch to stand on.
They are a borderline people, just like Armenians or some of the Levant people (Lebanese).
Incidentally, Nassim Taleb furiously demands anyone grouping the Lebanese together with Arabs immediately repent for the heresy committed.
https://medium.com/east-med-project-history-philology-and-genetics/something-nordic-supremacists-will-not-like-44d99e8a4188
https://medium.com/east-med-project-history-philology-and-genetics/no-lebanese-is-not-a-dialect-of-arabic-e95320c164c
Agreed, there is a definitive political element in it. I’m surprised Poland isn’t ranked lower than it is in the latest index, given the huge shitlib hysteria over PiS, which is a mildly cucked alt-lite party with modestly critical views about Islam (and that’s about it).
Yeah, the Ease of Doing Business ranking has been easily gamed for a long time now. They typically only measure in two major cities in each country. For India it is Delhi and Mumbai (IIRC) and for Russia it is obviously Moscow and SPB. Putin decided to game the ranking in the early 2010s and did so successfully, now others are trying to follow.
A very transparent and highly efficient country like the NL is ranked lower than countries like Thailand and Malaysia in the latest rankings. The index has little relevance and I’m glad it is getting slammed.
At least the WB is trying to re-calculate the index because even they understand it is no longer a very accurate reflection of the situation on the ground (if it ever was):
https://www.livemint.com/Politics/ExTFtCoy5zLOeHoy3vsYPJ/World-Bank-to-recalculate-national-rankings-of-ease-of-doing.html
I personally like the bribery rates index more, because it as close as you can get to an ‘objective’ measurement. You can’t game it easily and there are no major incentives for a large group of randomly polled average people to lie. Of course, that only covers everyday corruption and is not the same as a more complete business ranking but it’s the best index of the three with the least amount of gamification and politicization.
Doesn’t Belarus get a good deal of Russian economic support, combined with a relatively small population (especially when compared to Ukraine), which can be advantageous when it comes to having a better economy than some others?
Analogies aren’t perfect on account of no two situations being exactly the same. That said, a couple of sources (in my experience) have likened the Georgian status in Russia to Italians in northern Euro countries, the Western Hemisphere and Australia.
BTW, a good number of Georgians aren’t so dark in complexion, as is true with some others typically seen by many as dark like the Greeks.
How come Estonians refuse to acknowledge that the first black president of a EU country was in Estonia?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abram_Petrovich_Gannibal
Americans. A joke. Their ruling class steals TRILLIONS from them and from the world, nonstop, but they get up on their high horse at a moments notice and stare down their long noses at the “corrupt” people in all those “corrupt” countries that aren’t America. The only people more deluded than Americans are perhaps the British whose corrupt ruling class doesn’t even pretend anymore.
Lebanese famously like to dissociate themselves from Arabs. Not really surprising, esp. for the Christian ones, but it makes me wonder about other people. I mean, if you were an Egyptian, would you really want to be associated with Arabs? Isn’t the history of Egypt more eminent than the history of the Arabian peninsula and the Arab conquest in general? No matter what blood you may have gotten from the latter. Heck, it is a wonder all North Africans don’t claim to be Phoenicians or Egyptians.
Politicians seem to be always about pan-Arabism, but I wonder if you went out on the street and asked people, what would they say.
That’s true. Westerners in general actually have more advanced, perverse forms of corruption. It is kind of like how you go to certain countries and the tip is added in already to the cost of eating out.
Public officials don’t need bribes (some take them anyway) because they get a better salary than the average private worker. I’d much rather pay bribes than be invaded with the help of my own officials.
OT
An interesting theory (albeit probably false) on the Skripals.
An interesting theory (albeit probably false) on the Skripals.
It’s possible, though I also doubt it. What seems reasonably clear to me, however, is that Skripal was involved in certains things (Trump dossier, etc.) which were certainly dangerous. The big news now is his daughter, who is alive and well. Did you read the transcript of her apparent (surreptitious) phone call to her cousin in Moscow?
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43652574
If this is for real, then it would suggest that both she and her cousin know what’s going on, and would be consistent with at least 2 hypothoses:
Yulia was on a mission to the UK to “rescue” her father from the danger that he was in, and walked into a trap.
The UK is reporting that she has thus far refused the Russian offer of consular assistance. She is obviously in a very difficult, and treacherous, position.
that’s something I like about hardcore Islamist. They do not try to attribute the success of other people on their own group. Instead they are honest about there intentions: they want total revolution, nothing old shall be preserved. At least thats what they did as far as I understand in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.
I don’t understand how it’s possible Skripal’s daughter is getting better…isn’t this Novichok substance supposed to be extremely lethal, with no efficient treatment known? At least that’s what I read.
Georgia could be an interesting place for western men, tired of the western partner market (where females are in a better market position because of the welfare state and immigration) to look for a wife willing to marry them and have a family. It is a white country with a really poor population and the people are conservative. Then again the low average IQ might be a problem.
I don’t understand how it’s possible Skripal’s daughter is getting better…
If the reported phone call is for real, her father is improving as well. But don’t worry, Russia did it.
You can’t really know how popular an opinion is when the “free” society in question is extremely hostile to said opinion.
People are tarred and feathered and forced to apologize for mildly going off script, like Mailis Reps, former Estonian minister of education who dared to say in 2005 that the Mari people have their rghts and culture respected in Russia, or Oudekki Loone, an MP who dared to suggest in 2017 that Estonia can also celebrate the defeat of the Third Reich and that Estonia would not exist without that defeat.
Anyway my point stands that the press freedom index is bullshit (like many other western ratings) and I see no reason why Estonia would be in 12th place while Bulgaria is in 109th place. I see no argument in what way is the press in Estonia more free than the one here, I only see arguments suggesting the opposite.
If people are not free to express unpopular opinions, then China should also be somewhere at the top, since most people agree with the party line in general and they have a broad social consensus on the positions that are not allowed to be challenged.
You’re a Polish econometrician and you think a few speculative papers by geneticists and others will determine whether Armenians or Levantine are “white”. It’s rather like saying a few papers from geneticists can prove that Cheddar Man was black, or even cheese coloured.
Are Turks white ? Are Sicilians white ? I wouldn’t say that to the latter. They are even more criminal than Georgians, so I have been told.
Anyway, good luck in your career. States and organisations, eg EU, have been fiddling the figures for so long that real econometricians are decidedly unwelcome.
So far as I know, very few universities offer courses in econometrics.
But long ago and far away, things were different. In one major country, an econometrician even became Prime Minister – Harold Wilson Prime Minister of the UK 1964-70 and 74-76. Rather ironically, one of the first things he did was to cook the books !
Georgians are a variety, which is probably part of why they have so many beautiful women.
A proportion (maybe 15% ) of Georgians are Northern Europeans. At the same time, the majority are more brown and like subtropical people (like Armenians, Arabs, Spanish, Greeks, Azeris, etc).
(It’s a bit different to Lebanese – which is all 100% brown population (i.e. native to the subtropical region).
Anyway Georgians’ know how to celebrate a wedding.
Beautiful Georgian singer, lives in the UK.
Well, there was the day I walked into the back room of a Georgian restaurant, with a Georgian, to see about a dozen men sitting at a table with huge sheath knives in front of them. I strongly believe in Georgian mafia activity now.
Over a week ago, I reviewed what I knew n my blog and concluded the most likely explanation for the Skripal was a smuggling attempt gone wrong. A Russian was assassinated a few days later. The killers tried to make it look like suicide. Folia the/Novichok might have been undetectable in those circumstances. Death in a locked bathroom. Beresovsky style.
Nobody cares about international couples if they just see them. I can say it as a Russian woman who had a mixed-race husband (of Russian and Korean origin) over 10 years ago. That was the time of rising nationalism, first Russian Marches in Moscow etc. – but I remember no reaction to us from strangers at all. Then, if people know the woman in question, they will likely be worried about cultural incompatibility (though it’s less of an issue than with other Caucasian nations, because of shared religion) and problem behavior. Georgian men are known for being great at courtship but letting out their worst traits/attitudes after the woman has fallen to their charms. No one except a few radical nationalists will regard her as a race traitor or something.
Russians and Georgians seemed to be OK with intermarriage on the elite level even in the 19th century. Alexander Griboyedov had no problem marrying a Georgian princess, and after his tragic death she was admired by other Georgians for being loyal to his memory:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nino_Chavchavadze
In the post-Soviet era, the Russian and Georgian churches have gotten along well with each other. By and large, Russians and Georgians have been okay with each other, whether as Soviets or the Russian Empire.
The likes of Gamsakhurdia and Saakashvili contradict this sentiment. There’s a good number of families with a Georgian-Russian background.
Contrary to what some suggest, most Russians aren’t bigots, stuck up on race. Regarding the matter, the key for them is how non-Russians view Russians, while recognizing that some Russians essentially prostitute themselves to anti-Russian influences.
In Detroit, Christians of Iraqi origin consider themselves to be Chaldeans, not Arabs, whom they look down on. They view themselves as the descendants of the original Babylonian inhabitants and the Arabs/Muslims as dirty barbaric invaders from the desert.
I want to know if Georgians should be considered white or not?
I went to Naples, and in great horror, saw outside the train station hordes of Africans, Asians (Indians, Pakistanis, and others similar). Once I traveled over Europe, I saw the most abundant of white trash I have ever seeing! OMG! So there you have it, there is whites, and then there is “white trash”. Some day all those new ‘Europeans’ will be representing Europe, as the new multi-cultural euphoria. So who is white and who is not? Depends if you are burnt by the sun, or not. The invaders are whites? or as in the USA, Syrian white, or Afghan white, etc. Dark skinned white, as I hear once a police call looking for a ‘dark skinned white male’ I laughed so hard!
The USA just like any other country, is corrupt. The difference is that the pie is so big, that there is something for everybody. Just like the welfare system. 1/6th of the population receiving welfare checks! Billions and Billions of dollars for the populace. So as long as the wealth (debt) is passed around, all is well.
The more intelligent diaspora phenomenon is easily to explain, Albania and Armenia have experienced massive brain-drain (Mohammad Ali, Mimar Sinan, the ‘Macedonian’ Dynasty) over a longer period than almost any other country in Europe. The Byzantine/Ottoman Empires were highly meritocratic bureaucratic-states that were not ethnically-based, anybody could rise through talent alone. The Armenian and to a lesser degree Albanian diasporas (mostly acculturilised in Greece and Italy) have some of the largest diasporas compared to their home-populations of any ethnic group.
As for Georgia, the Russian Empire was (largely) the same in that respect, their nobility retained their privileges and were prominent in the ranks from the time of their incorporation. Unlike Armenians, but like Turks and Chechens, Georgians retain blood-feuds and are quick to anger, petty crime simply isn’t worth it in a shame-based culture. Almost all middle-Eastern countries have small pockets of talented minorities (Copts, Mandeans, Maronites), but this hasn’t spread due to their marriage practices.
And those Georgian corruption figures LOL. You obviously aren’t a regular visitor to the Caucasus Anatoly? Sometimes a bribe is not called a bribe.
@PolishPerspective
Re, Armenians, many have lived abroad for so many generations they are practically indistinguishable from the surrounding population. Not to mention there are probably more people of Armenian-extraction in Turkey than Armenia itself.
Derp
http://www.renegadetribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/richard-spencer-laura-bush-e1493903075581-800×445.jpg
But then, if a politician went mildly off the script in Russia and suggested that the war was not justified and that the world would be a better place if the Axis had won, they’d be tarred and feathered.
What’s “mildly off the script” is culture dependent. Here it is normal to think that the Axis was the lesser evil and I can open a mainstream newspaper to read history stories praising German soldiers for their discipline, good behavior and lack of atrocities, stories that were once taboo when Finland was appeasing the USSR. It would be an error for me to conclude that the lack of similar stories in the mainstream Russian press is evidence that Russia is not free enough to print those stories – the difference is not the freedom level but the historical background.
That “press freedom ranking” is are, of course, agenda-driven propaganda narratives, no disagreement on that. However if you lifted all media taboos and had a truly free press accurately representing popular opinions, the result in many Eastern European countries would be more anti-Russian, not less. For example, Baltic media does not give air time to the idea of loading non-integrated Russians in trains and sending them over the border even though you definitely hear this idea in private conversations…
If Italians and Spaniards are white, Georgians are also white
This is objectively wrong. You seem to forget that about 30% of Estonian population are Russian-speaking and the majority of them have quite positive view of Russia. But Estonian media chooses to mostly ignore their opinion.
Even among Estonians the Russian-friendly segment seems to be sizeable around 10-20%. Definitely not fringe minority.
What is happening is that this Russian-friendly position is unexpressable in political scene. There are no Russian national party and for mainstream ones the risk of being labeled “pro-Russian” and loosing Estonian nationalist voters far outweights the risk of alienating minor Russian population. This overflows from politics to other pubic life where public figures have to suppress their possible Russian friendly viewpoints because of the fear of being ostracized by majority.
Something very odd about their marriage; He could have done muchbetter
Not true. Italians and Spanish are far closer to the core European cluster than Georgians.
http://b.pix.ge:81/g/ibk9r.jpg
I would say they aren’t white but it’s a fuzzy question
In this case, it is necessary to clearly determine who the “white”. Originally the standard of the white race was taken the Georgians or the Circassians (I’m not remember exactly). Hence the English “Caucasoid” (invariably causing laughter in Russia)
At an interesting question. In the North Caucasus there were (as a result of a separate mutation) a population of blondes. Their phenotype is almost Northern European,
http://vasi.net/uploads/posts/sended/1336260110_6f362ab8b386.jpg
but it is convergence (these blondes are the result of a special mutation, not “Northern” impurities). Similar “pseudo-Nordic” tribes exist in Africa and the Himalayas. Who are these people?
Put this girl’s picture
http://i12.pixs.ru/storage/0/3/6/x0e67e936j_7065108_29864036.jpg
in the forum of white supremacists , and write that this girl is your fiancée, but you doubt – “white”this girl or not (and for that you want to cancel the wedding)
I think most of the answers would be ” you fucking idiot marry this girl immediately”
About the other peoples I don’t know, but the Russian pictured is definitely wrong. Because of this, the rest of the information is also questionable.
Koreans are not an inferior race, though.
As a racist myself, I don’t like mixed race couples mostly because I think it’s irresponsible to the child due to the potential of identity crisis and because biodiversity is cool so if everybody starts to racemix, the pure breeds will disappear.
Still, there is a huge difference between how I would look at a woman who has a half Korean husband (“not ideal, but it’s her business, not the end of the world”) and a woman who has a husband who’s fully or partially black or gypsy or bedouin for example – every normal man looks at such women like they are pure trash, which they are.
While I’m not Russian, I imagine that Russian racists would tend to agree with me. There was an article in Sputnik i Pogrom which advocated for the assimilation of the Korean minority due to their willingness to assimilate instead of forcing Korean culture on them, and pointed out that their small numbers means that the typical Russian phenotype will not change due to this.
Racist doesn’t mean purity spiralling autist.
OT
Here’s this theory that Trump (or the Deep State or whoever) merely wants to force Russia to abandon Iran and China. Which is weird, because then they should have behaved differently during the Medvedev presidency, while Russia was supporting the sanctions against Iran. By the way even if it was true, it would be highly irrational for Russia to switch allegiances to the US now, because next time the US will likely break its word again, and then..?
So I don’t buy this theory. I think the main problem with such theories is that they posit way more rationality and foresight than is probably present. I believe top leaders are both too stupid and too short-sighted to create such plans. They merely try to balance among different lobbies, opinion polls, political expediency, etc.
For example, I can easily believe the British government never had any idea who committed the Skripal murder attempt, but like most of ordinary people (and probably the police investigators), they immediately suspected the Russians. I mean, it’s a former Russian agent, so obviously, it was Putin. Then it also came at an opportune moment, when their failure at the Brexit negotiations just became apparent. It had double benefits. On one hand, they could use it to divert public attention from Brexit. On the other, they can use it as leverage against their European “partners”: “See, we are under attack by the Russians, you should be easier on us!” Maybe there were some other benefits I’m unaware of, but these two definitely did exist.
So they started pushing this line, creating confrontation with Russia, and never thinking about the long-term consequences. Next time, it will be even easier to blame the Russians, because just as Litvinenko is used as “proof” that the Russians “have a history of such murders,” next time both examples will be used, so it will be even easier to create mass hysteria. It’s a bit like sleepwalking into an ever escalating confrontation with a nuclear superpower, but not a result of a long-term rational plan.
Well, there is a girl half-Russian, half Indian, she is definitely not trash (Olympic champion and seven-time world champion)
https://rusbiathlon.ru/foto/220/110430.jpg
https://s8.cdn.teleprogramma.pro/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/2cc33e5715f4cb3bf40d529dc35a1efa.jpg
But how aware are most of these people of their Armenian roots? At least outwardly most of them must have adopted a Sunni Turk identity, and I’d assume after a few generations any crypto-Armenian identity tends to get lost.
The Turkish state of course seems to know exactly who’s of Armenian descent since apparently they’ve kept secret files about that kind of thing ever since the founding of the republic. But is the same necessarily true about all the people with some Armenian ancestry?
She looks much paler and has a much daintier nose than any half-Indian I’ve ever met
Don’t forget to import millions of Africans as well, then you can produce lots of wonderful new brown Russians that can also help you win the 100m sprints.
We discussed this before in terms of race, which is the funniest consideration, as Georgia has some of the world’s most beautiful women.
But ultimately, Richard Spencer wife is very unattractive, and looks like a transsexual.
Either he has no dating options (possible), he likes transexual looking people (also possible), or she has an amazing personality and he is not a superficial person (probably the most unlikely option, but one which would actually speak well of him).
Lol I agree with the second part of the sentence that it is good on an aesthetic/historical/cultural level that not everyone mixes – although seems quite crazy, as the vast majority of people do not.
At the same time (although it obviously will never be studied or politically correct), I assume that children of the mixed nationality parents are on average better looking than their parents.
Here for example is mixed-race model in Israel (Shlomit Malka).
The dad is Morrocan.
http://f.nanafiles.co.il/upload/mediastock/img/76/0/252/252848.jpg
https://img.mako.co.il/2016/12/04/lila_x5.jpg
Mother it’s Ukrainian.
https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/vp/220dbc92a35f2a5a8555b6db56a43b40/5B5ABAEB/t51.2885-15/s640x640/sh0.08/e35/25014200_346279392507748_115284820669497344_n.jpg
Yet somehow these ugly parents manage to produce a famous model daughter:
Well nobody who has a fiance who looks like that, would ask such strange question in the first place.
It depends if you mean ‘white’ (skin colour), or ‘European’ (geographical origin population).
Georgia is mostly not in Europe, except a tiny strip of land along the Northern border. (Whereas Italy and Spain are in Europe – due to being further Westwards in longitude).
However, skin tone correlated with latitude. And Georgia is further North than almost all of Spain (it is same latitude as Southern France and Northern Italy).
For latitudes.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/World_map_indicating_tropics_and_subtropics.png
For geographical borders of Europe.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/Europe_Asia_transcontinental.png
Classic French actress Isabelle Adjani (she is half German and half Algerian/Arab-Muslim).
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AWluyY8_57Y/WWELWmj5sII/AAAAAAAA868/668cU4JBmRw3fEe2is0Sl-lXWaebSYAYQCLcBGAs/s1600/Isabelle%2BAdjani%2Bin%2Bthe%2B1970s%2B%25281%2529.jpg
And if winning 100m sprints was necessary to survive, Russia would.
Unlike fantasy ethnostates, Russia is a real country that exists in the real world that needs to survive against real challenges against a world of hostile states.
Plus, you can always kill the Cossacks later.
Her father was a Kabyle Berber, not an Arab
I don’t know if I should take this seriously, but it’s different. Russian-Indian marriages are very rare and are concluded with the members of the upper castes (usually Brahmins). In contrast to the mass migration of potential lumpen parasites, such marriages do not carry any threat, and are even useful in terms of gene exchange and the evolution of the human race.
The Russian aristocracy had very liberal views on such things. The talented poet Vasily Zhukovsky
http://rushist.com/images/art-russian/kiprensky/zhukovsky.jpg
was the son of the rich landowner and the Turkish concubine (this concubine was kidnapped from a harem of Pasha of the city of Bender). The poet’s father lived in the “threesome” along with the wife and with the Turkish concubine (concubine was framed as a “housekeeper”).
By whom?
Berbers are Arabized – lived under Arabs for thousand years. So perhaps it’s better to call them Arabian.
France’s another classic actress – Eva Green. She is half Swedish and half Arab-Jew.
So two of France’s most famous actresses are half-Arabians from North Africa.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SQXOEX7Dcu0/Tl9acquvEYI/AAAAAAAAAJc/UuBW9BNQFzU/s1600/66777_eva-grin_or_eva-green_1600x1200_%2528www.GdeFon.ru%2529.jpg
She’s a Duginist, so she’s probably the first woman he ever met who didn’t run away the moment he started sperging out about Nietzsche and Schmitt like he does.
That’s pretty common for Assyrian people all over. Letting themselves ever be identified with the label “Arab Christian” is generally felt as some kind of deal with the devil they made with the Ba’athist government. These days they’re fighting against being remade into “Kurdish Christians.”
Greece and Ireland also lost a lot of smart and resourceful people, but they turned leftist and secular.
Georgia loses the smarties, and it becomes more conservative.
Interesting.
They are generally quite resilient about retaining their language and identity, exogamous marriage is low. There was briefly a lot of talk about returning to Armenia after 1989, but that has died down because it’s obviously a poor, corrupt and geographically limiting place to live. Smart people there become career politicians/army-staff or leave (nearly every family has foreign connections), so only the dregs or extreme-patriots remain. Probably explains the faggot hate too.
Significant Armenian-language publishing comes out of France, Lebanon and the US. Obviously there are large communities in Iran and the ex-USSR. Used to be very prominent in Egyptian business pre-Nasser, then the Copts took their place. There used to a lot of cultural output in Poland, Romania, Italy and Greece but they are mostly assimilated now.
Many Turks, especially the more liberal ones, are aware of their Armenian backround but it’s not wise to discuss it for obvious reasons.
As for Georgia everyone familiar with the caucasus knows it’s still corrupt AF. That it’s less so than its neighbors isn’t saying much. Its rather odd that AK is indirectly praising the tie-eater now don’t you think?
Here’s another curious case: Elvira Todua goalkeeper of the women’s football team of Russia , Abkhazian (realy half Russian, but considers herself Abkhazian). In appearance – a dream of hardcore nordidophil
https://cdn5.img.ria.ru/images/25326/12/253261285.jpg
http://server4.intermedia.ge/article_images/small/201310/201310310922281092.jpg
DFH what is your opinion – this white chick?
I don’t mean to be rude, but that’s a load of crap. Belarus imports a HUGE amount of Russian oil at domestic Russian prices, “refines” it, then resells it to the EU at international prices. The resulting profits are pocketed by the Lukashenka regime.
For all intents and purposes Belarus is an oil exporting country.
It is well known in the UK that the NHS is the greatest organisation that has ever existed and is capable of working miracles.
Estonia is a much more ethnically diverse than Finland, at least 25% of its population is Russian, and I can guarantee you that for them it’s definitely not normal to glorify the Nazi soldiers. These people tend to love Putin and support the annexation of Crimea, but you would never guess if you read the Estonian media.
You cannot really talk about a “national consensus” or a “free press” in Estonia when the opinions of the Russian population are being ruthlessly suppressed.
It’s definitely not the case in Hungary. A lot of people (traditionally on the left, though that’s decreasing, but over the last twenty years increasingly on the right, according to the polls, actually more among Fidesz voters than among any other segment of the population) are Russia partisans. It mostly started as an “enemy of my enemy” thing, but I think it’s mostly genuine. It’d need some tectonic shifts for it to disappear.
I think the issue is with countries which have a border with Russia and either have or recently had territorial disputes with it (Finland, Ukraine, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Romania through the proxy of Moldova) or at least where the possibility of a Russian occupation seems less remote (I think Poland and Lithuania fall into that category) where Russia has very few partisans. It certainly had very few partisans in Hungary around 1990.
Very interesting, thanks!
Looks vaguely Jewish…
The profit from oil refining is nothing like the profit from oil production.
Nonetheless, they are good middlemen indeed.
Also repackaging EU frozen sea fish from countries under food sanctions, and then re-selling it in Russia with labeling ‘made in Belarus’ (which seas?).
The economic level is not really comparable. Georgia is still mainly a developing country, at the same level as Ukraine.
The Western liberalism is an ideology designed by and designed for a well-off middle class people, but with less appeal amongst the poor.
The well-off middle class people, are a minority in Georgia.
The hardcore nordidophil has to be a bit homosexual, if they will not like the brown Caucasian girls
This – is the more typical Georgian beauty.
What’s Jewish?
http://img0.liveinternet.ru/images/attach/c/3/76/834/76834996_elvira_todua.jpg
http://ru.uefa.com/MultimediaFiles/Photo/competitions/General/01/97/30/54/1973054_w2.jpg
You don’t get it. Belarus buys its oil from Russia at a heavily sibsidised price. This is where their profits come from.
Belarus exported 4 billion worth of “Refined Petroleum” in 2016 ( https://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/blr/ ). That’s close to 10% of the entire Belorussian GDP. If the economic relations between Russia and Belarus were governed by the rules of the market, the value of these exports would be zero.
My point is it’s not Belarus, that deserves any credit, but the Kremlins, who deserve all the blame for sustaining this bizarre “economic model”.
Comparing Chile v. Argentina, corruption seems to result in 25% loss in GDP. That’s pretty big.
Aside from GDP, there’s political stability. Jordan is very clean compared to neighbors. Syria was not. The result was the apocalypse for Syria. People in Jordan live peaceful lives unlike neighbors. I think a corrupt Jordan would have been much more likely by now to be in the middle of a civil war.
Especially in the first two pictures she looked subtly Jewish, a little like a prettier, young Barbara Streisand.
The profit on the oil refining will be a far, far lower proportion.
It’s not comparable to a large oil producing country, although the latter sentence that Belarus does not deserve credit for this subsidy may well be true.
Young Barbara Streisand (especially her eyes and nose) looks completely identical to quite a lot of (non-Jewish) Polish women I have seen in Poland.
Exercise for the mind:
what photo should be removed, based on the anthropological type ?
https://content.zakon.ru/avatars/546e8f46-d135-4eab-a031-40ede687d926.orig.jpg
http://cinewest.ru/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Barbra-Strejzand-molodaya-1.jpg
https://static.tumblr.com/b64ba4d4b1e49f5d56cbc069998b39a3/z4mlfhd/3K8omwf8c/tumblr_static_tumblr_static__focused_v3.jpg
http://2krota.ru/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/grace9-a.jpg
This kind of eyes are very Polish to me (not Jewish).
According to Wikipedia, she is descended from the Jews in Poland. I guess her ancestors were getting raped by musically talented Polish peasants.
https://josephnaughton.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/barbra-the-way-we-were.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/zT7rISr.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/S8K1EV8.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/FSJde1d.jpg
Grace Kelly looks like sophisticated, refined Western European.
Whereas Barbara Streisand looks like poor, inbred Polish peasantry, who you see working in the cafe in the train station if you will visit Poland.
Belarus should not be having any profit at all. This entire refining business and the jobs it supports in Belarus is basically a giveaway from the Kremlin.
It takes money and effort to extract oil in Siberia. It’s not free by any means. Belarus acts as unnecessary middleman, reselling Russian oil essentially. They are not making gasoline out of it, they are creating low-grade “petroleum product”, which they then ship to Europe via Baltic ports, where it’s refined properly.
Georgian girls are freakin hot. Why are there pictures of every ethnicity and Barbara fucking Streisand in this thread but no pictures of hot Georgian women.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/8d/68/92/8d6892ea88ba1718a0f4033f681075c8.jpg
Karlin, did you see the Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown episode in Georgia? I’m curious what you think.
Yes on your initial points.
Bourdain’s show became more PC when it shifted to CNN. The one he did on Russia is his most politically biased. More so than his shows on Iran and Vietnam. A sign of the times.
Yes, his Russian show was awful. He seems to have become more of a centrist due to his travels, but that was pure propaganda.
I think your eyes might be broken
Why? Have you been in Poland recently – Girls who look identical to her are most common there.
There’s now a girl at my work from Poznan, who even looks similar to her.
Nothing to say rude to Poland, where there’s also a lot of beautiful women to offset the ones who look like that.
Well feel free to write down what the annual profit is from oil refining, and its contribution to the economy
I highly doubt you can attribute the Belarus success story simply to the profits from a price difference between domestic and export oil prices in Russia.
You are Jewish but we are Slavs. We have a different taste in
women, plus we love our own women. And it’s not like Europe
is running out of beautiful women anyway. But Georgian, Persian,
Israeli women, etc – close to zero attraction.
This will reveal my age but in the 1960s-’70s California was the
place to be – wall-to-wall beautiful women. Hundreds of songs
were written about them. Unfortunately that California no
longer exists. Nobody is writing songs about California girls
anymore.
On that turning point in Ca:
Estonia for the Estonians!
I have a Jewish granddad, not sure it had an impact on my taste in women.
I appreciate beautiful brown girls though, especially Spanish, Italian, Georgian, etc – although I only have success on dates with ugly foreign girls, and failure with beautiful girls.
Maybe when you get old, and you lose testosterone, your tastes will change.
Not sure how things are now, but before the 2008 war I had a georgian friend who told me there are no night clubs or any other places to go dancing in Georgia because as soon one opens there are murders and other violent behaviour. It didn’t sound very civilised to me.
That friend was a beautiful blue eyed blonde, but despite her being born in Georgia, her family was originally from Russia, so posting pictures of people from Caucasus without knowing their genealogy is useless.
….and even more so
“Mars for Martians”
…. How about me,
“Sovetsky Chelovek”?
90% of Russians are recent arrivals though, similar to Arabs in France. They have their own country, and not even an overcrowded one, where they can go back to. Estonians only have that small country for themselves.
Georgia is like India – its smart fraction is really smart and that seems enough to keep the country firmly in the civilized realm, yet its dumb fraction is too numerous to allow really strong advances.
What about Georgian genetics? Quite a few distinct ethnic groups there, even if they all speak the same/similar language (Kartvelian family). The language is unique, not related to any of its neighbors (there is a speculation that the closest relative is Basque). So it must be ancient. Which implies that, among all of the admixtures in the Caucasus region, there must be [strong] traces of the ancient bearers of the this unique language family.
(really late reply but this was far from topic anyway)
When pro-Soviet parties were re-legalized after WWII, explicitly pro-Stalin parties peaked at 25 % of the vote. Basically, right after the war, 25 % of the Finnish population was still voting in favor of joining the Soviet Union. The war does not exactly explain the current lack of pro-Russian sentiment given that pro-Soviet sentiment was very common immediately after the war or even during the war.
(Much of the Finnish war propaganda was aimed at rehabilitating the Reds of the Civil War and promising some sort of socialism after the war. Finland is full of monuments and memorials built to the Red cause during World War II, exiled Red leaders who refused to work for the USSR were pardoned, mass graves of Reds that were revealed in backwoods and re-buried with honors during WWII etc. The elites were extremely afraid of pro-Soviet sentiment back then.)
The Left gradually shifted from pro-Soviet parties to the Greens etc but by the end of the USSR pro-Soviet parties were still scoring above 10 % of the vote. Yet it’s impossible to imagine a pro-Russian political party gaining even 1 % of the vote now. Leftism has completely, utterly, totally turned against Russia, yet whenever you see Russia trying to gain political influence here, they start up some media with leftist talking points, try to approach leftist organizations and so on.
It seems to me that some planner in Moscow has looked at historical records, seen how much support they got from socialists 70 years ago and now they just keep trying to recreate it even as the left gets more and more anti-Russian. Russia seems to be obsessed with capturing the demographic that they’re least likely to get and the result is they have fewer sympathizers than ever before.
At this point I see zero reason to even worry about Russian occupation – I can go out and all I see is brown and black faces, I listen to politicians and all they have to say is how we must follow the lead of Germany and so on. I already feel like I’m losing my country and ironically one thing I’ve lost with that feeling is the fear of Russia taking it away.
Just realized that the surname Malka, which is common among moroccan sephardi, is of the same type as ashkenazi surnames like Englander or Wiener or Frankfurter.
It sounds like it simply means “from Morocco”.
Hopefully he’ll be married long before then. and stay married.
Interesting. In comparison, in pre-revolution France there were at least two cases when sons of aristocrats and black slave women from the colonies were brought up in the elite and had high-achieving careers. One was the father of Alexandre Dumas, another a prominent swordsman and musician Chevalier de Saint-George. I don’t see it as liberalism though, just signs of enormous power of the nobility/royalty in estate-based societies. A whim of a sufficiently highborn lord, let alone a king, overrode such considerations as skin color and illegitimacy. In a similar vein, homosexual members of the elite were pretty much allowed to do what they liked (in spare time between producing heirs within arranged marriages):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_I,_Duke_of_Orl%C3%A9ans
That’s because AK is as usual taking his information from western rags and doesn’t know what he’s talking about when it comes to Russia or the near abroad.
But the comments here are still some of the best on the site.
I think Georgia really resembles India in that it has a very smart upper fraction and then just a ton of terribly stupid people, which ends up creating a massive paradox such as India having a semi-market economy, global language of commerce, commonwealth trade advantages for most of its existence yet managing to fall behind China.
As far as I’m aware the Indian diaspora is very smart, but the average Indian is just terribly unintelligent.
if we Armenians are borderline, it is because of a Genocide perpetrated at the hand of the Crytpo Jew Young Turks and continue to be blockade by the Turkic Azeris and Turks who would like nothing more than finish the job of eliminating the giavors. Thus said, we have champions in all spheres of life, probably moreso than the Poles. Not having experienced genocide, tell me then Mr. Perspective why are the Poles also a borderline people??