Good taste, not overly tacky (e.g. too much gold like with Trump). I’d probably build something like that as a strongman.
There’s nothing cardinally new about Navalny’s video.
The construction of a palace at Gelendzhik in Krasnodar Krai linked to friends of Putin was “leaked” to the world more than a decade by Sergey Kolesnikov, a businessman involved in the project. Incidentally, the first photographs of the palace appeared at the Russian language version of Wikileaks website, a detail that seems to have been written out of contemporary accounts now that Assange has long become unhandshakeworthy while the election of Biden has given the West the impetus to start intensively building up Navalny as the figurehead of the Russian Maidan.
Imagine prospects for world peace, prosperity, & security if Joe Biden were President of the United States & Alexei Navalny the President of Russia. We’ll soon be halfway there.
“Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You, you may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one” https://t.co/oHV7P3fYTY— John O. Brennan (@JohnBrennan) October 9, 2020
Why does Putin need a palace? Well, as I noted back in 2019, it seems to be a relatively cheap way to maintain elite discipline while pursuing a sovereign course.
In traditional societies, it is mainly the aristocracy’s sense of solidarity, noblesse oblige, feudal bonds, the Mannerbund institute. Though I don’t mean to idealize it. It proved completely maladaptive come the industrial age.
In totalitarian regimes, chiliastic ideology and repression/terror plays a major role.
Modern, largely non-ideological populist regimes at odds with GloboHomo – that’s Putin, Orban, etc. – distribute resources or economic “demesnes” to their cronies, creating networks of personal loyalty unbeholden to the global elites – a sort of “counter-elite,” or Dugin’s so-called “patriotic corruption“. One additional “benefit” of such systems is that damning kompromat is available on “defectors” by default. Though obviously this is not the only mechanism. Putinism also has elements of a Mannerbund, as well as more severe punishments.
China has elements of all the above, but with greater load on legitimizing ideology (it is still a Marxist-Leninist state) and on repression.
Political elites under free markets are always poorer than economic elites. They resent that. There’s a constant incentive to defect, unless there are countervailing incentives (e.g. material gains) and disincentives (e.g. punishment for “treason”).
Unofficial wealth is one of the big incentives and is seen from Orban’s Hungary to China (Politburo members are not poor) and Sultan Erdogan – who has constructed a nifty palace for himself too. Remember this?
There doesn’t seem to be any way out of it. At a high enough level most everyone seems to have assets entirely incommensurate with their very modest official salaries – even people such as PM Mishustin, who made his name combating tax evasion as head of the Russian tax service.
A major convenience of this system is that the “shadow” nature of this wealth also constitutes ready-made “kompromat” and a built-in “corruption case” against elite defectors.
But since Putin is the head guy, why would he need a palace? Well, it would be pretty bizarre if senior bureaucrats such as Defense Minister Shoigu had pads like these:
… while the Tsar himself made do in a commie block.
Clearly “Putin’s palace” needs to be the biggest and grandest one, with its cost of $1.2B about equaling all of PM Medvedev’s known assets (as per a 2017 Navalny investigation).
He doesn’t even appear to use it much (or at all?). It’s clearly primarily there as a signal of his apex position in the dominance hierarchy to the rest of the elites.
Is this a large sum? It might appear to be so to simple people. But in reality, one billion USD is just the equivalent of a large five star hotel. Modern societies are vastly richer than the Sun King’s France, in which the construction of the Palace of Versailles ate up 60% of the budget. This is just 0.5% of the annual Russian federal budget – less still if lower spending is included – and even that is to exaggerate the impact, because it was not built on budget money but through the reciprocal generosity of people whom Putin allowed to get rich in exchange for their implied loyalty, not just personal but geopolitical.
To illustrate that point, if Putin would have been unable to get the Gelendzhik Palace constructed…
… There wouldn’t – couldn’t – have been a Crimean Bridge either:
No genuinely “private” company would agree to embark on such a project given the US sanctions that would have inevitably been brought against its directors and shareholders.
It’s also not even the case that had Putin not enriched the cronies who built him his palace, the proceeds would have gone to “ordinary” Russians. All market economies concentrate wealth. Those proceeds would have ended up with other people in the construction industry, many of whom would have just used it to build smaller palaces for themselves and send their children to Hogwarts. While the Crimean Bridge would not exist, and indeed the issue would be entirely moot, since Crimea would not be Russian, given Navalny’s reaction to the return of Russian territories was to call for sanctions from his Western friends:
Then, on Feb. 28, Russia sent troops to Ukraine in precisely such a “little war.” I admit that I underestimated Mr. Putin’s talent for finding enemies, as well as his dedication to ruling as “president for life,” with powers on par with the czars’.
As a citizen and patriot, I cannot support actions against Russia that would worsen conditions for our people. Still, I recommend two options that, if successfully implemented, I believe would be welcomed by most Russians. …
Such sanctions should primarily target Mr. Putin’s inner circle, the Kremlin mafia who pillage the nation’s wealth, including Gennady N. Timchenko, head of the Volga Group; Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, influential businessmen and former judo sparring partners of Mr. Putin; Yuri V. Kovalchuk, a financier believed to be Mr. Putin’s banker; Vladimir I. Yakunin, president of Russian Railways; the oligarchs Roman A. Abramovich and Alisher B. Usmanov; and Igor I. Sechin and Aleksei B. Miller, the heads of Rosneft and Gazprom, respectively.
The sanctions must also hit the oligarchs whose media outlets parrot the regime lines, and target Mr. Putin’s entire “war cabinet”: the TV spin doctors, compliant Duma members and apparatchiks of Mr. Putin’s United Russia Party.
Now in fairness it is logical for Western elites to support a quiescent Russian regime whose economic functionaries are clean and not at all corrupt and completely intertwined with the Western world-economy in which the rules of the game are set by the US Treasury and who own the politicians making impossible any deviation from the party line set by the State Department for its vassals. But it would be pretty stupid for Russians to once again step on the same rake that they did in 1917 and 1991 just on account of spite over Putin’s 5 star hotel.
I do not think there will be a Maidan or anything even close for reasons I will detail in the next post. In fact I expect the protests tomorrow and henceforth to be a damp squib. But on the off chance I am wrong, Russians will only prove themselves morons.
Please keep off topic posts to the current Open Thread.
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I would guess this palace is the only place in Russia that is not stuffed to the gills with US/British spy/surveillance equipment. Seriously, US intelligence services hacked Merkel cell phone and French trade ministry to steal European corporate secrets, pretty sure they have thought about hacking Russia at some point as well.
I guess they haven’t been able to gain access to the palace yet, hence the whining every few years.
Based on the description, this sort of palace would be great for hosting international VIPs for private stay and discussions, oil sheikhs and whatnot, who have their own palaces. That makes a high value intelligence target.
I don’t buy the “Putin needs to have the biggest and best palace” idea. Why not a satisfactory $12M mansion like Shoigu’s?
For what it’s worth, it’s much better that government officials have their mansions in Russia than somewhere else. Medvedev gets a minus here for his Italian villa. I also see buying excessively expensive Western luxury goods as a huge negative.
Are there any mental gymnastics you are not willing to perform to defend Vlad?
Have most of the specifically named people on this list been targeted by sanctions already?
I thought so; but it sounds like Abramovich and Usmanov haven’t, and Navalny wants to change that.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/27/alexei-navalny-calls-for-eu-sanctions-on-russian-oligarchs-abramovich-usmanov
On another subject; journalist Bryan MacDonald believes that the photos of Putinhof are photoshopped.
https://twitter.com/27khv/status/1351647966214426625?s=21
This is a good point. Putin does offer luxurious activities when doing diplomacy. He does take foreign leaders on yacht rides and fancy dining. But when does Putin take a week vacation just to chill in his palace?
Putin’s first name is Vladimir, “Vlad” is the diminutive of Vladislav in Russian. For Putin it would be Volodya or Vova. If you’re going to post here, try not to sound like such a rube.
That’s confirmed. They are just “visualizations”.
How much net worth did Herbert Hoover or Calvin Coolidge did have compared to the Rockefellers? And the historic WASP ethno-aristocracy managed to maintain solidarity and control, and kept Jews and non-WASP whites out of the power structure until the early 1950s. They lost it because they basically decided to retire their power and pass the scepter to another group of people. Their hold on power was always resented by Jews and intelligent non-WASP whites like Nixon and Lyndon Johnson. IQ supremacists who wanted to open up the Ivy League and the Seven Sisters played a very big part in this.
Yep.
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/13/opinion/brooks-why-our-elites-stink.html
Take note that David Brooks is Jewish.
Brennan is like a nasty thing that you want to go away, only it’s also tweeting.
I thought Navalny was FOR the Crimean re-integration. I guess you can be for both, sanctions and re-integration.
Will become the new “Free World” (now somewhat cheaper due to COVID) memetic direction under Biden’s Polyamorous Regime of Unity? It’s more likely than you think. I suppose he might stay in prison due to various technicalities and delays, Assange-like.
Just yesterday, Europarliamentarians proved themselves even more unctuous and eager to please their Blue Overlords than I would have thought humanly possible:
In non-binding resolution, EU parliament calls for new anti-Russia sanctions in attempt to stop Nord Stream 2 over Navalny arrest
And of course, Shoigu has Good Taste.
I was making the point that the US from the 19th century to 1950 with its WASP semi-aristocracy was not an feudal agrarian society.
And my favourite, Vovchyk which is also a diminutive for wolf.
This story (about the palace) was in the Moscow Times in 2007 – I can even remember it being written about in the Daily Mail.
It was also in a book by Catherine Bennet who worked for the FT – John Helmer wrote about is ages ago on his blog.
Russia is no longer communist
So what is the big deal about private property even on this grand scale.
Russia has many grand buildings – with much better taste than this building I might add.
On to Navalny. It is clear he has returned to destabilise Russia.
The poisoning narrative and now this promotion of him as “political prisoner” like Mandela – when he is just another Juan Guido
As to the March : unfortunately there are always fools who can be led to the streets!
Russia has a tendency to self destruct and not appreciate stability and predictability. Boring can be good!!!
YouTube and google are obviously pushing this video for views
About the video getting 50 million views – I don’t hear anyone taking about it – so I don’t know whether this is inflated numbers. Ukrainians are taking about it. The anti- Russian ones are discussing and sharing
Thanks for this post Anatoly I have one question
Thant should be an indication of what will happen on Saturday
Mostly reporters, they blocked entrance to the airport to anyone without a ticket and then his plane was diverted to a different Moscow airport where no one was waiting for him.
Russia has pretty strict laws on participating in unauthorized demonstrations. So jail time, loss of job and getting kicked out of higher education institutions are real consequences. Hence the emphasis on children, who don’t have these concerns.
Elites will be elites. What’s the point of becoming part of the elite if you can’t flaunt your success a little bit.
Even Stalin and Lenin were not totally averse to little showing off. If I remember correctly Lenin drove around in a Rolls Royce, while Stalin preferred Packard (I would say Lenin had better taste there). Plus, Stalin had dachas all over the USSR.
Only the Chines communist leaders used to buck the trend – their favorite attire used to be pijamas – but maybe even that can be interpreted as a prequel to Hugh Hefner favorite style – he practically spent his life wearing pijamas and he wasn’t even Chinese, not to mention a communist.
Elites will always be the top of society, whether they are political or economic ones. Some counties have both of them, communist countries used to have only one kind – political. The point is if you are the top of the society, you have to show what a success means, so the ordinary people will have something to dream about or strive for.
Every normal person will trade places with the elites, and if they walk around in pijamas, and there is nothing else to show off along with that – like wild parties with sexy ladies in the grotto – then this kills the ambitions of ordinary people to aim for higher status in society. Putin is right, leader of the elites has to look like one and show what success means.
The $1.35 bil. estimated cost for ~180.000 sq.feet property with the 11 bedroom main building looks sketchy.
For comparison, these are some of the most expensive properties>
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/060915/worlds-most-expensive-mansions.asp
The Buckingham palace is valued at 1,5B with 775 rooms and 40 acres.
The 570 feet high 27 story 400.000 sq.feet building in Mumbai is valued at 1B.
Based on the other properties listed here, the published sale figure from 2011 of $350M seems very reasonable.
Hey, you are blurting out a secret. Normal Western ignorance guarantees that anybody using “Vlad” has his script from the State Department. Now you told them how transparently stupid they are.
Stalin used a ZiL. But they looked like Packard (at the time of Stalin anyway). The general secretary needs a domestically produced car for optics reasons. That’s probably the same reason Aurus was made. Aurus is supposedly starting to be sold this year, it will be interesting to see if there will be any interest in it or if it will continue only being used by the Russian government.
Well, it looks like we are both right. Check this out:
https://www.rbth.com/lifestyle/328376-kremlin-cars-favorite-rides
Stupid.
Anatoly was badly wrong about supporting lockdowns (which were obviously a globalist trick from day 1), and was wrong late in 2020 when he suggested the American election wasn’t a fraudulent coup, but that’s because he doesn’t really know American politics. He knows Russian politics, and knows it quite well.
As an American, I pray President Putin is able to maintain and competently transfer power, because the world needs Russia to stay strong and sane.
IMHO Navalny mostly appeals to people who have embezzled some dough but squandered it all and ain’t got even a shoddy outhouse to show for it.
The life of a petty bribe-taker is full of fear and envy, and this talk of ‘organized corruption’ offers a suitable vent for both.
Normal folks are more concerned about wasted resources than ‘corruption’.
Hosting VIPs explains why one would need a pole dancing arena and a casino.
I would rather it looked like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-Qdsc3uJ1g
I’m content with a big atrium, library, aquarium and a few minions who design real-time stats & graphs to make the editorial board of The Economist barf with envy, projected on jumbotrons while I relax in an outdoor spa.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-Qdsc3uJ1g
Hosting VIPs explains why one would need a pole dancing arena and a casino.
I would rather it looked like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-Qdsc3uJ1g
I’m content with a big atrium, library, aquarium and a few minions who design real-time stats & graphs to make the editorial board of The Economist barf with envy, projected on jumbotrons while I relax in an outdoor spa and sometimes click on something to centrally control economic policy with my Brainiac Brain.
Everyone in the West calls Putin “Bad Vlad”, though. “Bad Vova” or “Bad Volodya” doesn’t have the same rhyme to it. And Volodya is actually short for Volodymyr, which would be Russian cultural appropriation of a Ukrainian name! 😉
Hear, hear.
Wolf/Volf is/was primarily a name among Ashkenazi Jews and Germans, no? I don’t seem to recall many gentiles named Wolf/Volf unless they’re German, but I am well-aware of the Jewish Wolf Blitzer on CNN!
@Anatoly: To be fair, the bridge to Crimea actually serves a much more vital purpose–specifically land communication, trade, and travel between Crimea and the rest of Russia. Putin could have still gotten himself a nice palace built for $10-50 million, no? As in, 5% or less of the sum that was actually ultimately spent on his palace.
Also, if you’re going to defend the huge cost of Putin’s palace, please don’t whine and complain about the huge cost of a bridge to Sakhalin either! 😉 After all, at least Sakhalin isn’t too far away from some East Asian population centers and thus could theoretically acquire a much larger population over time–especially over the centuries. Living in Sakhalin and taking regular trips to Harbin, Seoul, and Tokyo (perhaps even to both Shanghai and Shenzhen!) does sound rather fun, after all–no? 🙂
Transforming Sakhalin into Slavic Japan is an interesting idea, but requires more ambition then the current Russian ruling class has
The Packard 12 was a magnificent car, so I disagree.
What makes you think that the actual cost was $1.2b? Because Navalny, sorry, I mean MI-6 says so?
Russian labor seems pretty cheap, so it is hard for me to believe that it would cost that much, even with kickbacks. I wonder what a fair valuation of the plot itself would be…
If you take a closer look, the area does not seem particularly developed or urbanized.
So, I’d say the value of the plot of land itself was largely symbolic.
Maybe even zero if you take into consideration the structure seen on the hill in the background. It resembles some kind of military installation that seems to have been around long before the “castle” was built.
This would indicate that the whole area may have been a restricted access area which hardly adds to its real estate value.
Because Sakhalin, except the extreme southern part, is too cold?
These sorts of psuedo-manor houses/palaces are considered extremely tacky and ridiculous in Britain.
Your obvious and basic problem is that you cannot write. You cannot write a simple explanatory sentence let alone a paragraph. You read like a Poet of some kind. You would not even get a C on a high school essay. Not one, even a well educated person has a clue what you are talking about. You ramble all over the place like a dog chasing its tail. Your sin is the worst sin in elementary writing classes…ambiguity. You are a pretentious clown trying to sound erudite and sophisticated. Go and try to emulate Dostoevsky or something; you are not suited for the real world of basic American composition.
I live in a resort area and that building is nothing to brag about. Near me there are probably 40 – 50 hotels and residences bigger than that, not to mention this isn’t even first line (right near the sea).
Based on your glowing recommendation, I’ve asked Mr. Karlin to pen poetry.
I think security concerns would make a beachfront building dangerous.
America was for a long time in Britian’s cultural sphere of influence and was not culturally-spiritually independent however American nativism and cultural influence from Great Britain was compatible in a way that Russian nationalism and contemporary American cultural-ideological influence isn’t.
https://www.amazon.com/Anglophilia-Deference-Devotion-Antebellum-America/dp/0226789446
https://www.amazon.com/Unfinished-Revolution-American-Republic-Jeffersonian/dp/0813931800
So, who would actually be capable of doing such a transformation?
No colder than many existing Russian cities, no?
Wolf Blitzer – His Polish-Jewish parents must have been dolts to give him that name while in Germany right after the war. Or perhaps they were considering staying in Germany doing the best to improve their mimicry as assimilated Jews.
I know of a case when a Jew married a religious Lutheran German woman right after the war. They Christened their first son Wolfgang while already in America. In Jewish and non Jewish circles of his friends it was completely unacceptable. They thought that the “weak” man must have lost his mind as the result of his Auschwitz incarceration. How an Auschwitz survivor could possible name his child Wolfgang? But our judgment is tainted by the cartoonish black and white picture of WWII that emerged when the political project of Holocaust was rolled out by Zionists after the Six-Day War. In late 1940s and 1950s thinking was different particularly among some Jews. They suppressed their suffering and had survivor guilt, sometimes for a good reason, of being the ‘fittest’ who survived, survived at expense of others who did not. They wanted to assimilate and lose their Jewishness and did not feel like being soldiers of the Zionist political project that was emerging then. This is one reason, as somebody here mentioned recently, why the portrayal of Nazis and Germans in films in 1960s was more balanced than what it became later. Further away we are from WWII Nazis and Germans become more evil and Jews become more heroic exemplars of integrity.
By the morning of Friday, January 22, the social network TikTok removed 38% of the information that involves minors in unlawful actions dangerous to their life and health, from the total amount of information revealed.
On VKontakte, 50% of illegal information from the total amount of information detected was stopped, Instagram – 17%. Video hosting YouTube has stopped distributing 50% of the identified calls for the younger generation to participate in illegal actions.
According to the provisions of Article 13.41 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation, which entered into force on January 10, 2021 (Federal Law No. 511-FZ dated December 30, 2020), violation of the procedure for restricting access to prohibited information by the owner of a website or information resource on the Internet entails the imposition of an administrative fine on legal entities in amount from 800 thousand to 4 million rubles. In the event of a repeat offense, the fine will be increased to one tenth of the total annual proceeds.
https://www.interfax.ru/russia/746470
Warmer than Novosibirsk. The climate is slightly milder than Russian Siberian cities (warmer winters and colder summers).
Putin has mansions in the West as well, as most of the top officials will have.
This is known by everyone for many years, or even decades. So I’m how not sure anyone is pretending to be surprised or angry.
Any grandmother or taxi driver (at least in Russia) knows the politician class are corrupt, and can still understand that it’s not necessarily the worst outcome.
By definition, it’s useful to invest in countries which do not have the closest relation with your own one.
Countries which are allies, have things like information sharing agreements, and even extradition agreements, so there is not much advantage to buying or storing your assets there.
You can send your assistant to buy watches for you in Switzerland, and they only have to register their own name – at least for Russians they do not need more information, and this is high level of stealth.
For example, you can watches for $900 thousand each without any attention. You can stores tens of millions of unregistered dollars in a bag of watches, and nobody would know anything.
The problem is only when a very famous people like Putin or Peskov are tempted to wear such types of watches in public. And then the netizens can identify how crazy expensive these kind of watches are.
–
For example, here is kind of things that were left in the office when Yanukovich’s energy minister “emigrated” to Israel in 2014.
With things like luxury watches you could leave an unregistered $5 million in your office desk’s cupboard.
https://i.imgur.com/fJPpkq0.jpg
Russia doesn’t need a bridge to Sakhalin – the locals would just use it to escape the island.
Quite frankly, if Navalny were the Russian President, he’d be sucking on Joe Biden’s dick so hard his teeth would fall out n go down his throat.
Navalny will never be Russian president. He’s a tool.
Anatoly, your text reads like an apologia for elite corruption. I understand what you were trying to do, but try making this point to a typical Russian person in the provinces, who is trying to survive on 30.000 salary. Suffice to say it, your message won’t connect.
Navalny is a really devious character, as he build his career on appealing to basest human impulses: xenophobia, envy. Explaining to someone who lives in Soviet apartment block, that Putin’s palace serves a vital purpose by ensuring Russia’s independence, will not make them any less envious of it.
But everyone loves Sakhalin’s cute Korean waifus, no? 😉
I mean only Siberians would find it worthwhile to go there.
For perspective, Berlin or Warsaw is already considered a cold European city, and Moscow is a lot colder than Berlin in January.
Written by someone with an axe to grind? Was this written by an Irishman? I realize that Russia and England are BFFs so a lot of people conflate Britons with WASPs. I do not think most people here think that most WASPs are not even English?
I think precipitation levels (especially snow) are super high there, much higher than anywhere else. But I’m lazy to look it up.
He’s writing in English. So his target audience is foreigners.
Going by surnames and biography, the first author, Tamarkin, is Jewish and the second, Haynes, English (probably recent).
http://www.samwhaynes.com/
Of course, Great Britain wasn’t the only influence and France also served as an important cultural influence, but the idea of America as a brash and swaggering independent country is based on much later developments and not really a holistic lens useful for understanding the society, particularly elite society, of earlier America.
Americans in Paris: Foundations of America’s Architectural Gilded Age: Architecture Students at the École des Beaux-Arts 1846-1946
https://www.arlisna.org/publications/reviews/508-americans-in-paris-foundations-of-america-s-architectural-gilded-age-architecture-students-at-the-ecole-des-beaux-arts-1846-1946
From Forbes first rich list in 1918:
https://www.forbesindia.com/media/images/2017/Oct/img_100611_original_richlist.jpg
A few Jews like Schiff and Guggenheim, a German (Charles M. Schwab), but otherwise very British-origin and even those with foreign names like Vanderbilt, Rockefeller and du Pont were often assimilated families going back to the independence period.
Most of the money spent on this residence seems to have gone into the huge FSB and FSO detachments that are guarding it and all their infrastructure.
https://i.imgur.com/urz5sbg.png
The residence itself is like a regular rich guy mansion, nothing too spectacular.
I find it interesting that so much is in the public domain about ridiculous prepwork carried out in the mid-late 2000s, like dedicated high voltage power lines being drawn into the “middle of nowhere” in 2008 on FSB orders (far too much power for a residence, more akin to what a large factory needs), and various big construction contracts signed FSO, from 2010 and onwards.
Something tells me that neither Navalny’s version (cleptocrat powertrip) or the official stance (it’s nuuuthin) are correct.
In the past at least leaders could make a lot of political capital from the fact of being personally relatively modest in their spending and way of life, even if other figures at the top of the regime were extravagant. At the moment it seems like they don’t need to bother appealing to the masses in this way, which could be a sign of the times.
Karlin was fooled by the FSB maskirovka. Putin mansions, accounts in Panama and the Palace are all public relations maskirovka to soften up Putin’s image in the West and hide his true nature of the ascetic Spartan living Chekist. The West can relate to corrupt thieves driven by money but it fears the steadfast Chekists the most.
https://i.ibb.co/7zv1DM6/Putin-Survivalist.png
I don’t know, but I guess that’s part of the problem
Why should people care about British views on anything?
Terms like “WASP” and “Anglo” seem to be specifically American terms, most British people would have no idea what they meant.
I find it odd when the term “WASP” in particular is applied to England, because English people never were “Protestant” in the American sense of the term. C of E is basically Catholicism-lite. If anyone is truly Protestant in Britain it’s the Scots, the English traditionally tend more towards Catholicism.
Because most of these projects are clearly an attempt to copy the style of a traditional English country manor/estate, probably because their Oligarch friends are so fond of buying property in England and LARPing as English lords.
No one is delusional to build this just to rearguard a private person’s mansion.
It’s most likely an existing military facility, refurbished and given dual purpose, with “guarding” the manor employing just a fraction of its overall capabilities.
When you see this on GoogleMaps (zoom to Gelendzhik and then Dzhankhot – the mansion with the surrounding facilities is just east of Dzhankhot) you can easily observe 2 things:
it’s located on very unhospitable terrain – steep slopes rising from the see without any settlements or tourist facilities for miles around;
it’s location is ideal for a military observation or communication facility (perhaps even an antiship coastal battery) guarding the Russian naval base at Novorossiysk, just to the northwest of Gelendhick/Dzhankhot.
The vast FSO facilities started being built between 2005-2006, before which there was nothing there at all. This coincides with the very first mentions of plans for a residence right there (as per Navalnys documents).
Industrial-level power supplies were provided by Kubanenergo after 2008 (FSB ordered it), the FSO contracted a company specialized in military naval infrastructure (Morstroytekhnologiya) to build things on the property 2009-2011. Radio towers and stuff showed up on the FSO site after the construction of the residence had been started.
And I mean, the FSO is what runs presidential security. It’s not the regular military, and would have no business with a base in the middle of nowhere.
WASP basically means wealthy American former elites who were mainly Episcopalian, Methodist, or Presbyterian, who had a Northern European ancestry, also includes Huguenots.
Vanderbilt was Dutch, Rockefeller was German, Astor was German, Du Pont was French.
Interesting. Might be consistent with a bunker complex?
Well, think about it for a moment.
Do you really think that building a lavish residence for himself would be on Putin’s mind at that time?
The country was just beginning to reel out of the disastrous 90s and his grip on power was far from secure. He simply would not have felt sufficiently secure and confident to order a construction of a personal manor.
If there really were, per Navalny’s/MI6 documents, plans to build something there, that probably had nothing to do with Putin personally.
No, and that’s the thing. I don’t think he thought of it himself (as in masterminded it). But he certainly knew about it, and okayed it.
Given the communications facilities on the surface and the tunneling works that Navalnys crew have described, sounds quite likely.
Thanks.
Very true, Mr Burns. You’re the real concerned citizen. Concerned citizen isn’t.
You’re comments on Mr Karlin’s strengths and weaknesses are spot on. As a consequence, I only bother with articles in his areas of expertise.
Fair enough. But if I am correct in assuming that you put the ultimate responsibility on Putin’s shoulders anyway, then I’d say that you haven’t been in the business of managing people at all.
And being a nation’s leader is the pinnacle of the trade.
“Putin’s palace” is not English style, but looks like a French kitsch château, that would be beloved by Donald Trump.
This is Putin’s family’s French holiday house in Biarritz which was sold when it became public. It more like a cool American Disneyland style. But perhaps it reflects Putin’s children’s taste, more than his.
https://i.imgur.com/Qbzpqpl.png
An example of anglophilia in Putin’s inner circle was Sergei Pugachev who had children with an Englishwoman (although she has some ancestry from Tolstoy’s family). Nowadays this English ex-girlfriend sells anti-Sergei Pugachev propaganda on Russian television because Pugachev cuts her off from his money supply .
But for a gold-digger, oligarch’s ex-girlfriends, at least she had less ostentatious English culture
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXukuWWnarU
English elites have a more pleasant style, that doesn’t try to brutally show your wealth. Putin’s style more representative of a kind of fake neoclassical French style, that is still common with baby boomers and Gen X rulers of Russia.
For example, this is the mansion that the owner of Domodedovo airport has built in Israel. He has to add some kind of Paris streetlights next to a subtropical swimming pool.
https://i.imgur.com/5KQTWiI.jpg
When his granddaughter has a wedding in London, then he hired Mariah Carey and Elton John to sing at the wedding. Elton John and Mariah Carey are the ultimate status symbol for the oligarchs.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4124122/Billionaire-Russian-oligarch-spends-3-5MILLION-hiring-Sir-Elton-John-Mariah-Carey-19-year-old-granddaughter-s-wedding-swish-London-hotel.html
It’s like you didn’t even read what I wrote:
“[E]ven those with foreign names like Vanderbilt, Rockefeller and du Pont were often assimilated families going back to the independence period.”
They had a foreign ancestor once but looking at the female lines’ maiden names tell a more representative story.
I can’t possibly trust a chap who relies mainly on the corrupt clown Navalny for “facts”. There’s nothing that does not play into the Empire’s anti-Russian anti-Eurasian script here.
A good thing there’s the Saker publishing on this site; that leaves one reliable source of information on Russia.
For a pretty good summary of the Navalny charade (in French): https://www.chroniquesdugrandjeu.com/2021/01/la-farce.html
To be interested in Great Britain as a primary place to live, is usually filtering for people with some extent of cultural level, as UK doesn’t have any glamorous beaches or casinos, or sunny weather.
A fashion for a lot of wealthy and/or political people, is to live in Monaco or Miami, which is probably filtering for less cultural people.
Anyone can see all over Instagram how common it is to go to Monaco and Miami – anyone connected to state industries or politics. Lavrov’s family is such an example (Israeli citizens, but seem to live in Monaco).
In Sverdlovsk region, the most unpopular oligarch is Altushkin. He was opening another copper plant to poison a city’s air, while he and his family are British citizens which live in London.
But probably they live London, because the wife is interested in culture. (Her projects are maintain traditional education
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H3LWaYiY_k. )
And their London house showed some taste and modestly – a protected historical London architecture from 1862, that they aren’t allowed to change.
https://s3.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/lbimg/101/358/168/101358168-35818-800.jpg
https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/101358168-37-holland-park-w11-holland-ward#.YAyrsej7Q2w
Most Americans don’t know what Anglo means either.
I don’t know: the commie block sends a powerful signal all on its own. Observe:
http://www.chicagovelo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Richard-J-Daley-House-at-3536-S-Lowe-1024×682.jpg
That’s Richard J. Daley’s house. So far as we know, he never even took a bribe – but he still operated the same kind of patronage network that you’re talking about for Putin.
Anti-Putin spin: Putin is vainer than Daley. Pro-Putin spin: the costs were inflated, it was a way to funnel money to a crony.
Now, a question. Isn’t the palace an official residence?
Is it concernably conceivable to review all of Russia’s history calculated as the cost of not having had a Putin?
For example, when Nikita pounded his shoe on the table and said he would bury us, we were the only family for miles who owned a bomb shelter and which silently made us outsiders to our own people.
Am kinda fond of this inverse Napoleon who born at the right time and launched at the flood now stables his own horse of unknown dimensions in the minds of every blustering fool who hates his horseshit-free environnment of watch me but don’t stand in the way.
After almost bankrupting Bavaria by building fantasy castles in the Bavarian alps, they poisoned King Ludwig and called it an accident. The mad king was a bit extravagant, loved Wagner’s music and even financed his very own opera house to perform the most magnificent opera ever created.
A beautiful yet tragic fairytale if ever one existed.
https://ashlijewelers.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/neuschwanstein_castle81.png
The Hearst Castle in California always enters the conversation of grand 5 star hotels. The grounds and interiors are more lavish than what I’ve seen within Putin’s castle.
https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/3c12419efb41c25ba2382ddb67b5a5ee81d69c0e/c=0-133-3000-1828/local/-/media/2015/03/13/USATODAY/USATODAY/635618393311003769-AP-Citizen-Kane-Hearst-Castle.jpg?width=660&height=373&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp
It’s always OK to start a riot in another country , but not in America – lol Navalny , just did what the Burocrats in the US blamed Trump for – and started to impeach him. LOL Russia is not so smart about the CIA infiltration – are they? We will See. Everywhere I go , the CIA is there – Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Cost Rica, Panama, Vietnam, Ukraine, Russia, Moldova, Georgia etc. etc. etc. The MFers are probably even at the South Pole.
But that would be ‘anti-Semitic’ surely?
Karlin seems to be missing the subtext of the Navalny video. It works as propaganda because it fairly subtly paints Putin as stupid and incompetent. Navalny makes sure to point out the fact that the Villa isn’t complete because there were mold problems, the ventilation didn’t work, etc. The outbuildings look kind of shoddy. The amphitheater isn’t done. For all that money, couldn’t Putin have done it right? Even the fact the video exists make Putin seem incompetent. Can’t keep a drone out? Some goofs in a dinghy got close enough to film it?
All the biographical material is also designed to make Putin smaller than life. Every video clip makes Putin look like an inarticulate bureaucrat, the typical annoying little weasel and suck up who makes life difficult for normal Russians. Navalny does a good job reminding people that Putin is really just the continuation of Yeltsin, Sobchak and Chubais, not a Russian patriot. He also beats into your head that Putin is part of a clique, not a true leader.
The video is designed to make the viewer feel intelligent and come away thinking, why does this little corrupt dweeb get to tell me what to do? Who made this badly educated snot from a Leningrad kommunalka Tsar of Russia? It really plays into the snobbism of most educated Muscovites. You don’t have to agree with Navalny to see that it is well done.
The usual tool of communists: envy.
Navalny is trying to arise people discontent using the tool of envy.
It may be all true what is said here, I am not able to check the news therefore I take it as an act of faith.
Do you want to understand why President Putin is revered in Russia and abroad? Simply because he tries to keep the basic principles, the pillars of human society….human beings do not ask too much these days and he understood precisely what people want in these chaotic times.
Maybe he stole the money Navally he talking about, but at least he is trying to preserve human nature, the same does Orban and Erdogan, they are trying to preserve their Nation and their people.
The other politicians steel the money and they have sold their Nation and their people you guess to whom.
Ever watch ‘Grand Design’ the British architecture TV series? One hundred percent ghastly, revolting modernist shit, even down the dismal, tasteless and dreadful renos of previous century buildings. Excruciatingly awful. The show is impossible to watch unless you are a completely uneducated peasant/dickhead, which is, let us face it, most of the British and Western population these days. If the British had good taste once they sure don’t have it now. Imagine what Putin’s Palace would look like if it were built today by a British pollie. Get your vomit bucket out and get ready to chunder.
“Further away we are from WWII Nazis and Germans become more evil and Jews become more heroic exemplars of integrity.”
It’s true. I was amazed by the bizarre, over-the-top portrayal of German soldiers in the recent, well reasonably recent Brad Pitt tank/seige film ‘Fury’. Those Jewish film-makers are really having a good time. Fortunately I watched a pirated copy (not pirated by myself of course) so didn’t have to give the scum any money.
Which might explain why The Ivy League is now The Poison Ivy League and why an A at Harvard today stands for Average.
Navalny, le tueur de cafards (cafards = tchétchènes).
Navalny, the cockroach killer (cockroaches = Chechens).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GGFVOY6_r0
Sorry, the English version has been censored by yt. To proctect whom? Navalny or the Chechens?
More details about the cokroach killer here:
https://www.les-crises.fr/navalny-l-invention-du-principal-opposant-politique/
No it is not an official residence.
Sometimes it seems a struggle within to assess who I detest more – Karlin or Navalny. Both are dishonest parasites living off Western sources of funds.
I think I will call it a draw and be done with it.
Navalny is a most unimpressive individual, a gadfly who hopes to rise by selling out his country to decadent Western interests.
Correct. I am enough familiar with the Russian language and culture to agree with you, JL. Not that I know what is true about Mr Putin, but I find it ugly, calling him Vlad, as ignorant people associate it with an evil creature in Romania.
There are some similarities between Navalny and Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin became known for attacking the privileges of the nomenclature (as the Communist Party boss of Moscow, no less) like their access to special shops, luxury cars (by Soviet standards), special healthcare facilities, nice apartments etc. He was for a time a “star” in Soviet media with this, but finally Gorbachev got him fired for attacking him and his cronies too.
Mais c’est excellent! Il vient tout d’un coup de monter d’un cran sur mon échelle de gens potentiellement respectables. Et il a tout à fait raison : un peuple armé est un peuple libre. Imaginez les Gilets jaunes armés d’AK-47, ça aurait été une toute autre histoire, n’est-ce pas ?
“But on the off chance I am wrong, Russians will only prove themselves morons.”
You would be absolutely right if it turned out that way and there would be no help for the Russians, just as the American simpletons who balk at the notion of compensating the three branches of the United States government adequately leading to the pernicious influence from the likes of the late Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban among others.
We should pay our representatives one million dollars a piece and two million for senators but the chief executive must be paid at least fifteen million dollars per anum if not more to keep out interlopers and the whole shebang would amount to little more than one billion dollars which would be a drop in the bucket to save the nation from the predators.
{“….. the same does Orban and Erdogan, they are trying to preserve their Nation and their people.”}
Erdogan trying to, quote, ‘…..preserve human nature,…’ ?
As far as I know neither Orban nor Hungary have been involved in mass murder and invasions of sovereign countries lately.
Sutan Erdogan is an IslamoFascist dictator, who was instrumental (….together with US, KSA, Israel, UK, France,…..) in training, arming, and sending cannibalistic head-chopper terrorists into Syria, resulting in the deaths of several hundred thousand innocent Syrians.
Orban is a Hungarian Christian nationalist, trying to defend Hungary from GloboSorosization.
Sultan Erdogan is an IslamoFascist head of a genocidal, criminal state.
I would have liked to have you as my Lecturer in University in that I would at least get a pass for handing in a blank paper or worse, one that was sheer nonsense.
Ron Unz is a sadist in that when things get boring on this site he publishes an article by Anatoli. Nothing stirs up the intelligent on this site more than the deep and penetrating analysis this blogger brings to his work.
I have to second Daniel Chieh’s recommendation. Anatoli should diversify into poetry. Perhaps he could re-engineer the rhymes of Humpty Dumpty and Mary had a little Lamb.
The presentation of Navalni’s “investigation” on YouTube has collected millions of comments in no time. A native speaker has noticed that there were the same identical comments that appeared thousands of times under different names. Looks like a computer-generated wave of responses.
We can hardly wait to devour his new works !
There is no such thing as an assimilated Jew. It’s Jews who assimilate other races into theirs. A jew marrying a White woman is an act of war, and gene theft.
“per Navalny’s/MI6 documents”
— And this is how the psychologically-disturbed chap will be remembered — as a willing tool of western intelligence services against the Russian Federation.
Navalny/MI6/CIA
I’m sure many others have realized what I have; although it is rarely put into words. It seems like the columnists here who write about Russia are falling into the idiot binary view that can be expressed as follows: “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. Sometimes this is true. Often times, the enemy of my enemy is an even worse enemy. Just because Russia is clearly not under the thumb of the creeps in Washington dos NOT mean that Russia is the beacon of justice, truth, and freedom. Do not lose sight of the fact that the current (((elites))) are GLOBAL and their original source of influence and power is international finance (greatly expanded by fiat systems). The covid response and vaccine push as carried out by Russia should be an eye opener to anyone who doubts the fact that they are heavily compromised. Remember, Abortion (murdering a baby) has been legal in Russia for most of a century and they had/have some of the highest rates of abortion in the world. It is estimated that well over 100 million babies have been murdered, LEGALLY. The utter evil of this cannot be put into words. I detest the post-christian, perverted west. IS Russia any better? in some ways, perhaps. But at the end of the day, we must not allow ourselves to fall into the idiot binary view that because one group is bad, its (alleged) adversaries are good.
I am not against Putin but now I wonder if some of the criticism of him is valid. He won’t live forever and he does not appear to have built a party with strong convictions and gotten other intelligent Russians involved so that one can take leadership over from him.
As for Brennan, he’s a former communist and murderer. He supports all the wars. What phoniness to claim he is in favor of peace.
Morsels of info from RT: https://www.rt.com/russia/513447-navalny-protest-washington-slam/
It is time to remind the US Embassy staff about what was done to Maria Butina for nothing by the lawless US. The Russian Federation should boot out the American subversives.
What are the odds of Navalny having a political career in Russia? At the minimum, he went out of his way to blacken and insult today’s Russia as it is – I can’t imagine that would be popular with 80-90% of the population. He did it on behalf of people who are not fond of Russia or wish it well – and everyone knows that.
He must know this. He must also know that his electoral prospects are nil – even if he was allowed to compete and given access. Short of a revolution he is done, and revolution is not coming, too soon. That is not a good place to be. He is in theory protected by his sponsors, but that may not amount to much if things get hot. At best he would get exchanged. Or he can quietly slip away after a few years if he is lucky.
Mulatto did his job, now mulatto can go. A single-use politician who is endlessly promoted, celebrated, and then discarded and forgotten, only to be listed on a sad list of names to demonise the enemy. That enemy is his own country, is that really heroism?
Well really, Putin could have done well with a smaller palace, something like Sansoucci or Monplaisir, more than enough to house him and his immediate family, why does it have to be something as opulent as Versailles? I mean Sanssoucci was enough for Frederick the Great, why can not it be enough for someone like Putin? I mean if I were a monarch of Russia, something like Monplaisir will more than suffice as a personal residence, actually even if you cut it by a third, it will still be adequate as a personal residence for a monarch. Of course the official residence to showcase the power of the state to be used by multiple monarchs will have to be larger than a personal residence. How large is Putin’s palace compared to the Grand Trianon?
https://www.quora.com/Why-did-the-western-media-present-Alexei-Navalny-as-the-principal-opponent-to-Putin-Is-he-so-popular-in-Russia
A commenter mentioned this as the reasons that the west likes him.
The street riots thing sounds just like the tactics of Antifa, BLM and the Maiden. Attack police to get arrested and put on a show for “western Zion MSM”. That is what has happened in these recent antics by them.
He is a nationalist like the Maiden. Maiden in power promoted with violence anti-Russian hysteria. This action created a civil war since a large part of Ukraine are Russian speakers.
Navalny, if in power, would do something similar as in Ukraine. Act as a Nationalist of only the Russians in the Russian Federation. Get all the other peoples of the Russian Federation to break away or stir up a civil war.
Within a few years, put in place Zion/USA puppets like Poroshenko and Zelensky. Look at the recent Ukrainegate Impeachment trial, almost everyone supporting Ukrainegate trial was Jewish, even the Ukrainians in this sham trial. .
This is not about bringing down Putin but about dismembering Russia and ending its sovereignty
The easiest proxy here is the 1990s campaign against Milosevic (the campaign) as a tool to dismember Yugoslavia
Russia is too rich, too week and is refusing to surrender, hence it will be divided between and
Absorbed on one side by China and on the other side/s by USA and EUSA
The initial planning for disintegration of Russia was drafted in the NSC directive in 1948
West of Russia to Urals will be absorbed by EU/(Germany)
East of Russia to Yenisei will be controlled by US/(Japan)
China will take over hte greatest price – everything between Urals and Yenisei
Putin with his United Russia/One Russia Party is a major obstacle to the master plan and
will therefore
be eliminated
whether one likes it or not
Weird thing about it is that if Navalny isn’t a threat – why treat him like one?
Why the assassination attempt?
If there was, as claimed, no such thing, why put him in jail?
Why pay any attention to him at all? 80-90% of people revile him right? Act like it then. If he’s truly no threat then treating him like one makes those so treating: clowns.
Mr. Navalny is not particularly bright. However, he needs to provide for his family. It is quite possible that he currently does not have any other choices but to serve the ZUSA. Moreover, his behavior and declarations are not adequate for a psychologically balanced person.
The RF should concentrate on Fifth Column which, just a few years ago, had been cheerleading rather aggressively for the introduction of GMO to Russain agriculture. Some among the Fifth Column are obnoxious fools who “always know better,” others are subversives in need of financial support from western minders.
A connection between Mr. Navalni and Mr. Khodorkovsky is particularly damning.
Mr. Khodorkovsky used to be in charge of the Youth Organization in the Soviet Union; he still has a burning need to be in power and give directives and show directions.
After being a popular dissident for some time, Mr. Khdorkovsky is finally looked upon as a crook and murderer. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-khodorkovsky-arrest/russia-wants-khodorkovsky-arrested-abroad-on-murder-charges-idUSKBN0U60PO20151223.
Mr. Khodorkovsky, a very wealthy Jewish man, is accused of crimes committed during the lawless years of Yeltsin’s regime. By supporting Mr. Navalny and Mr. Khodorskovsky, the western presstituting apparatus reminds the world about the fate of Julian Assange, imprisoned by the western injustice system for honest journalism.
Sounds like a good Talmudic plan.
One hundred and nine countries and more to go.
The ZUSA needs a Russian Majdan, by any means.
In 2014, the US State Dept. brought together Zionists and Banderites, whereas the Jewish State rushed to provide the neo-Nazis with Israeli rifles. The results are glorious: The Kaganat of Nuland (former Ukraine) has become the most corrupt and poorest country in Europe. Mazel Tov, Banderites! Now you have Grossman and Zelinski guiding your lives.
As for the Moscow Fifth Column and its treasonous support for clown Navalny, they are disgusting.
Putin does not control Russia, the zionists control Russia and this is proven by the chemtrail planes that fly over Russia day and night just as in the ZUS and everywhere in the world and in the fact that Russia is going along with the covid-19 hoax, scam and psyop and the genocide vaccinations for a virus that has never been isolated and does not exist.
The world governments are all going along with these 2 diabolical , demonic, draconian agendas of chemtrail spraying in the skies and the covid-19 psyop and the vaccinations for a non existent virus, which are all part of UN Agenda 2030 pushed by the zionists.
The world is under satanic control, and the proof of this is all around us, open your eyes America.
@Seraphim Sorry, slightly off-topic. I am really enjoying your comments. They are insightful and packed – packed – with info. Are you publishing anywhere else, where I could follow you, please? (My website has an email address where I can be contacted.
This article is a delightful apologia for corruption and unaccountable kleptocracy. Well done. Bravo.
Agreed the CIA is not doing the American people’s business when it undermines other nation’s legitimate self-rule, and agreed that a multi-polar world is probably better for everyone than a unipolar procrustean oligarchy – it doesn’t follow from that that we need to run defense on corruption and kleptocracy.
The Russian people deserve more options than twenty more years of Putin, regardless of any positive legitimately in Putin’s corner – or to put it differently – it can only do the Russian people well for Putin to understand that there is real potential for a better, and real potential that his better can replace him. Such things are great motivators for national progress. While he’s a comfortable autocrat Russians will be stuck settling for at best 3rd rate national leadership.
Okay, who?
This is really the same thing when people call for the fall of the CCP. You don’t have to love the CCP to realize that dramatic transition is even worse(civil war, chaos, etc.)
Put Sobyanin in charge. He’s corrupt but very capable. And he truly has the Eurasian looks to convince everyone that Russians are POC.
The Neocons Hate Putin! It is expressed in the depth of inane articles written about him or what he is behind!
Biden’s team is pushing this Navalny thing as the first event of his presidency. Our Zion MSM is lapping up it for Biden. Biden has been a Zion Deep State promoter for wars and coups for decades. This is old hat for him. Our Zion MSM never speaks about his long history of stirring up trouble overseas.
https://www.sott.net/article/447671-Alexei-Navalny-Russia-baiting-Biden-brings-back-business-as-usual
Note all this anti-Russian hysteria within the first few days of the Biden regime. It must have been planned in advanced by Biden’s team. Navalny is only spending “30” days in jail and not jail time for years with no end like Assange.
I suppose I may be naive, but I’ll wager that if Putin stops ruling Russia, before his death, he’ll lose the keys to this palace. I’ll also wager that the next ruler of Russia will get the keys to this palace. In that sense, how is it fundamentally different from the White House? And good luck building the White House today for a mere $1.2 billion.
INB4: The question of whether Putin is or should be a lifetime dictator is a separate matter.
Nice fairytale but it does not have dragon. First off all, the mansion occupies only around 5000 square meters and not 17000 sq.m. as is in the video description. I am using Google Earth Pro and it’s ruler. Secondly, I have not observed any significant change in the mansion, through the years 2014 until 2019. There is only change in the building of the greenhouse. This one has been rebuild from the beginning, and it is very obvious in Google Earth. And last but not least. All the photographs off the inside of the mansion, and the furniture, they are all computer generated. They are “visualisations” and not good ones.
“and real potential that his better can replace him.”
— “SimplePseudonymicHandle,” do you really believe that the US (UK, EU) are ruled and guided by their respective governments? Tell us how independent these governments are from Financial Squid and mega war-profiteers.
Miserable Australia has abandoned her great son Julian Assange. Why? Or you seriously believe that The Friends of Israel in the UK, and the Jewish Lobby in the US, had no influence on the initiation of “‘humanitarian interventions” in Iraq, Libya, and Syria? Perhaps you are even not aware of the power of FedReserve and the CIA/Mossad?
And, excuse me, whom do you count as a 1st rate “national leadership?” Knesset & Bibi? Or perhaps you are in awe of Biden & US Congress’ wisdom? Last time the 1st rate “national leadership” of the US succeed by running the democracy on the march, the affected country has become the most corrupt and poorest country in Europe.
In short, it seems that the Russians en masse do not like Navalny the clown and they understand pretty well that Navalny is an agent of malicious foreign influence. Russians still remember the Harvard Boys and their 1st rate leadership in looting the country.
Whether you wanted it or not, your post sounded like cheerleading for a color revolution in Russia.
You may want to read post #129 to get an informed opinion on western cannibals’ treatment of Russia.
the real point of this ridiculous “palace” commercial is if thats all these shills can come up with to discredit Putin, they are actually making a perfect case for him! And proving their own CIA origins as this fits their nauseatingly repeated script. What complete morons, void of any and all originality or pride. While Putin is far from perfect, being way too patient and infatuated still with the Zio- and Anglonazis abroad and not having eradicated the fifth column at home, he Did save Russia from complete takeover by the hyenas and remade it a sovereign entity prefectly capable of defending itself and ensuring its survival for the time being. I personally doubt he would bother wasting his time with that sort of infantile pettyness, that seem rather a kind of projection of the hungry hyenas themselves. That palace that really interests him, is the fortitude and resilience of his country as a whole and the people he chooses to materialise this vision.
Totally agree. Meaningless blabber.
Anna,
I will ask you a simple question:
If you are standing in front of a firing squad, what is your best chance of survival?
A. Engage with the squad in a futile dispute about the legality and origins of their firing orders (talmud, bible, communist manifesto etc.)
B. Attacking the squad and turning their (and your own) arms against them?
My point is that most people, incl. Russians and Finns, don’t realize that for RF it is 1 minute before midnight, it is JUNE 21, 1941, and you are already facing the firing squad, but you are blind to that and are still calling them (your firing squad) “partners”…
Is that stupidity, naivety or just idiotic Brezhnev optimism?
What has this hogwash to do with anything?Why would Putin need or want such a thing,just for display?
Because they need good relations with United States. The government being anti-Assange is good for the Australian people. It’s immoral, hypocritical and so on but still true.
Disagree. This is an FSB prophilactorium. They used to have one in Khosta. I was surprised the first time I came across it. Most professional groups and factories used to have one. Most private businesses have sold them off. The FSB did not. They have upgraded from Khosta, at least for the elite. Putin, as a former FSB agent is indeed entitled to go there.
At other times, there have been accusations of a palace for Putin in Sochi, other than the official presidential one, one near St Petersburg, one in Switzerland. As anyone who follows his schedule knows, he has little time to use them himself.
FSB as Navalny says, not Putin. John Helmer did a piece on the present building a few years ago. The associated fishing grounds are quite rich.
No. Normal people (ok, sane ones) would not trade place with such exposed members of the elites. It takes a certain measure of mental illness to push that hard.
Young female FSB employees pole dance and air dance. I have seen it. It is treated as a branch of gymnastics.
He isn’t bright, I agree, but he should some self-preservation instinct. He has ended up in a cul-de-sac and the $ from his sponsors are of little use in his current situation.
I find the Western coverage of this affair absurdly propagandistic. A few things are never mentioned:
– what was Navalny convicted off – fraud
– that he is not by any stretch of imagination the “opposition” leader – his party has not reached even 5% required to be represented in the parliament
There is also an omission of why Russia claims “interference” – because US Embassy published the routes for the demos. And many of the demonstrators are paid one way on another by the West – if the situation was reversed, liberals would call for a war (as they basically did with Trump’s allegations).
Assange for Navalny would be a win-win.
Let me ask you something. Do you have any idea how it feels to be in Putin’s shoes now?
If you attack first, it will lead to nuclear exchange.
If they attack first, it will lead to nuclear exchange also.
Case #2 is self defense.
Case #1 is not, no matter how much you try to rationalize it by saying it’s already June 21, 1941.
My question is: are you ready to press the “red button”? Are you ready to press it in case #1? Case #2?
I bet you have no idea. Neither do I.
“in favor of peace. ” what,you mean “imagine” the John Lennon song?…….the most evil thing ever written …..would have to kill 70% of the world’s population to achieve…….yeah, Brennan would be cool with that.
I stopped right there…after 10-15 seconds…’ Poisoned…our rights…’…yeah, man, I saw that before…and not once, or twice ! I was born there, in Eastern-Europe, and I was in one of the 10 ( at the time ) universities/colleges in one of the Eastern-European capitals ( ’86-’91 ). I was responsible for strikes BEFORE and after ’89 ( collapse of the Communism ). In Jan. ’90 I was elected as the head of the ( Anti-Communist ) Students League at my faculty/specialty and in the fall, of the entire college ( around 3000 students – 5 faculty/specialty ). Our movement was penetrated from 2 directions: one, from the former structures side ( commies, secret police., etc. ), and the other one, from outside ( the so-called freedom organizations, which didn’t gave a sh.t about our interests, freedom, liberty, etc., but to use us like those ‘ useful idiots ‘ after fall of 1917…)…I have a question: WHERE was this big-mouth Navalny & Co. under Yeltsin years, when Russia was looted of $ 500 to $ 1000 billions by the international mafia, in ‘ tandem ‘ with the ‘ insiders ‘ ( Jewish oligarchs )…?!…Some may say that he was too young ( born in ’76 ), but others where like him – like myself ( ten years older than him )…that didn’t stop me to express my opposition, regarding what was happening at that college/university and around…city and the entire country. This guy, Navalny ( like many others ) is Judas goat ( or what the Romanians call ‘ coada the topor ‘ – ax handle )…IF the Russians are going to believe/follow this opportunist/chameleon, they will pay a heavy price…like under Yeltsin years, or worst ! For those interested, I recommend ‘ The Shock Doctrine – The Rise of Disaster Capitalism ‘, by Naomi Klein ( reading this book, I understood what really was behind ‘ shock therapy ‘ in the former Communist Countries – a scam to loot those countries and make them colonies in the Neo-feudal Plantation, like Mike Hudson is demonstrating in his books ). Fock Navalny and those who promote traitors like him !
Is John Brennan in Gitmo yet? No peace with Bide because serves the global warmongers. You Biden supporters have been conned, scammed, deceived, hoodwinked, razzle dazzled, hornswoggled, slo rolled, etc.
It’s a hitman article…keep the sheeple/cattle on line…Propaganda at it’s finest…I remember when Ceausescu was removed by a putsch/coup d’etat…the mass-media was showing the villas with golden sinks and toilets and…,to the Nation/people ( in order to make them angry and to justify the illegal act – his execution, with his wife, in the Christmas day )…
ZUSA needs Russia’s natural resources, to keep the Global Ponzi scheme on…Globalism ‘ good ‘, nationalism ‘ baaaad ‘…Like the unemployment – the Zionist propaganda is repeating 24/7 that is a ‘ necessity ‘…without saying for…WHOM ?!…
To answer your very personal question/s:
I have a very clear idea
I regret not being in Putin’s shoes right now, because,
Indeed, I have a very clear idea of what has to be done
What buttons should be pressed, on what systems and in what sequence
Alas, the will and ability to act with determination are rarely rewarded with access to power
Another interesting theory. Thanks.
This Navalny reminds me of the Democrats accusing people of what they themselves do.
RT “….investigators suspect that in 2007 Navalny’s advertising agency Allect signed a contract with the SPS and received 100 million roubles (about $3.1 million) as payment for promoting the party in the campaign. However, according to investigators all the money was transferred to dummy company accounts and stolen. The criminal case into the alleged scam was started in 2012 as police investigated Navalny’s other activities that have so far resulted in four criminal cases and one five-year suspended sentence.
Alexei Navalny is currently under house arrest linked to a case in which he allegedly coerced a major cosmetics company to use his firm as a subcontractor for transport services at inflated prices while all the work was done by the state corporation Russian Post. Navalny’s brother, who had a senior manager position in Russian Post at that time, is also a suspect in the case.
The opposition blogger claims that all the charges against him are bogus and that the authorities are attempting to take revenge for his uncompromising fight against corruption. In earlier comments on the Allect affair, he said he only received five percent of the money as an agent’s fee and presented the full report on the ad campaign to the Central Elections Committee that found nothing wrong.
The Russian police also confiscated a piece of art in Navalny’s home because it was stolen. “Russian media outlets say the piece of art seized from Navalny’s apartment had been allegedly stolen from a street art gallery in the central Russian city of Vladimir and the artist, Sergey Sotov, filed an official complaint at a local police station on Thursday.
Were’nt both Nixon and Johnson Wasp? Furthermore, before them there had been Warren Harding, who was Afro-American. But, indeed, Fursov claims that after Nixon began the shifting of power off the East coast (Carter from GA, Reagan from CA, the Bushes from TX, Clinton from AR, Obama from IL), what flowed back with Trump from NY and kept with Biden, from DE.
Some put it at US $ 1.8 billion. That helped the West to postpone the economic crisis thst was already apparent by the end 80ies until 2001. Around 15 million population losses in RusFed.
A question, Mr. Karlin: did you read Alex Krainer’s book ” The Killing of William Browder: Deconstructing Bill Browder’s Dangerous Deception “…? If yes, what’s your opinion ( considering the huge implications for Russia, E.U., USA and the rest of the World, more or less )…if not…how come you did NOT read it ( as a Russian ‘ expert /politolog-ue/etc ‘…)?!…I have/read ( it ) the book, but I noticed that there is another one ( by the same author ), with the title ” Grand Deception: The Truth About Bill Browder, Magnitsky Act and Anti-Russian Sanctions “…Is the same book ? When will you post your opinion about what Alex Krainer said about Magnitski affair/death and the lies of bill Browder ?! Not holding my breath, but…PS: for the readers: the book(S) are hard to find and expensive…ask yourselves WHY…?! Like Solzhenitsyn’s ” Two Hundred Years Together ” – The Russians and the Jews…the only book of the author of the ‘ Gulag ‘, which for a very long time, wasn’t translated in English ( a have read the Romanian version )…what’s your opinion on that, Mr. Karlin ?!
Father,
Your appreciation of my modest contributions is a reward for my endeavors. I am not surprised, we belong to the same spiritual sphere and ‘speak the same language’ after all. I am happier when my messages reach people outside, however few and stir them to approach Orthodoxy.
But God willing, I will contact you. Doamne ajută!
You meant 1,8 Trillion ( with T )…or 1,800 billion…right ? My numbers are from Naomi Klein book ( ‘ The Shock Doctrine ‘ )…if my memory serves me correctly, after more than 10 years since I have read it…And you are right: that gave the West more…’ oxygen ‘ for their ‘ swamp ‘ ( and was a genocide for the Russian Nation, under drunkard Yeltsin )…Hope the Russians never forget that !
Whenever I see foreigners(to me) act like dumb shit Americans I have to question humanity as a whole.
It bears repeating that the real reason why the (((US))) hates Russia is not the Cold War but rather the fact Stalin got the better of (((Trotsky))). It is an amply documented fact that (((neocons))) are old Trotskyites, by descent if not in actuality, and neocons control the foreign policy establishment in Washington. If left to its own devices, the WASP establishment would have made their peace with Russia by now in order to focus on profitable little wars with less dangerous adversaries, but they take the lead of their (((lords))). The US will never accept a Russia free from (((democratic))) rule.
If your Q is of honest nature, the polite manners of “partners” kind have been an attempt to win some more time for Russia’s recovery while offering more time for the ZUSA self-destruction.
You are correct that the psychopathic ZUSA is a lost and mortally dangerous cause.
“American Dystopia – The Propaganda Mask and the Utopia Syndrome” by Larry Romanoff, https://thesaker.is/american-dystopia-the-propaganda-mask-and-the-utopia-syndrome/
My apologies for the long quote:
And finally this:
“The government being anti-Assange is good for the Australian people.”
— Why? What is so special about the rotten empire that the Aussi government needs to behave not just dishonorable but treasonous towards Australian citizens?
{“but you are blind to that and are still calling them (your firing squad) “partners”…”}
{“Is that stupidity, naivety or just idiotic Brezhnev optimism?”}
It is neither stupidity nor any kind of optimism.
The one-and-only Paul Craig Roberts also rails against the use of the term <partners' by Putin, Lavrov, et. al. and think Putin is hopelessly naive.
Not being of Russian ancestry and with what little I know about Russia and Putin & Co., yet it is quite obvious to me that Putin does not consider the GloboWest any kind of a partner. If you doubt that, then go back and listen to his speech of a couple years ago, when he ‘unveiled’ a plethora of new weapons. Some of those weapons he said can travel around the globe undetected and strike any enemy of Russia. Now which countries would those be?
So why does he keep using the term “partners”?
Obvious, isn’t it? Just imagine the hysteria US presstitudes will whip up if Russia called US its “mortal enemy”. Putin knows GloboWest is Russia’s mortal enemy, prepares and is prepared for war. But Russians by nature don’t go looking for war, unlike Anglo-Saxons (…Germans, Anglo-Americans, etc). So why throw gasoline on the fire? Putin & Co. know rulers in D.C. are not very stable (i.e. insane) and have no concept of what actual war is. The last thing he wants to do is stoke the anti-Russian hysteria that is already a State-Religion in D.C. by calling them “enemies”.
I think Putin & Co have no illusions, and are doing the right thing by calling the warmongers “partners”. Wink, wink.
Agree. Once I heard a theory that the higher up the elites’ ladder you go, the more likely you are to find psychopathic degenerates up there. The elites can get away with behavior which is prohibited for normal people.
Yeah. They are keeping the money inside. Remember that guy who owned the Cherkizovsky market ? He built some palace in Turkey. Putin whooped his a**
To Russia from America Bat Babylon. Namaste.
Good comments all. Research “economic hitman”. A favorite weapon of the West. That, plus obvious psyops,which this is. Putin’s adventure with the hajj stampede (2015) and a ancient artifact was much more interesting. As always, Russia is about her people. Who,like the land, endure thru the ages.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M3MXYIwVuD4
True. This castle is absolutely indecent. I hate these despots wasting taxpayer money and ruining their country with their unrestricted spending.
And how could he love Wagner, the NAZI composer?
I am glad that our democratically elected politicians spend our money more thoughtfully, for the benefit of the greatest number, hearing rap music.
Look how many buildings of this HLM-type could have been constructed in Bavaria with the money wasted on Neuschwanstein:
https://image.slidesharecdn.com/hlm-chine-090526023527-phpapp02/95/hlm-chine-4-728.jpg?cb=1243305385
I forgive him all. The man loves dogs.
https://youtu.be/3pZBy7ifzF8
The ‘neo-cons’ are after vengence. ‘Russia delenda est’.
Maybe has to do with podvodnaya lodka base since now more trouble with Ukraine. Still bad problem getting through Dardanelles and Bosphorus Da? Or maybe new Mossad Base?
https://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/infopage/blacksea.htm
or cover for super computer data collection and storage like US and China uses to map all their citizens?
Putin in the only non coward white male on the world stage.
And he loves dogs
https://youtu.be/HeS3Eq4e8Qs
Anatoly, would you mind giving Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore a comparison and contrast?
Yew introduced very high salaries to Singapore government officials. How much has the high salaries mitigated some of the effects you have noticed elsewhere?
It would be interesting if you have even some minor thoughts on this.
Thanks!
Russian state media are pointing to mudroom controversy as evidence that this “investigative report” was originally done in English, and then fed to Navalny’s team, who translated it sloppily. I’m inclined to agree. It seems Navalny’s reputation as investigative journalist is overblown.
Lol but should be “LondOna”
Btw when I saw rich people’s yachts, I generally didn’t feel jealous, probably as I am too much of a middle class office worker to understand what I would be doing in my life with a megayacht.
On the other hand, I am jealous about the simple London house like this oligarch Altushkin’s.
It is like a traditional family house from a 19th century English novel. Except today it costs at least $40 million, and it seems like the top floor was modified in a bit of an unhistorical way. But the general architecture of these white “Italianate” style of English houses is cool.
Here Altushkin house on google. This what polluting the air of Ekaterinburg has bought
https://www.google.ru/maps/@51.5047054,-0.2081988,3a,37.5y,19.03h,103.42t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s7hG7D41DOiTYBHpCMHBIrQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
How could one not love Ludwig? He was so progressive for his time! So misunderstood! He was ‘gay’. He loved Wagner, the ‘adored one for whom alone I live, with whom I die’, not his music. Wagner himself was an enthusiast of ”the love of comrades in Sparta” and apparently he was happy when he was ”in your angelic arms! We are near to one another.” Wagner knew how to profit from that great love.
“— Why? What is so special about the rotten empire that the Aussi government needs to behave not just dishonorable but treasonous towards Australian citizens?”
You are talking about ideals, but he’s talking about a practice that has a very long history: that of a minor player immersed in an Asian world needing the backing of a major power (first the British Empire, then the American). This was conceived as a trade off of one kind of sovereignty in order to exercise another. This underpins Australian foreign policy and is as tyrannical as that existing in say the Warsaw Pact, where minor powers were subordinate to greater power, or else invasion was the result.
Many have raised the issue that nations, at least in the ultimate event, act in their own interests, which may make them drop formal or implicit alliances. But the policy continues.
Whether it’s appropriate to bend to the ‘Anglo-Americans’ on the Assange issue is another matter. It encapsulates critical elements of security that are very fundamental to the alliance.
“Abrau-Durso” had to go to the Palace
Boris Titov bought the vineyards of the sanatorium, which was considered the dacha of the Prime Minister
The newspaper “Kommersant” №121 from 06.07.2011, p. 1
As Kommersant found out, Boris Titov’s Abrau-Durso champagne house is buying vineyards and a winery under construction near Gelendzhik from businessman Alexander Ponomarenko. This is part of an elite hotel complex that has become known as “Putin’s Palace”. The new owner promises not to speculate on this: local wines will be produced under the Abrau brand.
Titov and Ponomarenko confirmed to Kommersant that the deal will close after approval by the Federal Antimonopoly service. Boris Titov’s SVL Group has signed an agreement with the structures of Alexander Ponomarenko on the acquisition of 100% of OOO “SVL”.Azure berry”. The company owns 27 hectares of vineyards, 33 hectares of agricultural land and the right to lease 160 hectares of settlement land, where a winery and a wine tasting Chateau are being built.
She was a colleague of mine for a brief spell about twenty years ago, dumb as nails. She’d prattle on endlessly about Jewish conspiracies, which is fine if you’re commenting at Unz, but probably not such a good idea when most of the people determining your compensation are members of the tribe.
Mandela was a certified terrorist
So Sobyanin is the ruthless, nationalistic leader you’re looking for? How out of touch can you possibly be? The guy, while a very competent functionary, has all the charisma of a rock. He’d be swept aside in no time if he ever came to power. The role of PM would be much more appropriate.
These guys all envy the Sun King & Versailles.
I blogged/tweeted about it occasionally. Singapore’s system works and is fair and rational – but in practice, I think almost all countries are too demotist/populist to pull that off.
I would be curious to know what political system would Mr. Karlin like to see in Russia. Something like the US, UK, Germany, Saudi Arabia, or Russia under Yeltsin? Every country in the world is a plutocracy run by plutocrats on behalf of plutocrats. Elections are a charade that would be cancelled the minute the plutocrats would think they might bring about a meaningful change harmful to them.
The value of strongmen such as Putin and Xi is that they have the means and the balls to stand up to the Western plutocrats. Without the them, the power of the “exceptional” Western plutocrats over the world would be absolute, and we know what absolute power means. Putin and Xi provide and alternative to the Western hegemony. It might not be a perfect alternative, but it is better than none.
The only real issue the Western plutocrats have with Putin is that he, unlike the royals in Saudi Arabia or the Russian oligarchs or 1990s, refuses to sell the natural wealth of Russia to them at the price they want.
The reign of Mecha-Karlin, first of his name.
“It encapsulates critical elements of security that are very fundamental to the alliance.”
— Yes, it’s realpolitik.
But then this is a big-time for Australians, west-Europeans, and specifically for British to ferme-la re human rights and other ‘western values.’
The ongoing story of ‘poisoned’ Mr. Navalny is educational for the sloppy western propagandists because, as a result of their efforts, the name Julian Assange not only surfaced again but became a proper weapon against perfidious opportunists of the financial/war-profiteering persuasion.
Mr. Navalny and his western minders have achieved a feat of exposing the Fifth Column in Russia. Amazing.
In the British system they used to be in the House of Lords where they were subject to public scrutiny in exchange for the vanity of a title. This seemed to me to be a good idea. Reforming the Lord’s has done away with this. It is now neither the meeting place of the oligarchy nor a palace of democracy. Yet worse, it is not even rationally organized as a place of experts.
Every nation should have a place like the pre WW1 Lords where the oligarchy can be put on view.
You were joking?
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQJkNCGoc-Z_CMlekUFXIUNxs_WeeUyuzz14w&usqp.jpg
That’s right. The State needs symbols projecting power and stability. Apparently people cannot wrap their minds around the fact that Russia is a state (and a state with a thousand years history, at that) and not an anarchist commune or a Cossack stanitsa (or a ‘petrol station’!).
Lol you story really sounds like Louise Mensch – the same genre of weird, but effectively self-promoting, gold-digging histrionic English women.
She had also succeeded to have a personal television series about horses on the BBC named after her:
“In 2008, she spent a month filming “Horse People with Alexandra Tolstoy”, a BBC Television series in which she visited five different communities working with horses around the world. ”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Tolstoy
And that is before she even seduced an oligarch, while being just an English teacher for children.
Well there is a “cool Obama” marketing value of the POC politicians, but underneath the packaging what do we get with Shoigu.
In Soviet times, both his parents were high level officials in Tuvan People’s Republic, and other than that not necessarily meritocratic correlation, I guess his career highlight was managing the response to the Neftegorsk earthquake, when more than 50% of a city’s population was killed due to past incompetence, and many survivors died from cold.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu-vRyc8mFE
Doamne ajută!
Nixon and Johnson were both WASPS as were their wives. There are plenty of WASPS west of the Mississippi. Nixon raised Quaker. Johnson Church of God I believe.
Are you sure that Shoigus mother is Jewish and not Russian? If so then Shoigu is a legitimate Jew according to the Halakha.
Russian Wikipedia says that her mother has Ukrainian roots, still her mothers patronymic Яковлевна is somewhat suspicious to me.
As an Englishman you should not be so historically illiterate.
After the Protestant movement against the Roman Church started, two factions or streams arose among those who did not accept the Popes primacy over the Church. The Lutherans, who were more balanced and retained lots of Catholic traditions and ecclesiastical infrastructure and hierarchy, and the Reformed/Calvinists, who wanted to rid the Church from all those things that they thought to be later Catholic inventions and purify Church back to its imagined original state.
Germans and Scandinavians chose Lutheranism, and Dutch, Swiss and Scots chose Calvinism.
Historically Church of England had more Reform/Calvinist minded Low Church faction and more compromise minded High Church faction.
Both Calvinists and Lutherans believed that the Church was in need of reformation, but Lutherans thought that Calvinists were too radical.
Both were wrong and full of pride, they should have joined to the one true Church, but the Orthodox were politically extremely weak in the early 16th century outside of Russia. What if the Byzantine Empire had survived till the reformation and protestants would have gone there to consult Eastern patriarchs? Maybe, after some debate, they would have accepted Lutheran churches to their fold? Interesting scenario to ponder.
The Russian Orthodox Church and the Anglican Church have full communion IIRC?
When Ivan IV was in close communication with the Queen Elizabeth it was in part because both religious traditions were seen as fully compatible.
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/and-russia-love-8498565.html
Also, Peter the Great used the English template to place the Church firmly under state control.
They have never been in communion with each other, there were some talks long time ago, but then the Anglicans drifted far away in their theoria and praxis.
There was some dialogue between Lutherans and Patriarch of Constantinople, but its understandable if the Lutherans didnt see Orthodoxy, under a Turkish yoke, very attractive. You know weak horse and all that, but imagine if there wouldve been a Roman emperor waiting them?
I thought that Peter I just imitated the Lutheran model of the relations between the church and state. Quite easy, especially after annexation of the Baltic governorates, where he could find a ready made template for such policy. Yes few people know this, but there was a time when Russian emperor was the head of Baltic and Finnish Lutheran churches, previously the head of their churches was the king of Sweden.
Thanks for the Shoigu information. For some reason I have always thought that there’s something superficial or fake in his religiosity. Still its good that he is only квартерон.
Sorry but what is СиП? I tried to look сип журнал and газета but didnt find anything.
By the way have you heard about Andrey Kuraev and his claims that there exists a gay lobby in the Russian Orthodox church? Is there any truth in his statements?
Even if Kuraev is wrong, it seems to me that the Orthodox Church has lost its historical chance, after the fall of the USSR, to redeem itself and to return to its roots, I have so many Russian and Ukrainian acquaintances who say that they have lost faith in the church after witnessing corruption among priests or hearing about it. It sadly seems that the Church is on fast track in becoming just another soulless institution of state in Russia, still its a better course than the betrayal of Orthodoxy, which is the current course of the Greek churches under the American hegemony.
Maybe Orthodoxys peak in the modern Russia was in the late 90s and early 2000s? You know the genuine faith and religiosity among the people and not just endless building of churches.
СиП is Sputnik & Pogrom.
https://sputnikipogrom.com/
It was an excellent Russian nationalist website which published several dozen great articles until it was put down due to Russian state censorship. That’s where one of the articles about Shoigu comes from.
https://sputnikipogrom.com/people/17051/sergey-shoigu/
About the Church, its decline was gradual and took many centuries since the Raskol. It accelerated after 1917 and was not reversed after the fall of the USSR. The current Russian Orthodox Patriarchy is as much a simulacrum as the current Latin Catholic Papacy.
I have a personal story about the way I came to this understanding in 1996 before our family emigration to the West. It was one of the reasons that made me lose faith in the possibility of Russian revival and uselessness of trying to stay in Russia and fight against Yeltsin’s regime in any manner.
If I would have stayed behind, while my parents emigrated with my younger brother, perhaps I would have ended Tesak’s way. Perhaps one day I will share how I suddenly understood in a matter of a single morning that Holy Rus is most probably dead and buried. But probably I would not write about it, it’s too personal and subjective.
For finding true Orthodox Faith and spirit, one probably might look into the Old Believer communities. As one of them once told: “You know these Gaidar and Chubais types, 400 years we are fighting against them.”
You’re begging the most important question here, mostly because you’re not even asking it. The question to ask is, “Is God pleased with what Putin is doing?”
You know what? First it was just a joke to me, that the Russians are POC, but now Im really warming up to the idea.
History of slave raids, trade and serfdom. A history of nordic or germanic elite. Being constantly seen as “the other,” in the western societies, not seen as people, but as caricatures and villains, and so and so on. Even the Anglo stereotypes about the Asian and Slavic women are somewhat similar, traditional and feminine etc.
Define God please.
Read about the Bell Beaker and Corded Ware culture interacting. It started there more than 5000 years ago (if we believe modern chronology and archeological interpretation). And the saddest part is that I am not even joking about it…
I just dont get your admiration of starovery. They were extremely susceptible to factionalism and splintering, like hard core evangelical wackos of America. Most of them drifted radically away from the true Orthodox tradition, and made all kind of silly inventions. Yes those of Belokrinitsa hierarchy hierarchy were an exception.
Sorry to say this, but I believe that you are just trying to rationalise your decisions to your heart.
The rational and benevolent person who created the world we live in (see kalam cosmological argument). The benevolent side of the Schelligian coin that is never overflown by the irrational, dark ground (which can happen with humans) and whose desires can be ascertained by studying the natural ends of our faculties and reaching the proper conclusions with our logical apparatus. Aristotle and the medieval Scholastics came very close to a proper systematic moral system and only require a few adjustments here and there.
Creator of all?
No, creator of time and space.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Zurvan
https://www.crystalinks.com/zurvan.jpg
That’s what you are referring to?
Infidel! He is clearly referring to Abraxas!
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/da/31/e0/da31e095323b55c39bfca12a77b057ca.jpg
“The first principle, cause and archetype”
LOL
High five Altan!
I was getting there. It’s the same Archetype: Zurvan, Abraxas, Leontocephalus, Aeon, Yaldabaoth and Mara in our Dharma (I know you will probably disagree with this last part).
Poor theists, I often feel sad for them…
LOL
Well, can you expand on that? Have you examined the theistic proofs and found all of them lacking in some way?
As for myself, I find the kalam one the most convincing, mostly due to the absurd consequences of assuming time to be fast-infinite and the equally absurd notion that time could somehow arise without an ordering intelligence.
Aquinas’ Fifth Way is quite convincing as well. That the world we live in is absolutely overflowing with teleology is patently obvious as is the fact that it ultimately depends on an external intelligence guiding it towards its ends.
It’s an interesting observation, but H.W. Bush at least was a Northeasterner through and through. The Bushes have deep roots in the Northeast, and at Yale, and were Episcopalians, not Baptists.
H.W. just had an opportunity to make money in TX as a young man while escaping somewhat (but not too far) from his family’s Wall Street shadow. But his primary residence was really only in TX from his mid 20s to early 40s, living in DC thereafter until he was an old man, though he did retire primarily to Houston.
You silly man, Mara is not Brahma. Brahma is good god above (common)gods and probably Christ himself.
But there are different Maras… Or different definitions…
I knew it that you would start arguing about it. Nevermind, it’s not that important. More important is me “officialy” taking Refuge at last. That’s a reply to your comment on the other thread.
I will do it as soon as I can. I have found a teacher who lives not so far from my place and has a good understanding of Bodhidhama’s Treatise. He looks pretty solid. He belongs to a Korean Zen school and has been a monastic for more than twenty years.
Make sure that he belongs to the authentic Korean lineage and not in the fake Japanese one. Once again we must thanks Japs for spoiling Buddhism and spreading their heresy. Japan is the major reason why Buddhism is nowadays losing in Korea to the evangelical Christianity.
Before Japanese colonised Korea, there was one mostly unified school of Buddhism in Korea, but then when the Japs came, they tried to impose their highly heretical form of Buddhism over Koreans, and because of that there was a great schism among Korean Buddhism, which continues to this day. Because of that schism there was lots of political infighting among Korean Buddhists in 50s to 80s, which even sometimes led to violence, all this tarnished Buddhisms prestige among Koreans, and made that country ripe for Christian evangelization. All thanks to fucking 倭 dwarf barbarian monkey Japs!
If your Korean monk is not celibate, then he is not a monk, but a filthy impostor and traitor!
I believe he is celibate. Anyway, I will inform you as soon as I get to meet him. If I don’t feel comfortable about him, I will look for somebody else.
At a cursory glance it seems to me that Jogye order and Seontae school are authentic Korean Buddhist traditions, the rest seem to be heretical, but Im not 100% sure.
I get it where you are coming, but from Dharmic point of view those who lack moral-ethical framework are truly pitiful. At least when theists are under a strong state of suffering or dying, they can ask help, or have some kind of guiding light, no matter if that help is just a figment of their imagination, as the cats colour doesnt matter as long as it catches the mice, so too it doesnt matter if help comes outside of our mind or internally from our psyche. Help is help, releasing of stress is releasing of stress, better that it comes from our imagination and not from antidepressants. Dont you agree?
Lutherans did try to ‘consult’ the Orthodox Church. With the typical German self-confidence, so well described by Tolstoy: “[a German is] self-confident to the point of martyrdom as only Germans are, because only Germans are self-confident on the basis of an abstract notion- science, that is, the supposed knowledge of absolute truth… The German’s self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more repulsive than any other, because he imagines that he knows the truth- science- which he himself has invented but which is for him the absolute truth”.
Luther assumed that the ‘Greek Church’ should support his arguments with Papacy, ‘defending’ the Greek Church against the ‘calumnies’ that it lost the Christian faith after the fall of Constantinople. He assumed and expected that the Eastern churches had retained, without abuse or deviation, the ancient Christian faith as he decided that it should have been. His disciples redoubled his efforts and in 1570 they sent a batch of ‘professors’ armed with the ‘Confession of Augsburg’ to the Patriarch Jeremias.
The Patriarch responded with true Christian love, politely but firmly pointing out all the deviations from the Faith and distortions of Church practice, urging them to follow the Holy Synods, which really infuriated the learned professors who could not abstain to insolently remonstrate with the Patriarch: ‘It is apparent to us… that you have greater regard for the traditions of the Church which you have received by succession, from hand to hand; and nothing of all that you have inherited from your fathers do you willingly concede…. [S]uch traditions and ethos in the Church… which we understand were in use even at the time of the Apostles in the Early Church… we do not reject at all, but we gladly practice them if indeed they are useful to the needs of our time’.
After that the Patriarch wrote to the ‘most wise German men’:
”Therefore, we request that from henceforth you do not cause us more grief, nor write to us on the same subject if you should wish to treat these luminaries and theologians of the Church in a different manner. You honor and exalt them in words, but you reject them in deeds. For you try to prove our weapons which are their holy and divine discourses as unsuitable. And it is with these documents that we would have to write and contradict you. Thus, as for you, please release us from these cares. Therefore, going about your own ways, write no longer concerning dogmas; but if you do, write only for friendship’s sake. Farewell”.
In no way would the Orthodox Church have accepted the unrepentant Lutheran ‘parasynagogues’ to its fold. It is not a scenario to ponder. The Orthodox who would fall for that, cease to be Orthodox.
I completely agree. Many people in my family are strongly religious and I never contradict their convictions. Quite the opposite.
Did you read my comment 199#?
In the West it was a common belief that the Turkish yoke, was a sign of divine punishment, you know because westerners assumed that the Greeks were schismatic or heretical.
So if the Byzantine Empire would have survived, they could still claim that they are under the protection of divine providence, and the negotiations with Lutherans would have been made from the position of strength, and not as quasi slaves of the Muslim Sultans. That was what I truly pondered. You know Roman emperor could have offered them similar option as the one offered to the Bulgars long time ago during the early Middle Ages. The Lutherans of the early 16th century were quite dynamic and not fully formed, which changed in the end of the 16th century.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutheran_orthodoxy
Also the dialogue between the Reformed church leaders of the west and Orthodox continued much longer than you think.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_Lucaris
Probably the same Jeremiah who affirmed the autocephaly and patriarchal status of the Russian church?
Sorry I meant Cheontae.
Yes, he is the same Jeremiah.
Cyril Lucaris had to contend with the more dynamic and aggressive form of Reformation: Calvinism. How serious the problem was is illustrated by the fact that his alleged “Eastern Confession of the Christian Faith” has been condemned by five successive Councils (1638, 1639, 1641-in Constantinople 1642- in Jassy and 1672 in Jerusalem, which while condemning the Confession, exonerated Cyril).
Without entering into a discussion that would be too long, one conclusion is that the Confession was a fabrication of the Calvinists (it appeared the first time in Geneva in 1629, in Latin, under the title ‘Confessio Fidei Reverendissimi Domini Cyrilli, Patriarchae Constantinopolitani’ and after two years in Constantinople) as missionary propaganda, or (most likely) of the Jesuits, his sworn enemies, with the intention to compromise the Patriarch depicting him as a Protestant (and the Orthodox Church as well) and create confusion in the ranks of the Orthodox flock of Poland and Russia by reason of the claims that the Eastern Church had turned Calvinist (a talking point in the Uniatist propaganda of the Jesuits). On the other hand there are strong evidences that Cyril did indeed wrote it.
In any case, we cannot speak of a dialogue. It was always the Protestant initiative to sway Orthodoxy to join the Reform by all means (Lutherans by disputation, Calvinists by subversion). All in all Orthodoxy resisted and fend off the attacks.
Sometimes its imagination, but Bashibuzuk the Christ is more real than any of us in this site. If something has an effect in our reality, then such thing has some kind of tangible existence. What other existence there is? Things which interact – exist!
…. On some level….
Which level?
What is level?
On level that they have tangible results and effects, just like in the experimental physics particle exists if it interacts with something.
Finally we have a commenter here who is a real Orthodox Christian, and not a heretic and/or schismatic! Am I right?
From my point of view Jesus Christ is a Savior and a great Bodhisattva.
This is US’s move against Russia, very clearly.
An obsession with destroying Russia tends to lead to both your personal downfall and to the downfall of the state under your rule. It happened to Charles XII and his greater Sweden, which was the Sparta of its time; to Napoleon Bonaparte and his French Empire; and, of course, to Hitler and Nazi Germany. May the neocons and their fiefdom share that fate!
You are right. You must be a real Orthodox Christian to perceive it. ‘Westerners’ wrapped in the mental cocoon they waved around themselves, cannot believe that Orthodoxy is for real. That’s why all their assessments of the ‘East’ are wrong.
I have never come across this stereotype of Slavic women in real life. It seems to come almost entirely from English speaking people on the internet(particularly continental Europeans, alt-right people, and sexpats of various sorts). I doubt this is an Anglo stereotype at all.
It happened to Poland, Ottomans, Tartars too.
Slavic women are more feminine. I can say that as someone from EE. A distinction between men and women is important in slavic societies, unlike western societies that are gender fluid.
There is even biological data for it (testosteron difs between men and women in EE as opposed to the West, that is – greater testosteron sexual dimorphism in EE).
“Anonymous comments are not allowed.” WHO, or WHAT does not allow anonymous comments? Thy very self, perhaps, Milord? What about pseudonymous comments, like this one?
I don’t like your rules, and I will flout them at opportunity, thank you very much. Don’t feel bad. I generally don’t like rules, nor those who impose and enforce them.
{” WHO, or WHAT does not allow anonymous comments? “}
(I had nothing better to do, so decided to reply to your post. (No, I don’t personally know Karlin, and do not share his ethnic ancestry: so no bias).)
Answer: Columnist Karlin and the owner of this site Ron Unz and his moderators.
(in general) I have run into this issue from time to time and have commented as such, as a PSA. UNZ.co is a private enterprise: as such its owner(s) and/or moderators can disallow/discard/flush/trash….. any poster’s comments for any reason or no reason at all. As in “….we trashed your comment, because we don’t like you…please go away and don’t come back”.
Nobody, other than the owner (Ron Unz) has any rights here.
Even columnists like Karlin bloviate here at Ron’s pleasure.
There is no First Amendment Right at a private enterprise site*.
{“I don’t like your rules, and I will flout them at opportunity, thank you very much”}
Whether you or I like them or not it’s their rules: you, me, he, she….don’t play by their rules, our posts get flushed down the toilet. No harm, no foul: just another day in the blogosphere.
Thank you very much.
#238 is reply to #237
I am interested in any opinion or “educated guesses” from you and Anatoly K on the likelier trajectories of Shoigu in the next decade.
If Putin’s current six-year term elapses in say, June 2024, Putin will be 71 and Shoigu 69:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Shoygu
If Putin is in sufficiently good health to serve one more six-year term under the new RF Constitution, he would be 77 and Shoigu 75-76 at the end of that term. Do you see Putin keeping Shoigu as Defense Minister all this time?
Or would Shoigu rather accept appointment as governor of some big prestigious oblast like Moscow, where he already briefly served?
Or will Shoigu be content to “retire”, perhaps with the inducement of a seat on this new State Council? My understanding is that the President alone has discretionary authority to appoint additional members.
en.kremlin.ru/structure/state-council
Finally, are Shoigu’s two daughters or Putin’s two daughters reputed to have any political ambitions? Unfortunate and surprising that neither had a son. Unless this tabloid is correct:
https://nypost.com/2019/05/25/putins-rumored-ex-gymnast-lover-reportedly-gave-birth-to-twin-boys/
‘So what makes you think that the Attractor is Good?’
This is a huge topic, but two things to consider:
1.The afterlife and the immortality of the soul.
2.The fact that, even in this life, exceptions aside, you don’t really find what you would find if God was evil. We’re not all living in a torture dungeon where every tiny part of our body is being tortured day and night. Quite on the contrary. You’ve got problems, sure, but generally, it’s people working, eating, sleeping, playing…
Of course, to someone who actually is being tortured or has some kind of painful disease or to someone who is mentally ill, it might not seem that way. But there is an ending to that, either in this life or the next.
I will let Anatoly discuss possible Putin’s next presidential term and the impact it might potentially have on his and Shoigu’s career.
My personal opinion is that Putin will not finish his present term and will retire in the next 24 months. I believe that Shoigu will be among those who will (gently at first) nudge and push Putin to the exit. Shoigu will probably also play an important role in helping with the transfer of power to the next master of the Kremlin.
And yeah, Shoigu had a son with his mistress and according to what I know Putin’s daughters are more business/science/health technology oriented and do not waste their time with politics.
Im a great admirer of Orthodoxy and I believe that they are the true Church of the Christ, but Im not myself a Christian, sorry, but you have my deepest sympathies, keep the flame of the real European spirituality alive!
Admittedly, Easterners have a better (but not full) understanding of Orthodoxy despite their belittling of Christ. But ”whoever is not against us is for us. Indeed, if anyone gives you even a cup of water because you bear the name of Christ, truly I tell you, he will never lose his reward”. At least they are not in open war against Him as the ‘West’ is: “whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters”.
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-128/#comment-4300939
Sometime ago I used those same verses from the Holy Bible, to defend congenial relations between Christians and Buddhists! But your citation cuts short before the most important point.
30″He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters. 31Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the one to come. 33Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad; for a tree is known by its fruit.”
Matthew 12:30-33
And what are the fruits of the spirit?
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control; against such there is no law.”
Galatians 5:22-23
We do not blaspheme against such Spirit, with such fruits.
Also theres 1 John 4:7-21
Aren’t you embarrassed to say this after you chimped out on AK’s bet proposal?
generalizing is the worst of the worst for any stable human being !!!!
to put all Jews or all Christians, Muslims and other currents of thought in the same basket is completely stupid and above all very very far from all truths ….
Satanism is well anchored with these absurd thoughts! too anchored, unfortunately.
This article is taking Navalny’s claims at face value without considering the counter-claims that have been made e.g. by Putin himself and some other witnesses. Remembering how OTOH Karlin brushed aside all the claims from Trump’s side about electoral fraud, I question his objectivity. Yet his theory about the beneficiality of cronyism is quite interesting. Obviously secretive cronyism is extremely dangerous to Russia as the current Navalny crisis (an Brennan’s expectation) shows. If you want to maintain a system of incentives for loyalty to the national state apparatus and its leader, maybe there’s something to learn from Singapore’s Lee Kuan-Yew.
I did not chimp out on his bet proposal, quite the opposite. Read our discussion with AK again. But I understand why my opinion about Putin might be unpopular with certain people who have profited from his cronyist regime.
There now a YouTube video uploaded of the inside of “Putin’s Palace” if anyone is interested. It looks good on the outside, but it will need years of work inside before it’s complete. I’d wager it’s at best just a retirement home. https://youtu.be/vBcWdHe8j_g
Meduza has published that there is a 16 level bunker complex under the Palace.
https://meduza.io/feature/2021/01/29/esli-chelovek-prezident-emu-vse-mozhno
Some of the commenters above have came to similar conclusions.
I’m aware of the alleged underground portion. The term bunker can be misleading as it is being used to invoke this James Bond villain image. From the published materials (taking them at face value) its a multi-purpose network of tunnels, stairs, and rooms. It acts as an access corridor between the main building and the beach/dock. It also has a wine tasting area. This article has some good photos:
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/38876/putin-has-created-the-ultimate-bond-villain-lair
I think if you’re going through the trouble of building all that, you might as well add some sort of “saferoom.” But anything beyond that is pure speculation. Maybe there’s an entire command center there too, but unlikely. My point was that the complex is far from complete. Putin’s term ends in 2024. Maybe it’ll be ready by then.
But he has nothing to do with it and it doesn’t belong to him or to any of his close relatives. Or at least that is what he replied when asked about it.
https://en.newizv.ru/news/society/29-01-2021/baza-the-daughter-of-the-head-of-veb-igor-shuvalov-receives-2-billion-rubles-a-year
Looks like Shuvalov is also under pressure.
Shoigu’s daughter heads a nationalwide obstacle running project, which tries to make exercise fashionable. (Shoigu is the Minister of Defence, so his daughter’s obstacle running project is using the training grounds of military.) And the rapper Basta is considered still cool with office plankton in their 30s, so she put him in as the celebrity to write a “song” about the races. It’s half way to such an idiocracy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oyv7C94e0aY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Wvw8CnAwFA
Putin’s children are a “secret identity”. If he had had a son, he couldn’t say to the public it was his son. But Putin’s “secret identity” daughters have scientific careers. His old daughter is president of a medical NGO as a charity branch of the bank of an oligarch (Mikhail Fridman), and the young daughter is head of a kind of scientific fund .https://innopraktika.ru/company/popechitelskiy-sovet/
From the fact of the “constitutional amendment”, and embarrassing way they tried to distract people from its purpose with various meaningless “amendments”, (which lost political capital from the public), it’s clear that Putin will continue.
I could imagine Putin will continue as president even until 2030, at which time he will still be younger than Biden.
Besides, I don’t see what the benefit would be achieved by replacing Putin. He still has better personal skills than those around him.
Now, let’s be careful not to conflate the two statements of Christ which were made in different contexts, because it has a bearing on the ‘congeniality’ of relations between Buddhists and Christians, especially the ‘real Orthodox Christians’ (and in the post-Soviet multinational, multicultural space where ‘toleration’ of conflicting religions is a matter of a policy of maintaining unity, which favors a ‘minimalist’ approach – ‘let’s concentrate on what unites us’ -, compounded by the heavy legacy of enforced atheism and religious indifferentism which no doubt is still ‘alive’). That of course leads to a dilution of ‘real Orthodoxy’.
”Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he followeth not US: and we forbad him, because he followeth not us. 39 But Jesus said, Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me. 40 For he that is not against US is on our part. 41 For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward. 42 And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea” (Mark 9:38-42).
”Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name; and we forbad him, because he followeth not with US. 50 And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not: for he that is not against US is for US” (Luke 9:49-50).
”if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges. 28 But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you. 29 Or else how can one enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house. 30 He that is not with ME is against ME; and he that gathereth not with ME scattereth abroad. 31 Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. 32 And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come” (Matthew 12:27-32).
The blasphemy is not against the ‘Spirit’, but against the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of God, who revealed the divinity of Jesus Christ. Wherever the Apostles speak of ‘Spirit’ they speak about the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, the Third Person of the Holy Trinity: ” Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: 3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God”.
So, the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is denying that Jesus is the Son of God to whom ‘all power was given in heaven and on earth’ by the Father to preach the Kingdom of God to all creature.
Who ”as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. 22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: 23 Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained”.
”Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world”.
”Preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned”.
So, let’s not be deluded by apparent ‘congenialities’. Buddhism is mainly an atheistic religion and therefore rejects the Christ and His mission on Earth and His path to salvation, like the Mahomedans, Jews and most of the Hindus,
‘Real Orthodox’ Christians are the ones who confess the Niceo-Constantinopolitan Creed (‘We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible/And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds (æons), Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father/by whom all things were made… was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried, and the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father… And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spake by the prophets) and follow the commandments of Christ ‘In one holy catholic and apostolic Church’ that they join by the ‘Baptism for the remission of sins’ and where they ‘we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come”. ”Outside the Church there is no salvation, because salvation is the Church”.
They are aware that ”The fool has said in his heart, There is no God. They have corrupted [themselves], and become abominable in their devices; there is none that does goodness, there is not even so much as one… there is no fear of God before their eyes”.
The first and most logical scenario would have been to keep Putin as president until he’s good to replace Lenin in the Mausoleum. But the world is changing too radically and too fast for that. They need a rebranding to avoid a reboot of the whole system. They need to defuse all these tensions.
Putin, despite the whole Cult of Personality that they have created around him, is not Stalin, Mao, Hitler or even Deng Xiaoping. And he certainly is not Lee Kwan Yew. The system will exist without him and will even work better for a short time because some of the ressources that the Ozero Cooperative circle amassed will be redistributed to help strengthen the system.
People who are behind Navalny in the West are quite powerful and they certainly have a fifth column among the Russian elite. They will keep pushing on the pressure points of foreign bank accounts and foreign property, they will sanction more and make these sanctions more powerful and personal. Until the elite themselves decide that Putin is too toxic and push him to the exist or just liquidate him outright.
The more they wait and the worse the situation would become. If Putin was a true patriot, he would have transferred power to some younger and more ruthless leader a couple of years ago.
That discussion is public record, by denying you chimped out you’re just digging yourself into a deeper hole.
Lol, what does that even mean? Are you talking about the entire population of Russia, which has seen its living standards increase under his regime? The reason your opinion is unpopular is because it is irrelevant and based on fantasies. For example, the idea that the elite want to see Putin gone, when the situation is the exact opposite, they’re forcing him to stay.
I understand, you sold your homeland at the bottom, and subconsciously pine for it, while simultaneously trying to justify your own life decisions. So you channel your resentments to Putin (how original) while remaining completely out of touch with modern realities. In your world, it’s perpetually the 90s. Russia’s moved on, you should too.
I am not trying to dilute your faith, its extremely important for your salvation that the cohesion and purity of your faith is maintained, nothing good will come out if we try to mix our religious traditions. We must follow our respective religious founders, both of our faiths believe that they were completely perfect in every way.
”Outside the Church there is no salvation, because salvation is the Church”.
Still I dont wholly agree with this claim, or at least with its outward or apparent meaning, even from Orthodox point of view things are not so simple.
I have understood that the Church believes that they are the surest way or path to salvation, but theres always chance to be redeemed outside of church, though only the God knows who will be saved.
“So, let’s not be deluded by apparent ‘congenialities’. Buddhism is mainly an atheistic religion and therefore rejects the Christ and His mission on Earth and His path to salvation”
Things arent so simple as you think, theres nothing in Buddhism that would deny Christs divinity, we believe in gods after all, at least Buddha believed and all traditional or ‘Orthodox’ schools of Buddhism believe, we just deny Gods omnipotency, or that he had no preceding cause, which made him to appear, that he caused himself to be. We do believe that there is the highest god of the universe, Brahma, a being of immense power and love.
“Real Orthodox’ Christians are the ones who confess the Niceo-Constantinopolitan Creed”
I know this very well, from time to time I enjoy reading about Christian theology and history, my studies have led me to believe that your church and the Oriental Orthodox communion are the “one” true Apostolic and Orthodox Church of the Jesus Christ, and the rest have fallen in heresy or even in apostasy. But which of the two churches is more faithful to interpretation, I cant say with my limited understanding, and theres maybe even third apostolic Church, the Church of the East, but they are so small and have become purely ethnic church, which for me isnt very Christian, so maybe they truly lack divine protection.
‘theres nothing in Buddhism that would deny Christs divinity’ except that Buddhists… don’t believe that Jesus Christ is God, the Son of the Omnipotent God! Good God.
You believe that ‘our’ Church is the one true Apostolic Church, but you can’t say whether its ‘interpretation’ is more faithful to the Tradition of the Apostles than the interpretation of the ‘heretics and apostates’! What you call ‘the third Apostolic church’ is these parts of the One Apostolic Church which split from the One Apostolic Church and created their own heresies. They are not very Christian indeed.
You cannot deny an ‘unoriginated origin’, a ’cause of all causes’, a ‘unmovable mover’, without falling into a ‘regressus ad infinitum’ (Anavastha, I believe is called in Sanskrit) and renouncing to know anything.
https://image.newsru.com/v2/99/2021/01/f/ff48005bfc722d5ba02859dd9e81c914.jpg
https://www.newsru.com/russia/30jan2021/rotenberg_palace.html
LOL.
I’d second this, with a caveat. Yeltsin would probably not have intervened in Georgia/Donbass, gotten Crimea, improved the armed forces, etc. Putin, for all his many faults, has found a way to balance competing elite interests, has enforced rule of law on the common people, and has improved Russia’s overall geopolitical position (in realpolitik measures) in the world. I can’t say the same for Yeltsin.
That being said, Putin has failed to change the power system set up by Yeltsin. As you said, he has memorialized his predecessor’s legacy as if it’s something to be proud of. Plus, for all of Russia’s gains during Putin, there have been just as many losses. Some examples:
+Crimea, -Rest of Ukraine
+profits from resource extraction/grains/weapons, -slow development of remaining economy
+rule of law, -freedoms
+defying the west, -continuous sanctions
Some love Putin for the gains and some hate him for the losses, but I’d say he has been a net positive unlike Yeltsin. It’s like Russia is stuck in a continuous “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” cycle when if comes to any major decision. Maybe that’s the fault of both leaders; both have failed to escape the cycle.
A very important benefit of Putin is that he has managed to achieve political stability.
Political stability is good for the country, regardless of the particular policies of a leader. This is even with Angela Merkel, and Germany has less recent political instability than in Russia. That is the, particular policies of Putin can be good or bad, but the fact his leadership is stable is a benefit in itself.
Aside from that, there is an advantage that Putin’s policies are moderately sensible and sober, and sometimes there is a brilliant success (for example, a couple months ago, there was a skilful diplomatic victory in the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan; last decade Crimea was restored without a soldier killed).
It seems clear that the overall outlook of GDP in the Russian Federation is mainly determined by the international commodity market (including oil and gas).
This is visible – even if a part of the mechanism is just currency movements – when we compare the income level with Saudi Arabia.
Both Russia and Saudia Arabia follow the same shape on the income graph, which would indicate income measurement controlled by the third factor (commodity prices), although part of the cause of this is trivially related to effect of the commodity prices on the currency.
https://i.imgur.com/fjCr5rC.jpg
However, even for nominal income to be so sensitively controlled by commodity prices, there has to be competent and politically stable government. Saudi Arabia is an example of a country with a relatively stable and competent government.
But if you compare with other commodity exporting countries, that have more political instability and/or more incompetent governments (like South Africa or Libya), then the situation in Russia has overtaken them compared to in 2000, and can’t hold the same pattern of Russia and Saudi Arabia.
https://i.imgur.com/GP4tC8y.jpg
Hard to believe when we cant even understand what it even means that someone is a Son of the God. You Christians always say that Christ is the son of the God, but what that even means? Clearly not same as being human son of human parents, because Christ is not created and he is eternal like his father, so their filial relations are not comparable with those of men.
Not understanding others logic or line of thought is not same as disbelieving or denying something, at least in my opinion.
About divinity? We believe in divinity in same way as ancient Romans and Hellenes believed, in the original meaning of the word, its not our problem that you are such modernists. Sorry, I couldnt resist, just a small jest said in a friendly manner.
The understanding what is the true nature of Christ, is quite complicated topic, surely you forgive me, if I cant definitely say as a non Christian if the theological school of Antioch had a better Christological understanding, than school of Alexandria. Still the relations between Copts and Orthodox are quite warm, theres a difference between modern miaphysites and ancient monophysites.
Your knowledge is quite vast, I had never heard about Anavastha, and theres clearly somekind of problem with infinite regression, or at least some people think its problematic, but whats the problem, is not clear to me. I just believe in Pratityasamutpada, co-dependent origination, that has continued eternally. Still our ancient master Arya Nagarjuna had a solution to the problem of infinite regression here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anavastha#Buddhist_concept
Sorry that Im too unknowledgeable or just plain stupid to explain well or profoundly such matters to you, but it seems to me that Nagarjuna explains that all things lack of self nature or self existence, but if they would have a self nature then they would have an ultimate origin or source. There are no clear divides in reality between different objects or phenomena, they are all mutually dependent with each others, they have always been, and they always will be.
Hmm, we are just a Pagan philosophy with no ulterior or malevolent motives in regards of your faith, worldly beings or beings of this world, like ancient Greek sophists, still I dont see any problems for mutual co-existence. And its not like we have history of persecuting each other, Buddhists have lived in peace and as loyal subjects of Orthodox Czars starting from the 17th century. Many Cossacks were Buddhist Kalmyks or Buryats.
During the blessed times of the Orthodox emperors Buddhists served in the Don, Astrakhan, Volga, Transbaikal, Baikal and Amur cossack hosts, and they were harshly punished by the godless Soviets for their loyalty to Czarist authorities.
https://www.infpol.ru/upload/iblock/fc9/fc9468e3ded1b9b2ef7fceb1216d7212.jpg
https://www.infpol.ru/upload/iblock/227/2273b011921eb8d62fd667985aa69eb5.jpg
https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/dambiev/74651708/1199686/1199686_900.jpg
https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/dambiev/74651708/1194376/1194376_900.jpg
https://www.infpol.ru/upload/iblock/e57/e57e45ae6dee89f1fa4f14a01de8f133.jpg
Elites always steal, its completely natural, you once gave a link or citation which said that Russian oligarchs transferred Russias wealth outside Russia, 700 billion dollars of worth, in duration of ten years, 70 billion usd per year is quite okay for Russian sized economy, USA has about 8 times bigger economy and I believe that their elites transfer proportionally more wealth outside USA every year, I wouldnt surprised if it would be something like over 1000 billion usd. You are representative of typical or specifically Russian idealism, such idealism brought the fall of both of the Russian empire and the USSR, or was one of the major contributing factors for their destruction. Russian emigre daydreamer, who thinks that things will improve if current regime falls, thats so cliche.
Anyway Russia is under a siege, it cant contemplate with such luxuries as overthrowing its rulers.
True Men of the right are pragmatists in regards of human nature, not like those leftists with their idealist Rousseaun dreams. There are no easy solutions to hard problems, when people believe so, the problems will just get harder after trying to apply that easy solution.
The Moon of Alabama blogger, who often seems pretty solid, has now published a piece strongly suggesting that the entire Putin-Palace story is just a complete media hoax, quite possibly orchestrated by Western intelligence services:
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/01/navalny-scam-sells-empty-concrete-shell-as-putins-luxurious-palace.html
I don’t wish for the regime fall, I have repeatedly written that the best thing Putin could make in the present circumstance is transferring power ASAP to a younger, more energetic and more ruthless leader. How does that equate with the regime falling ?
OTOH, every additional year Putin holds to power is a step into regime fall direction with potentially disastrous consequences for Russia. Putin must retire as soon as possible, he should have done it a couple of years ago after he has chosen a somewhat half-hearted strategy in Eastern Ukraine. The day he backed down when facing Buckhalter, that day he should have understood that it will never be business as usual. He had an historical opportunity to become a true Russian leader in 2014, everything that happened before would have been forgotten and he would have become an historical figure for centuries to come.
He has chosen otherwise. It’s time he enjoys some rest.
Navalny and his team have written about this, they actually even used this as an important additional detail to make the the whole story even more negative. Their story was that the initial HVAC system was deficient and the building became moldy and rotten. They wrote that everyone was stripped down inside the building and is now being replaced. Basically they accused Putin’s buddies with not only graft, but also incompetence.
The problem is that now we see fit and appropriate to compare Russia and Saudi Arabia or Turkey. This is the cost of Putin’s stability. Russia is not rising from its knees it is crouching in a very awkward and uncomfortable position. This position is unstable and needs fixing by bringing more energetic and ruthless leader to power. What needs being accomplished is beyond Putin’s reach, he did what he could, probably could have done better. Now it’s time for him to retire.
I read this morning in some German media (unfortunately don’t remember where) that German journalists discovered who made the “Putin’s pallace ” video. It was made in an American studio in Germany called Black forest (not Scharzwald, as in German). Navalny did not make it, he just spread it.Those who know Russian and watch this video, would understand immediately that it is a translation in Russian from another language and not made by a native speaker.
Some media went to the “pallace” and documented what is actually there-concrete and construction, nothing of what was on the video.
By the way, the owner expalined in public that he is building a hotel. The owner is Arkadiy Rotenberg, the one whose company built the Crimean bridge. He seems to be prity pissed off about all this “pallace” business, and because he is not the tolerant Putin, guess what awaits for Navalny and navalnians. Not to mention the rage of the parents whose children were lured into protesting by navalnians.
Sure that Buddhists incomprehension of what the ‘Son of God’ is and their relative indifference for history is not an impediment for mutual political coexistence, especially that it was them who sought the Tsar’s protection, who was wise enough to see that they would never pose any significant threat (as Muslims do). We know the stories of the ‘White Tsar’, ‘Shambala’, of Agvan Dordjiev, Badmaev/Zhamsaran (who converted to Orthodoxy), Ungern-Sternberg and his Asiatic Cavalry Division. Again, ‘who is not against us, is with us’. It is not the case with Muslims, who are openly and militantly against Christ as Son of God, which makes ‘mutual political coexistence’ uneasy, to say the least.
It looks that this Bashibuzuk (per Wikipedia: ‘one whose head is turned, damaged head, crazy-head’, roughly “leaderless” or “disorderly”, “undisciplined bandit”, irregular soldier of the Ottoman army, raised in times of war) was recruited to spew the navalniks’ meme ‘Down with Putin’ (the new Hitler, new Stalin, new Bloody Tsar).
There are large differences. Saudi Arabia has their currency fixed to USD which makes their situation look better than it is. But on the other side that makes them have to burn even more of their reserves. They’ve also started selling off stocks from their national oil company.
In the case of Epstein, His Heighness, Western democratic mass man became holy indignant and envious because he just has porn, while Epstein allegedly had the real thing.
So it appears they are trying to invoke the holy righteous indignation of Western mass man against Putin, as Putin might have been exceeding His Heighness’ standard? it being out out bounds with something like the newest flatscreen, car, smartphone, mass man’s mass tourism resorts and etc.
Yes, natural, nature urges wealthy elites to steal and build luxurious mansions and palaces…
Oh no, its ‘human’ nature, it’s inbuilt in humans, hard wired..
Last month’s intrusion inside the US Capitol would be a good example of “bashibuzuk” in its colloquial sense.
Nonsense.
God help us, if there are people who would buy into all of this.
“certain people who have profited from his cronyist regime.”
— You mean, the Unz forum has been conspiring pro Putin and contra the freedom-loving Mr. Navalny & Ms. Sobol et al?
Ms. Bashibuzuk, may I ask what country of unicorns and fairies do you live in?
If it is Israel, nothing compares to Israelis’ cronyism. Plus they have been feeding on other people’s money – the US taxpayers’ and victims of the profitable schema of holobiz – for decades.
If you live in the UK, then you seemingly missed the story of Julain Assange who dared to offend the major war profiteers and their cheerleaders among The Friends of Israel. The zionists and war profiteers want their profitable wars by any means.
If you live in the US, your proclamation about the “cronyist regime” in Russia needs a disclaimer. See Clintons, Rubin & Wall Streetl, and the amazing expenses of the mighty (and incompetent) MIC.
And if you are from Nulandistan (former Ukraine), where brave Banderites are now guided by their bestest friends Zionists, then it is hard to believe that you never heard about Kolomojsky’s and Bidens’affairs.
Enjoy your favorite people: ‘Top Navalny aide asked alleged British spy for millions in funding,” https://www.rt.com/russia/514291-navalny-aide-funding-alleged-british-spy/
People underestimate FSB at their own peril! Could Navalny and his ilk contemplate a longer vacation in a holiday resort in the Arctic region, than the mere three and a half years for fraud?
The fact that I dislike Putin does not mean at all that I like Navalny. The world is a little bit more complex than that.
Agree that the world is complex, but you did not mince your words by singling out one person for being involved in cronyism. If you dislike the RF president and want others to know about your feelings, please be more precise with your definitions and accusations.
Here are your words, “my opinion about Putin might be unpopular with certain people who have profited from his cronyist regime.” — Whom exactly have these words addressed on this forum?
The one I was replying to. He understood and stopped the futile discussion that he had tried to start.
I am born and raised Moscovite, not some Russophile foreigner. I remember how Putin came to power, better still I remember who brought him to power and why they did this. A lot of people here are pro-Putin because they compare him with the drunken retardation of Yeltsin, but guess what:
http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/64958
Putin has been, still is and always will be an appointee of Yeltsin’s daughter criminal circle, also known as “The family” in Russia (Семья).
https://republic.ru/images/photos/780/5fae9aa615b7ffe6ef592dd9906cb25e.jpeg
Putin has been, still is and always will be a creature of Chubais.
I would supportt Putin with all my heart if he would have canceled all property rights that have been built upon the criminal privatisation of the 90ies. I would have supported Putin if he would have brought to justice the perpetrators of the 1993 massacre. I would have supported him if in 2014 he stood to Burkhalter, went all in in Eastern Ukraine and completely liberated the Russian speaking region from Ukrainian nationalist onslaught.
But all of this never happened.
Therefore, I will not support Putin. But he has enough supporters already, like the man on the picture below.
https://newspress921488921.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/roman-abramovitch-_-1.jpg
Born and raised ‘Moscovite’, but Russian?
Xорошо!
You make me too great a compliment. Sadly I never made it above the rank of private (in a regular army), although I have Generals among my ancestors.
Long live the Tsar!