Here’s a map of how Russian citizens abroad voted. (Blue = yes; red = no; via @14ws)
As with most expats, Russians abroad skew younger and more liberal, hence the orange/red throughout the West as well as China (e.g. expat heavy/more lib Shanghai expats vote NO, while more diplomat-dominated & vatnik Beijing and Harbin voted YES). In contrast, many of the f.USSR countries host large pro-Putin Russian majorities, whereas in the rest of the world most voters would be embassy personnel.
Nothing electorally surprising about this as it follows typical pro/anti-Putin voting patterns, which I have covered on this blog.
Even so, the results even from places we can reasonably assume to be Embassy-dominated – such as Pyongyang (60% YES), Brasilia (62%), Islamabad (62%), to take a sample I picked out at random – are all substantially lower than the official 79%. (List via @kireev attached right).
Some further electoral curiosities:
- Antarctica (five Russian research stations) voted 52% YES.
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Students at MIPT (Dolgoprudny) voted 74% NO. (Young, elite level university students – nothing surprising).
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79% ethnic German village (Omsk oblast) voted 72% NO.
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The user @caunte on Kireev’s block brings up a lot of samples on how workers at various factories voted, seem to have mostly hovered at 55%-60%. These will mostly be middle-aged vatniks, kind of like the collective Uralvagonzavod. As I mentioned, support for the Constitutional amendment was highest amongst pensioners/the elderly, so a “real” count of 65% is perfectly plausible but way short of the official 79%.
This also happens to be the opinion of one of the most frequently cited electoral fraud analysts, Sergey Shpilkin:
Shpilkin previously published statistical evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2011 State Duma elections and the 2018 presidential elections that handed Putin his fourth term.
His calculations of the 2020 constitutional reform vote place the results at 65% approval for the amendments and 35% disapproval, with a 42%-43% turnout.
As I said, the fraud is something that’s one can tell just by eyeballing the turnout/YES vote graphs by regions (see right), some of which are plausibly clean while others are obviously falsified with heavy clusters around the 90%/90% mark. Ethnic Russians dominate the vast majority of regions and they are a relatively homogenous people, it is impossible that voting patterns would vary so cardinally between, say, Murmansk oblast (loosely clustered around 40% turnout/60% YES) and Kemerovo oblast (tightly clustered at close to 90% turnout/90% YES).
Even so, the 1993 Russian Constitutional referendum got 58% YES. 2020 referendum on Constitutional amendment got ~65% of “real votes” So still more “democratically legitimate”, for what that’s worth.
But the fact of large scale fraud makes this (otherwise pro-Kremlin) more difficult to make without being ridiculed.
PS. Many such examples, but amusing nonetheless – one from Chechnya:
TFW you forget to falsify at one of your polling stations
Please keep off topic posts to the current Open Thread.
If you are new to my work, start here.
I see Chad Russians being, well, very Chad
How many YES “real votes” were in the 1993 referendum?
You should send this to the Atlantic Council – it would make them very happy.
You must be right!!!
Proves Russians are genetically predisposed to lying – must be in their DNA. (Sarcasm)
They can’t possibly have voted in line with the surveys i have seen Which predicted over 70% YES
Canada YES! Lol.
So who is invading Canada first? Do we take turns?
Russia, to liberate the oppressed PoCs? Or US, to root out Putin agents?
Russian citizens in the USA are mostly jews or non-ethnic russians?
Hungary Russians let down the team.
Did you just say your position was pro-kremlin? That’s rich, considering Vlad gave the highest military award of russia to people who murdered russian servicemen. This is factually the same as giving Hero of Russia medal to ukranian Aidar or Azov members, but apparently thats ok with you. Go vlad!
Also, nice job comparing the 1993 constitution with 206 amendments voted as a package. What a joke
Yeah Im unsure why he’s so casual about calling it fraud. Is it soft fraud (bussing people around, giving incentives to vote) or hard fraud ?
What is more reliable, Shpilkin’s numbers or exit polls?
Shpilkin himself is a forger, to quote such human dirt-discredits the material
I remember the 1993 referendum. In fact, it was after the shooting of the White House in Moscow. We were all shocked by this and the unscrupulousness of the politicians who came to power after that. In fact, this referendum was supposed to legitimize them. We all understood this and were totally against it. We voted against it. Here in the province where I live no one from the leadership of the region did not hide that the results of that referendum were openly falsified.
Russians abroad are not Russians. They have bought into the moral depravity of the West.
Maybe this was done to make the Chechen results look more authentic?
BTW, personally, I think that I would have voted No in this referendum since I would have felt that it is time for Russia to have new leadership. It’s similar to why I support a two-term limit for US Presidents here in the US.
Maybe the Russians who live in Canada are more pro-Putin because the Ukrainians here are so annoying they helped the Russians preserve their patriotism?
You understand that half of the senior Russian politicians and businessmen have at least one family member with a dual citizenship?
You know that they are heavily invested in the real estate on Côte d’Azur and London ?
I hope you know that all riche Novye Russkyie keep their wealth abroad?
You probably remember that Putin worked for Sobchak before being picked up by Berezovsky to become appointed as Yeltsin’s heir. Basically, these people did not stop lying and stealing since 1991. In fact one might say that they started their falsifications cum expropriations in 1917 and never stopped since. And they will never stop because why should they if “people will always swallow “?
I would recommend against holding their weath in the West, especially London.
Bank of England already stole Venezuelan gold, its only a matter of time before it comes for the Russians. US and UK will need money, and confiscating Russian stuff will look good in New York Times headlines. Even if you are pro-Western, they will feed you to the mob.
There is a saying in Russian: “пока гром не грянет – мужик не перекрестится”. Probably some of these people hope that they will avoid being fleeced by their “western partners”. Anyway, they can’t keep their wealth in Russia, because at least some of these moneys are from questionable origin.
Not sure where you got that from, direct link to poll at WCIOM says 71% YES, 28% NO. https://wciom.ru/index.php?id=236&uid=10358
#4 and #8 are good illustrative examples of the following.
https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/1279031714430492673
Releasing these figures is almost a breach of privacy, such is the tiny number of Russians living in some countries. There’s one obscure nation which I think has 5 Russians, and I can guess how each voted from looking at the chart.
Possibly, but that issue can only be addressed to the CEC.
There was one Gazprom (or Rosneft) surveying ship in which just five people voted, all NO.
Can the NO voters in the UK be barred from returning?
America has dynasties.
The King
Henry Kissinger
Grand Vizier
Dick Cheyney
Archdukes
Bush
Clinton
Court Jester
Jeb
And we did this WITH A ROBUST CONSTITUTION!
Putler ain’t shit.
The American Empire will have pride parades in that shiny new cathedral in a matter of years. Not out of any real concern for homosexuals but more as an early 2000’s style Halo facehump.
Your vernacular is about 20 years out of date, I haven’t heard anyone use that term in ages.
Wealthy Russians hold assets abroad for a variety of reasons, including simply for diversification, which is prudent for anyone, really. Laundering money in Russia is easier than doing so in the West, in fact it usually has to already be clean for it to leave in the first place. Again, this isn’t the 90s with suitcases full of cash.
Do you think these people are stupid? How much more thunder do you need than actual asset confiscation due to individual sanctions, followed by pandemic induced border closures? Putin gave Russians holding assets abroad fair warning in 2013 about what was coming down the road, so caveat emptor.
It wasn’t a referendum. No referendums are required to change the Russian constitution.
People have a short attention span. But never mind, let’s call them Noviopy, this is what a great many of them are anyway.
So how many hundred of the stolen billions did they being back to Russia? This is of course a rhetorical question because we both know that the net balance of financial flows is negative for the Russian Federation, with tens of billions leaving the country on an annual basis.
Seems these people, that you consider smart still prefer diversification with 75% of their net worth being squirrelled in some cozy Swiss wealth management fund. They still prefer a villa and a vineyard in Tuscany to an izba and 6 sotok with a few apple trees in the glubinka. They still prefer their kids, mistresses and wives shopping in les Galleries Lafayette, instead of GUM. Cryptocolony much…
You see, thieves are not smart, they are just opportunistic scum. And having more money doesn’t change anything to their wisdom. All they ever dreamed about is жить дорого богато как белые люди. They are complexed upstarts really.
They have destroyed an advanced technological society, stole and sold the choicest morsels of the national economy, changed their world power country into an extractive natural resources producing territory and they think that someone somewhere will respect them because “Russia Today ” told that they deserve respect. You call that smart? You think they are intelligent? Well maybe you are stupid.
I hope to live long enough to see them hung or shot and their offspring entirely stripped of all their assets. This would be a proper and humane vindication for the millions of broken lives these Novye Russkie have trampled upon while building themselves into a parody of the Russian Aristocracy.
That would be a proper final for their little saga: “волкам – волчья смерть”.
This is a map of Globohomo’s reach.
It would be if China and Canada exchanged colours.
I think you have it backwards.
Homosexuals will be hanging from the White House and that Cathedral will be the home of a Militant religious order.
Also, thanks for signing up to be one of our new Christmas ornaments.
When the results are not to your liking, you use the above stupid trivial excuse. Provide evidence, or get lost! Russian elections are observed by numerous foreign observers and they predominantly report no fraud.
Also, I wouldn’t call a document based on the lie of Classical Liberalism a robust document in any sense of the word, especially since most of the world is dumping it in favor of things like Futurism (Karlin’s favorite) and other post/pre modern notions.
Further, a constitution that states the moral and racial questions in black and white is superior to some attempted neutral drivel about muh rights and muh freedoms.
Thanks for proving why Internet Americans (Especially ones like you) need to be vanished from the Earth faster than President Marcos disappeared the communist filth fron UP.
All I’ve seen is the laughable outrage of someone who thinks he knows things while just regurgitating terms and history he knows the slightest thing about. All I see are accusations with bluster coming from a person whose understanding of Russian History is that of a special needs child while acting like some Poland loving, American nerd who thinks the Russia can only ever be bad.
But hey, if you want to be the biggest argument against the notion of Freedom of Speech (Forget it as law or a right, both those ideas are dead), be my guest. ;^)
1)I’m Russian
2) This was a jab at American illusions that they have ‘term limits’
3) You’re an idiot
Agree with # 3. He clearly is of lower understanding.
You went from a term I haven’t heard in ages to one I’ve never heard before.
What, exactly, is “net balance of financial flows”?
Did you pull this number out of thin air, or do you have a source?
It’s possible I’m stupid, I stake no claim. But it’s interesting that you are resorting to ad hominem. Your comments here are usually intelligent, erudite, and perceptive. However, on the topic of modern Russia, you become emotional and your observations are out of date and out of touch with reality. Perhaps you are someone who left the homeland at its nadir and have mixed and unsorted feelings about it.
Anyway, this isn’t the 90s anymore, Russia’s rich aren’t just a bunch of criminals who stole from the state, though there are certainly plenty of those. They include the self-made, entrepreneurs and a host of hard-working, upper level managers who are committed to their businesses. Some of us have spent decades building wealth and we didn’t steal from anyone. Painting all rich Russians as some Novyie Russkyie caricature is Hollywood cringe, not at all representative of who they are and how they act.
Generally speaking, the privatizations of the 90 are perhaps one of the greatest criminal acts of all time. It is a yawning injustice that has irreparably damaged Russian society for generations to come. There are a host of guilty parties, not just the symbolic oligarchic faces, who are really just cutouts for groups of corrupt bureaucrats.
Unfortunately, there aren’t any good ready-made solutions to right this injustice. Your desire to see Russia’s rich “hung or shot and their offspring entirely stripped of all their assets” is very, what’s the word I’m looking for here, oh yeah: “bolshevik”. So, tried before with disastrous consequences. However, this possibility looms like a Damocles sword and is one of the main reasons rich Russians stash assets abroad, even in the face of growing hostility from the West and pandemic induced border closures. I’ve seen a few other ideas bantered about, but they tend to be either too radical or not comprehensive.
So we have what we have with Putin’s Russia, incremental progress while avoiding more systemic destruction. For Russia to be a player on the world stage, it has to play the only game in town, which currently is neoliberalism, however distasteful that is. You don’t strike me as a class warfare kind of guy, you just seem to have some weird beef with Russia.
Can someone provide the data for Chinese cities? (Numbers and percentages.)
The only beef I have with Russia is that it is not living to its full potential.
This being said, you are right: I am not a class warfare person and neither am I a believer in some abstract democracy and equality or some illusive human rights.
I believe that any human being, any living being, any natural system really, should have only one fundamental right: the right to be able to develop his/its capabilities to the maximum extent, while allowing and helping others to do the same. I don’t know if you have ever been to a mature biotope. To my eyes these rare pristine places are the most beautiful sights possible.
In these habitats everything is balanced and optimized to maximize the flow of biological energy and information. Each living system functions at its best. The different discrepancies and imbalances between the living systems have been sorted out by a long period of co-evolution and while these habitats are not some biological utopia, I believe that there is the place where the sentient beings in general have the most positive living experience. This is the ecosystem with the maximum enthalpy and the minimum possible entropy.
The same principle might be applied to human beings and the social systems they build. Bulgakov once said: “I don’t believe in revolution, but I believe in evolution “. Human societies must also evolve towards the maximized efficiency of energy and information flows, allowing any of their members to strive to achieve their best output in their activities. This doesn’t mean that every single person must become rich, famous and beautiful. This only means that any person must have the possibility, be encouraged to and actually even have as their duty to develop their abilities to the maximum of their capabilities.
To achieve this social dynamics we need time. Human life is short, quite often tragically so. Therefore, a society must have as a long term goal to build and maintain a social meritocracy. A social system that has as its final goal to allow every one to act in order to maximize their merit and increase the overall wellbeing. This might seem too idealistic or philosophical, but this is the way the cells behave in our own bodies when we are healthy.
But once a cancer appears in a human body, any form of physiological balance becomes impossible. The tissues and organs undergo a series of catastrophic and painful traumatic transformations and then we die. A predatory extractive elite is a human cancer. It is maximizing its share of available resources by damaging the social tissue and weakening the society, bringing it to an untimely death.
This is what has happened in Russia in the last hundred and fifty years. A social cancer has appeared that under its different metastases is progressively destroying the tissue of the Russian civilization. The carcinogenic effectors have been introduced from abroad prior to the cancer even starting to appear. Just like a smoker inhaling tobacco smoke imports the toxins that will one day cause a lung cancer in his/her lungs.
This is why modern Russia cannot live to its full potential and why Russians cannot achieve the maximum possible level of social wellbeing. Theirs is a sick and damaged society.
A noviop is one of the tumor cells eating at the Russian civilization body. They are growing by destroying it and metabolizing its remains. Collectively they are a tumor that will kill Russia, they are killing it right now without even noticing it.
https://traditio.wiki/%D0%9D%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%BE%D0%BF%D1%8B
Where Russian Civilization integrated different ethnic groups, noviopy disintegrate Russian Civilization and all its ethnic groups. They are the Russian equivalent of the Western globalized neoliberal/neoconservative “elites”. Both are social tumors and both are killing their host bodies.
One doesn’t need to be a noviop. A change is possible for everyone. A cancer sometimes disappears without treatment, this is a personal choice and a social problem to solve in Russia and the West.
Otherwise, a lot of people will suffer, live worthless lives and never become fully evolved human beings. A lot of people will be born and die in vain, which is a terrible thing.
Hope we understand each other better now.
Survival and domination by the fittest, the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must, as is the law of nature and of the jungle.
This is a frequent error made by the people who are not familiar with the biological aspects of the thermodynamics and their evolutionary and ecological implications.
Think about this: you are not an individual, but a colony of trillions of highly specialized cells. Each of these cells could not survive without the organism. Together these cells are able to survive and thrive. Your body is a complex and well balanced ecosystem which produces not only purely biological, but also cognitive activity.
If some of the cells in your body decided to become “the fittest ” and “dominate” the other cells you would rapidly die of a cancer. Hence from a purely physiological perspective this “survival through domination ” trope is invalid.
We really should use survival of the most adaptable as the evolutionary meme.
The USSR broke up into different entities, partly (stress partly) on account of a problematical economic planning, concerning guns and butter issues.
Liz Wahl and perhaps 2 or more others crapped on RT which gave them relatively nice paying, high profile positions, relative to their actual worth before getting hired. That’s overall an arguably limited situation. At the same time, that network has been quite choosy on who it’s willing to offer fee paid opportunities.
Has been an ongoing problem for a good portion of history eh? The opposite of some countries with comparatively limited resources. I’ve somewhat likened Russia to the talented athlete or team that doesn’t seem to have as much success as it otherwise should, relative to others with less ability.
All this said while acknowledging that Russia has also faced some trying circumstances over the centuries which it can’t be fully faulted on.
It is a very interesting and important topic. It is quite complex, while at the same time easily (over)simplified in a single notion of cryptocolony.
Let’s just say that the date of the founding of the Muscovy Company, the Times of Troubles and the timing of the Raskol fall on the period of Muscovite Rus undergoing the metamorphosis to finally become an Empire, while at the same time becoming ruled by increasingly Westernized Elites that would largely sideline the Rurikid aristocracy of the Old Rus. Correlation is not causation, but when you know that at that period the ruling family of Holland conquered the British throne under William of Orange and that Romanovs used the Dutch flag as an inspiration for the Russian Tsardom flag, a lot of dots get connected in a very interesting way.
TIL I learned that Russia is actually a Dutch cryptocolony.
As I wrote above the whole cryptocolony trope is a controversial oversimplification. But some of its details are rather troubling.
Basically, it would be probably better to say that starting with Tsar Alexeī Mikhailovich, russian natural resources have been exported in increasingly important quantities to the West with Britain playing a very important role in this trade.
Peter the Great has been the Tsar who definitely established hardcore serfdom and also ensured that the Russian Orthodox Church is absolutely controlled by the Imperial government. He was the one who imposed a radically Westernized aristocracy on top if the multitude of Russian serfs that have been made to work in truly colonial conditions to ensure the flow of this trade enriching the Westernized Elites, while keeping the serfs in a impoverished state.
His descendants kept the trade going and have also sided with Britain in all its conflicts and wars.
Until Pavel Ist tried to side with Napoleon, but was immediately assassinated and replaced by Alexander Ist who again sided with Britain against Napoleon.
Nicolas Ist started a more independent policy and got whacked with war in Crimea and died soon afterwards (some say he was poisoned) with his own nobility sighing with relief because due to the war British Empire closed its markets to russian exports and Russian aristocracy incurred important losses due to British commercial boycott.
Alexander II started a strongly independent policy in Central Asia and South Eastern Europe and soon enough terrorism and social unrest become a scourge of the Russian Empire despite the serfs being freed at last after nearly two centuries of a severe exploitation. Alexander II started the development of the inner market and an industrialisation, but got assassinated by these terrorists who felt completely safe and were never arrested abroad, especially in Britain.
Alexander III embarked on a full fledged geopolitical Great Game against British Empire in Asia and got more terrorism on his hands with the terrorists being financed and abetted abroad. Also the Jewish Question become an anti-Russian trope at the time in the West with an outstanding British media campaign about the terrible Russian Pogroms.
We all know how British and Americans did all their possible to ensure the Japanese defeated and weakened the Russians in the Far East during Nicholas II reign, including by helping the first Russian revolution of 1905. We also know that the democratic 1917 revolution was a British and French supported coup against a monarch who was expecting to win the straits and Constantinople at the end of WWI.
The October revolution was a German supported coup, but once the Soviets fully seized power, they immediately started an economic cooperation with Britain and US, but not with France. One of the key people in the Communist party, Krasin was in charge of jumpstarting this trade.
So basically, it is an interesting dialectic that we have in Russian and Anglo-Saxon relationships, since the establishment of Company of Muscovy in the XVI century and to this very day with Russian Oligarchs buying property in London and sending their offspring to get educated there.
Seven years’ war? American revolutionary war?
They were not that close.
Alexander I. himself was also an ally of Napoleon for a while.
You are right, that’s why I started the whole topic by clearly stating that the cryptocolony trope is an oversimplification.
And yet, the whole trade and political dialectic was favoring British Empire’s interests until the Great Game. And as soon as the Great Game began, the revolutionary process in Russia started. With an outstanding Anglo-Saxon financial, operational and media contribution leading to the well known results.
Moreover, I did not want to write an even longer post, so I just skipped some episodes. But one of the things Thatcher said while enacting her radical anti-Soviet policies that eventually led to Soviet regime downfall, was it was not the ideology that was the problem. It was the fact that starting from the 70ies the Soviets became competitors in the exports of the finished goods, military and high technology. The Anglosphere wanted to keep Russians as natural resources providers only.
As soon as the Communism was abrogated the tech sector in former Soviet Union was put to death to great Anglo-Saxon and Western jubilation. And as soon as a modicum of industry and technology was restored in Russia (a tiny fraction compared to Soviet times), Russia was again labeled as the Evil Empire and the Enemy of all Progressive Mankind.
So there’s a trend here: the West sees Russia as a Resources Federation to be exploited by the Western TNC to enrich the Western globalized elites. The situation was similar in the Tsarist times with a few notable exceptions.
This is basically a colonial extractive economics relationship without direct dominance.
Fascinating stuff.
What do you think of the rumors that the installation of the Romanovs and links to England and Holland were part of a project to prevent Russia from going Catholic and thereby uniting all Slavs and most continental Europeans against the predatory seaborne raider nations?
I never heard about these rumors, but I have already thought about it and I believe it makes sense. Polish intervention during the Times of Troubles might also been explained by the growing relationship between Muscovy and Britain. Maybe this intervention failed because the Protestants were also represented among the Polish Lithuanian magnates of the time?
Perhaps mercenaries lent by the Russian government to fight Islamist insurgents? Mauritania has a number as well.
From: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/world/africa/russia-africa-troops.html
Is not that the usual Anglo fight to keep independent competitors down and out?
Before the Anglos turned against Russia, they spent a lot of wars fighting against the previous main continental power in Europe, France.
And nowadays, the Americans, heirs of the Anglos try to undermine China for the same reasons.
And before that, Spain.
It was certainly the case during the Great Game.
I think that it’s a lot more complicated today, than it was back when only Russia and Britain were going at it. It’s true that the US has taken up the role of Britain, however, Russia still has its own strong role to play in this matter, however, with even more adversaries today than back then. China is now a main player, vying for influence where Russia used to rule the roost, and strong regional players like Turkey, Iran and maybe even Kazakhstan are all intrinsically involved. Ukraine has an important role within this Eurasian chess game, and its still not clear how it will all end up. Will China’s “belt and road” plans to unite Eurasia be allowed to smoothly progress, unhampered? You might think so, but sometimes I wonder…
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/26/brzezinski-balancing-the-east-upgrading-the-west/
Published before Maidan. Even more relevant today.
Please pull out of this article (I don’t feel like subscribing for a “premium” article) what you think is important from your point of view, use some quotes if you think it would help you and summarize. I’ve read some of Brzezinski’s books in the past and recall that he was very much a Metternichian in his views, relying on balance of powers and zones of interest in order to sustain international peace and prosperity.
He was first and foremost a Globalist, he was responsible for the formation of the Trilateral Commission.
This article is important because it shows how the Globalists wanted to manage the Chinese rise to power.
They failed so now we have Trump and the USA-centrists taking care of this business.
But it is very relevant to understand what exactly the Global West wished to achieve between 2010 and 2016.
The article is 5 pages long there are many interesting things to be found in it (Big Zbig was a very intelligent person and a good writer). So I suggest you read it in a PDF format when you have some time and if you’re interested.
You should have a PDF available at this link:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://saintjoehigh.enschool.org/ourpages/auto/2012/10/5/54579209/12-0102%2520Balancing%2520the%2520East_%2520Upgrading%2520the%2520West.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiY6cO37LvqAhVzj3IEHcSWAhIQFjAAegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVaw2vP7_51S74i8cvkXeY5Z62
I agree, after reading this essay of his, that by and large, most of the important points that Brzeg was canvasing for didn’t come to fruition. He’ll be remembered throughout history as being a part of the historic triad of Reagan, Pope John Paul and Brzezinski that helped bring down the Soviet Union.
So was Prussia. 😉
https://www.potsdam.de/hollaendisches-viertel