Prokudin-Gorsky. Malorossiya, c.1905-1915.
In the 24 hours since the results of the second round of the Ukrainian Presidential elections became known, there has been a strange convergence of views on Ukraine’s course under President-Elect Zelensky from opposite sides of the barricades. Many “svidomy” Ukrainians are in tears over their “hoodwinked” or “stupid” compatriots electing a “clown” and Putler puppet as President. Meanwhile, a significant number of “Russophile” commenters – for once, not just Westerners, but even Russian nationalists – are besides themselves with glee, portraying this as a “rejection of the Maidan” and “anti-Russian hysteria.” This idea that the Dark Lord of the Kremlin has just subverted yet another plucky little democracy is also a major, if not dominant, theme in current discussions on large Western forums such as /r/worldnews.
As it so happens, all of these people are almost certainly wrong. Let’s recap some facts about Zelensky that I am sure will be rather inconvenient for all of these people:
- He is sponsored by Kolomoysky, a self-styled “Zhidobandera” (Jewish Banderist). He is the main sponsor of Dnepropetrovsk-based Right Sector, which played a key role in putting down pro-Russian rebellions in East Ukraine during 2014. He is also closely associated with hardline Dnepropetrovsk mayor Boris Filatov, whose proposed solution to the separatist problem is to “give the bastards all sorts of promises, guarantees, and concessions… And then hang them.”
- He is also supported by Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, the Kharkov-based sponsor of the far right Azov Batallion.
- He donated one million grivnas of his own earnings to the ATO.
- In the debates, he has stated that he supports Poroshenko’s work on building up the Ukrainian military, anti-Russian language laws, and his schismatic church. He said he would continue those policies, but with less stealing.
- His proposed Defense Minister, Ivan Aparshin, is staunchly pro-NATO, and his main beef with Poroshenko was his haplessness on military corruption. Many other members of his team are Maidan activists, including foreigns from the Baltics and Georgia, who were sidelined after the Maidan or left on account of disillusionment over continuing failures to tackle corruption.
- He has come out against autonomy for the Donbass, and against amnesty for the rebels. This effectively translates into repudiating Minsk II, just like Poroshenko. He has also ruled out against speaking to the rebels directly, and even wants to remove Viktor Medvedchuk – a politician with close ties to Putin who now plays a key role as a liaison between the Kremlin and the Bankova – from any negotiations.
- Moreover, he has stated he wants to expand the current Normandy Format to also include the UK and the USA, those well known epicenters of Russophile sentiment in the West.
- He intends to start paying out pensions to the Donbass again. While one can interpret this as an attempt at reconciliation, it is more logical – given the above – to interpret it as a statement that the Ukraine really is serious about getting those territories back. Many Ukrainian nationalists from Lvov don’t really view the Donbass as a core or integral part of the Ukraine; indeed, many of them are willing to accept cutting it off entirely as the price of consolidating their nation-state. Ukrainian nationalists from Dnepropetrovsk, the center of gravity of Zelensky’s support, do not share that outlook.
- “There are doubtless heroes. Stepan Bandera is a hero for a certain percentage of Ukrainians, and that’s perfectly cool and normal. He is one of the people who defended Ukraine’s freedom.“
Now just to be clear, I am not saying that Zelensky will be a “svidomy”, anti-Russian ideologue. He certainly cares much less for “culture war” issues such as Bandera, and soon after the Maidan, he even criticized the practice of banning Russian performers from the Ukraine. I allow that much of the above – especially the parts relevant to Donbass – are more campaign rhetoric than policy. There will now probably (hopefully) be fewer statues of Russian generals and statesmen getting toppled (generals who played a key role in opening up Novorossiya to Ukrainian settlement in the first place), there will be fewer gratuitous restrictions on the Russian language (most of which are not enforced), there will probably (hopefully) be fewer stupid, sovok-svidomy laws banning most of the Russian Internet (even if the Ukraine seems to be too incompetent to actually enforce them).
All I am saying is that the facts do not warrant getting ones hopes up about any imminent Russo-Ukrainian reconciliation.
Why? Because even if I am wildly wrong on all this, and Zelensky really is a hardcore Russophile in real life – as opposed to just in Poroshenko’s PR – there are a whole series of structural factors that will hamper any such efforts.
First, despite a few tentative signs of improvement, Russia and the Russian vector is much less popular in the Ukraine now than it was before 2014.
These elections showed that the pre-elections polls were very accurate. According to those polls, Poroshenko would have lost to any of the major opposition candidates, with the sole exception of… Yury Boyko. Now Boyko is a classic representative of the old Party of Regions (now Opposition Bloc), complete with the pre-elections flight to Moscow to ask for lower gas prices. Between Boyko and Vilkul – the latter is an Akhmetov-sponsored spoiler to ensure that Boyko wouldn’t make it into the second round in Poroshenko’s stead – this “Blue” or “sovok” faction gained 15% of the votes in the first round*. For comparison, the division was around 50/50 before 2014. Moreover, Boyko was the only major politician projected to lose in a head to head against Poroshenko, while anybody else was projected to win with handsome margins. So even a “classic” Party of Regions-style candidate would have lost to an extremely unpopular politician who jacked up gas prices and failed to do anything about corruption while reading the hoi polloi lectures about “Army. Faith. Language”, multiplying his wealth many times over, and sending family members gallivanting around London.
Legend: Ukrainian attitudes towards Russia [blue]; Russian attitudes towards Ukraine [orange]
As I have previously explained in rather exhaustive detail, this is part of a general “westwards” shift on the Ukrainian political compass. This shift occured as a result of both demographic change – the loss of Crimea and the most pro-Russian, urban part of the already Russophile Donbass; and of social change – Ukrainian anger over Russia stoking civil war in their lands, or outright “invading” them (opinions differ). The combined effect equals an approximately one standard deviation decline in “Russophile” sentiment. Before 2014, Ukrainians were 50/50 on joining EU vs. Eurasian Union, ~85% against joining NATO. Now the EU is vastly more popular, while opinion on NATO is 50/50.
Now on the Ukrainian political compass, Zelensky is a centrist; neither a svidomy, not a sovok (as was the old division). But as per above, that “center” has moved much further west after 2014, as Kiev became like Galicia used to be, Dnepropetrovsk became like Kiev used to be, and Kharkov/Odessa became like Dnepropetrovsk used to be. Zelensky, in this situation, is as centrist as can be – for instance, whereas the “svidomy” late Poroshenko enshrined the goal of NATO membership in the Constitution, Zelensky now promises a referendum on the matter. A hypothetical “centrist” Ukrainian President would not be raising that issue at all before 2014.
Second, there are long-standing structural factors ensuring that Ukrainian politicians – even those that campaign on a pro-Russian platform – rapidly drift west relative to their constituents. That is because the Ukrainian elites are much more Western-orientated than the proles – adjusting for geography (the famous west-east Russophile gradient), and for age structure (younger people are more pro-Western), both pro-Western and Ukrainian nationalist sentiments increase with education**. Even a large percentage of Party of Regions elites (if not rank and file voters) are Westernizers. And the oligarchs, of course, hold their offshore accounts in Western jurisdictions. This means westwards drift in the wake of any election.
Third, Zelensky’s political capital is meager, only appearing large in relation to Poroshenko’s trainwreck. Ukrainian voters will soon realize he is not a miracle worker who will defeat corruption in a day, actualize their “tyscha v den'” (1,000 grivna per day, or 1,000 Euros per month), and end the war on Ukraine’s terms while forcing Russia to cough up reparations. So his ratings will start plummeting like those of all previous Ukrainian leaders. One area of particular concern is Kolomoysky, who has – in an event of impeccable timing – just won a series of court cases that allow him to stop contributing surety payments towards financing PrivatBank, which was nationalized by the Ukrainian state to save it from bankruptcy in December 2016. Apart from the direct effects of allowing PrivatBank to collapse, it also threatens an immediate cutoff of almost $4 billion worth of IMF funding. And come the end of this year, Nord Stream II is projected to come online, which will annul the great bulk of Kiev’s $3 billion worth of annual gas transit revenue. These are serious sums for a state with a nominal GDP of not much more than $124 billion.
Now I am not saying that the Ukraine necessarily faces a serious fiscal-debt crisis. I am expressly not one of those people who have predicted all ten of Ukraine’s zero collapses in the past half decade. However, what it does mean is that the Ukraine should not count on any extra cash coming in, so the austerity that killed Poroshenko’s popularity will have to continue for the indefinite future (just one day in, Zelensky has already poured cold water on his more rosy-eyed supporters by rejecting any decreases in utilities tariffs). Neither the Ukrainian deep state nor the oligarchs (insofar as they are even separate) are interested in a genuine anti-corruption campaign, and both hardcore svidomy nationalists and the military establishment view him with suspicion (the General Staff Tweeted an implicit condemnation of him after he called the LDNR forces “rebels”, instead of the politically correct “terrorists”). There are vested interests in keeping the Donbass War gig alive – neither hot, nor frozen – as it enriches many people through contraband, kickbacks on supply contracts, etc.
It is hard to see how Georgian libertarians, reactivated Maidan activists, and promises to legalize weed and gambling can be competitive with entrenched oligarchs, suspicious siloviks, and an electorate subjected to indefinite austerity. Once Zelensky’s approval rate begins to plummet, his position becomes precaurious and his options on pursuing any radically new policies with respect to Russia will dwindle.
Finally, there is also, of course, the banal fact that even though there is scant evidence that Zelensky is Putin’s stooge in any sane definition of the word, the association has still been made. This make provoke a similar dynamic to what happened with President Trump after the 2016 US elections, who was forced to pursue a much harder line than he wanted to as a candidate on Russia just to “prove” that he was not beholden to the Kremlin.
In my previous post on the future of Russia-Ukrainian relations, I posited a “Georgization” of Ukraine’s relations with Russia:
However, I think it is reasonable to posit that – all else equal, and with no drastic developments (e.g. a Democratic President in the US that has it out for Russia and starts to energetically lobby for Ukraine’s NATO membership, like George W. Bush in his second term) – that Ukraine’s course and social attitudes will converge to some point between those of Moldova and Georgia. This means the resumption of normal economic relations between Russia and the Ukraine, and direct flights between Moscow and Kiev. However, the victory of pro-Russian forces in the Ukraine has been ruled out for the foreseeable future, it will be consistently voting with the Western Powers at the UN, and deepening its security integration with NATO and EU structures as the opportunity presents itself.
This is still a possible – and, of course, positive – scenario.
For instance, Igor Ivanov, the head of a prominent foreign relations thinktank RIAC, has just written an article in Kommersant by (summarized in English here) in which he argues that the Ukraine crisis has effectively blocked productive relations between Russia and the West for the past half decade, to the detriment of both. One of his suggestions is to form a high-level Contact Group, as was the case in Bosnia. It even suggests expansion of the Normandy Format to include the US. This would be a stepping stone to discussion of “broader issues of European security architecture,” which is “indispensable for a complete resolution of the Ukraine crisis.”
That said, I don’t know how much pull (if any) these people – mostly systemic liberals who want reconciliation with the West – have within the Presidential Administration.
So far, I would make a couple of perhaps more germane observations. First, Putin has yet to congratulate or even to recognize Zelinsky as the winner of the elections (he took a month to recognize Poroshenko in 2014, whereas Yanukovych was congratulated and recognized after a couple of days). Zhirinovsky has even suggested that the disenfranchisement of Ukrainian voters in Russia could be used as a pretext not to recognize Zelinsky at all. Second, as I have mentioned, there have been rumors of mass giveouts of Russian passports in the Donbass since early this year; rumors which have just recently made their way into the Ukrainian media. This would effectively complete the LDNR’s Transnistrianization. Considering their current status of legal limbo, and the political impracticality of shoving them back into Ukraine unconditionally, this would also be the humanitarian thing to do.
In any case, today’s report in Komsomskaya Pravda suggests that no final decisions have yet been taking, and that the kremlins are now waiting for Zelensky to clarify his contradictory statements on the Donbass (i.e. promising to end the war, but rejecting autonomy and amnesty). One of the key questions going forward: Was Zelensky serious about ignoring Minsk II, or was it just campaign rhetoric?
- Speculative alternate history path of victory for Poroshenko: Get somebody with a similar cool/populist profile to Zelensky to run as well, and split his vote (e.g. Vakarchuk); don’t rig the vote in Donetsk, and allow the Ukrainians in Russia to vote, propelling Boyko just ahead of Tymoshenko; beat Boyko in the second round.
** Incidentally, as I have pointed out, the latter correlation in particular is very unusual in the modern world, though it was common in the age of European nationalism during the late 19th century.
This has the smell of a geopolitical nothingburger all over it. Faces change, policies and practicalities remain the same.
Ukraine will continue to be unstable and uncomfortable everywhere outside Galicia, but survive as a political entity for the foreseeable future. Short of a military coup, no realistic internal changes in Ukraine will radically alter the situation.
Only a drastic change in Kremlin policy or a withdrawal of support from the West will see this conflict resolved in the near future. If the former were to happen, it will be when it is politically expedient to do so and not because of the Putler’s desire to unite his glorious Russian people. For the latter, we’ll either need isolations to stage a miraculous comeback in America and/or for nationalist governments to take hold in France and Germany.
There is no doubt in my mind that much of Ukraine will eventually return to the Russian fold, the sad thing about all this is that the longer it drags on, the worse Ukraine will become economically, demographically, and infrastructurally. Russia will be the recipient of a dying nation rather than the breadbasket of Europe.
Why Transnistrization? We could call it Portorication, after the prototype.
I think that Ukraine is a bigger headache for Russia than Georgia. A war with Ukraine supported by NATO would look more serious for Russia than a war with Georgia supported by NATO. Hence, the pressure will be kept up by any sane Russian president. Only unconditional surrender (namely reunification) should be acceptable.
Most Russians are very reluctant to accept that wreck, even if Ukraine asks for it. Not to mention that any Russian president who agrees to pay off Ukraine foreign debt will stop being president within weeks.
The US or EU won’t invest countless billions to make something decent out of Ukraine, either. It is a typical case of sheriff not interested in problems of Indians.
So, even under the sanest leadership (current one is not going to be sane, even if Ze is personally inclined to) Ukraine will fester for a few decades. This would create difficulties, mostly hordes of desperate refugees, for Russia, Poland, Belarus, and smaller difficulties for Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. Still, no external government would be willing to take that burden, or even part of it, for fear of the wrath of its own population. Ukraine dug a hole for itself, and now it will have to crawl back under its own power. This would be a protracted and painful process.
Zhirinovsky was amusing on 60 minutes tonight about how it’s the same country because people in Ukraine were voting for Zhirinovsky on their election paper.
https://i.imgur.com/2QqF2bf.jpg
The “Puerto Rico model” and “Russian passports for Donbas people” are rumors emanating from the Russosphere during last days. Are these rumors just “white noise”? Unlikely.
Do Boricuas have American passports?
Boricuas were granted US citizenship in 1917 to our eternal misfortune.
I looked up the numbers and Boyko would get 47% against Porky if he made it to the second round, 44% against Tymoshenko, and even 30% against Ze. Not too shabby, and pretty close to the 50-50 split once you adjust for the loss of Crimea and most of Donbass.
I understand that Porky is an absolute disgrace, but still it looks like geographically Boyko would beat him in the east and south (Kharkiv, Odessa,…). The internal split continues.
The economy is not about to get better, that means that the fake populism will backfire and next time there will be even more anger (similar with other fake ‘centrist’ populists like Macron). Announcing that utilities prices will stay high is significant: Ze is either an austerity guy himself, or he is controlled by the austerity elites. Economies don’t collapse short of war, catastrophe or famine – it doesn’t work that way. But cumulative pain can be worse than a sudden collapse.
If this is what Maidan victory looks like after 5 years, it is even more clear that Maidan was just about the dumbest rebellion in that region history. And there were some really dumb ones in the past.
Dunno about passports, but before 1898, Puerto Rico had 14 members in the Madrid Parliament. It’s surprising how that number changed when they joined the most democratic country in the world. Perhaps we can blame Putin for that as well.
That’s because a lot of Boyko’s votes would be a protest vote, not a vote for Boyko (unlike in the days when there was a real 50/50 split). His performance against the protest candidate Ze is more relevant to your point.
You think it is still 2014. It’s been getting better every year, projected growth next year has been downgraded to 2.7%.
Free election, incumbent got punished for not delivering what people wanted, left power peacefully. What a tragedy!
How could you possibly know that? Boyko strikes me as a boring, grey non-entity, why would anyone vote for him as a ‘protest‘? Same with 44% against Tymoshenko, what is there to protest, an ageing beauty?
Even against Ze., Boyko would get 30% – that suggests that close to 1/3 of rump Ukraine is not happy even with the most loosely defined ‘Maidan’. Pretty damning.
The economy of Ukraine is proudly perched in GNP/capita between Jamaica and Guatemala – both by the way currently growing faster than Ukraine’s 2.6%. The annual loss in trade with Russia is estimated (by IMF) to be $20 billion, or about 1/6 of Ukraine’s economy. Brilliant.
By the way, Porky hasn’t left yet, he is still packing. But I think his family is gone abroad already. What was the reason Yanukovitch had to go? Because his approval was down to 20%? Let’s see Porky at 24%, how is it any different, why no revolution, why wait for the elections?
They wouldn’t and didn’t. The scenario was a hypothetical matchup vs. Poroshenko.
If that’s a lot, Poroshenko got a lot.
It got to a bad place before Maidan.
LOL, not per capita, you can’t help yourself but be wrong as usual:
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD.ZG?locations=JM-UA-GT&view=chart
Poroshenko conceded peacefully, Yanukovich was arresting his enemies. That’s a nice thing about Maidan, it brought about a normal transfer of power, no need for revolutions, just elections.
If what you’re saying will actually happen, then Ukraine’s neighbors and also possibly the West will benefit from amplifying their own populations with Ukrainians. Some countries could even theoretically recruit a lot of the smarter Ukrainians–which would suck for Ukraine but be great for these other countries.
If Novorossiya will become severely depopulated, though, then Russia could try to conquer it if its own population will begin growing by that point in time. Such a Russian move would probably be very unlikely, but not completely impossible.
That I agree with! Didn’t you previously speculate that, had Yanukovych not been ousted, he would have changed Ukraine to a parliamentary system with himself as PM if he would have lost the next Ukrainian presidential election?
BTW, why did Kuchma agree to peacefully leave office in 2004? He was pro-Russian, wasn’t he?
So, with Crimea and the Donbass, Boyko could have actually won, but would not have actually been capable of governing effectively since he wouldn’t have been able to win a parliamentary majority?
Rulers are often cynical and not particularly superstitious, but the populace is almost always ridiculously superstitious. It would be against acquiring accursed lands or accursed people, totally unreasonably, but strongly, possibly even violently. No government is powerful enough to go against the deep grain of the population. Russia will take Donbass one way or another before the rot sets, but likely nothing else.
I don’t think that Islamized West (we are talking at least 10 years from today) would be interested in acquiring Christians. Maybe some of the Eastern European countries.
I live in a city with a large “Ukrainian” population. Most of them blame everything on “the Russians” (including their toilets not flushing), and were huge supporters of the Maidan coup. When it comes to political reality, sanity is not a forte for Ukrainians
In a theoretical Boyko vs. Poroshenko matchup as in the poll. Which wouldn’t happen, as in reality it would not have been Poroshenko vs. Boyko in the second round.
Boyko also got 44% against Tymoshenko, no? Could Crimea and the Donbass have been enough to push Boyko over the top even against Tymoshenko?
Yes. The other option was to make everyone who could beat him ineligible. So before Yanukovich was overthrown, a special law was passed so Klitshko couldn’t run (he lived in Germany too much). Yatsenuk’s offices were raided. Tymoshenko was, of course, already in prison. Only Tiahnybok was left alone – he was the only one who wasn’t leading Yanukovich by double-digits in polls.
All the sorts of things Russian nationalists and Sovoks were sure Poroshenko would do, Yanukovich was doing. But how they complained when he was overthrown 🙂
It would have been close.
Poroshenko and his regime were more authoritarian than Yanukovich you svidomi cretin and have a much bigger anti rating then Yanukovich. That tells you everything about the last 5 years.
You can never prove to a svidomit that 2×2=4. It’s always five and three quarters in their times table.
LOL.
This I don’t doubt. There are many pro-Western politicians to choose from, of these Zelesnky was chosen. But only two pro-Russians ones in Ukraine under Yanukovich – Yanukovich himself, plus the Communist. This guaranteed him a larger “floor” than any pro-Western politician could have.
Yeah–perhaps about a 50-50 chance in either direction. Thus, had Putin not militarily intervened in Ukraine back in 2014, we could have seen a repeat of 2010–with a pro-Russian Ukrainian President and a pro-Western Ukrainian parliament. I suspect that it would have been harder for a President Boyko to flip the Ukrainian parliament in his favor in 2019 than it was for President Yanukovych in 2010, though.
So how does the fact that you insisted, more than once, that there were no US auto factories in the USA fall into 2 x 2 = 4? Despite a massive factory like that in the metro area where you live.
Here are your words:
http://www.unz.com/akarlin/donbass-or-death/?highlight=cars#comment-2499199
“Isn’t it curious that only Japanese (Toyota), Korean (Kia), and German (VW) cars are now assembled in the US, whereas “American” cars are now assembled in Mexico? ”
http://www.unz.com/akarlin/donbass-or-death/#comment-2499610
Everybody assembles in Mexico, but very few assemble in the US. There are no American car makers among these few. I have VW Tiguan assembled in Mexico and did not buy VW Atlas assembled right here in TN because it is too big for my taste.
Reality:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/24/general-motors-will-invest-22-million-in-a-tennessee-engine-plant.html
General Motors said Thursday it will invest $22 million in its Spring Hill manufacturing complex in Tennessee to build high-tech, fuel-saving V-8 engines.
The announcement follows a $300 million investment at Spring Hill to make the Cadillac XT6, a three-row sport utility vehicle unveiled at the Detroit auto show in mid-January. The automaker said it has sunk $2 billion into the plant since 2010.
::::::::::::::
When you lied about your claims was it also 2 x 2 =4?
Here you wrote:
“As an aside, the thing about no auto plants in TN is a figment of imagination of that AP personage.”
:::::::::::::::
Your various claims about Ukraine are just as stupid as what you wrote above, I’m using this example because it’s something American readers can easily know.
Lol all you want but it’s true. Poroshenko was simply much weaker than Yanukovich. Ukraine is a basket case where everyone is for them selves and every one allied against Poroshenko. That lol is very revealing.
Who cares about who won. All I needed to see is Poroshenko’s anti rating. The next guy will get bent by Ukranians the same way. But hey you gona get your 2.6% growth in Russian Zimbabwe.
Reread my comment.
Was Russia Zimbabwe in 2002, when it last had Ukraine’s current GDP per capita PPP?
Why not look at constant US$ svidomi?
Anatoly,
You can disagree with your opponent, without misrepresenting their views to make them look like retards.
To be sure Ukrainians rejected the legacy of Euromaidan. A vote for Zelensky was a desperate attempt to escape from the nightmare these people have been subjected for the past 5 years.
And no, this does not make Zelenski campaign a Kremlin operation. It’s Kolomoyski operation. Meaning there will be no escape for these poor slobs! Though as a Jew he might want to dial down on extreme nationalism.
I wish Putin was more like Putler, but if anything the relationship will be the opposite. Putin has made it very clear that he is a cuck towards Israel (he lets jews kill Russians in Syria and then he still invites them to Russia for those military parades), Zelensky being a jew means that Putin will display a certain reverence to him.
As explained earlier, it’s not enough that Americans call something “citizen”, or “democracy”. Portoricans can’t vote, so that’s that, Humpty Dumpty.
Next thing, you are going to explain that US troops “liberate” Syria, perhaps in an attempt to provide similar “democracy”. “When I use a word”…
In Puerto Ricans case it’s retarded all around. Because they can move to the mainland and vote. So them moving in mass to Florida is screwing Republicans right now.
https://twitter.com/anneapplebaum/status/1120235356174135297
https://twitter.com/Amie_FR/status/1120264424516915200
https://twitter.com/juliaioffe/status/1120340875962396672
They can move to the mainland and vote.
Three-fifths of the island has moved to America.
Okay, was Belarus Zimbabwe in 2001? Was Armenia Zimbabwe in 2014? Was Georgia Zimbabwe in 2012? Latvia – Zimbabwe in 1994?
IIRC you had once claimed that Romania’s greatest modern political achievement was to make it so that people like you could settle in Italy.
Well, Puerto Ricans can settle in a far richer country, the USA.
Yes, but could one argue that yanukivich was protecting his office from a coup d’etat? After all, yanukovich didnt run for nothing…
Any polity, from a state professional association to Trump’s presidency to the early Soviet Union, that is not specifically formulated as anti-Semitic, will come to be dominated by Jews, and used to further their ends, not those of the majority. The land north of the Black Sea is en route to become Weimraine, only much poorer than the original.
Are you paid by the word? That would explain lengthy content-free comments.
Putin is just a cynical geostrategic player. He avoids creating more enemies than absolutely necessary. So far his strategy paid off: despite very weak hand of cards, he is winning a lot of games against players with stronger cards but weaker brains.
What explains your complete ignorance and dishonesty, as demonstrated above?
Whenever you make claims about someone’s veracity, or “2 x 2 = 4” I will remind readers of your hilarious ignorance, doubling-down on outlandish claims, and dishonesty.
The funny thing is that it was about a place whee you currently live and have lived or many years. No wonder your claims about a place you left 30 (?) years ago are no less stupid.
Some here claimed that the elections reaffirmed Maidan, others claimed that the elections showed mass rejection of Maidan. Why don’t we stick to the evidence? The events, even before expected inauguration of non-Porky, tell the story loud and clear.
One, Rada (Ukrainian parliament) deputy Valery Pisarenko introduced a bill calling for stripping Parubiy of the post of Rada speaker. For those who don’t know, Parubiy was diagnosed with mild mental retardation when he was in school; then in 2013-14 he served as a “commandant” of Maidan, where he, along with some other maidanistas like Pashinsky, organized snipers who killed more than a hundred demonstrators and police, and then helped those snipers escape; several former snipers from Georgia told this story publicly, although mainstream MSM would never tell you this; among his other achievements, Parubiy cannot pronounce a lot of consonants, which made him the butt of numerous jokes on the web.
Two, the leader of the “socialist party” of Ukraine Il’ya Kiva filed a lawsuit claiming that Porky’s takeover of formerly state-owned sweets factory in Kiev was unlawful and should be annulled.
In strict accordance with their nature, the rats are leaving the sinking ship. There is more to come, stay tuned.
New Khazaria has born. The problem is that Rus may come from the north to destroy it again. LOL.
Final data just in: Ze was supported by 73,22% of voters (13,541,530 votes), Porky by 24,45% (4,522,320 votes). 2.31% of ballots were invalid.
LOL about that “much richer”. Home ownership rate is 72% in Italy vs 64% in US. How’s life expectancy in US, compared to Italy? How about hours in a work week? Age of retirement? Percentage HS graduates going to college? (I actually find it liberating that young Italians don’t go into African Studies. Where it matters, Italians do go to college. For example, Italian population contains 0.4% physicians, compared to 0.25% in US.)
Percentage Italians whining about college debt, or filing for bankruptcy due to hospital bills? Zero. What is the antonym of “much richer”, “much poorer”? You wish you would live in “a much poorer country”, then.
Anyways, we are getting over ourselves. The fact is Italians did not invade Romania, Crimea, or Puerto Rico. (Not recently, anyways.) They let Romanian residents vote in local elections without even taking citizenship. But Portoricans can’t vote in the most democratic democracy because Putin.
BS, given that the post-Yanukovych Kiev regime has arrested numerous folks for political reasons – never minding those killed and beaten o account of their views.
Didn’t Yushchenko suggest a basis for Tymoshenko’s arrest? In any event, Yanukovych wasn’t a sole and perhaps primary source for seeking her arrest.
Quite inaccurate, seeing the internationally brokered power sharing arrangement that Yanukovych signed with three main political opponents to him at the time. It was the latter who went on to (put mildly) contradict that agreement.
Rus might turn out to be too fastidious to step into that pile of shit.
The home ownership rate in Germany is much lower than Italy (or the USA). Home ownership is a personal choice, modified by government policy. Not everyone who can afford it owns a home.
All international statistics show that America is a richer country than Italy. Per capita GDP, average net worth, salaries, etc. Per capita GDP is 60% higher.
The distribution of said wealth and various unique structural unfairnesses of America are another issue of course and very real. But then it must also be said that it’s much easier to get a job in America than in Italy. The unemployment rate is more than 60% lower than Italy.
Porto Ricans can vote. The island of Porto Rico itself has a republican form of government which is elected by Porto Rican voters. Porto Ricans who live on the US mainland can vote in local, state, and federal elections.
What they can’t do is vote in US federal elections if they’re residents of Porto Rico. But Porto Rico does not pay federal taxes, and real Americans (remember, Porto Ricans are natural born US citizens) who relocate to Porto Rico (often for its tax benefits) can no longer vote in federal elections either.
LOL………as I was saying making mentally sick, random sh*t up in order to waste time and “support” a premeditated argument. You have literally made up that garbage
Nothing strange about it……fascist loving parasites like the Baltics “proud ” of their heritage and “culture”…have elected Canadians/Americans as their President’s/PM’s all the time.
There is an American citizen tramp as PM in Latvia now
In 2008 the all three of the Baltic states were ruled ( well President of Estonia is more ceremonial, but point still remains) by Americans/Canadians….who had spent about 100 years more of their lives more in North America…than in the Baltics
Rearguard action by Porky. A draft law (344 pages long, no less) that is intended to be introduced in Rada was published by Ukrainian journalist Dubinsky. According to it, Ukrainian president would be stripped essentially of all powers. Porky is a sore loser, after all.
My comment about Zimbabwe was not about GDP per capita. I should have not taken the bait earlier. So no I don’t see a recovery in Ukraine’s future because it is a Russian Zimbabwe.
LOL….in the place where he was born (Bolgrad) he got 3% of the vote .
3%!!!
Just about sums up this farce.
He also got trounced in Vinnytsia , where he has been based for a long time
Given free choice, wouldn’t you spend a lot more time in North America that in the Baltics? Any sane person would.
It was the Rus from the south that conquesred Khazaria, from Kyiv to be exact. In fact, Prince Sviatoslav wanted to move his capital further south, to the Danube. Apparently, he had a preference for warmer weather. 🙂
Ousting Yanukovych was divorce from reality. Then Ukraine started dating the EU – which as Putin said – will never result in a marriage. And now Ukraine is just a destitute street walker. And we all know that the best thing to do when you are destitute is to become a prostitute.
“What they can’t do is vote in US federal elections if they’re residents of Porto Rico. But Porto Rico does not pay federal taxes, and real Americans (remember, Porto Ricans are natural born US citizens) who relocate to Porto Rico (often for its tax benefits) can no longer vote in federal elections either.” Sounds very similar to the relationship between mainland Russia and Transdniester – which was my point.
I am sure people from Transdniester have the same rights to move and vote in Russia. In fact, people from Transdniester and Puerto Rico can vote in their local elections for anyone they want. Well, anyone except Albizu Campos or Ilie Ilascu.
To clarify my advice to AK, I’ll state again: stop using phrases traditionally used to demonize your own country. Only propagandists, and people too much attention to propagandists, use propaganda phrases like “Quisling”, “Chemical Ali”, or “Transnistrization”. The kabuki theater, where occupied nations are forced to pretend the enjoy all the democratic rights of the occupier’s citizens, where they “vote” in false elections which reaffirm the need for occupier’s military presence, in the name of “democracy” or even “self determination”, is a fashion started by Americans at the beginning of the 20th century. Previously, occupation areas have been either fully incorporated (Republic of Texas), or governed as collections of inferior people who need not be asked (most African colonies). In a sense, holding “free elections” after killing and arresting every independentist militant is more shameless than whatever Netanyahu is doing in the West bank. It’s like rape vs. rape plus a demand to pretend you enjoy it.
Yes, Transdniester is an weird colony, where, unlike a century ago, the colonized must pretend they are independent, and that they demanded protection. But a fashion started in Puerto Rico, and still spread over most of the Carribean and Pacific, must not be called Russian names.
In a similar note, I wonder if can we stop complaining about “nepotism”. It’s another propaganda word, this time invented against Catholic Rome, as if everybody else on the planet were not friendly to their nephews. How about “generism”? “Gener” is son in law in Latin. I am sure our most democratic friends, from the richest country in the world, who are endowed with the most democratically elected and the most rich First lady and First daughter, can see where I am going.
As a Fash would ask, is generism the natural result of acquiring new citizenry from corrupt Portoricated regions? Or in a leftist interpretation, could it be that Portorication built up a massive wealth for the occupiers, to the point where they don’t care who runs their country, and they allow a generist TV personality take the presidency?
He might had been misinformed, it can get quite chilly during winter around Danube. Having a preference for warmer weather is a sign of weakness, one of the rotten things that have been undermining the old European civilization. Hot weather is for lazy worms, it leads to other pathologies too…
I am guessing Sviato was at least part Scandinavian after all, his inbred weakness (and cruelty) shows…
Scandinavians are exceptionally prone towards ‘inbread weakness’ and ‘cruelty’? Really, tell us more…
You can visit and observe for yourself: they share their women with thugs from the Third World and grin stupidly about how happy they are about it. They also bomb the natives down south and pompously say that it must be done because of ‘values‘.
The combination of weakness and cruelty is truly amazing, it usually happens when you pair up for too long with your cousins in small communities. Check out Habsburgs for a great example…
AFAIK, Prince Sviatoslav was from Kiev. I don’t know were Kiyv is, but I know he destroyed Atil and Sarkel, It is near there?
Porto Ricans can vote. The island of Porto Rico itself
For the record, it’s Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans. Porto Rico and Porto Ricans are the Portuguese variants which for some reason were commonly used by Americans at the time of the Spanish-American war and then (mistakenly) incorporated in the Treaty of Paris (1898). In 1932 the US Congress formally corrected this error.
https://www.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/72nd-congress/session-1/c72s1ch190.pdf
My usage is deliberate
I don’t like Porto Ricans
Not to mention that Puerto Rico means “rich port”. Applied to that island it sounds like sarcasm.
I’ll have to defer to your opinion for now, not ever having been there. I know that Thorfinnsson has family still there and visits on occasion. It would be interesting to hear his opinion about these matters too. Perhaps his family left the place to avoid these ‘peculiarities”?
How exactly is Transnistria a colony? By the 2015 census, 61.3% of its citizens are Russian, Ukrainian or Belarusian.
What’s the matter, are you unable to look at a map and see just how far Kyiv (Kiev) is from Atil and Sarkel? He must not have been that impressed for he didn’t stay there for very long?…
Defer? How humble.
Why not have the same level of reluctance about other places you haven’t visited? My two points: cucks running the place and also being enthusiastic humanitarian bombers are not exactly unknown facts. Me suspects you are humble because facts don’t fit what you like, so you trot out a sudden surge of ‘never been there’. How convenient.
It is wild to look at this crowd and remember that these are the original gangstas in their native habitat and without any adulteration or watering down. These are your actual, feral Khazars, not some suburban house cats like we have here in North America.
Is this man the puppet master of Ukraine’s new president or an overhyped bogeyman?
https://www.rt.com/news/457321-kolomoisky-zelensky-ukraine-oligarch-puppet/
They’re still there. Where are they going to go?
Sweden’s pathologies aren’t any different than any other Western country other than being somewhat more extreme. My normal explanation for that is that Swedes are congenital moral fanatics (today’s religion being globohomo), and Sweden is a very centralized and authoritarian state. The country is actually very odd compared to the rest of the West and has a surprising amount in common with the history of Eastern Europe.
The rest of Scandinavia is a bit different. Denmark has more immigration restrictionism than any other Western country, and Norway is somewhere in between Denmark (which it has more cultural affinity with) and Sweden.
More on Denmark:
https://www.amren.com/features/2017/12/the-danish-exception/
https://vdare.com/articles/denmark-can-the-silent-carriage-survive
It is also a sign of wealth.
https://www.deepl.com/Translator#de/en/Nach%20Daten%20der%20Europäischen%20Zentralbank%20(EZB)%20liegt%20das%20Medianvermögen%20der%20privaten%20Haushalte%20in%20Deutschland%20bei%2060.000%20Euro%2C%20in%20Italien%20bei%20150.000%20Euro.
https://www.cicero.de/wirtschaft/Italien-Haushalt-EU-Eurokrise-Euro
And I think that you’re really all mixed-up with your strange projections. So what ‘reluctance‘ have I betrayed to you about ‘places I haven’t visited‘, anyway?
The Russians don’t give a damn about the people of Transdniester. It’s like UK cares about the well-being of sheeps grazing on Akrotiri. Transdniester is a supposedly-defensible beach head, currently keeping the Ukies in defensive on their Dniester side, but possibly useful as a launchpad for West-ward little green men. It’s as transparent as the American base at Deveselu.
If Transndiester were a brotherhood of Russians and Ukies, why not leave its defense to the Belarussian, Ukrainian, and / or Transnistrian Armies? The nominal enemy of Transnistria is “The Republic”, the poorest country in Europe proper, with 7000 troops in total. The Russian Fourteenth Army is an oversized hammer for a small nail.
In 1941, when Romanians took it from Stalin, 70% of the people there declared themselves Ukies. (Surprisingly few were Romanians or Moldovans.) Just five earliers, only 29% percent called themselves Ukies in a census organized by USSR. In 1959, 65% were “Moldovans”, meaning that the Ukrainians changed their mind again. How come? (See below an explanation.)
To give you another example, consider the Romanians. Currently, there are zero Romanians in the only Transdniester census, dating from 2004. (here’s your trustworthy source!) But two thousand people declared themselves Romanians in Transdniester in the 1989 census. In 2004, 2% of “Moldovans” in the remainder of “The Republic” declared themselves Romanians. (It’s 7% now.) Do you think Romanity can’t cross the Dniester at all? The truth is that some of the few people who dared calling themselves Romanians in Transdniester have been jailed. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilie_Ilașcu ) So the other ones declared themselves “Russians”, or “Belarussians”, or whatever else saves your time. There is no prize for peeing against the wind.
Or consider the Jews. Did you know that, on paper, Transdniester and Ukraine have 0.2% Jews each, Moldova – 0.06%, and Romania – 0.016%? If anything, all these numbers are underestimations by a factor of 100. Do you think those marranos are going to declare themselves anything but the majority? Here’s most of the difference between your “61% Belarussians” and my “65% Moldovans”.
Russians did not declare a Special Jewish Zone or at least a Multiculti Ukie-Belo-Russian. They installed a puppet regime, gave them some money, and told them to make sure the locals don’t engage in sabotage. The Fourteenth Army is there for more important business, but, in Portorican manner, they prefer to declare they were called in by the “oppressed”. The same happened in South Ossetia and Crimea. In places where there are actual oppressed Russians, but the position is not strategically advantageous nor defensible (say, Odesa), there is no Russian Army. It’s like they couldn’t give a damn about the oppressed.
I have this discussion a lot with house homos and condo cucks.
An owner-occupied house is a form of wealth in that it’s a saleable asset, but the trouble is that it produces no income and that in the event you need to sell it you have nowhere to live. You then have to buy another property or rent housing. You can produce some income by letting out a room…then you have a stranger living in your house, how lovely.
Imagine if you will that slavery were legal in Italy but not Germany, and it is perfectly legal for any free Italian to sell himself into slavery at any time. All free Italians would then enjoy a major advantage in net worth owing to the fact that they would own a lifetime royalty-free license for their labor power which could at any time be sold on the free market. A big increase in marketable wealth, but no advantage in actual prosperity since to enjoy this wealth you would have to sell yourself into slavery.
Houses also cost money in the form of property taxes, depreciation, and insurance. Granted, these costs also exist when renting but are paid by the landlord (from your rent). The main financial benefit of owner-occupied housing is the possibility of downsizing in old age, taking out a reverse mortgage late in life, or passing on the house to your children. Since most people are too stupid to build up wealth through investing in securities (or rental housing, real business, etc.), that is something of a benefit.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the typical German has more financial assets (stocks, bonds, CDs, etc.) than the typical Italian while living in his long-term rent-stabilized apartment. He thus likely enjoys superior financial security to his Italian counterpart, and further has the advantage of participating in a more dynamic economy with higher wages and lower unemployment.
Some recent research also indicates that high home ownership rates reduce the flexibility of the labor market, contributing to structurally higher unemployment and lower wages. If that’s true, and it makes inherent sense, governments should stop fetishizing home ownership and promoting it in government policy. The decline in old age security and intergenerational wealth inheritance could be offset through universal defined-contribution pensions that invest in financial assets, with unspent balances in retirement accounts fully heritable by children after death.
I assume this is a reply to my post.
I have only spent a few hours in Transnistria, but from what my travel partner and I (half-Russian girl from Nikolayev) could tell, everyone seemed Russian and spoke Russian among themselves (unlike in Chișinău, where only older people even knew Russian). But you are saying that this was all just a charade?
“Authoritarian” was not the main Yanukovich’s problem, and he was only authoritarian in a very easy and limited way, although he was stupid to talk about strengthening the vertical of power as if this would be some kind of popular policy you should boast on (which is how nationalism and liberalism could combine forces against him).
Another Yanukovich’s problem was to try to be anti-nationalist leader, in the divided political geography of Ukraine, and where the education system was teaching people in the opposite direction since independence, and previous regime had been in the opposite direction. (His situation was almost impossible as a result of the previous regime’s promises of joining NATO, education emphasis on the Holodomor and rehabilitation of national memory, etc.)
Putin and Lukashenko, were successfully anti-nationalist leaders, but this anti-nationalism is not in a schizophrenic way which contradicts the direction of the country and previous governments. Of course, Ukraine is more ungovernable anyway. And from the beginning, Putin and his team were carefully redefining “nationalism” away from any “Russia for Russians” type of direction, and in a direction to their own idea of “nationalism” which can increase governability – so they could later claim the redefined version of it.
The language is not the same as nationality. Practically all reasonably civilized Ukrainians speak Russian (and actually prefer it, as tricky Google non-question “in what language do you want your questionnaire?” showed), but many of them are Ukrainians. Practically all Irish speak English, but remain Irish. Educated Kazakhs speak Russian as their first (often the only) language, so, unlike other Central Asians, they have no accent in Russian, yet they are Kazakhs. Usually people speak the language that is common to all present, which in Transnistria means Russian in most cases, regardless of the nationality of the speakers.
Native Jews of Ukraine are overrepresented in the highest level of gangsters. Also a proportion are clearly just gopniks.
But overall they will be a lot more educated and “middle class” people on average. Anecdotally half of the time I look recently at social media of computer science graduates from Kiev, they are posting about Jewish heritage trips.
Native post-Soviet Jews there (excluding the Hasidic cult imports) will be one of the more watered down Jews.
Also they are heavily Ukrainizing, which was likely accelerated by recent events. You can search for start the year at private Jewish/Hebrew technical schools in Kiev and see the Ukrainization. This is how nationalist education system became in Ukraine – for private techncal Jewish ORT schools, that focus on science, have this atmosphere integrated with their Israel flags.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bi2z6qLIvA
Putin is often credited with things that are not his achievements, but just signs of health and maturity of society. Dumb nationalism in Russia was never very popular, but after the Ukrainian events, which showed to any even moderately intelligent person that primeval tribal nationalism can ruin any country, the popularity of “Russia for Russians” nuts plummeted. Tribal nationalism is usually driven by deep inferiority complex, which most Russians don’t suffer from. It’s not so much to Putin’s credit, as a credit to Russian society in general. Of course, he takes advantage of that in his policies. He also likes to be credited with things where by rights credit belongs elsewhere. Very few people can resist that temptation.
It is surely a bit exaggerated. I believe they are supposedly integrated some middle class immigrants from third-world, into Scandinavian countries, and those can be gentle hipsters like the rest of the population. But a lot of the Muslim immigrants in Scandinavian countries, live in a kind of “parallel society” and do not marry outsiders.
Sure. I used Russian as a shorthand for Russian/Ukrainian/Belarusian in response to Anon[318]’s claim that those 61.3% who identified as such in the 2015 census are really Moldovans (or should that be Moldavians?).
Sure, cave nationalism is not a majority interest, outside Ukraine. But the question how much is “top down” and how much is “bottom up”. The education system and history teaching in Ukraine, with whatever started under Kravchuk in the 1990s… is a “top down” effect there.
A good panel discussion on Ukraine/Zelensky with Valentin Yakushik, Uly Brueckner and Dmitry Babich:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt9hBrlOqIM
The demographic of Pridnestrovie (AKA Transnistria and closely related spellings) is fairly even among people in the Russian, Ukrainian and Moldovan categories. In these categories, many of these people have roots with one or two of the other main ethnic groups in that territory. It’s safe to say that the ethnic Ukrainian component in Pridnestrivie tends to be non-svido and Russian leaning.
Some related articles on Pridnestrovie:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/11/14/donald-trump-and-potential-russia-west-break-points.html
https://www.eurasiareview.com/10012012-pridnestrovies-present-and-future%C2%A0-analysis/
https://www.eurasiareview.com/07062010-haggling-over-the-former-moldavian-ssr-dispute-analysis/
In a way, it does. If you do not have to pay rent, you can keep more of your income.
Germans are known to be no friends of stocks (only 5 millions in 82 millions have any).
The reality is that your typical German is “too stupid to build up wealth through investing”.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-wealth-idUSBREA1P1VJ20140226
https://www.deepl.com/Translator#de/en/Im%20Rahmen%20der%20ING%20International%20Survey%20(IIS)%202017%20wurden%20rund%2012.700%20Menschen%20aus%20zwölf%20europäischen%20Ländern%20gebeten%2C%20ihre%20Finanzbildung%20einzuschätzen.%20Deutschland%20konnte%20sich%20dabei%20im%20Ranking%20um%20eine%20Position%20verbessern%20–%20und%20liegt%20nun%20nur%20noch%20auf%20dem%20vorletzten%20Platz.
https://www.creditplus.de/kredite/kredit-magazin/detail/news/finanzbildung-der-deutschen/
I meant not watered down with Anglospherical habits and refinements. It’s good to hear they’re coming out of their shells back home.
You read too much into it (bold letters?). I simply pointed out that your reluctance to address Scandinavian situation since you have never visited is unusual and doesn’t make much sense. One can have an opinion based on very widely available sources today, and visiting a place doesn’t add much more info in areas like Norwegian-Danish bombing raids around the world, or sexual customs among migrants and locals in Sweden. Or Yoruba beauty queens in Finland. I don’t have to visit Nigeria (and I won’t) to know that it is a sh..thole.
Scandinavia is somewhat strange, something is not right with the way they have been acting. Whatever it is, bipolar personalities, verbal impoverishment, inbreeding, propaganda, or yearning for warmer climates – it is observable without visiting.
You have to understand, that the ‘normal’ everyday press here in the states doesn’t spend an inordinate amount of time on Scandinavia. I don’t have the luxury of researching these issues myself, and sometimes have to rely on the opinions of persons such as yourself, that live much closer to the source than I do. Compare your reply in #69 and Thorfinnsson’s in #71. For some reason, you seem to come straight out of the gates in a snarky sort of mood and paint all of the Scandinavian countries alike in a negative manner. Thorffinsson on the other hand paints a more nuanced picture indicating that each country is indeed different from the others. If you’re having a bad day, don’t take it out on me. 🙂
Remember, I’m the one who recently agreed with you that Ukrainians gloss over the questionable things that they may have to face down the road, if they pursue a European course. I’m not AP’s twin brother. 🙂
It depends on location, but in places where it is desirable to buy, then they are usually appreciating. To buy and sell apartments, is – when you can overpass the barrier to entry of buying property in the attractive locations – the most easy way to have money (at least for a good standard).
That said, some countries have terrible inheritance taxation policy, and policies against foreign buyers, so it can be a very unstable investment on a family, if not to the individual.
A sharp contrast to the aforementioned Al Jzzeera show:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/01/ukraines-tv-president-is-dangerously-pro-russian/
More generally, on the wildly disproportionate representation of Jews, in the wealthy section of society in Ukraine.
I would add that, it might be expected a reduction in the future, because native Ukrainian Jews (as opposed to some imported Hasids) will be aging and elderly population, even more than other nationalities of Ukraine:
A large proportion of young people with Jewish descent in Ukraine, are constantly emigrating to Israel (at least, younger couples, when they are old enough to avoid conscription in Israel).
On the other hand, usually it will be far the more often only middle class or working class Jews, that emigrate to Israel, while the richer Jews continue to live in Kiev. And the richer ones who immigrate to Israel, will then live half-way between Kiev and Israel.
For example, I read that Israel’s national tennis champion is an “immigrant from Ukraine”.
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Sports/Tennis-Fridman-claims-national-title-stuns-No-1-seed-Glushko-437826
Then I looked on her Instagram, and obviously she does not live in Israel, and probably her family looks too rich in Kiev, that the parents would want to leave it.
https://www.instagram.com/of_ficial/
That’s true….but the problem is with the stupid, pseudo-nationalist people who voted for these clowns.
If the person elected was in a Soviet prison for years, then left for the US, achieved success, then moved back to the homeland after 40/50 years and ran for President – THEN it would be tolerated ( say if something like that happened with Solzhenitsyn in Russia in 1991 or 1996)
But other than that – these plastic countries shouldn’t be so pathetic that they can’t elect somebody who has lived and “suffered” under the rule of the Soviet Union in Lith/Lat/Est …….and wasn’t/had family who were Nazi collaborating scumbags. There were people who were arrested for wanting statehood at the end of the 80’s/start of the 90’s – I could tolerate a President of a Baltic state coming from this line of thought – not this laughable stream of North American imbeciles.
In the Baltic countries, if you are not Russian (even born in there natively), you get an EU citizenship.
Also easily becoming in the political class in Latvia, while having American and EU citizenship
So these Americans whose family was Nazi collaborators, and they can go to Latvia, and receive another citizenship that is denied to native people of Russian nationality, and they can easily join the political class of Riga (an attractive city)? Does not sound like such an insane decision as AnonFromTN thinks.
This is 100% correct.
But considering that it is now close to 30 years of this garbage…it has been an embarrassing failure. Sure, it has had some effect, but to nowhere near fatal levels where I can be seriously worried about de-russification. Anti-Russianism – yes. but that is far from the same as de-russification.
Are you implying average Italians are wealthier than Germans?
There is surely something wrong with the design of this metric.
I don’t do much nuance, it fogs up clear thinking. But I agree with Thorffinsson’s discriminating approach, Denmark is indeed much better. I am not snarky about Scandinavia, more like disappointed. How did they manage to get to this point? There was so much promise.
I have a few Scandinavian friends and they all have this weird desire for sun and exotica. I am assuming that is a part of the problem. I find sunny weather oppressive, and exotica is just dirt with lots of colors. When I visualize ancient Vikings, it strikes me that they were probably the same, Sviato and all, always yearning for the sun. That was my point… 🙂
I neglected to mention the benefit of owning a house free and clear. The ordinary mortgage term is 30 years (at least in America, unsure of Italy), so conveniently this is typically around the age people retire. Thanks for bringing that up.
https://www.gfmag.com/global-data/economic-data/916lqg-household-saving-rates
According to this, Germans have the third highest household savings rate in Europe. For some reason the table does not include France, which would probably be higher (largely because of France’s antiquated income tax system, which does not withhold tax from wages).
If not stocks, where does the typical German sparfuchs put his money? I certainly hope not in bank savings accounts…
Standard and Poor’s ranks Germany as having the seventh highest level of financial literacy in the world: https://howmuch.net/articles/financial-literacy-around-the-world
https://cdn.howmuch.net/articles/1-financial-literacy-fe98.jpg
Full report here: https://gflec.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/3313-Finlit_Report_FINAL-5.11.16.pdf?x28148
As to wealth in Germany being unequally distributed, I’ll give my standard response to the “problem” of inequality:
who cares
Anti-Russianism is a worse problem, than de-russification.
Wales can promote a culture and language separate from English (and Welsh is a much more divergent language and people). But Wales does not bomb citizens of the country who do not want that.
There’s nothing intrinsically bad to promote a different language and identity (as Wales – even if, for Wales, it is less artificial).
Unfortunately, are a bit more serious and extreme with Ukraine’s education, than just Ukrainization. Now in Ukraine’s school program, they teach officially children about the innocent heroism of Roman Shukhevich, Simon Petlyura and Bandera. And the school program recently includes songs of the UPA for students to sing.
In this case I was not referring to a decline in market value (though for accounting purposes this does exist in business), but to the physical deterioration of capital and thus the need to maintain or replace it.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/depreciation.asp
Houses consume a lot of capital in maintenance. Roofs, windows, gutters, HVAC systems, and so forth require maintenance and periodic replacement. The American Association of Retired Persons estimate that the average American house costs 3% of its value every year to own.
A tradeable security on the other hand costs nothing at all to own, but instead pays you a cash every quarter (generally).
The metric is true, and the reason is that the home ownership rate is much higher in Italy. Middle class losers have most of their wealth in housing, and since German government policy does not encourage home ownership middle class Germans build less wealth than their counterparts in many other rich countries.
If you follow this discussion you’ll note that I paint owner-occupied primary homes as not such a great form of wealth, so the lower net worth of average Germans is not so bad.
Frankly, I have no idea how they prefer to be called. Outside of Moldova (I met some in Greece, illegally working as waitresses) they call themselves Russians from Moldova.
Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian sound very different. Belorussian sounds hard, almost like Serbian or Bulgarian, Ukrainian (real one, not Western Ukrainian dialects) sounds soft and melodious, whereas Russian is somewhere in between. For those who understand Slavic languages, Russian sounds more refined than the other two.
A whole generation grew up on that garbage. Of course, smarter ones get other viewpoints from the web, whereas dumber ones don’t and join the Right Sector or football fan clubs. Among those living in Ukraine what their government calls “patriotism” is inversely proportional to individual’s intelligence.
Actually, the chronicles state just the opposite – that Sviatoslav led a spartan lifestyle, for instance, slept under an open sky. He was also laconic, instead of long speeches, he would just say “Idu na vy!” – “I’m coming unto you.”
How is that inconsistent with wanting to head down south? You can be laconic, sleep outside, be spartan – and still yearn for sun and exotica. It describes fairly well modern Scandinavians.
Actually they rarely mix with the hordes that they have allowed in.
https://www.thelocal.se/20150402/single-immigrants-less-likely-to-settle-with-swedes
The ones marrying Swedes are Thais, Finns and Danes.
Is this common in your rural homeland?
Your ignorance and ingratitude come together. If not for Hapsburgs you would be a Magyar of obscure and forgotten Slav peasant origin.
And who were its historical inhabitants? Romanians?
Would that really be so bad, though?
Oh, Zhora, peddling your half-truths again. 🙂 you very conveniently ignore that 99% of the Baltic elites are native. 20% of the Latvian parlament (Seim) is Russian, the mayor of Riga (a better job than being the PM actually) for many years was a Russian (finally ousted for his incompetence). Latvia was in fact ruled for many years by a triad of local men two of which have a cold relationship with the US representative.
As to the exiles, they were ripped away from us as babies and deserve to come back to our bosom. They’re a mixed bag, some are great, but some already too estranged. The current PM btw came back in the 90s. I agree that the dissidents should’ve come to power but you should understand that such idealists simply got shoved aside by the old Communist turned liberal types back in the 90s. New people, the middle generation, are
currently replacing those types.
Too much Marrakesh, I agree. 🙂 also, their Anglification makes me cringe.
It’s great to see this outpouring of mutual affection between Ukrainians and Jews. It almost seems a little bit over the top and hard to believe. Tell us more if you can about who was really behind this video clip and whether this ‘movement’ has been afoot for a while.
Spot the odd one out, them race mixing with whites is as disgusting as it is with blacks.
Thailand, Philippines and Russia. Clearly elderly Swedish men looking for mail order brides.
Incidentally, my experiences confirm AP’s point. I met lots of half-Swedish, half-other European offspring while I lived there but not so many half-Swedish, non-white offspring.
Some Swedish women like to fool around with blatte* men when they are young but will generally settle down with a dull, reliable Svensson.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Blatte
Russian sounds the harshest-sounding of the three languages. Ukrainian is most melodious. Galician speech is indeed less melodious than is Ukrainian from elsewhere. It is clipped and more abrupt, kind of like Urals Russian compared to Moscow Russian (which is not melodious, but stretches its vowels). Belarussian sounds, not so much harsh, but there is something unpleasant about it. I mean it no insult, it is sad that the language is only half-alive, this is simply a subjective impression.
They are. Even without real estate assets.
Net financial assets per capita in Euro
https://www.welt.de/img/finanzen/mobile158296018/1791626207-ci23x11-w780/DWO-FI-Sparer-jb-Geldvermoegen-jpg.jpg
https://www.welt.de/finanzen/article158296022/Die-Deutschen-sparen-sich-um-ihr-Vermoegen.html
Germany is not as wealthy as it is productive.
It is common among some quarters of American “True Conservatives” and among Zionist shills in Europe and the Anglosphere to hyperventilate about “Eurabia”, but from having lived in a district which according to statistics produced one of the highest per capita jihadists in the country, I can confidently state that American Negrification of metic lumpenproles poses a far threat to the culture of Western Europe than Islamism ever will.
The most popular financial investment: https://www.flossbachvonstorch-researchinstitute.com/fileadmin/user_upload/RI/Studien/files/study-181207-why-germans-do-not-save-correctly.pdf
https://www.welt.de/img/finanzen/geldanlage/mobile129740811/8011625417-ci23x11-w780/DWO-Geldanlage-jb-Aufm-jpg.jpg
https://www.welt.de/finanzen/geldanlage/article133000571/Geld-der-Deutschen-vergammelt-auf-Girokonten.html
https://www.dw.com/en/germans-torn-between-saving-and-investing/a-37543183
Only Austrians managed to secure even lower yields:
https://www.welt.de/img/finanzen/mobile158296020/6391626207-ci23x11-w780/DWO-FI-Sparer-jb-Renditen-jpg.jpg
Some good news for people in DNR:
https://twitter.com/Andrew__Roth/status/1121024287576666112
I’m not sure where this giant ‘European’ firm has a greater presence today, but they certainly do a lot of business in the US. Walking through the Mpls/St. Paul International airport and you almost feel like its owned by Allianz, that has its advertisements plastered everywhere. Bates sounds like your typical equity peddling salesman though, blind to the realities of history, where ‘what goes up must come down’. We’ve been traversing up, up and away now for over 10 years, so putting money aside in safer investments makes sense right now. Money market rates, in the states, have been inching up steadily now for a couple of years. With a little bit or research, you can find CD’s and other invetments paying up to 3%.
It appears that the German sparfuchs is a volatility cuck. According to the report savings accounts are as popular as equities. Embarrassing…
If the German pension system is adequate for old age provision, then the irrational investing decisions of German savers are irrelevant from a point of view of national policy. Perhaps even beneficial as it gives German banks a competitive edge in sourcing low cost capital from depositors. Although Deutsche Bank will just figure out another way to lose money as usual.
You can’t time markets, don’t even try. The stock market goes up 80% of the time, and recent research suggests that a majority of gains tend to occur in late bull markets.
What’s more important is to have an individual financial plan tailored to your own financial needs. Stick to the plan and tune out all the noise.
If you have an identified need to draw down your savings in the near future, then naturally a greater portion of your savings should be invested in asset classes with lower volatility.
If not, then don’t be a CD cuck.
The German pension system is only somewhat adequate for old age provision because the government can afford to subsidize it with more and more money from the federal budget.
https://www.dbresearch.com/PROD/RPS_EN-PROD/PROD0000000000447678/Germany’s_fiscal_situation:_Full_employment_and_ze.PDF
The federal budget for 2019 included EUR 100 bn for financial support to the statutory pension system.
There is nothing the federal government spends more money on than supporting pensions.
https://www.deepl.com/Translator
https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/die-zehn-wichtigsten-fakten-zum-bundeshaushalt-15905667.html
That is just day of knowledge at a random secular Jewish technical school in Kiev.
You can see what Ukrainization policy Kiev demands of schools now, that even private technical Jewish schools have that atmosphere.
In Ukraine, you can still see on one hand, a generally high degree of official tolerance for the Jews, but at the same time even privately educated Jews have to follow policy of “total Ukrainization”.
–
For example of this contradiction, if you look at Facebook of Jewish technical school in Zaporozhye. They have to celebrate Shevchenko day (obviously this is Ukrainian law now). But Shevchenko, romanticized the 18th century massacres of Poles and Jews (probably they just ignore this topic).
https://www.facebook.com/ortalef.zp/photos/a.1770480063056519/1770481133056412/
I’m not advocating to convert all of your investible money into money markets etc; but only a certain portion. Of course you’re right that there may be a ways to go in riding this bull, but it wont last forever. If you haven’t already made some considerable gains over the last 10 years, then this probably isn’t the time to start.
The outcome of streamlining the citizenship, will be increased emigration of people of Donbass to Russia.
Czech periodical Český rozhlas published a paper titled “A Jew at the head of Ukrainian fascists”. Ukrainian embassy went ballistic. As lies never excite anyone so much, this must be classical “truth hurts” situation.
This is funny. Anyone who ever heard Belorussian (few people in the street actually speak it, but there is radio) and Russian would say that Belorussian is a lot harsher sounding, with very few soft vowels (in contrast to Russian and Ukrainian) and lots of hard ones (like Serbian and Bulgarian, except that Serbs tend to skip vowels altogether). But in Ukies’ eyes, whether it’s raining or shining, Russians are to blame for it (see a pretty accurate comment #16).
To be honest, this is long overdue. From my perspective, Putin vacillated too long. I am sure the reason was that he is playing the great chessboard (using Zbig’s term) and does not really give a damn about Donbass people, who were left to fend off the Nazis with limited help.
Self-appointed Ukrainian “Patriarch” Filaret decorated Dnepropetrovsk “businessman” Alexander Petrovsky, better known in criminal circles as “Narik”, which loosely translates as “junkie”. Makes sense: a criminal decorates another criminal. Birds of a feather.
This bull run will end, or perhaps already has. Then there will be another one.
https://greenbackd.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/us_bull_markets_since_1871.jpg
And even when the market isn’t rising, companies go right on paying dividends to stockholders. Non-dividend paying firms will still undertake efforts to increase earnings and book value per share.
You’re older than I am of course and no doubt have different financial needs which dictate a financial plan with a higher share of lower volatility asset classes.
Putin was waiting, because they look at both sides of the topic.
It’s good demographically for Russia – as the easier process to attain Russian citizenship, will increase emigration to Russia.
It’s good for people in Donbass, as it is more convenient process to attain citizenship.
However, increased convenience to the emigration process, will add a factor weakening the demographic situation in Donbass.
Can you provide a link to this piece?
Any good divident paying MF’s that you can recommend?
Shevchenko and Hrushevsky are sancrosanct gods within the Ukrainian pantheon of nation builders. The first addresses the Ukrainian heart, the second the Ukrainian mind. Anyway, Shevchenko’s few remarks that may be considered anti – Jewish, were few and far between, and were a common sentiment expressed by most European literati of the past, and they’re still around (and revered).
I’ve had great relations with Jews my whole life and look forward to better relations between the two groups in Ukraine. Perhaps, if I knew the likes of the Rothchilds or Soros, I might have another opinion. 🙂
ETFs are a better choice than MFs as they are more tax efficient and usually have lower expenses.
https://investorplace.com/2019/02/are-these-7-dividend-aristocrats-etfs-fit-for-a-king/
I didn’t say he was, so you are fighting a straw man. I took your remark about Sviato having warm weather cooties seriously – my bad – maybe because I find sun worshippers weirdly self-destructive.
I will make a general point about the Viking-Germanic invaders/pillagers of that era: they mostly went south, after a short break, they reassembled and went further south. Most disappeared in the sunny southern vastness without leaving much of a trace.
Whether Sviato personally craved sun and exotica, I don’t know – I will defer to you that he didn’t – but the drive to go toward the sun was a major force in the Viking-Germanic mentality. It is still present in today’s Scandinavians.
Carnivores are good, grains and the soya sh..t that Westerners now eat are bad. One has to have the ability to postpone easy gratifications available in the southern climates, it is destructive.
One million Third World migrants, disproportionally young men, and you are telling us that they don’t pair up? A homely, chunky Swedish girl from the suburbs is exactly what they pair up with. They might not get married, Swedes don’t marry much these days.
If? You live in a complete fantasy land. Habsburgs were the ultimate inter-marrying tribe, and they paid a price for it: inbred idiocy, lack of vigour, mental issues – look up Mayerling, etc… They sat on top of all Central European nations like a slowly melting turd, unable to move, manipulated by all, overstaying their welcome by about 200 years.
Magyars are our neighbours. We argue and fight, but we are still neighbours and share most of our cultures, other than languages and some spices. You know nothing about this region, stick to Galicia, you just whacked by the other 75% of Ukraine, Habsburg nostalgia won’t help.
Here is the link:
https://plus.rozhlas.cz/jan-fingerland-zid-v-cele-ukrajiny-7901415
There is an easy fix for this: recognize DPR and LPR. Of course, the Empire and its sidekicks will create a stink, but they are creating a stink anyway, so Russia has nothing to lose.
The kind of comparative political analysis which the likes of Michael McFaul shy away from:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/04/24/gauging-ukraine-with-russia-and-belarus/
Thanks!
Obviously zero pairings would be an absurdity, but the rate of couplings is probably lower per capita compared to that in Britain, France, and other invaded Western countries.
Not because Swedes have some special aversion to miscegenation (sadly they do not), but because immigrants in Sweden are far less integrated into society than is the case in other Western countries. The purpose of importing these immigrants is just virtue signaling, so an even more disproportionate share than usual subsist on the dole. Even taxi drivers in Stockholm itself were mostly Swedish until ten years ago.
This is costly to the Swedish taxpayer, but has the benefit of reducing contact with the indigenous population and strengthening the argument of restrictionists.
For actual work there is no shortage of laborers from Poland and the Baltic states. Swedes like to joke that a Polish laborer needs only a Red Bull and a cigarette to put in a solid twelve hours of construction work. This is meant as a confident assertion of Swedish superiority over Slavs (Slavs are white so trash talking them isn’t “racist”), but actually when you think about it is high praise.
Amusingly there is a real shortage of indigenous Swedish labor these days. Not because of the “jobs Swedes won’t do nonsense”, but because many blue collar Swedes now work in Norway.
Here you can see a Norwegian rap music video insulting Swedish workers in Norway:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRRS8iH4Qo8
Thanks you!
Last time I was in Stockholm about a year ago, the city center and the subway were Third Worldly: cafes looked like different Somali clans moved in, re-arranged the furniture, and lived there all day. A lot of service people were different hues of white, many foreigners, but also some not-well-to-do young Swedes.
It was touching to see nose-ring Swedish girls running around Eritreans wearing sandals (and no socks) making sure they were comfortable. Whether they pair up, I didn’t inquire, but it was clear from the setup who is living it up and who is serving whom. As in UK or France, in the early years it is possible to escape to selective suburbs or the countryside, but eventually it spreads.
Swedes I talked to (I am not shy about my observations), said that it was inevitable, required by ‘international law‘, and that world is changing anyway. Some said that Bush bombed Iraq or that China is taking over anyway. Or giggle about somosa dishes and big boobies. It is impossible to know what they really believe, but when the topic is broached one senses that Swedes are looking over their shoulders. That suggests fear or fatalism.
I don’t get it. I wouldn’t dig ditches for 12 hours so migrants can get free housing. I wouldn’t migrate to Norway for a better pay-check. Denmark is much better, but the Swedish attitudes seem very ingrained as if they have lost the will to live.
Just what exactly are you talking about here, anyway?…
Correct, perpetually clueless one. And I’m not the one telling you this, the pairings are recorded. Most mixes with foreigners in Sweden involve (in order) Thai women and Swedish men, Finns, and Danes. See Thorfinnson’s comment. With so many migrants, there may be occasional pairings, but it is rare.
If not for Hapsburgs you would share languages as well, just you northern Magyars would have roots in some long-forgotten Slavic tribe who spoke a dead Czech dialect.
Let me guess…
https://youtu.be/HPdFDfQyi_c
Funny, I thought that you’d be there by now, with all of the ‘exotic sultriness’ and promiscuity? 🙂
I was last in Sweden in 2014–before Merkel orchestrated this most recent invasion.
Things have been deteriorating in Western Europe for a long time (’60s in most of it, even earlier in France and Britain), but 2015 was a huge surge which no doubt has changed things.
Most Swedes, like most people everywhere, largely have views which fit within their nation’s particular Overton Window. Sweden is a “modern” country with a similar Overton Window. Of course the way Swedes actually live (highly segregated) shows their revealed preference is not in line with their stated preference. You find the same behavior with American liberals sending their children to nearly all-white schools.
For a Swede to emigrate to Norway, especially on a temporary basis, isn’t that big of a deal. Not very different from migration within the Anglo countries or the German-speaking ones. Perhaps it would be like you moving to Poland. For you to move to Norway would be a much bigger change.
I can report that my cousins, with all-Swedish noble families living in all-Swedish (helsvensk) neighborhoods, claim that migration is a problem but of course that “racism” is wrong. During the 2016 Presidential race in America they expressed dismay that a “racist, sexist” candidate was performing well, to which I said both racism and sexism are objectively correct and the wall must be built ten feet higher.
You people in the Visegrad countries are just lucky to have been protected by the Soviet freezer.
Why should Slovaks become Magyars? As has been noted here, the Magyars were slow to promote literacy in their territories. Magyarization would appear to be pretty hard as Hungarians only outnumber Slovaks by a factor of two, and the Slovaks are also very closely related to the Czechs, I imagine a cluster of “svidomy” Slovaks would then appear in Prague.
Do you read Slovak easily? Takes me some time to read Czech, Slovak, Polish, and Serbian, a bit less reading Bulgarian, even though I speak Russian, proper Ukrainian, and the dialect used in Lvov area. Can’t speak either of those languages, and understand ~70% when they speak slowly.
It is the same in Berlin where parents try to avoid sending their children to schools dominated by children with migration background.
Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator
https://www.journalistenwatch.com/2019/04/23/zuviele-auslaenderkinder-kreuzberger/
Correct. OTOH there was a steady stream of Slovaks getting Magyarized. My aunt’s Hungarian husband has a Slovak surname, this is rather typical.
There was also the (unlikely, but not completely unlikely) possibility that Magyars themselves would have become Germanized.
What was the ratio of French to Occitanians? IIRC it wasn’t much different. At least there was Occitanian literature and urban areas. Bratislava (Pressburg) was 8% Slovak in the 19th century, up to 15% in 1910.
Yes, but only if Hapsburgs had promoted them.
I don’t have much problems with either Polish or Russian, and am probably slightly better in Russian because I’ve studied it formally for 2 years in college. Also, a lot of my Ukrainian and Russian friends speak a lot in Russian, and I’ve picked it up just by being around them. I think that Slovak is supposed to be pretty close to Ukrainian, although I never get a chance to hear it. Czech just sounds like Polish gone bezerk to me. 🙂
I haven’t had a chance to read the article that you’ve posted. It’ll be my first stab at reading Slovak, it should be fun.
So, is Czech closer to Polish or Slovak?…
Slovak is like Czech, but closer to Ukrainian. Czech is to Polish as Ukrainian is to Russian – “H” instead of “G”, and it sounds funny to Polish ears like Ukrainian sometimes sounds comical to Russians. One of my friends grew up near the border and according to him bored young people would sometimes amuse themselves by listening and laughing at the Czech language from movies.
Don’t know enough of either of those three languages to judge. By the sound Czech (I was in Prague and around twice, maybe 12 days total) lacks Polish hissing (to put it politely, lots of sibilants), and I understand most of it when they speak slowly. Certainly, better than Polish, although, being born in Lvov, I know a few dozen Polish words and expressions, some very polite, some very impolite. But I never was in Slovakia to hear them speak.
To be clear, I meant Russian/Ukrainian/Belarusian as in what ethnicity they self-identified as in the 2015 census.
I find Polish by far the harshest out of Polish, Ukrainian and Russian (I suspect Swedes have a natural aversion to zh-sounds; I dislike them in English too). With Ukrainian and Russian, as I have written before, I think the real divide is between educated and prole speech, and in part comes down to physiology. Contrast Svetlana Khodchenkova’s icy schoolmarm-Russian with Irina Starshenbaum’s bedroom voice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzqhlZYQOzs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WygdorC1uhk
No idea. I leave that question to our central-European commenters.
Aside from issues of different nationalities, and ignoring the most problematic aspects of the school program (history re-written by some crazy ideologues from Lvov) – you can see here very “top down” Ukrainization attempts of Kiev.
Zaporozhye is a Russian-speaking, multinational city. Instruction in the schools is Russian.
Yet for world mother language day in the schools of the city – and here below Jewish school is just an example – they have to celebrate Ukrainian.
It’s heavy Ukrainization and funny to see how they invert the mother language event.
As the day is now promoted in Russia and around the world, it is supposed to celebrate peoples’ traditional language. (For example, in Russia, in Republic of Buryatiya, in Buryat schoosl, they will celebrate Buryat language, for mother language day).
Yet below, in a Russian speaking city, Russian speaking nationalities, have to celebrate Ukrainian for the world mother language day. .
https://www.facebook.com/pg/ortalef.zp/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1753609551410237
According to 2001 census, Zaporizhia was 70% ethnic Ukrainian and only 25% ethnic Russian. So Ukrainian is the mother language there, though nobody speaks it in day to day life.
Undisciplined children (I don’t know those from third world countries, but they are probably not very well behaved on average) will slow down the learning environment. So in those places, it would be better to send their children to private schools. For example, for the people of London, it’s known that the only good education is from private schools (and of course, not everyone can afford the high prices of the private schools, so they move to suburbs outside the city where there are less brown and black people).
But these immigrants in Europe are only physically scary, for people from a very safe and non-criminal, soft environment.
To be honest, the greatest difference between educated and prole Russian (and Ukrainian) is the use of swearwords. Proles include them every other word, whereas educated people mostly express themselves w/o them. Besides, in Russian you can say whole meaningful phrases consisting exclusively of words with swearword-based roots. The only one in English I know (the f..king f..ker is f..ked) does not come even close to what you can say in Russian using swear words only. Virtually every verb has several swearword-based synonyms, and many nouns, too. If you want to hear academic Russian, you can listen to Margarita Simonyan (of RT fame) or Rostislav Ishchenko – former Ukrainian Foreign office staffer, who moved to Russia explaining his decision two different ways. One, he said that if you play a game, you must play to win, whereas Ukraine is playing a losing game. Mind you, this was long before Maidan, when only perceptive people could have foreseen where Ukraine is moving. Two, he said that anyone in Ukraine good enough to be competitive calls himself Russian and competes on Russian scene, whereas good-for-nothings who can only appear big frogs in a tiny pond call themselves Ukrainians and compete with similar losers in that pathetic pond.
Polish has lots of sibilants. To my surprise, I found that I have no trouble correctly pronouncing Polish names, just like Poles easily pronounce mine, whereas Americans can only do that when you shorten those names to one or two syllables.
Mother language – i.e. language you learn from your mother – will be Russian, especially as this example are a non-Ukrainian nationality school. In Zaporozhye region, only 19% speak Ukrainian at home, and the proportion in the city will be less.
But in Zaporozhye, already several years ago, almost all the schools had changed to Ukrainian.
The private Jewish school of Zaporozhye seems a kind of oasis for the city, where they still were teaching in Russian (although their website is now Ukrainian).
http://ort.zp.ua/?page_id=54
The website seems apologetic they teach in Russian, and seems to say something like that only because Jews in Ukraine did not know Hebrew for many years. So probably in the 2020s, it will become a Ukrainian school, where Hebrew is second language, and no Russian is allowed.
The right for Russian schools in Ukraine ended last year, and all schools are supposed to switch to Ukrainian by September 2020 (I didn’t look into if private schools can avoid this)
This transition was apparently passed, despite its contradiction of the Ukrainian constitution which gives legal right to language of minority nationalities.
In Latvia, there has been a very similar process, but which at least is in a country where the majority language is Latvian (although it was more surprising as it contradicts EU recommendations).
Well, close enough. Although my experience of exotica has been a bit more colorful. They don’t do subdued colors…as I said, painted dirt with lots of sunshine, what is there to like?
Only physically scary?
Is that why the majority of prisoners in Berlin are foreigners?
Being fascinated by languages, I had to come out of “retirement.”
True, Polish can sound a bit harsh sometimes due to the palatalization of the consonants,
e.g., rzeka vs reka /river/. This also occurs in English. Compare the two pronunciations
of “Did you?” [Did yu] vs [Didzhyu] or even [Dzhyu]. The latter gave rise to some
paranoid jokes in an early Woody Allen movie. Lubos Motl, the Czech physicist and
blogger, is of the opinion that the palatalization phenomenon in Polish is due to
the Germanic influence. German can sound very harsh indeed. But let’s not
exaggerate. Polish also has many soft sounds like ś or ć, and French-sounding
vowels similar to the sounds in French such as ‘bon’ or ‘fin.’ Polish literature
would not have earned two Nobel Prizes, awarded to Czesław Miłosz in 1980 and
Wisława Szymborska in 1996, without the ability to produce great-sounding poetry.
Having said that, I personally think that the most beautiful Polish speech was
spoken in the 1930s Lvov – there the language was softened by the eastern (kresowe)
influences. I am told that the great Polish actor Eugeniusz Bodo who played in
many prewar movies spoke with a Lvov accent. He sounds so good I can listen
to him for hours. These days most of his movies can be found online. I recommend
“Piętro wyżej” (Upstairs) (1937). As an extra bonus, he does a splendid impersonation
of Mae West, singing “Sex Appeal.” I don’t know though if the Lvov accent (or close
approximation thereof) can still be found anywhere in contemporary Poland.
In this context they meant ancestral language.
In Zaporozhia oblast, 50% of the people declared Ukrainian to be their native language and 48% declared Russian. In the city itself it was 57% Russian, 42% Ukrainian.
A map of self-declared native language in oblast:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/00/Zaporizka2001languages.PNG/350px-Zaporizka2001languages.PNG
Many people in Ukraine who speak Russian support the school Ukrainianization (i.e., most people in Kiev).
If your mother tongue is not Slavic, you are a hero. Slavic languages are notoriously hard.
Personally, I don’t think Polish sibilants came from German influence: German is a bit “barking” (good for military commands), but certainly not “hissing”. German can be quite melodious, too, like in songs of Die Prinzen (my daughter was a fan for a while; unlike me, she speaks German).
I don’t know enough Polish to discriminate between accents, but if Lvov accent is influenced by real Ukrainian, it must be better-sounding. If you don’t understand a word and just go by the sound, Poltava Ukrainian sounds as beautiful and melodious as academic French (not street French of today).
I don’t know Polish poetry, so can’t judge. Nobel for literature is almost as cucked as Nobel for peace, so for me winning it is more of a demerit than merit. When I was young, I really enjoyed Stanislaw Lem, who I read in Russian and Ukrainian translations. He has fascinating wit and imagination.
Lemmings support the rush to the cliff en mass. Serves them right.
But AnonFrom TN, it’s the beautiful and melodious Poltavian form of Ukrainian (that you so adore) being taught to these denizens of Ukraine’s south, not the prickly, Polish inspired creole of Galicia. You should be pleased, not so sullen. 🙂
Teaching language and forcing it down people’s throats are two different actions. One is smart, and the other is as dumb as it gets. If Switzerland went crazy and wanted to become Ukraine, it would make one language (does not matter which) the sole official language of the country. If Singapore lost its marbles and wanted to commit suicide, it would make one language (again, does not matter which) the sole official one. The same goes for pretty much any country. Primeval tribal nationalism is more destructive that a hurricane.
FFS – ‘Ukrainian’/Delaware-draincleaner is not a proper language you cretin.
I would note the embarrassing failure to switch to “Ukrainian”, despite billions of dollars poured into it over 30 years- and compare it with – Armenia,Georgia, Latvia and all the other countries of the USSR quite easily switching to their own language in official, state, business, education etcetera form of life…and it took about 3 minutes for those who wanted to.
The fact that but for extensively corruptly financed Svidomism – the vast majority of the country still speak and think in Russian…should speak volumes.
In culture the only people who have ever introduced Poltava into anything have been strictly Russian writers, composers – no “Ukrainian” at all. Don’t compare it with the B-Gees singing about Massachusetts you cretin
Now AnonFromTN is a genius commentator, and I respect his opinion – I reckon I have listened to more “Ukrainian” songs then anyone – but I don’t recognise it as a separate language from Russian. Mr Hack/Elephant Man – Can you even name a derogatory word/swear word for homos, gays, jews, blacks, disabled ( not endorsing these words but merely showing that basic gutter emotions are a good way of deciphering a language) that is different in Ukrainian to Russian?…of course not dummy.
I tend to agree with you. However, I’m not aware of any large scale protest against the Ukrainianization going on in the south of the country. Most of the people that live in these areas are still, at the end of the day, still Ukrainians. The fact that so many of them speak in Russian is the result of centuries (if not decades) of intense Russification. The Russian language was imjported to these areas and spread over a long period of time. I know for a fact that the parents of schoolchildren in Odessa chose to send a majority of their kids to Ukrainian language schools, rather than to Russian ones,already before 2014. Even more recently:
Well, it’s their problem. I guess the fact that all official dealings with the state must be in Ukrainian played a large role in that. Also, we should not forget that there are never any protests from lemmings running to the cliff. Usually it’s a remarkably unanimous action. Which does not make it any smarter.
Anyway, by deciding to give Russian passports to Donbass residents Putin essentially agreed with the majority of Russian population that it’s high time to wash his hands off Ukraine. Stopping someone bent on suicide is the most pointless and thankless task known to man.
If they want to cut themselves off Russian culture, it’s their loss, and the consequences will serve them right. Even third worlders settling in the Baltics are smart enough to learn Russian, rather than the local languages (to the dismay of their parochial hosts).
I suspect that the timing of Putler’s new edict was meant as some sort of a stearn message to Ukraine’s new president. Zelensky on the other hand, has recently fired back his own salvo, by publicly requesting that the West increase sanctions against Russia. It’s undeniable, however, that Putler made the first unfriendly gesture towards Zelensky by starting this with his new Donbas initiative.
https://www.france24.com/en/20190424-ukraines-zelensky-urges-russia-sanctions-after-citizenship-rule-change
I think it’s simpler than that. Putin just realized (belatedly) that general stink and sanctions from the Empire do not depend on his behavior. So, in essence, he has a free hand, as he has nothing to lose. In fact, smarter people in the US establishment warned about this years ago: piling up sanctions progressively reduces the ability of the US to influence Russia.
As to Donbass in particular, I suspect that Putin wanted to merge it back into Ukraine and use it as a lever. Now he just accepted what most Russians thought for quite some time: you don’t need a lever to move a pile of shit, as you don’t want to move it in the first place. Hence passports, with an obvious prospect (welcome to 90% of the people living in Donbass on both sides of the front lines) of joining Russia, formally or informally (the way South Ossetia did). I don’t think he welcomes the expense (integrating Crimea after Ukrainian neglect is a huge financial burden), but he has no choice. If he surrenders Donbass to the Nazis, he and his whole regime won’t survive for long. You have to remember that he is the President of Russia, not the Republic of Palau. So, relaxing and trying to enjoy it when you are being raped is not an option for him.
They must have hated Zbigniew Brzezinski, then. 🙂
Any fan of Mae West is all right in my book. What a pity that I can’t find any English subtitles for that film.
So what are we looking at? Their self-declared “ancestral language” (whatever that means) or their “native language” (also vague, but I assume it means what language they speak at home)?
They sure couldn’t pronounce his last name or full first name. They called him Zbig. But that did not prevent them from agreeing with his main ideas.
Grandmother’s language. What their babusyas spoke to them when they were visiting as kids and to which they’re reverting now.
Powerful.
I suppose it’s up to the interpretation of the person answering the question on the census. So in Zaporizhia 70% declare Ukrainian ethnicity, 42% declare Ukrainian to be their native language, and 19% actually speak Ukrainian at home (according to Dmitry – I have not seen this statistic, and I suspect it is a much lower %). It seems that that the question had been interpreted differently by each respondent.
Yes, and also the language that their cousins speak out in the villages. They may not speak it themselves on a daily basis, but it isn’t foreign to them and they like it. And most of them would be happy if it becomes their kids’ first language, thus they support school Ukrainianization.
Most Ukrainians support the language switchover, even Russian-speaking ones. The parts of Ukraine that were strongly opposed have left, which is good.
Completely different circumstances. Presumably most of Switzerland would have been opposed to this. Most of Ukraine is not. Each of the languages in Switzerland are native to their regions. Russian is not, in Ukraine. A French-speaker probably doesn’t have many German-speaking relatives. Most Russian-speakers have Ukrainian-speaking grandparents, or cousins. Ukrainian is easier for a Russian-speaking person to learn than German is for a French-speaker.
Clueless one thinks it is still 2014 in Ukraine. The only ones who fell off a cliff are the Donbas people and their ruined region. Maybe Russians will bail them out.
Not all languages are created equal. Here
https://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm?utm_source=lasindias.info/blog
Russian is in the top ten, whereas Ukrainian is in “rest of languages”
Here
https://unbabel.com/blog/top-languages-of-the-internet/
Russian shares with German the second place (after English) in Internet content. Ukrainian (just like Swahili) is nowhere to be found.
Sapenti sat.
That’s what I suspected. These kinds of language surveys strike me as similar to international comparisons of intelligence in that they are dead easy to conduct in theory but end up hopelessly marred by politics. (Which needn’t mean that these results are far off the mark — only that they leave us guessing at the answer when there is no reason why we should be.)
I know the feeling, heh. And of course we have that flow guy … Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. Now that’s a mouthful! Russian pronunciations are positively self-evident by comparison.
It’s not lemmings – it is imposed by the school, which is a state institution. And the resulting problems for the children…
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2027190427495675&id=100006142128029
It’s a very large language by European standards. If they joined the EU, all of the acquis would have to be translated into Ukrainian which would give them an additional boost. Although I believe it’s a self- sufficient – and not to even mention – very beautiful language.
This event is introduced by the UN to protect mother languages of minority nationalities and to promote linguistic diversity.
So mother language of children in the school is of course Russian. And it’s a Jewish school lol. So maybe if they wanted to be “ancestral”, and made them celebrate Yiddish or something.
But the day is used to promote Ukrainization of the next generation, including non-Ukrainian nationalities, in a Russian-speaking city.
Why should the Ukrainian state work hard to accommodate kids who move to Russia to make their lives easier when they leave?
Okay, I agree this is not what the holiday should have been about. But promotion of Yiddish (rather than Hebrew) would have been cool.
Most schools in Zaporozhye are already now in Ukrainian for several years.
But parents won’t support this in Russian schools, which is why there should not be law forcing all schools to transition by September 2020. This is actually unconsenting damage to the children’s education progress, even the transition itself will be.
If parents want their children to go to Ukrainian schools, then there are many Ukrainian schools.
Well, it is an amusing example. But if that school is representative, there is probably some confusion of this UN event in Ukraine as supporting Ukrainization. At least in Russian schools, it is interpreted about respecting multinational diversity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IgO86lhU04
LOL……But that’s a really difficult conversation Poroshenko’s son is having with his grandmother- you know, the certainly exclusively Russian-speaking one who worked in a closed city for the Soviet defence industry.Maybe he can get a few lessons in “Ukrainian” from his grandfather…the ex USSR ambassador to Mongolia ( heavily Communist country with a great many people speaking good Russian)
is that the grandmother you were talking about?
Anyway, you are talking about bogus conversations you cretin……….just about the most identical uniting thing about Ukraine/Russia is the behaviour, characterisation, status, mannerisms and regard for babushka’s – as happens with identical peoples/cultures
Also you have no credibility- Latvia has proven itself as a pitiful joke country that has been forced to pick by American diktat an American as it’s Prime Minister…not so long after the reign of the other North American Nazi bitch as President. WTF ‘Nationalism” is this?
The authorities believe they have fenced off the economy from the effect of sanctions. All the main EU countries are growing at the same or less rate than Russia economically, reserves are obviously very big, personal credit/loans is being handed out and asked for -far more then even a few years ago, and the budget accounts for it’s budget on a very , very conservative estimated price for oil.
Demographic problem is a fact because too few people were born in the 90’s ….it is not because of the subsequent social statistics generated by the population under the current policies of the Russian state or their own behaviour…which are showing largely positive trends ( Amusing to see that Russia had the same people voting in elections in 2000 as they did in last years elections…but Ukraine suffered a catastrophic drop from 29 million in 98/2004 – down to 18 million ( of which I am sure 4 million are invented votes) !!)
As such I think they can give out these passports because they think it is morally the right thing to do….they can do it financially….and it is no big issue either way demographically if these people are or aren’t Russian citizens. It is a huge financial burden, but if the Crimean population and economy is now becoming quite settled and much of the major infrastructure work is finished or in process…..they maybe they can take on the Donbass….and under no time constraints either
Russia also has the beautiful gift that Svidomism is so retarded that the effects of sanctions on Russia followed by countersanctions…and enhanced with the EU/US dictated domestic policies for Ukraine, that have basically resulted in a humiliating loss for their guy in Ukraine….means that although the EU and US don’t lose on anything, for any effect on Russia put on by sanctions and agressive acts- there is a multiplier worse effect on Ukraine at all levels.
Gas(though I could use and other major energy, service or good as an example) costs the corrupt dumf**k ukrop state 20% extra because it is reimported gas actually from Russia ….and for their own produced gas the state is forced to make the lemmings pay a gazillion times more by diktat of the IMF/US – that just about sums up this idiotic story
You have to be retarded to believe that. I am just happy Ukraine is continuing to be a basket case. Since if Russia won’t steam roll it it may as well be weak enough for the day it decides to.
Don’t you think it’s a huge “if”? As the joke has it:
– When will Ukraine join the EU?
– Right after Turkey.
– And when will Turkey join the EU?
– Never.
There is a good joke about surveys. An average dick length in Shitville was found to be 14 cm, whereas in neighboring Dungville it is 28 cm. The first number was obtained by measurements, whereas the second one by a survey.
The Magyarization was a failure mostly because the languages are so far apart – literally a different linguistic world, and because Magyars and Slovaks in general didn’t live next to each other. The Magyarization in 1890-1910 mostly impacted people who moved to Budapest. In Slovakia proper the German minority and Jews were heavily Magyarized, but Slovak peasant population was untouched.
That’s a complete misreading of geography. Bratislava was a small city surrounded by suburbs and countryside, 3/4 of those were purely Slovak and today they are part of the city. The smaller inner city was mostly German speaking with Slovak, Magyar, Jewish, Czech, Croat minorities. If you include today’s geography, Bratislava was always majority or plurality Slovak, the suburbs and villages that are now part of the city proper were Slovak. What happened after 1918 was that the city merged with the suburbs – as happened all over the world in the last 100 years. Compare apples and apples.
No, you just have to go to Ukraine and see for yourself, rather than believe the nonsense you read on Russian media about Ukraine, or drivel written by marginal Russian nationalist activists from Ukraine, is accurate. Your mind is so stuffed with those banal “facts” about Ukraine is it is kind of funny.
Keep dreaming it is always 2014, if it makes you feel better. A lot of Western Russophobes dream that Russia never left the 90s, you have good company 🙂
This didn’t stop Russians from absorbing most of the Finnic-speaking peoples, or linguistic Russification of Tatars and Kazakhs. Under Hapsburgs simply peasant peoples retained their languages.
Slovaks lived in a fairly narrow strip:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Slovakia_1910_Language.png
Perhaps 110 or so miles from north to south. Their cities were German or Hungarian. In 1910 there were about 1.6 million Slovak speakers (almost all peasants) in this narrow strip, and 8.4 million Hungarian-speakers to their south (another 1.6 million lived in Transylvania). That’s a worse ratio than even Ukrainians to Russians.
So assimilation would have been possible, and likely if Hungary had truly been a fully independent kingdom and not under Hapsburg.
Well, in 1919 Slovaks jumped from 14% to 33% of the population. Germans were 36%, Hungarians were 29%. However I don’t doubt that the majority in the countryside were Slovaks.
Russia-Ukraine Follow-up
Re: https://www.eurasiareview.com/23042019-ukraine-has-gotten-over-russia-but-russia-hasnt-gotten-over-ukraine-oped/
Excerpt –
To be expected from Shevtsova, who has spun a Ukrainian nationalist and anti-Russian leaning line for a good few years. In actuality, the Russian government has listed a number of foreign policy priorities which don’t involve Ukraine. Russia reasonably sees Ukraine as an important neighbor, with millions of people in Russia having roots to the latter and vice versa.
When compared to Russia at large, the behavior of Ukraine’s outgoing President Petro Poroshenko, is more indicative of an obsessively compulsive manner that conflict with reality. Poroshenko is by no means alone, as is evident in this Ukrainian nationalist and anti-Russian leaning article:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/01/ukraines-tv-president-is-dangerously-pro-russian/
Some excerpts from Paul Goble’s above linked Eurasia Review article:
&
Appears to be on par with stating that the US has cowardly bombed some other countries, but not Russia. Contrary to Shevtsova, the Russian government hasn’t simply “given” passports to residents of the rebel held Donbass areas. Rather, the Russian government has offered that option to these residents. Post-Yanukovych Kiev regime controlled Ukraine has withheld benefits to the citizens of these rebel held territories. If Russia is such a negative force, then there’s no reason to worry about the Donbass residents en masse accepting Russian passports.
A counter to the Goble/Shevtsova slant:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/04/24/gauging-ukraine-with-russia-and-belarus/
https://www.eurasiareview.com/25042019-gauging-ukraine-with-russia-and-belarus-oped/
Providing top quality analysis on a range of key foreign policy, historical, media and sports issues.
I have svidomi in my family I know perfectly well what’s going on there.
You your self trying to push reality you would like over one that is.
Fucking suggesting people who speak Russian have some romanticism toward Ukrainian because their babushka spoke it. Or suggesting people who speak Russian would welcome their preferred language losing status. Only a deluded moron would ignore logic.
Hehe, yes, penis surveys are an absolute embarrassment. But I once came across a good one that I like to cite whenever the topic comes up. What they did was that they had American college students on spring break in Mexico volunteer to have their, er, measures taken by female assistants, who went at some length to make the measurements uniform. This method brings some selection bias, yes, but it’s a safe guess that the the length they came up with (an average length of some 15 cm, if memory serves) represents the ceiling of the true value (since lesser-endowed gentlemen would presumably be less likely to participate than their better-endowed brethren).
What happened in the 1990s, with birthrate, was that people were changing timing of having children.
Eventualy fertility rate, does not change so much, because people who change timing of births, not number of children.
https://i.imgur.com/AjfZKxw.jpg?1
As you can see, eventual fertility rate, only has minor variation even from anyone born after 1960, cohorts varying between “high” of 1,76 children per women to “low” of 1,58. Variation of only 0,28 children per woman between different cohorts born since 1960.
In relation to problem of changed timing of births – it has contributed to this unbalanced shape of population pyramid (which also added to longer-term imbalances that originated in the Second World War).
https://i.imgur.com/8ljozUp.png
For a selfish viewpoint, people born from 1993, will be lucky to have less competition, which eases entering the job market for them. While those born from around 1988-1992, still have had a lot of peer competition in all ways.
Review what language people in Kiev speak, what their attitudes towards language policy are and whom they vote for. And then think about who is the “moron” who ignores logic.
Why wasn’t Porky (Poroshenko) viewed as a serious contender before the Maidan Revolution?