EDITORIAL
That’s right Russians, Study up!
The Chinese newswires were burning last week with news that a Chinese language-learning craze has begun to sweep over Russia.
That’s right, Russians, study up hard and fast.
Even as Russia arrogantly provokes the West with nuclear bombers, it is being eaten alive in the East. It has been forced to shed two of its mighty eleven time zones in a hopeless and indeed pathetic effort to maintain the link with its Eastern reaches, but the juggernaut that is the Chinese economy and booming population will overwhelm that territory surely and inevitably, and the wise among the Russians know it.
And they are glad of it. China has an economy not based on vulgar, addict-like reliance on finite fossil fuels, but on diverse and wide-ranging manufacturing economy, while Russia makes nothing of the slightest interest to the outside world. China is a nation of industrious, self-sacrificing patriots who are struggling to build a really successful country, and even though it is burdened by the same type of draconian dictatorship as Russia, nonetheless it’s goverment is not so cynical, corrupt or incompetent as to totally disregard the national interests. China doesn’t buzz the US coastline with bombers, it hasn’t invaded helpless neighbors, and it churns out a wide variety of highly competitive consumer products.
Even with all that success, there are those who predict that China may be the “next Enron.” But if it is, then where does that leave Russia, which languishes as a pale shadow next to Chinese achievements? It leaves Russia, as the Atlantic magazine once famously put it, as “Zaire with permafrost.” Clever Russians see the writing on the wall, and they are preparing to jump ship before the whole thing plunges once again beneath the frigid tides.
La Russophobe 
what’s wrong with learning new languages?Europe is not ignorant like America…we are still interested in education
Do Russians have the story about the fox and the grapes? Or is that a language they don’t speak?
It is a fable by Aesop.
It’s universal inheritance of whole Humanity.
Doesn’t have anything to do with Russians or Americans
LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:
It teaches the lesson that someone who can’t get something often pretends he doesn’t want it. That’s what you are doing. If you had learned the lesson, you might not have.
Dino,
Your passion for socialism does not apply to this websites intentions. Could you please go elsewhere? You are contributing nothing we can’t find on wikipedia ourselves.
Please, just go.
Sole Intentions of this website is malignant slander of socialism,spreading of lies,hate-speech and distention of hate again Russian people.
Amen. 8)
Really?
Well, talking about “you” and your thirst for linguistic education – how comes that the Russian colonists in the Stalin’s once occupied Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia are unable to learn local languages even though they have lived there all their lives?
Dear Russophobe:
Although I do not completly agree with your description of the Chinese as “industrious, self-sacrificing patriots”, the overall tenor of your piece is spot on.
Russia’s economy is a laughable shamble even when compared to 2nd rate EU economies like Spain.
You forgot that Russia has(most of) the World’s greatest resource reserves,and nuclear weapons.
You forgot that the whole point if this piece is that China, which has no resources and few nukes, still has an economy that totally dominates Russia’s. Can you read at all, ape?
Oi American
China has huge natural resources,ignorant!
I used nukes to illustrate it’s military power,and to make it easier for you Americans understand,i used these blatant examples.
Easy on the Americans, Dino. They may not be the most educated nation in the world (South Koreans are more educated), but they are the best when it comes to using that knowledge in real life. That’s why they’re so wealthy and powerful.
And your Europe>America attitude does not hold water.
And China indeed has a lot of natural resources. For example, it has more arable land, coal and precious metals than Russia.
Also, the mild Chinese climate enables China to sustain a large population and uses it’s resources more thoroughly (not more efficiently, since China is the dirtiest country in the world). Russia’s harsh climate prevents it from having a large population and using most of its resources.
Frankly, if China had a smaller population and a less repressive regime, it would be paradise on Earth.
And if Russia had a somewhat warmer climate and a less corrupt regime, it would be paradise too, and a superpower.
Canada would be a superpower too if it had a warmer climate.
But I digress.
In my next post I’ll be back on topic.
Dino:
Venezuela sits on top of vast oil reserves, yet it is a backward 3rd world economic toilet, even by South America’s low standards.
No wonder Hugo Chavez and Putin feel such a brotherly bond.
Yeah,but Venezuela has a future…Once the Kuwait/UAE oil dries out…Besides,Venezuela is doing better than USA-supported Columbia.
Anyway:I’m against today’s Russia,but i do not hate all what’s Russian,like “larussophobe” does…
Dino:
If you think Venezuela has a brighter future than Colombia, then you are just as ignorant as the vodka-soaked fascist peasant tools who vote for United Russia.
Columbia doesn’t even have proper central government,man
Maybe it’s because Colombia has Venezuela-supported drug revolutionaries.
This is interesting. If there’s indeed a Chinese-language-learning craze all over Russia, that would mean that Russian society is becoming increasingly polarised.
One Russia is becoming more cosmopolitan and looking to the future, while the other is becoming more isolationist and looking to the past.
How will these two Russias coexist?
By looking to the future they see beyond the borders and make their pilgimage to a better life. They will not co-exist I believe.
In some recent protests people in Vladivostok were waving Japanese flags, not Chinese. I think most of Far East and Siberia inhabitants understand that Chinese rule would be no fun, as it supresses ethnic minorities. If that part of Russian Federation would go off Moscow control, why La Russophobe thinks it would be uniliteral Chinese game? Why not to consider option of independence, backed by Japan and US support?
I like that idea of course. The Japanese did occupy Taiwan, and it got a better start in trade relations than the rest of China with the Japanese. At least that is what my Chinese Professional friends tell me. No reason for me to doubt their sincerity in this.
I think what LR means is that the Chinese are already there. Japan and America are further away and economically are not doing as well. Today I learned, by 2020 the US debt will be 90% of GDP. Thanks somewhat to Obama.
“Going off Moscow Control” would have to be like when Savok collapsed and the countries spun off, because some were to big to hold onto.
You are right of course that some sort of alliance would have to be found. China has 3 trillion dollars to spend and wants to run fast trains that are incompatible with Mascovian wide gauge. The have the plan, and we have Obama.
China has people there already as well as the indigenous Asiatics, that are populating so quickly compared to Caucasians . So really are the Mascals more fun then just sucking on life forces without contributing anything, other than ideology, crime dynasty’s and the chosen by PutMed governor. However the Russians would starve without China already. The slow Tans Siberian Express is the only link.
I would not like to see another Tibet, where the women of Tibet were forced to wed Hann Chinese. Turkic Uighur come to mind as an oppressed minority.
That is not worse than what the Mascali did in Ukraine or elsewhere in Europe. Most of the Siberian White People probably, were Ukrainian and other transported survivors of slave laborers, politicos or just criminals that really don’t care for Maskva anyway. Some are already working in China. Just lop off the 2 time zones off Moscow’s clock.
It is clear that the average Russian does not know the difference between Japan and China. And it seems that Russians do not even know which flag is that of their country = here: http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2008/12/18/miss-world-2008-wrong-flag-again/ LOLZ! LMAO!
This article comes from the Communist Chinese news agency Xinhua. Yet another typical Communist article bragging about how the Chinese culture and language are conquering the World.
Critics point out that Communist propaganda cannot be trusted. But evidently the owner of this blog believes everything that the Communist propaganda tells her.
But if we examine the figures for Russia in this Xinhua propaganda piece, they are hardly surprising, if we compare with the statistics for other countries like USA:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/indepth/2010-03/23/c_13221481.htm
The number of undergraduate and postgraduate students in Russia studying Chinese is estimated to exceed 10,000.
More than 51,000 college students in USA studied Chinese in 2006, a 51 per cent jump from 2002. [1]
Russia boasts 12 Confucius Institutes
USA boasts 46 Confucius Institutes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius_Institute#List_of_Institutes
Chinese courses are available in more than a dozen elementary and high schools in Moscow, involving some 2,000 students.
Overall, there are 250,000 to 300,000 students from elementary school to college who are learning Chinese [1]
An estimated 2 per cent of American students are studying Chinese. The Asia Society aims to raise this to 5 per cent – about 750,000 students – by 2015. Students in the US are now learning Chinese for more varied reasons, such as wanting to work in China. Prof Kubler, an American of German ancestry, decided to learn Chinese as he was intrigued ‘by the idea of communicating with so many people’. [1]
But let us hope that not only the Americans, Canadian and Russians, but all other people across the World learn more and more languages, especially Chinese
Reference:
[1] http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking+News/World/Story/STIStory_268726.html
More learning Chinese in US
More Americans are eager to pick up the language as China gains prominence on the world stage
By Ho Ai Li
China so reminds of the Soviet Union. No wonder people from the KPRF love it so much :)
So do the russophobes here. Do you think they are all card-carrying members of the Communist Party?
“China is a nation of industrious, self-sacrificing patriots who are struggling to build a really successful country“
Maybe some Russophobes would like to see Russia dismembered, or just believe it’s inevitable. I wouldn’t, and I don’t believe it’s inevitable. Though Russia has some really big problems.
“China so reminds of the Soviet Union”
Yes, Soviet citizens could google internet after dayof work in glass scyscraper or mp3 player factory.
Besides some similarities like red flag and disrespect for cultural heritage even of their own, it’s very different country.
What about opression and propaganda? Technological development doesn’t equall freedom. By now, the Soviets would have had cellphones and Internet too, if only by using Chinese products. I doubt they would be a new North Korea.
In USSR, in 1980-ies, if you wanted to buy a typewriter and you were lucky to find one, you had to bring it to the police station to register.
If you wanted to make a photocopy, and were lucky to find one of the few copy shops, you had to register with it and write in a special log what you were copying + sign.
If you were lucky to get one of the few VCRs brought into the country and watch American films with your friends, you got rounded up by police and put on trial for “proliferation of films that advertise sex and violence”.
So I really doubt if in USSR, had it continued to exist, people would be allowed to freely have mobile phones and the Internet. No. I do not think so. Possibly it would not be a North Korea, but it would be in many ways very similar.
Of course, it depends where we put the “point of divergence” for the alternative future.
If it is in the late Gorbachev reform period, then yes, cellphones and Internet, and the inevitable collapse of the Soviet system, so that is no USSR anymore, it does not qualify.
If we want to “keep USSR alive”, we have assume that the Gorbachev reforms either did never exist or they failed soon after he launched them, and so the historical path of USSR was not substantially alternated.
In such a case, I am afraid, that cell phones would be hardly available, ground stations would be few, coverage poor, they would be primarily used by special services (including “militia” and KGB) and aside from that by party and administration officials + small part of the population with proven loyalty record. The cell phone would be like a kind of sign of prestige and belonging to the Regime. Of course all the conversations would be closely monitored and foreign calls banned, no doubt about that.
As of Internet – most likely it would be available in a few selected spots under close surveillance by political police (KGB), access only to few Party approved websites would be allowed. That would not be even the China Google, that would be a “whitelist” of the allowed sites. Though likely that some Party approved KGB strictly controlled database would be made available to replace the actual search engines. Web site administrators would be ideologically indoctrinated personnel receiving their weekly dose of indoctrination on those so called “Politinformation” events. Any change in the web site would have to receive prior accept by the special Party appointed committee, on paper and with multitude of rubber stamps, and would have to be reported immediately to the aforementioned “search” database, where it would then be rechecked by special political control body.
Phew!
I guess only those who have experienced life in the USSR can truly imagine what it would have been like.
“In USSR, in 1980-ies, if you wanted to buy a typewriter and you were lucky to find one, you had to bring it to the police station to register.”
Where did you get this idiotic idea? From your mass media? In USSR, not only typewriters were freely sold, but so were short-wave radios, so that you could listen to foreign radios like CIA’s Radio Liberty, Voice of America, BBC, Voice of Israel, etc, although the Soviets tried to jam most of them.
Look, you are saying that the Soviet government misinformed and brainwashed its citizens, but your own bizarre ideas about USSR prove that your own government brainwashed you as much as the Soviets brainwashed their own people.
Get lost!
I lived in USSR. I am telling you what I have experienced myself.
Besides few radios, mostly some of those produced in the occupied Baltic states, could receive FM broadcasts.
”your own bizarre ideas about USSR prove that your own government brainwashed you as much as the Soviets brainwashed their own people.”
This just illustrates that you are living in delusions, as you are claiming that the ex-USSR citizen has bizarre ideas about USSR.
Tell me more about brainwashing…
So, were you required to register your short-wave Spidola at the local police station too? Or was the sales store clerk at the department store required to write a report on you after you bought your Spidola?
Mantra wrote: “I guess only those who have experienced life in the USSR can truly imagine what it would have been like.”
Well, you seem to be certain in your knowledge of USSR. So, you grew up there?
You seem to suggest that if USSR continued to exist as it was in mid-80s, then average Soviet citizens wouldn’t be allowed to have cell phones. Why? What is so revolutionary about cellphones compared to, say, stationary phones or short-wave radios?
Or are you saying that the average Soviets didn’t have normal phones and couldn’t buy short-wave radios?
I see that you prefer to “play fool” as if you wouldn’t know what I am talking about.
Anyway.
Here is for you what I stumbled upon by accident – Special permit to use GSM cell phone in Russia, required in (already “democratic”) nineties –
http://gr00sh.blogspot.com/2010/03/blog-post_1247.html
“Technological development doesn’t equall freedom.
Very well said.
Some of the Soviet apologists like to boast that Gagarin was the first man in space, which proves, they think, that USSR was a great, free and prosperous country.
In such cases it is good to remember that the Nazi Reich may have been the most technologically advanced country of its time. Though it did not prevent them using slave labor to produce world’ s first jet fighters.
To put a man in a tin can and shoot him into the space is, of course, an achievement, but that in no way compensates for a militaristic police state with concentration camps, and people living in oppression, poverty and suffering from food shortages, scared to say a single word against it out of scope of officially allowed selected criticism.
“Yes, Soviet citizens could google internet after dayof work in glass scyscraper or mp3 player factory.”
Is your point that Google and mp3 player didn’t exist in the 1980s? Yes. But that means that even Americans didn’t have Google and mp3 then.
In fact, the inventor of Google – Sergey Brin – came to USA from Russia only in 1979 when he was 6.
However, certainly Soviet people had a much higher standard of living than do the Chinese today, and the Soviets didn’t let their children work in sweatshops the way the Chinese do. In terms of standards of living, China is to Russia what Russia is to USA.
And as far as Google goes, it has just announced that it is fed up with the Chinese censorship and is pulling out of China altogether.
So, what’s your point?
Yes, and you should read what Sergey Brin says about Russia and China:
“Google’s Sergey Brin: China’s “Repressive Behavior” Reminds Him of Russian “Anti-Semitism”
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Behind Google Inc.’s shuttering of its China-based search engine earlier this week was a conscientious decision by its co-founder Sergey Brin to stop compromising with a government that was increasingly interfering with its business, The Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site Wednesday.
Brin told the newspaper that after the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government began to step up its Web censoring and interfering more with Google’s operation. But more than anything else, Brin was moved to take the dramatic steps because of China’s repressive behavior which reminded him of his native Soviet Union which he fled when he was a child, according to the Journal.
“He says memories of that time–having his home visited by Russian police; the anti-Semitic discrimination against his father–emboldened his view that it was time to abandon Google’s policy,” the newspaper reported
http://wakeupfromyourslumber.com/blog/andie531/googles-sergey-brin-chinas-repressive-behavior-reminds-him-russian-anti-semitism
And
Childhood in the Soviet Union
In 1979, when Brin was six, his family felt compelled to emigrate to the United States. In an interview with Mark Malseed, author of The Google Story,[10] Sergey’s father explains how he was “forced to abandon his dream of becoming an astronomer even before he reached college. Officially, anti-Semitism didn’t exist in the U.S.S.R. but, in reality, Communist Party heads barred Jews from upper professional ranks by denying them entry to universities. Jews were excluded from the physics departments, in particular…” Michael Brin therefore changed his major to mathematics where he received nearly straight A’s. However, he said, “Nobody would even consider me for graduate school because I was Jewish.”[11] The Brin family lived in a small, three-room, 30 square meter (350 square foot) apartment in central Moscow, which they also shared with Sergey’s paternal grandmother.[11] Sergey told Malseed, “I’ve known for a long time that my father wasn’t able to pursue the career he wanted”, but Sergey only picked up the details years later after they had settled in America. He learned how, in 1977, after his father returned from a mathematics conference in Warsaw, Poland, he announced that it was time for the family to emigrate. “We cannot stay here any more”, he told his wife and mother. At the conference, he was able to “mingle freely with colleagues from the United States, France, England and Germany, and discovered that his intellectual brethren in the West were ‘not monsters.'” He added, “I was the only one in the family who decided it was really important to leave…”[11]
Sergey’s mother was less willing to leave their home in Moscow, where they had spent their entire lives. Malseed writes, “For Genia, the decision ultimately came down to Sergey. While her husband admits he was thinking as much about his own future as his son’s, for her, ‘it was 80/20’ about Sergey.” They formally applied for their exit visa in September 1978, and as a result his father “was promptly fired”. For related reasons, his mother also had to leave her job. For the next eight months, without any steady income, they were forced to take on temporary jobs as they waited, not knowing whether their application would be granted. During this time his parents shared responsibility for looking after him and his father taught himself computer programming. In May 1979, they were granted their official exit visas and were allowed to leave the country.[11]
At an interview in October, 2000, Brin said, “I know the hard times that my parents went through there, and am very thankful that I was brought to the States.”[12] A decade earlier, in the summer of 1990, a few weeks before his 17th birthday, his father led a group of gifted high school math students, including Sergey, on a two-week exchange program to the Soviet Union. “As Sergey recalls, the trip awakened his childhood fear of authority” and he remembers that his first “impulse on confronting Soviet oppression had been to throw pebbles at a police car.” Malseed adds, “On the second day of the trip, while the group toured a sanitarium in the countryside near Moscow, Sergey took his father aside, looked him in the eye and said, ‘Thank you for taking us all out of Russia.'”[11]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Brin
“Google’s Brin: Anti-Semitism forced my family out of Russia
Google co-founder Sergey Brin says that anti-Semitism forced his family to emigrate to the United States in 1979 when he was a child.
In an interview with the Israeli financial publication, TheMarker.com, Brin described the job discrimination which both his parents encountered in the Soviet academic field. (Here’s the full interview in Hebrew, and part of it in English.)
Brin was in Israel to visit the local Google office, as well as to take part in a conference organized by Israel’s president, Shimon Peres. The following are excerpts from the interview:
• Without a doubt the great suffering put on my parents in Russia because of anti-Semitism was the primary reason that they left Russia. And that has had a major influence on my life.
• My family had many challenges in Russia. My father wasn’t able to work in his chosen field. Everything we had in Russia, we had to leave behind and start from scratch. This gave me a different perspective on life.
• You know, we learned to make do without anything. To live on nothing. And this certainly influenced me.
• When you’re a Jew, you have a background of hardship, suffering, difficulties–and to turn that into success is part of the Jewish experience.
Brin was born in Moscow in 1973. His father, Mikhail, was prevented from realizing his ambition to become an astronomer because the Communist Party, which then was in power, prevented Jews from entering the physics department. Brin’s father subsequently worked as an economic planner after receiving his Ph.D. Brin’s mother, Evgenya, was employed as a researcher by the Soviet gas and oil institute.”
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10787_3-9946895-60.html
And
Google co-founder: My family left Russia because of anti-Semitism
By Guy Rolnik, TheMarker correspondent
Tags: Google, Soviet Union
Distress due to anti-Semitism was the main reason his family left Russia, Google co-founder Sergey Brin told TheMarker in an interview over the weekend.
Brin, 34, was in Israel for President Shimon Peres’ presidential conference “Facing Tomorrow,” and visited Google’s Israeli offices as well.
He was born in Moscow in 1973 to a Jewish couple, who belonged to the city’s intelligentsia. His father wanted to study physics at university in order to fulfill his lifelong dream and become an astronomer, but was turned down because the Communist Party banned Jews from physics departments, in order to prevent them from accessing the country’s nuclear secrets.
Mikhail Brin decided to study mathematics instead, and was offered a place although the entry exams for Jews were sat separately, in rooms that were notoriously known as “the gas chambers.” In 1970, he graduated with distinction. Later, he gained his PhD from the University of Krakow, and worked for the Russian economic policy planning agency.
Sergey’s mother, Evgenya, worked in the research lab of the Soviet gas and oil institute. Like her husband, she had struggled against the anti-Semitic discrimination which prevailed in the Soviet academia, and defied it.
In previous interviews, Sergey Brin said that as a child he was not aware of the anti-Semitism that troubled his parents, and came to grips with it only in hindsight. He said, however, that even as a child he didn’t feel at home in Russia.
The Brins decided to leave Russia in 1977. It was the multitude of opportunities that the West had to offer, of which Mikhail became aware during an international conference, that tipped the balance. Despite the fear of being declared “refuseniks,” Evgenya was adamant to leave.
In 1978 they applied for emigration permit, and as a result Mikahil was fired and Evgenya had to resign. The family barely got by for several months until their application was approved in 1979. Shortly afterwards, the gates of the Soviet bloc were hermetically closed for emigration.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/984576.html
I think some people here, in their fear of the Chinese, highly overestimate the level of economic development in China. Sure, Communist China is a world leader in such areas as exploitation of child labor and production of poisonous toys and foods, but its per capita GDP is still very low:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_capita
6 United States 46,443
24 Japan 32,817
50 Lithuania 15,803
51 Russia 15,039
54 Latvia 14,304
.
.
64 Belarus 12,486
68 Romania 11,755
.
.
96 Namibia 6,610
97 China 6,546
98 Ukraine 6,461
yes, RTR, GDP per capita numbers show that China is not wealthy country indeed. Why Ukraine with about the same GDP is called semi-failed state on verge of bankrupcy and China – economic superpower?
Because any country that serves as a slave for the world slavemaster (the US) is always lauded and praised, no matter the cheap wages and authoritarian or despotic regime.
your logic doesnt hold water. Ukraine still was under pro-Western Yushchenko rule and it was not “lauded and praised” for it’s economics.
It certainly was. If not for its economics, then as a wedge against Russia.
“Ukraine still was under pro-Western Yushchenko rule and it was not “lauded and praised” for it’s economics.”
Sure, it was. You just have a very short memory, which is convenient for the Western propaganda machine:
Ukraine Kicks a bit of Russian Butt
February 1, 2008
Thanks for reading La Russophobe !
The Moscow Times reports on the breathtaking early triumphs of the Timoshenko government:
February is shaping up to be a big month for Ukraine, and President Viktor Yushchenko — backed by a group of heavyweight allies in Davos — said his country should emerge with flying colors…Organizers had to turn away 250 people….
Speaker after speaker took to the lectern after Yushchenko to praise his initiatives and Ukraine’s course. The loud praise was in stark contrast to last year’s Ukrainian lunch at Davos, where Yanukovych was the guest of honor and faced a barrage of criticism from then-Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga and other guests over his more Russian-focused vision for Ukraine… Former World Bank president James Wolfensohn applauded Yushchenko’s efforts to bring Ukraine into the WTO as well as NATO … Yushchenko won a ringing endorsement from Jean Lemierre, president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. “Ukraine has a sound economy from a business viewpoint,” he said, identifying the key benefits of doing business there as cheap energy [thanks to Russia’s selling gas to Ukraine at a fraction of the free-market price] and cheap labor [thanks to Western exploitation of Ukrainians]. Lemierre said foreign investors had “a huge appetite” for Ukrainian assets.
Fred Bergsten, a U.S. economist and co-founder of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, also gave Ukraine’s economy high marks, saying robust emerging markets like Ukraine provided guarantees that the U.S. financial crisis would not spread across the entire world. “There will not be — I repeat — there will not be a world recession,” [!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!] he said.
The Ukrainian lunch at Davos, now in its fourth year, was hosted by Viktor Pinchuk, the billionaire son-in-law of former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma. The Ukrainian-themed menu included hors d’oeuvres made with slabs of salo, followed by bowls of dark-red borshch smothered in sour cream
There’s more. The EU is on board!
Anders Alsund jumps on the bandwagon: The Ukrainian economy is in good shape with a growth rate of 7.3 percent last year. The stock market surged by no less than 120 percent last year, and it has barely fallen during the January turmoil. Ukraine will become a full-fledged member of the WTO. This could boost the country’s growth by one percentage point a year.
The new Ukrainian government has delivered a very impressive start, and there is strong hope that much more is to come.
Its start has been truly impressive. Ukraine sets an illustrative example for how Russia could have evolved if it had developed its democracy and market economy.
……………….
So, what kind of ” an illustrative example” does Yushchenko set for Russia? Let’s compare year 2004, when he took office, with the latest 2009 data:
2004*:
63 Russia 10,179
89 Ukraine 6,554
2009:
51 Russia 15,039
98 Ukraine 6,461
Over the last 5 years, Russia’s economy grew by 50%. Ukraine stagnated. Russia moved up from 63rd place to 51st. Ukraine dropped from 89th to 98th.
Need I say more?
* see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_capita&oldid=22531493
To those russophobes, who are wetting themselves with excitement over how greatly China’s economy is growing and how poorly Russia is doing, let’s do the comparison between Russia and China’s per capita GDP over the last 5 years:
2004:
63 Russia 10,179
98 China 5,642
2009:
51 Russia 15,039
97 China 6,546
Over the last 5 years, Russia’s economy grew by a whopping 50%. China’s – by 16%.
Russia moved up from 63rd place to 51st. China stagnated.
At this rate, when will China become a more prosperous country than Russia? Never.
At this rate, China will soon be to Russia what Latin America is to USA: a big land of lots and lots of very poor people.
Russia’s GDP grew 8.1% in 2007 and 5.6% in 2008 and declined 7.9% in 2009. Are you saying that it grew more than 40% in just two years, 2005-2006?
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/rs.html
China’s GDP grew 13% in 2007, 9% in 2008, and 8.7% in 2009. Are you saying that in 2005-2006 it declined by about 15%? China’s GDP growth in 2009 was 4th highest in the world, Russia’s – 205th.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html
Liar, liar, pants on fire!
Apart from its importance as a language in the future, Chinese, IMHO, is so ugly to the ear.
Sumtin wong?
Keepida fork?
Hey shu han shan zhixu?
Dat will be an ekstra tenn dolla!
Even then, I can’t stand chinks and their ugly buck-toothed slant-eyed faces.
I think we can do without racism here, if you please
with equal pertinence, we can do without your rabid Russophobia here
Don’t be a jerk, owl281!
Being racist is stupid because you are attacking people for what they naturally are and, basically, the problem is with yourself, not with them.
Here it is different:
point one – being critical of someone for his/her behavior, like what wee see here at this blog, is something entirely different.
Russia and Russians themselves are guilty for being target of this bitter criticism, they have deserved it by their deeds.
They can change. The criticism will go away. It is not unavoidable.
When Russia will present reasons to be proud of it, to be loved and to be followed, that is exactly what everyone will do, even if they will still disagree with some of its actions.
By going hysterical and switching to racism here you just are reinforcing the negative stereotype of Russians which you seem to be so eager to get rid of. Just once again you yourself prove that all these “Russophobes” (what a useful term!) may be right, after all.
point two – I would prefer if people would cease thoughtlessly using the “Russophobe” term recently coined by Russian propaganda to serve as an universal tool to deflect all the criticism of Russia by explaining it pseudo-scientifically with some kind of “phobia”.
“By going hysterical and switching to racism here you just are reinforcing the negative stereotype of Russians which you seem to be so eager to get rid of. Just once again you yourself prove that all these “Russophobes” (what a useful term!) may be right, after all.”
Why would an American bigot like “owl281” cast negative light on Russians and not on Americans?
Don’t you see that he is a native English speaker?
No, I do not see that he would be a native English speaker.
No more than many other Russian emigres living today in West and posing as the “Westerners”, while despising the West and loving their “holy Motherland” which they often have seen only as a child.
The phenomenon of anti-Western Russian Nationalism in the West is worth a special study.
I just wonder how much of it is spontaneous, and how much actually is inspired and coordinated via various NGOs indirectly subordinated to Kremlin.
So, what evidence do you have that he is a Russian?
Let’s ask him.
What evidence do you have that he is not?
“Let’s ask him?” – I am sorry, but are you a fool or are you taking me for one? (No offense intended.)
Why don’t you relinquish your mantra, and ask me then?
I’m going to temporarily convert this blog into LaSinophobe:
Voice like a cat fight,
Ugly as puke,
Who could every marry,
A female gook?
Racially motivated murders are hitting the world record in Moscow, the capital of Russia.
Are you sure you do not know why?
Two can play at this game!
HYMN FOR THE CHOSEN PEOPLE
Kike, kike, Weasel-like,
scheming since a hook-nosed tyke…
Counts his pennies day and night,
squeals if one rolls out of sight.
Promotes a thousand social ills,
for which you’ll have to foot the bills.
…Eventually in love he falls,
and weds a shrew who swipes his balls…
Soon this pair of whining scum,
will beat their breasts just like a drum…
And lie about the loved ones lost,
in a myth they call «the holocaust».
Coarse and pushy…
greedy and trite…
beware the Jewish parasite!
I’m telling you, Chaim, according to this receipt you were overcharged a nickel for this pastrami sandwich! I’m calling our lawyah!
Dose dirty anti-semitic bastids! Dis is a complete Holocaust!
An American neo-Nazi taking over LR’s blog, proving that even racists are more prolific in America than anywhere else…
Yes. Indeed.
An anti-“Russophobe” American neo-Nazi.
What a coincidence.
;)
Actually, according to La Russophobe, many American neo-Nazis like Russia because they see it as a “white nation” and like that it is subduing Chechen Muslims.
You are right. That is a possibility.
Though I consider a possibility that he is an English speaking Russian to be a magnitude higher.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sascha29/message/351
Read this!! Russia has already decided to invade Georgia again in the next weeks or months!!!!!
you’re boy who cried wolf :)
Last summer you were raving about soon coming second Russian invasion and Doku Umarov’s summer plans at every LR issue :)
If you so can’t wait for next war, get record of that fake Imedi translation and watch it every day :D
“No more than many other Russian emigres living today in West and posing as the “Westerners””
The vast majority of Russian emigres living today in the West, are Jews and/or Armenians and/or anti-Soviet dissidents. He is none of the above.
>> So, what evidence do you have that he is a Russian?
“What evidence do you have that he is not?”
Haven’t you heard of the presumption of innocence?
I’ll be perfectly honest with you, I’m a Russian Jew.
Ya russkiy evrei!
RTR — remember, the worst anti-Semites are Jews themselves.
hello RTR:
I always wondered, why do Russian Jews have an almost utter hatred for their homeland?
Why is it that on Facebook most of the pages to which Russian Jews subscribe have something or other to do with the state of Israel and Judaism, but virtually nothing that shows any kind of interest or even nostalgia for Russia?
That would probably be all the traditional Russian antisemitism.
owl281:
Russian Jews, who live in Russia, are as interested and concerned about Russia as all other Russians.
You are probably talking about the pages of Jews who had emigrated to the West and who write in English.
Since these people choose to live outside Russia and even not to speak Russian, most of them are not interested in Russia too much.
So what’s surprising here? Emigrants, by definition, are those who are not interested in their old country. There are non-Jewish Russians like the famous hockey player Alexander Mogilny who also don’t care about Russia. Mogilny felt he was wronged by the Soviet system and doesn’t want to look back.
The 100% American is 99% an idiot. — George Bernard Shaw
One of the delightful things about Americans is that they have absolutely no historical memory. — Chou En-Lai
I am quite serious when I say that I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these United States. No man can form an adequate idea of the real meaning of the word, without coming here. — Charles Dickens
Their … demeanour is invariably morose, sullen, clownish and repulsive. I should think there is not, on the face of the earth, a people so entirely destitute of humour, vivacity, or the capacity of enjoyment. — Charles Dickens
I believe that the heaviest blow ever dealt at liberty’s head will be dealt by this nation [the United States] in the ultimate failure of its example to the earth. — Charles Dickens
The American woman is a monstrosity. — Charles Dickens
America is a mistake, admittedly a gigantic mistake, but a mistake nevertheless. — Sigmund Freud
A single nation that has succeeded in lowering the intelligence, the morality, the quality of the human race almost throughout the globe is a phenomenon never before experienced since the beginning of time. I accuse the United States of being in a constant state of crime against humanity.” — Henry de Montherlant
Catholicism has made man stupid, but it has not degraded him; it has introduced as many good and beautiful things as bad things. The United States have simply degraded humanity. Catholicism has done less harm in two thousand years than the United States in two hundred. — Henry de Montherlant
White man speaks with forked tongue. — Native American saying
Americans are so dumb! — Bjork
Most American men are repressors. — Ayn Rand
America is the only nation in history which has gone miraculously directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilisation. — Georges Clemenceau
If you’re going to America, bring your own food. — Fran Lebowitz
No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public. — H.L. Mencken
It was wonderful to find America, put perhaps it would have been more wonderful to miss it. — Mark Twain
The American has no language. He has dialect, slang, provincialism, accent and so forth. — Rudyard Kipling
America … where laws and customs alike are based on the dreams of spinsters. — Bertrand Russell
In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors. — Bertrand Russell
I heard an Englishman, who had been long resident in America, declare that in following, in meeting, or in overtaking, in the street, on the road, or in the field, at the theatre, the coffee-house, or at home, he had never overheard Americans conversing without the word DOLLAR being pronounced between them. Such unity of purpose … can … be found nowhere else, except… in an ant’s nest. — Frances Trollope
The United States is an illegitimate country, just like Israel. It has no right to exist. That country belongs to the Red man, the American Indian… It’s actually a shame to be a so-called American, because everybody living there is a usurper, an invader taking part in this crime, which is to rob the land, rob the country and kill all the American Indians. — Bobby Fischer
The United States is evil. There’s this axis of evil. — Bobby Fischer
One of the worst terrorist states in the world. — Noam Chomsky
The US is a business-run huckster society, and its primary value is deceit. — Noam Chomsky
The United States is evil. — Henry de Montherlant
Americans … [have] wrought a country that has after more than two centuries yet to evidence a single year during which it was not making war upon someone, somewhere, for some reason. — Ward Churchill
The crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. — John Brown
We have met the enemy and he is U.S. — bumper sticker, 2003
The United States is in many ways the biggest ghetto in the world. — Selma James
I don’t see any American dream; I see an American nightmare. — Malcolm X
America is the greatest of opportunities and the worst of influences. — George Santayana
There is nothing redeemable about America. — Ewuare Osayande
We believe the worst thieves in the world today and the worst terrorists are the Americans. — Osama bin Laden
Russians take your freedom, but Americans steal your soul. — anonymous German
The big Satan is a big liar. — Iranian chief of intelligence
They are possibly the dumbest people on the planet. — Michael Moore
The percentage of mentally disturbed people in the United States is very high. From the time the American gets up in the morning, he feels as if someone is trying to influence his will in some way: he is a person with a thousand pressures. The Americans live under a great strain … and have great feelings of frustration. — Fidel Castro
The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic and a killer. — D.H. Lawrence
I believe the United States is a truly monstrous force in the world. — Harold Pinter
The United States of America is a threat to world peace. — Nelson Mandela
Our every action is a battle cry against imperialism, and a battle hymn for the people’s unity against the great enemy of mankind: the United States of America. — Che Guevara
America is a lunatic asylum. — Ezra Pound
[the US] … cultivates no origin or mythical authenticity; it has no past and no founding truth … it lives in a perpetual present. [in the US] everything human is artificial. The country is without hope. What is arresting here is … both the absence of architecture in the cities and the dizzying absence of emotion and character in the faces and bodies. — Jean Baudrillard
George Bernard Shaw was a leftist lunatic and enthusiastically advocated genocide. That indeed is some reputable source to quote.
It seems that in certain circles it is both stylish and mandatory to despise of USA.
So childish.
“It seems that in certain circles it is both stylish and mandatory to despise of USA.
So childish.”
It seems that in certain circles it is both stylish and mandatory to despise Russia.
So childish.
Video on Bernard Shaw supporting Adolf Hitler advocating mass killing of “useless” people
Mr. Ouch, are you still around?
Chou En-lai… Castro… Che Guevara… Osama bin Laden… Iranian spook-in-chief… Any anti-American quotes from Hitler? Please?
Dr. Goebbels was rather prolific in expressions of the kind quoted above.
Indeed. Actually, with a couple of exceptions (such as Dickens or Freud), there are only three kinds of people on this list:
1. Loons
2. Mass murderers.
3. Leftist intellectuals and artists (many of them also falling under category 1).
A telling combination!
Dickens was extremely upset that unscrupulous American publishers pirated his works and sold in the U.S. There was no international copyright law at that time. So, his unhappiness with that shows. I bet he made these statements in this context.
In fact Dickens did come to the U.S. to the super enthusiastic reception by adoring crowds and lectured and spoke widely. His only American-themed novel (Martin Chuzzlewit) is quite pro-American
No need to attack the messenger. I’m sure Bush and Cheney have also pontificated very wise and cogent sayings.
Kaktuss wrote: “Indeed. Actually, with a couple of exceptions (such as Dickens or Freud), there are only three kinds of people on this list:
1. Loons
2. Mass murderers.
3. Leftist intellectuals and artists (many of them also falling under category 1).
A telling combination!”
OK, leaving aside Dickens or Freud, please tell me to which of the above 3 categories these people fall:
Ayn Rand
Mark Twain
Rudyard Kipling
Bertrand Russell
Frances Trollope
H.L. Mencken
George Santayana
D.H. Lawrence
Or even these:
Ezra Pound
John Brown
Nelson Mandela
Bjork
Fran Lebowitz
To me, this looks like a very representative sample, from the far left to the far right.
As Comrade Stalin (your personal hero) would say, “Пайдош налэво – придош направо!”
TTC,you russian scum should better shut your mouth,your future will be in a rat-hole
Sascha, is that a threat?