EDITORIAL
Alexei Pankin, Scum-sucking Russophile Bastard
As we’ve said before (just Google him if you’d like to read our prior thoughts), one of the most pathetic and embarrassing members of the Russophile hoard is Alexei Pankin, the demented freak who pens a column for the Moscow Times. In his most recent missive for the paper, he outdid himself in ignorance and mendacity, proving conclusively for all the world to see that the forces he represents are spent, fully crazed, and as toxic to Russia as the KGB clan that rules it.
Responding to the recent announcement, about which we’ve already written, by Reporters without Borders that Vladimir Putin is one of the world’s worst predators of the press, instead of acknowledging what is obvious to any thinking person, that proud KGB spy Putin is engaged in a horrific neo-Soviet crackdown on the press that must be halted by any means possible, Pankin chooses to respond to the results exactly the way the Soviet government would have done, with personalized smears, hallucinatory lies and stubborn, childish moronic denial.
He writes:
I am certain that the people who wrote those lines read the recently released book by Yevgeny Adamov, former head of the Nuclear Power Ministry (now called Rosatom). Adamov is famous for having been jailed in Switzerland on charges filed by the United States, then extradited to Russia where he was convicted but given a suspended sentence. In his book, Adamov relates an incident that occurred after the August 1998 default in which he refused to use the resources of the country’s nuclear industry to help banker and NTV founder Vladimir Gusinsky resolve debt problems he was having with Most-Bank, which Gusinsky headed. Gusinsky told Adamov, “You think you’ll be here long? The FSB will take you away by evening. I’ll teach you a lesson on what the media is capable of doing!” Adamov claims the sum involved $100 million. “The experience gave me a first-hand understanding of how the so-called oligarchs viewed their own influence and importance at that time,” Adamov wrote.
I think Putin’s harsh measures against NTV and Channel One were not so much aimed against freedom of the press or journalists per se as they were against station owners Gusinsky and Boris Berezovsky, respectively. The measures were an attempt to make the state at least a little more manageable after the chaotic Yeltsin years. In this respect, I agree fully with the authors of the media predators’ list.
So there you have it. Putin is a predator of the press in the sense that he is attacking evil forces in the press, bravely saving the country from their malignant influence, and freeing the country from the chains imposed by dangerous reporters so that it can grow and flower into its full potential.
Pankin is “sure” that RWB read Adamov even though they don’t say a word about him. How is he “sure”? Russian ESP of course! That’s all a Russian “journalist” like him needs in order to reach conclusions justifying restrictions on the press.
One could actually vomit reading drivel this deranged and mendacious. But one would better weep, for the tragic insights it offers about the pathetic state of Russian “thinking” in the age of Putin.
Then, in truly insane fashion, Pankin concludes with this:
I also agree that the period during which all national television stations have been “speaking with a single voice” has dragged on a bit too long now. Having broken the control that oligarchs exercised over television, Putin either failed or, more likely, was afraid to replace it with a genuinely independent media. If President Dmitry Medvedev wants to create the conditions for an independent media to emerge, he might get a boost from one external source: the sharp rise in Russian Internet users. Maintaining tight control over the traditional television media is less important than it was before.
A bit too long? Pray tell, Mr. Pankin, what is the proper time for a totalitarian takeover of the press to last? What evidence, sir, do you have that the Kremlin has the slightest intention of replacing the current neo-Soviet establishment on television with independent voices?
Sharp rise in Internet users? Three-quarters of the Russian population has no access to the Internet, and the vast majority of those who do get no Kremlin-critical information from it. The Kremlin is aggressively engaged in seizing control of the Internet, including domains and providers as wells as generating its own pabulum content and viciously attacking independent bloggers.
If Medvedev wants? Pankin does not mention one single shred of evidence that Medvedev, or anyone else in the Kremlin for that matter, has the slightest desire to do anything other than create a neo-Soviet state.
Like the neo-Soviet bag man that he is, Pankin is simply asking us to wait and watch while Putin systematically consolidates his ruthless totalitarian regime and wipes out the last vestiges of civil society in Russia, exactly the same way we watched Stalin do so. Then, one presumes, when the consolidation is complete what we’ll here from Pankin is: “Oops, sorry about that.”
La Russophobe 
“Responding to the recent announcement, about which we’ve already written, by Reporters without Borders that Vladimir Putin is one of the world’s worst predators of the press”
https://larussophobe.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/latynina-in-brooklyn/
Arguing that Russia lacks internet censorship (as opposed to China) and allows Ekho Moskvy radio to broadcast whatever it wants, Latynina linked fears that free speech was being suppressed to the legacy left over from Soviet times.
Of course Voice Of Retardation is selectively editing now. Reading the whole thing gives a different perspective.
Latynina played down the audience’s fears that her safety was at stake for criticizing the Russian government. Arguing that Russia lacks internet censorship (as opposed to China) and allows Ekho Moskvy radio to broadcast whatever it wants, Latynina linked fears that free speech was being suppressed to the legacy left over from Soviet times. Back then, she said, people were arrested or murdered for speaking out against the government. “The maximum now is that they turn off the broadcast.” When numerous members of the audience objected that Russia figures as the third most lethal country in the world for journalists, Latynina countered that Russia was a lethal country for everyone. “It’s more dangerous to be a citizen of Russia than to be a journalist,” she said. “If you drive down Leninsky Prospekt and meet Lukoil Vice President Barkov, he’s not going to ask if you’re a journalist or not.”
https://larussophobe.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/latynina-in-brooklyn/
Still sounds like censorship to me.
Never mind ReTaRd, we know that taking things in context is not part of your (admittedly limited) mental capabilities.
You see, Andrew, what really matters in Russia is that it’s getting stronger every other year for the last 10 years. As a state. As a nation. As a culture.
Every number I checked within the last month says this.
Birth rate. Death rate. Annual income. Number of students. Alcohol consumption. Life expectancy. Death rate at birth. Education level. Number of orphans. Salaries. Pensions.
This is what matters. And this has a much more significant effect on simple Russian people that live in simple Russian towns, villages, cities around my country.
And they don’t give a flying f*ck about press freedom, most of them. Notwithstanding media freedom is a very important thing, of course.
Thank you for conceding that freedom of speech is “a very important thing.” That’s really generous of you. However, the rest of your statement is that it is not important to the majority of Russians, or most of them as you put it.
That shows why Russia remains a country of savages. Their mentality is still that of slaves. They don’t realize that one cannot have a normal prosperous country without freedom.
All Russia’s so called “prosperity” is a function of oil and gas and metal prices. You know that, don’t you? When they go down, what will remain?
Do you believe kids are born where wealth goes up?
It’s not necessarily directly connected. There are plenty very wealthy countries in Europe with very low birth rates. And there is the United States with relatively high birth rates. And of course most third world countries in Asia and Africa also have very high birth rates.
So why the Russian birth rate rises?
How would I know?
Well, according to Russian experts the increase is temporary:
Given such problems, experts both inside and outside Russia are skeptical that the goal of halting Russia’s population decline by 2011 is achievable. Leonid Rybakovsky, chief research fellow at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for Socio-Political Research, said that while Russia’s birthrate had “sharply increased,” partly because of the government’s actions, he doubted that the demographic growth would last for very long. The reasons for the rise in the birthrate, he said, were, first and most importantly, the growth in the number of women of child-bearing age, including women who were born in the 1980s, when the birthrate was high. The other reasons for the rise in the birthrate were “the stabilization of the situation in the country and additional benefits and payments, including those to expectant mothers.”
Rybakovsky warned, however, that the current positive demographic situation would continue for another three to five years at the most. “Then women born in the 1990s will reach reproductive age and the number giving birth will decrease,” he said. “Particular difficulties will arise after 2015-2016.” Valery Yelizarov, head of the Center for the Study of Population at Moscow State University, predicted that there would be a slump in the birthrate in three to four years. “The number of women of childbearing age will decrease; there will no longer be ‘postponed’ children,” he said. “In order to counterbalance the situation, effective measures, not half measures, are needed” (Kommersant, April 28).
Some Western experts, however, doubt that measures taken by the Russian government can reverse the trend. As Nicholas Eberstadt, a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, and Hans Groth, a Pfizer global health fellow and managing director of Pfizer-Switzerland, recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal: “Unfortunately, there is not a single example from modern history where pro-natal policies have been able to achieve a sustainable demographic reversal. Outside of Russia, few demographers anticipate depopulation will actually halt over the coming generation.” According to Eberstadt and Groth, Russia’s working-age population (aged 15-64) is projected to shrink by 19 percent between 2005 and 2030 compared with about 7 percent in Western Europe (Wall Street Journal, April 25).
Murray Feshbach of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars recently predicted that the number of Russian women aged 20 to 29, the prime childbearing years, would start to decline in about 2013, while the number of deaths in Russia from AIDS, tuberculosis and hepatitis C would rise sharply over the next five to ten years. This meant Russia might still be headed for a population crash, Feshbach said (AP, April 5).
http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/2008-83-27.cfm
Andrew, an unexpectedly reasonable responce from you. Bravo! Seriously, I mean it.
So this is the third “population wave” we have from the WWII (first right after the war, and so on).
So let’s try to look further, dear Georgian friend, if you’re still with me.
Let’s talk about women of reproductive age only.
Why:
1) We have 3,3 times less abortions per woman, compared to the early 1990ies?
2) Total fertility rate: 1.27 children born/woman (2005 est.)
and 1.41 children born/ woman (2009 est., CIA FB)
RV wrote: “When they go down, what will remain?
The BP oil spill in the gulf of Mexico? The Greek debt? The US economic recession and huge Wall Street bonuses? US wars and occupation of other countries?
These seem to be the only things that will be with us forever.
Chernobyl has a better chance at a long-time legacy… the Kursk… black widows… the Caucausus, forever a killer of Russians… etc. etc. etc.
See, RTR & all, the problem with what you say is that to me you’re admitting defeat. You say you don’t care about press freedom — and yet you come here to express your opinion. Suppose Papa Putin would forbid you from doing so. Or suppose he’d tell you to say the opposite of what you’re saying now. Would you bow, like a good Russian (‘the only important thing is that we’re growing!’) and say, yessir!, and then start lavishing praise on La Russophobe? That’s what your logic would suggest — i.e. be subservient to the government that gives you the “pride”, no matter how much actual suffering this costs to the people down below.
That’s what the Nazis also said: no freedom, but gee, look at what a big economical success we are! Big inflation gone! Everybody has work! And we’re getting stronger by the day!
That’s why they say the Russian people is still in the 19th century: this we’re-not-free-but-we’re-strong mentality is typical of those days.
Nothing new will come out of that. We’ve already had one 19th century. Why have another?
“You say you don’t care about press freedom — and yet you come here to express your opinion. Suppose Papa Putin would forbid you from doing so. ”
But the only thing that Papa Putin can forbid me to do is express my views on his 3 main TV networks – ChannelOne, Rossiya, and NTV – plus some other smaller ones. And if he banns me from them, I will go to other TV networks – RenTV and Piter5. Or I will go to the radio stations like Echo of Moscow – one of the most powerful media in all of Russia. Or to numerous top newspapers and magazines, most of which are virulently anti-Putin. Or to the internet. So, if I lived in Russia, I would have no problem getting my views expressed.
It is another question whether enough people in Russia actually listen and react to what they read and hear. For example, when the news that Gryzlov was stealing $billions of dollars from the taxpayers through his “clean water” scheme hit the fan – few people in Russia got outraged. Look, here in USA the Wall Street executives are also stealing $billions in bonuses from taxpayers, and the government is helping them in it, but at least everybody in the country is outraged and there is hope that, unless the Republicans block it, we may change the laws to prevent this from happening in the future. Why are Russians so politically passive?
Asephe, I believe I do not need to repeat Voice of Reason of all the major medias systematically oppositional to the Russian government actions.
Now would you please provide one example of a major US newspaper systematically oppositional to the US government?
B/c Gugel can’t find much of these: http://www.google.ru/search?hl=ru&newwindow=1&client=firefox-a&hs=sBI&rls=org.mozilla%3Aru%3Aofficial&q=opposition+press+us&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=
800 THOUSAND ORPHANS in Russia and you think thats ok….your bloody mad mate…. Sorry your posts are a joke… get real.
I said stronger, not strong yet. Stronger is compartative.
800 THOUSAND ORPHANS
AND 1 MILLION in 2002. And those 200 000 did not die. It’s just they are over 18 now.
Decide for yourself if most of these 800 000 became orphans in the last years.
Are you delusional, or are you just a paid kremlin propagandist?
A Summer of Hope for Russian Orphans
By NANCY DONIGER
Published: July 21, 2002
While there, she said she learned some sobering statistics, supplied to her by the Russian government. At present, she said, 650,000 children are living in orphanages, which due to crowded conditions release the children at age 16. Of those who leave the system, 40 percent become homeless, 20 percent become criminals and 10 percent commit suicide.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/21/nyregion/a-summer-of-hope-for-russian-orphans.html?pagewanted=all
LES, I’m outright delusional, and a blatant paid propagandist at once.
After this confession, may I humbly propose this to be the last comment you make after my post?
LES, this quote of yours is a ripper “Are you delusional, or are you just a paid kremlin propagandist?”
The answer to both of your questions is “most definitely yes”, as it applies to Dimwit Dimitry.
In case his good ‘buddies’, dima, ReTaRd/Voice of Reason(albeit extremely stupid) and last but not least DD himself misunderstood my thrust, it IS that I very strongly believe, that he is a paid kremlin propaganda stooge.
Furthermore, his “LES, I’m outright delusional, and a blatant paid propagandist at once.” is a classic case of ‘many a truth uttered in jest”. Whereas his last comment of “may I humbly propose this to be the last comment you make after my post” is actually a threat, as were you in his beloved soviet fascist Russia and you had the audacity to ignore his suggestion? well I would be very worried about your health and/or well being.
Hi Bohdan,
Dilldohead commanded me not to respond to his posts also. At least Dmitry asked me politely, and he does not realize that I saw most of his silly posts and ignored him, but this false statement just got me.
If you want to see my response to dilldohead, please check the comments at:
https://larussophobe.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/say-it-loud-and-say-it-proud-i-am-a-russophobe/#comments
PS I wonder what dilldohead’s new name is, because LR finally banned him.
LES My sincere and heart felt thanks for that wonderful referral to see your response to dilldohead as per “please check the comments at:
https://larussophobe.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/say-it-loud-and-say-it-proud-i-am-a-russophobe/#comments”
I was mesmerized reading that superb article/comments of yours. By the way I don’t impress easily, but man was I impressed!!! I gave you an “A+” for it. What an intelligent and well put together work of fact!
I also could not help but notice, dildohead’s Ka Ge Bist’s modus operandi, which I now am 100% positive that he, like ReTaRd, after having been banned by LR , have rejoined under their new nom de plume names of Dimitry and Voice of Reason respectively.
To me those new names suit them (for what they can truthfully and correctly be modified into) as they are; brain damaged (or to quote RV, they got dropped on their heads at “6 months old”) soviet fascist lying scum – with no scrap of decency, honesty or verbal etiquette – and for selling themselves to the forces of evil, their real controllers and manipulators!
To finish on a moral note, I always tell the following story to any non believer, agnostic or atheist, should I meet one. And may I add that I have held this belief since my late teens i.e. mid sixties of last century.
One only needs to look at water (H2O), without which no living thing, be it human, animal, plant, insect or all water life in its countless forms can exist!
Now let us look at water in finer detail – at 4 degrees celsius it starts to expand and become lighter, this process continues until the temperature drops to zero, by which time the water has expanded by 10%, to form ice and is light enough to float on top of the water.
This floating ice is a superb insulator not allowing further freezing of the water – with one exception; it does not like heat, which melts it. Hence this ice then prevents a lake or the sea such as in the Arctic circle or Antarctica from freezing solid and killing all the fish, plant life and etc and consequently then marine and warm blooded life as they in turn have nothing to eat.
If you have doubt about this theory, try freezing a tomato, lettuce or cabbage etc and although I have never tried it any living fish or mammal and then defrosting them – they, that is the vegetables, become slushy junk.
This chain of events did not just occur, some one or something of extreme superior intellect i.e. the Creator, the Almighty, our God, who else but He! must have worked out all this in advance!
I also believe that good will always triumph over evil. It only needs time. But in the meantime the poor plebs suffer. Down with evil Putin and his heinous henchmen.
MANY RUSSIANS HATE RUSSIAN CHILDREN
While welcoming some increase in penalties, Aleksandra Ochirova, the chairman of the Social Chamber’s social and demographic policy committee, said that would not be sufficient unless the government also worked to change popular attitudes about family violence. Others taking part in the meeting called for improving children’s homes, but Tatyana Yakovleva, a member of the Duma’s public health committee, noted that “90 percent” of the children in these institutions have a living “father or mother” to whom they could in principle return were the latter not violent. But despite these disagreements – and they reflect broader debates in Russian society and government – participants did agree on three things. First, they backed the idea that the country needed to adopt some kind of law on the rights of children. At present, child protection is the subject of a variety of federal and regional laws.
According to Yakovleva, an analysis of 3,000 pieces of legislation governing the treatment of children found that many of the existing laws do not give priority to prevention of such crimes but rather discuss only how the government should respond once a child is a victim. Second, they agreed that the government must do more to ensure that fathers pay alimony so that single mothers will be better able to take their children. Some 4.5 million Russian children now life with a single parent, typically the mother, and only one third of such parents are receiving any alimony or child support payments. And third, they backed improving social services and intervention efforts, with one speaker even noting that sometimes parents with plenty of money drink it all up leaving the children with no food and no possibilities to obtain the medical and educational services they need.
MOSCOW, May 29, 2006 (RIA Novosti) –
A Moscow children’s rights expert said Monday that 1,220 Russian children adopted by Russians had died since 1991, including 12 killed by their foster parents.Galina Semya said that 116 cases of serious physical abuse had been registered in the same period, with 23 cases of serious physical abuse by foster parents.
PS We all know that the kremlin underreports bad news.
The problem is that you do not compare this year and 5, 10, 15 years ago.
You won’t understand anything, unless you do.
Mostly, I agree with you. You are great and Russia needs your criticism.
But (why o why…!) you still work under the title La RUSSOPHOBE. That name simply does not work! Phobia…for what the hell are you afraid? Maybe Russodisgust is better? (and, to assure, I agree). Russia is a country who needs an update!
Police violently disperse protest at Russian mine
Today at 22:47 | Associated Press MOSCOW (AP) — A respected Russian radio station says police have violently broken up a miners’ protest over salary and conditions at the coal mine where explosions killed at least 66 people.
The independent-leaning Ekho Moskvy says hundreds of miners and their supporters blocked traffic at a train station in western Siberia. They were dragged away by riot police early Saturday, the station said.
The station says the protesters are angry over misleading national television reports that they are well paid and work in a safe environment.
Thanks for that interesting piece of news, LES.
Just can’t wait for either one or all of the three stooges to give their biased report on this matter. But want to bet that they will meet it with total silence?
I mean LES (tongue in cheek) how dare you report this “fabrication”.
Bohdan,
The reason why I almost always ignore your posts is because they are stupid beyond belief. I actually admire you for your successful efforts to access the internet and to write posts, given the severe mental handicaps you have to overcome in order to accomplish such tasks.
ReTaRd alias Voice of (unbelievably stupid) Reason,
You don’t have to prove your stupidity, it’s a fact of life proved beyond any reasonable doubt. Congratulations, you must be ‘sooo’ proud of yourself!
Another proven fact of life is that you are an inveterate lying, brain damaged, commie stooge.
As an example look at your first sentence, and I quote ” The reason why I almost always ignore your posts is because they are stupid beyond belief.” Let’s get one thing straight, you delude yourself with self grandeur as anything that transgresses your imbecile love for Putin’s soviet fascist ruSSia, is “stupid beyond belief”. Congratulations to you, the real “stupid beyond belief” imbecile.
Your quote “I actually admire you..” Yuck, what an affront to any intelligent human. You should save these words for your buddies like dima and dimwit Dimitry, as only they deserve your admiration. Lucky russophiles, LOL.
The piece of yours about “severe mental handicap” refers to you. Congratulations again!
Now be a good boy and tell me who helped you write this or is it plagiarism out of your own proposed autobiography? as your very limited intelligence betrays your reasoning ability.
Remember you were born an idiot and you will die an idiot.
Bye, bye, ta, ta.
The last sentence was classical USSR propaganda just as this was:
Latvia, with a population of 1,951,000 was next. On October 5, another Pact of Mutual Assistance was signed and this time 30,000 Red Army troops were stationed in Latvia. The political bureaucrats accompanying the Red Army had a difficult time explaining to the troops how it was that the miracles of communism had left them in poverty, while the Latvians were obviously very prosperous.
With Marxist logic, the discrepancy was explained this way:
You see, capitalistic Latvia can afford an abundance of goods in its capitalist owned shops, because the masses, the underpaid and exploited workers, are unable to buy them.
On the other hand, the masses in the Soviet Union are so adequately paid that they can afford to go and buy up all available goods. This creates temporary shortages on the home market.
Anyone can understand this.
LES after reading the above “Marxist logic”, what immediately springs to my mind is the speech given by that eminent Professor Robert Conquest and writer on Soviet Communist Russia when he was traveling world wide to advertise his latest publication “THE HARVEST OF SORROW” on the Ukrainian Holodomor instigated by the greatest mass murderer in history of the Russian and Ukrainian people, J Stalin, and I was privileged to attend the private dinner set up in his honor of that visit. Wherein his speech to the attendees he made the following remark that “Never in the history of mankind has there existed such a regime that has relied so much on lying as soviet Russia has.”
Strange how the three soviet commie stooges are silent on this topic?
(Sarcastically) I wonder why. I mean how dare they, they are falling down on their paid jobs, as I would rearly (as in arse) – oops again, I actually mean ‘dearly’ – love to hear their spiel on this topic, so that all intelligent people can understand this.
In all fairness someone should write a letter to their beloved V. V. Putin to sack them for their soviet era laziness and replace them with someone more brain washed to follow the official propaganda lie – oops I mean line!
VoR, Dmitry et caterva…
The problem with what you say is that to me you’re admitting defeat. You say you don’t care about press freedom — and yet you come here to express your opinion. As if you DID care.
Also, on bowing to a ‘successful’ government. Suppose Papa Putin would forbid you from coming here and defending Russia. Or suppose he’d tell you to say the opposite — to attack Russia and defend the West. For whatever reason. Would you bow, like a good Russian (‘the only important thing is that we’re growing!’) and say, yessir!, and then start lavishing praise on La Russophobe? That’s what your logic would suggest — i.e. be subservient to the government that gives you the “pride”, no matter how much the basic freedoms of the people are trampled on.
That’s what the Nazis also said: no freedom, but gee, look at what a big economical success we are! Big inflation gone! Everybody has work! And we’re getting stronger by the day!
That’s why they say the Russian people is still in the 19th century: this we’re-not-free-but-we’re-strong mentality is typical of those days.
Nothing new will come out of that. We’ve already had one 19th century. Why have another?
Acephe, you’re wrong abt me, Voice of Reason and, most likely, all these catervae you see.
Seriously, the most important point you tend to miss is –
I believe that press freedom does not cost a single Russian life.
If in a country where (you think) there no press freedom Russians live longer, have more babies and are more happy – then, I’d say, I prefer this Russia.
You say Yeltsin’s Russia was a more free state?
I’d answer under Yeltsin we’ve been:
1) at the verge of disintegration (which you of course think is ok for Russia),
2) Dying out in million a year (which you tend to not notice),
3) Losing our economy (which may be a surprise for you),
4) Selling out our country resources for 10% of their value (which you most probably find normal for a “transitional economy”).
Now the question is:
What are you trying to prove when you say to a Russian, “being subservient to the government that gives you the “pride”, no matter how much the basic freedoms of the people are trampled on”.
Don’t you understand that being alive is what gives us more pride than being dead?
Is it so hard to understand this choice?
Dmitry’ the goal of suppressing the freedom of the press is to allow the government to proclaim whatever they want through media outlets under their total control.
Thus they can claim the life expectancy and birth rate in Russia have increased without the fear that such claims will be challenged by independent media because there is no independent media in Russia and that’s the whole point, they no longer have to care about the real state of affairs in Russia, so the Russia you live in is not a country that’s getting stronger it’s a country that proclaims to be getting stronger while in actuality it’s falling apart at the seams. And people aren’t living longer here, it’s simply that the state controlled media are drumming it into your head, telling you over and over again that people are living longer. Have you ever considered the possibility that they may actually be lying to you about it? After all it’s the same people that have repeatedly lied to us in the past. How come you’re once again taking what they say at face value?
The difference between Russia under Yeltsin and Russia now is that back then the press and the media were able to talk openly about the problems Russia was faced with and today they’ve been gagged and are only allowed to praise Russia’s non-existent achievements.
Who’s alive here? People are losing jobs, demonstrating against the government and being jailed while the main stream media simply keep their mouth shut about these events, you just occasionally hear reports about them on obscure radio stations or read about them in blogs and in grainy cell phone videos uploaded to youtube.
So please, wake up and try to realise that the state controlled main stream media in Russia are full of BS, you can’t trust them.
Igor, do you believe the Russian statistics office is less independent and responsible than under Yeltsin? If yes, what makes you think so?
What makes you think, e.g. average salary does not rise? What makes you think the unemployment level is so high?
And the last, but not the least – what makes you think people trust the mainstream Russian media? It happened to be I perfectly know what people think of the mainstream media (my job is connected to this, and many other things) – by what are your reasons of saying that I trust them?
I mean, I read your posts, and I see pure pessimism. But you don’t tell me what makes you think so. I guess our experience of living here must be completely different, but I just can not discuss Russia with you, unless I know in what way is our experience different.
Yes I think our state sponsored statisticians are less independent now than they were under Yeltsin.
What makes me think so is a Savik Shuster Freedom of Speech show I saw back in 2002. Back then our official sources were reporting economic growth and a decrease in the percentage of people below the official poverty line. Shuster invited a representative of ROSSTAT to speak on his show where he confronted him with data collected by two independent polling agencies according to which the percentage of people below the poverty line had not changed since Putin came to power. The ROSSTAT rep spent a good deal of time trying to avoid giving a direct answer but eventually he admitted that they got a lower percentage of people below the poverty line by reducing the official poverty line by several roubles. Essentially what happened was this: Putin’s government told the statistics office they expected a drop in the number of the poor in the country and the statisticians delivered. It’s been a standard approach in Russia for centuries.
Average pay and unemployment – my personal experience makes me think the official government reports are BS. Look at what’s happening in Kuzbas at the moment, plus over the past year and a half we’ve been experiencing a galloping inflation under such circumstances even though the average pay in roubles may have increased the actual purchasing power simply had to have dropped, meaning that people in Russia have less disposable income now than they had at the beginning of last year. The utilities alone have been raised by as much as 40% at the start of this year, no way people’s salaries could have kept up with that. And on top of that consumer prices, especially for groceries, have gone through the roof in the past year.
The reason I say you trust the msm is because you always cite information that comes from the Russian msm, like the official statistics, most of those stats are bogus and yet you keep throwing them at people like they were gospel, so naturally I can only conclude that you trust the Russian msm.
I think the core difference between us is that you live in Moscow and I don’t and the rest of Russia is a totally different story than Moscow, as you probably know. Plus I also suspect that you’re probably younger than me; I lived through the collapse of the USSR and I saw with my own eyes how the very same people who had been staunch communists just a year or two before, completely changed their tune and became avid supporters of democracy, it was a time when such notions as hypocrisy, phony and bogus were taken to a completely new level as those people, including Yeltsin by the way, managed to keep straight faces throughout.
The USSR was a country based on lies, terror and delusions, modern Russia is the same since it is run by the very same people who were in charge in the USSR, only they’re now using a different banner, but all their methods are the same. Pessimism is the only sane option in Russia, anything other than pessimism is delusional.
Look, Igor, I believe I have a very nice access to statistical data.
I mean, a very independent statistical data, collected by the international company, one of the best (if not the best) in the world.
This company collects data nationwide here, and the data includes salaries level, number of kids in families, spending etc.
Believe me, would there be a gap between what Goskomstat says and what this independent data shows, I would be the first one to say that. But there isn’t.
I think the core difference between us is that you live in Moscow and I don’t and the rest of Russia is a totally different story than Moscow, as you probably know.
So what is the region where you live?
who had been staunch communists just a year or two before
Yeltsin should have started lustration then and politically kill himself, wonder why he didn’t?
modern Russia is the same since it is run by the very same people who were in charge in the USSR
This is wrong. Those people die, and the new generation is very much unlike them. Check the minister Adomantis speaks about.
Igor, overall, your posts look like you’re in your 60ies, and your life is completely ruined.
I somehow think that’s not true.
what independent company is it whose statistical data on Russia you have access to? you see you’re basically suggesting I take your word for it. Statistics is all about methods, it’s one of those fields where don’t really have to falsify anything you just need to tweak the methods, take inflation for instance, you want to keep it down, just include Pentium III computers in your consumer basket and you’re good to go. Then if an independent company comes along, you just tell them here’s how we calculated our statistics and if they do the same calculations they’re pretty much bound to get the same results.
FYI: I live in the great Polish cemetery of Smolensk.
The problem with our perestroyka and the reorganisation/liquidation of the USSR that followed was that it was a revolution from the top, initiated by the elites for the benefit of the elites and that was the main reason why nobody hesitated to flush people’s savings down the toilet. Communism was just one banner they used to brainwash the masses, soon as it got stale they switched to democracy, once democracy fell out of favour with the general public they’ve now gone back to strong leader rhetorics, anything to keep the masses in line while they’re lining their pockets.
The so called ‘new generation’ are little different from their predecessors, for one they’re not as ‘new’ as it may seem, they’re all former KOMSOMOL members and a lot of them have worked in the KGB, so while they may be a new crop they share the same mentality with their communist forebears.
I’m not in my 60’s yet but the problem is that in this country the majority of the people have little else to look forward to but surviving on completely inadequate pensions in their old age and and it’s pretty brutal
Well said as usual Igor.
Dimitry ,
Could the reason for , as you so succintly put , that the people in the small towns and villages
and cities in your country ” don’t care about press freedom ” , be that most of them can’t read anyway and besides , what good is freedom of the press anyway , you can’t even drink it .
LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:
Actually you can drink it, Americans think it tastes sweet as ambrosia and it tells you the names of the people who are stealing your drinks, so you can get them back and drink twice.
Actually noone can read in Russia.
Even me; were there no system of text recognition, that is reading your answers to me and writes my responces, I wouldn’t be able to participate in this very interesting discussion, dear.
I searched for ‘echo moscow scum’ and google brought me here. I call that a point landing!