|
1 (11) Scientists have subsequently deprived Rasputin of his miracle worker’s cape by finding a medical explanation for his stanching trick. The court physicians had prescribed the new wonder drug aspirin to the crown prince at the time. It was later discovered that aspirin thins the blood and therefore aggravates haemophilic tendencies. Rasputin thus worked his ‛miracle cure’ simply by using his mysterious aura to banish the court physicians physicians and their aspirin, as the bleeding stopped as soon as the medication was discontinued. 2 (13) In the early years of his presidency, Putin seriously sought integration with the West and even toyed with the idea of joining the European Union. 3 (17) On the nature of this change, Putin himself has said: “Whoever doesn’t miss the Soviet Union, doesn’t have a heart. Whoever wants it back, doesn’t have a brain.” 4 (17) Elections are little more than vertically directed spectacles, and new political groups have to pass a ‘filter’ to be recognised. The mainstream media is commercial through and through, but loyal to Putin. Putin has also enjoyed extremely high popular support all these years, for there is always strong demand for a powerful leader in Russia. 5 (21) The United States has spent almost six trillion dollars (that’s twelve zeros) on wars since September 11, 2001. 6 (22) In fact, the cultural divide between Europe and the United States is more fundamental than that between Russia and Europe. 7 (24) Russian way of life is different from that of the West, but the same could be said of China, for example. And yet we do not ask the Chinese to think or act like us, as we tend to expect of the Russians. The reason is simple: the Chinese look different, so we let them think and live in a different way, whereas the Russians look like us, so we can’t let them do the same. 8 (26) The brain drain from Russia to the West is extensive. According to statistics in the receiving countries, 10,000 highly educated Russians leave for the United States and 20,000 for Germany every year. According to Russian statistics, the number is 4–5 times smaller, yet another indication of how hard it is to pin down Russian reality. 9 (45) This was the kind of social climate to which Vladimir Putin was born on 7 October 1952. His astrological sign is Libra, which is not without significance in Russia, a country prone to many forms of superstition. 10 (51) Speaking to Russian war historians on 14 March 2013, Vladimir Putin noted: “The border between Finland and the Soviet Union was drawn in the wrong place after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.” According to Putin, Stalin started the Winter War to correct the error made in 1917. Putin thus stated the Soviet geopolitical position directly, without trying to explain away the attack with the shelling of Mainila or Finnish provocation. The border was simply too close to Leningrad. 11 (54) Russia is the world’s largest country, and the richest in terms of natural resources. And yet its population, spread over eleven time zones, is only 147 million. There is plenty of space for everyone. 12 (55) Russia is the largest country in the world, spanning over 17 million square kilometres and more than one-eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area. Photo: Wikimedia, text: Wikipedia. 13 (56) Countries with ready access to the world’s seas hold a geopolitical advantage. Whoever rules the waves, rules the world. The United States has unobstructed access to two oceans, the Pacific and the Atlantic, whereas Russia has none. Russia’s sea power is curtailed either by natural conditions or by passages under the control of other countries. 14 (62) After the annexation of Crimea, a song called Sevastopol Waltz enjoyed a renaissance on Russian radio. Written in 1955, this is actually one of Putin’s favourite pieces of music. Among its first performers was the celebrated Estonian singer Georg Ots. 15 (67) Yeltsin tried to convince Clinton of the same point: “Russia had been invaded twice – by Napoleon and by Hitler – and the trauma of those events still colored the country’s collective psychology and shaped its policies.” 16 (74) Moreover, the life of a human being is held cheap in Russia – a lot cheaper than in the West. The number of casualties is therefore less significant. Russian warfare has always included a cavalier attitude to death. This is not so much due to indifference as to a feature of Orthodox theology, which holds that death is a liberation, in that it releases the deceased from the limbo to which we are born (and which we call life) to the eternal life in which milk and honey flow freely. 17 (80) In many respects, Merkel and Putin are mirror images of one another. They are both post-war baby boomers, although Merkel is a couple of years younger. They went to university at about the same time and lived in what used to be called a ‛real socialist’ system. They have had similar political careers, and both have been leading decision-makers in their countries for about the same time. They are also fluent in each other’s languages. Despite these similarities, it is clear that Angela Merkel has no warm feelings for Stasi or the KGB. To that extent, their worlds are radically different. 18 (157) Finland is simply everywhere everywhere in St Petersburg, including the Finland Station, Finland Bridge and Finland Street, as well as the more than one million cubic metres of Virolahti granite used to build the city. 19 (172) Every citizen was given a 10,000-ruble voucher which could be used as legal tender in the auctions of State assets through which most of the shares in the privatised companies were sold. Since few people knew what to do with their vouchers or had the opportunity to use them, most of the vouchers were bought up by a handful of people at bargain-basement prices. No one had any idea of the vouchers’ real value – that is, the value of the country’s natural resources and the work of previous generations. 20 (175) West dumped its subsidised surplus production onto the Russian market. Overproduction of food was still a problem at the time, since the world’s population was 2.3 billion smaller than today. As a result, Russian collective farms went bankrupt and the unemployment rate went through the roof. 21 (177) Financial Times: “For us privatization was like manna from heaven. It meant that we could move forward and buy from the government on favorable terms whatever we wanted […] It turned out to be easier to grab Uralmash than to get even one warehouse in Moscow. We bought the plant for one thousandth of its real worth.” 22 (182) The disintegration of the Soviet Union gave rise to mass migration, increasing multiculturalism and growing income differences, problems that also weaken the Finns’ desire to maintain their welfare state. Rich people don’t want to pay taxes that only benefit the poor, while poor people don’t want to pay taxes that only benefit immigrants. 23 (183) Putin has repeatedly promised citizens a higher standard of living, better social benefits and improved education, but there has been no sign of the fundamental changes needed in economic policy to strengthen consumer demand. 24 (185) Putin has continued the same neo-liberal policies that Yeltsin adopted from his American consultants. 25 (186) Probably the most important factor is that in countries caught in the raw materials trap, decisions on the distribution of revenue are made by the political authorities. This tends to stimulate corruption rather than competition. It is more important to be well-connected with the powers that be than to make good products. 26 (201) The city architect Carl Ludvig Engel cursed the Russian masons for working so fast that he was unable to complete the technical drawings at the same pace. 27 (204) Russia and the United States are like reluctant Siamese twins: they both know that killing the other also means their own death. A war between the United States and Russia would therefore be suicidal for both. 28 (205) Timo Vihavainen has written perceptively about this topic: 29 (207) The American journalist Jeffrey Goldberg expressed this by saying that to understand Putin, you need to read Dostoyevsky, not Mein Kampf. 30 (214) Russia was incapable of matching the economic and ideological pull of the West. 31 (221) In 1954, the former Donbassian metalworker Nikita Khrushchev ordered that Crimea, which had been in Russian possession since the times of Catherine Catherine the Great, should be governed from Kyiv, the capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, rather than from Moscow. Vladimir Putin reversed this decision on March 18, 2014, making the following pronouncement: “After a long, hard and exhausting voyage, Crimea and Sevastopol are returning to their home shores, to their home port, to Russia!” 32 (229) I am not saying there is anything intrinsically wrong about Oblomovism. This is a matter of choice, and deliberate downshifting can be quite creative – after all, Isaac Newton came up with his theory of gravity when resting under an apple tree. 33 (231) The name of Russia itself (Rossiya) can be traced back either to Rurik, the first ruler of Staraya Ladoga, or the Swedish verb ro (to row). 34 (233) However, although an Orthodox funeral is more fun than a Lutheran wedding, Luther’s creed also has its advantages. 35 (233) The welfare state owes so large a debt to Luther that one could call it a secular form of Lutheranism in which the idea of God has been replaced by economic progress, which brings salvation. 36 (257) Karasev says the household code of the Russians should read: “Put your faith in God, but make sure you don’t mess up yourself.” 37 (259) unchanged: the country is still a great inland power, but too small to challenge the United States and too big to join the European Union. 38 (260) One possible scenario, geopolitically speaking, is that Russia will end up in a position like that of Finland, as a buffer of sorts between the West and a burgeoning China. 39 (264) On the other hand, Russia is like the mythical phoenix: it burns from time to time, only to rise majestically from the ashes of its own destruction. This happened in the early 17th century, then in 1917, and again in 1991. 40 (266) History is past politics; experience shows that Europe fares best when Russia is on the playing field rather than in the audience or on the bench. 41 (268) Despite all of their anti-western rhetoric, the oligarchs are actually very western-minded, for they have transferred an enormous part of their capital to the West and sent off their offspring to study there. During his tenure, Putin has built a paradise for anyone with money, for you can buy pretty much anything in Russia these days. However, very few products are labelled ‛Made in Russia’. But at least his successor will have something to build on. |
|
Nikita Khrushchev, a native son of Ukraine. |
| 1 | 20210208 | +27p | =28p | 10% | ***** |
| 2 | 20210209 | +54p | =82p | 28% | ************** |
| 3 | 20210210 | +12p | =94p | 32% | **************** |
| 4 | 20210211 | +62p | =156p | 53% | ************************** |
| 5 | 20210212 | +34p | =190p | 65% | ******************************** |
| 6 | 20210213 | +31p | =221p | 76% | ************************************** |
 015 |
 028 |
 0281 |
 047 |
 048 |
 0481 |
 055 |
 0551 |
 057 |
 0571 |
 064 |
 0641 |
 077 |
 080 |
 083 |
 101 |
 103 |
 1031 |
 114 |
 115 |
 119 |
 123 |
 1231 |
 124 |
 1251 |
 1252 |
 131 |
 133 |
 1331 |
 137 |
 138 |
 1381 |
 139 |
 1391 |
 144 |
 1441 |
 1442 |
 145 |
 1551 |
 160 |
 166 |
 182 |
 186 |
 220 |
 224 |
 226 |
 232 |
 246 |
 258 |
 261 |
Asko Korpela 20210504 (20110710) o Ajk homepage o WebMaster
Memoirs o TrumPutin o Reading o Tajka o AmaBooks o Rowing o Knitting