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I think what sanctions it's bad nowadays for Russia. And I can explained this.
Please do. It's not easy to find someone who lives there are knows what really is going on. Your opinions would be appreciated.
It seems to me these sanctions are only bringing Russia to the proper conclusion that they are better off doing things for themselves instead of relying on the boot licking Europeans. Don't pay the French to build the ships, do it in St Pete. To hell with Hollande and France. It's their loss and Russias gain. Don't buy Polish apples, grow your own. Let the Polish farmers suffer because the whiners in Warsaw have to bow to America. I think in the long run the sanctions will force Russian business and Russian leaders to make the correct decisions.
I'm an American from the Seattle area. I was in Russia regularly from 1994 until 2010. I know Russia has it's problems but when you throw it all into the pot for a stew it's certainly is not that bad and Russia has come FAR since 1994. I've been all over Russia, Belarus and some of the Ukraine too. Smolensk is my favorite city and I know it well. Us Russophiles in the west are usually cut from the same cloth of experience and knowledge with/about Russia and without fail our opposites the Russophobes wallow in ignorance and most likely have never left their own country let alone been to Russia. Errrr, Mordor. My bad.
I watch Russian news and you rarely see critical reporting but it is there. The lack of response to the flooding and fires in the east netted the government lots of bad press.
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But if I want to buy chicken or beef or fish, I wish that it was not dog meat.
All is not perfect in Russia. The individual who did this is not going to have an easy time of it. Russians love their street dogs and those vendors are going to be hurting too.
Sorry I am not going to open the link, because I'm sure it will make me hit the ceiling yet again, as in case with Polar bear, and as in other cases when it comes to animal rights in Russia.
So I'll have to overcome my desire ( yet again) to take a gun and evaporate everyone there, and to think instead about all the Russians that against all odds pick up the pieces, care for wounded animals, spend their meager salaries to save them, make the phone numbers and addresses of thugs public, knowing that the laws don't work, or just simply show up at the right time at the right place to take care of justice themselves.
It's not that Russians "like their street dogs," - (there are plenty that get poisoned or killed and tortured,) but for the most part people understand that if they can't solve this problem, at least they shouldn't make the life of these animals more miserable than it is, and of course they try to feed them and in some cases - to shelter them and to give medical help.
So if someone decided to make a chop sui out of a well-known street dog, that was regular part of a scene somewhere, and if Asians ( vendors) were involved - yes, I see their stands burning *by accident* months later down the road.
It was a pretty sad video. I was pretty surprised the first time I was at the tomb of the unknown soldier with the Manazh Mall behind me and a pack of street dogs were having a butt sniffing convention in the little park not 50 ft away. I got to know a few at Partizanskaya metro station too. We were on a first name basis.
I remember in Gomel me and my wife were in a pizza restaurant and as I was looking out the window I saw a large very hairy street dog (it was winter) sitting on a corner. You could tell he was there for a reason. After awhile a woman got off a bus and the dog went nuts as they do when you get home from work. He was waiting for his human. They walked off down the street together. I've never had an issue with one of them except many of them have turned up their noses at what I was offering them as a treat.
Please do. It's not easy to find someone who lives there are knows what really is going on. Your opinions would be appreciated.
It seems to me these sanctions are only bringing Russia to the proper conclusion that they are better off doing things for themselves instead of relying on the boot licking Europeans. Don't pay the French to build the ships, do it in St Pete. To hell with Hollande and France. It's their loss and Russias gain. Don't buy Polish apples, grow your own. Let the Polish farmers suffer because the whiners in Warsaw have to bow to America. I think in the long run the sanctions will force Russian business and Russian leaders to make the correct decisions.
I'm an American from the Seattle area. I was in Russia regularly from 1994 until 2010. I know Russia has it's problems but when you throw it all into the pot for a stew it's certainly is not that bad and Russia has come FAR since 1994. I've been all over Russia, Belarus and some of the Ukraine too. Smolensk is my favorite city and I know it well. Us Russophiles in the west are usually cut from the same cloth of experience and knowledge with/about Russia and without fail our opposites the Russophobes wallow in ignorance and most likely have never left their own country let alone been to Russia. Errrr, Mordor. My bad.
I watch Russian news and you rarely see critical reporting but it is there. The lack of response to the flooding and fires in the east netted the government lots of bad press.
What about roof rabbit?
Scrat335 ok, no problems, but I bad know and speak English (I hope you understand me)
So.The problem is not in the sanctions. The problem is people.
In U.S. there are automobile corporations (Ford, Gm, Chrysler, Tesla). This corporations produces cars.
Sell them worldwide. And this corporations have profit, create jobs, pay taxes to the state.
In Russia there are automobile corporation VAZ(LADA). And this is trouble.
News for 06/24/2016:
"AvtoVAZ" again forgive multi-billion dollar debt."Goskoporatsiya" Rostec "offered once again to write
off the debts of automated enterprise. It amounts to twenty billion rubles. "
LADA don't sell cars worldwide. LADA don't have profit. LADA don't create jobs. LADA don't pay taxes to
the state. LADA asks for money from the state. Lada make bad, not safe cars, and often this cars have
breakage. Now Lada started to cooperate with the alliance Renault-Nissan. And began to appear new models. Thx alliance Renault-Nessan. (if lada made cars without alliance, things would have been worse.)
Another companies in U.S.
Apple, Microsoft, SpaceX etc. This companies also pay taxes to the state. Elon Musk, Bill Gates,
Steve Jobs. Unique people. And they have money (they billionaires) They changed world. What you know
about Russian billionaires? People who have connections with the government. Their company minig (oil, gas, gold, diamonds, wood) It's easy. Cut a tree, sold a wood, and they have money. Made a hole in the ground, pumped oil, sold oil western and eastern partners, and they have money. But when all oil will be
sold... I don't know what will be. Every Russian school student dreams about iPhone.
Every student have computer with windows or MacOs. Every Russian good businessman buys a good Swiss watch, buys Mercedes S-class, buys suit by Brioni. But nobody, who have money, buy LADA and
watches "Vostok" or "Zarya" (I think you don't know that is it, but in Russia it's popular watches)
Because Russia don't have good production. Only Oil, wood, gas and another natural resources.
I appreciate and respect the policy of Norway. Norway produces oil. But they invested money in a reserve fund. And now they have money, we don't have money. Competition - the engine of progress. It's true. Russian monopoly allows low-quality product at a big price. All the same, people will buy,
because there is no alternative. Previously, tourists traveled abroad. Now it very expensive. Tourists began to go to the resorts of the south of Russia. Seeing this picture of the service in the south of Russia immediately rose. And leisure facilities were also poor.
Now I work in the scientific field. Before that I studied for six years at the University. My town
population of one million people. (it's no Moscow) My salary 150$/month. I'm not kidding. It's realy true. Or 1800$/year. How you think, it's normal salary for a young scientist? I have a second job in order to live a normal life. Now a simple car costs 13000$ (Ford Focus or Mitsubishi Lancer) Small apartment in the city costs 25000$. How many years I have to work to buy a car and apartment?
(i don't say about Mercedes or BMW and about good big house)
I love Russia, I love Russian people, I love nature in Russia. But i don't understand what made and make Russian government. Government employees have hundreds and thousands of times more salary. And they think how to make better for peoples in Russia. I'm doing science and have 140$ in month. Rightly?
I don't think so.
Russia will sell oil and gas.
And nothing has changed.
I don't know, what say other guys from Russia on this site. But it's my opinion and what I see now in Russia. If it's interesting for you, I can continue about positive and negative in Russia
Must the Russia excluded the Crimea from the Federation?
It is not normal, select the territory of a neighboring state.
How you think, if people of the Kaliningrad region want to join Germany, Russian government allows it to make? I don't think so. If people of the Karelia region want to join Finland?
I do not remember very well, but somehow the governor of Petrozavodsk said jokingly that it is necessary to join Finland. And? Do you think that happened to the governor?
Crimea back or not, I do not know. But how do we get it... it's amazing...
Scrat335 ok, no problems, but I bad know and speak English (I hope you understand me)
So.The problem is not in the sanctions. The problem is people.
In U.S. there are automobile corporations (Ford, Gm, Chrysler, Tesla). This corporations produces cars.
Sell them worldwide. And this corporations have profit, create jobs, pay taxes to the state.
In Russia there are automobile corporation VAZ(LADA). And this is trouble.
News for 06/24/2016:
"AvtoVAZ" again forgive multi-billion dollar debt."Goskoporatsiya" Rostec "offered once again to write
off the debts of automated enterprise. It amounts to twenty billion rubles. "
LADA don't sell cars worldwide. LADA don't have profit. LADA don't create jobs. LADA don't pay taxes to
the state. LADA asks for money from the state. Lada make bad, not safe cars, and often this cars have
breakage. Now Lada started to cooperate with the alliance Renault-Nissan. And began to appear new models. Thx alliance Renault-Nessan. (if lada made cars without alliance, things would have been worse.)
Another companies in U.S.
Apple, Microsoft, SpaceX etc. This companies also pay taxes to the state. Elon Musk, Bill Gates,
Steve Jobs. Unique people. And they have money (they billionaires) They changed world. What you know
about Russian billionaires? People who have connections with the government. Their company minig (oil, gas, gold, diamonds, wood) It's easy. Cut a tree, sold a wood, and they have money. Made a hole in the ground, pumped oil, sold oil western and eastern partners, and they have money. But when all oil will be
sold... I don't know what will be. Every Russian school student dreams about iPhone.
Every student have computer with windows or MacOs. Every Russian good businessman buys a good Swiss watch, buys Mercedes S-class, buys suit by Brioni. But nobody, who have money, buy LADA and
watches "Vostok" or "Zarya" (I think you don't know that is it, but in Russia it's popular watches)
Because Russia don't have good production. Only Oil, wood, gas and another natural resources.
I appreciate and respect the policy of Norway. Norway produces oil. But they invested money in a reserve fund. And now they have money, we don't have money. Competition - the engine of progress. It's true. Russian monopoly allows low-quality product at a big price. All the same, people will buy,
because there is no alternative. Previously, tourists traveled abroad. Now it very expensive. Tourists began to go to the resorts of the south of Russia. Seeing this picture of the service in the south of Russia immediately rose. And leisure facilities were also poor.
Now I work in the scientific field. Before that I studied for six years at the University. My town
population of one million people. (it's no Moscow) My salary 150$/month. I'm not kidding. It's realy true. Or 1800$/year. How you think, it's normal salary for a young scientist? I have a second job in order to live a normal life. Now a simple car costs 13000$ (Ford Focus or Mitsubishi Lancer) Small apartment in the city costs 25000$. How many years I have to work to buy a car and apartment?
(i don't say about Mercedes or BMW and about good big house)
I love Russia, I love Russian people, I love nature in Russia. But i don't understand what made and make Russian government. Government employees have hundreds and thousands of times more salary. And they think how to make better for peoples in Russia. I'm doing science and have 140$ in month. Rightly?
I don't think so.
Russia will sell oil and gas.
And nothing has changed.
I don't know, what say other guys from Russia on this site. But it's my opinion and what I see now in Russia. If it's interesting for you, I can continue about positive and negative in Russia
Thank you for joining the forum, and for posting. What you describe confirms what I've been saying since 1991 regarding Russia: "The more that things change, the more they stay the same" (it's a French expression), and also--that Russia is still basically functioning on the same socialist economy it had before. There are some superficial changes, but the foundation is still the same. Which is sad. There's so much potential in Russia, including creative potential, but the system has never supported developing that potential.
By the way, how much do you pay to rent an apartment? Did rents and the fees for utilities go up after 1991? Most people in Western Europe rent; did you know that? I know that subsidies were removed from some goods and services in the 90's, but I don't know how that affected basic expenses like housing and utilities.
"Government employees have hundreds and thousands of times more salary"? Really?? What kind of gov't employees? Secretaries and clerks? Office supervisors? Or only higher-level employees? Where is it that you work as a scientist, if not at a government-supported institute or university? How are you defining the governmental sector vs. the private sector?
Last edited by Ruth4Truth; 06-27-2016 at 11:35 AM..
Thank you for joining the forum, and for posting. What you describe confirms what I've been saying since 1991 regarding Russia: "The more that things change, the more they stay the same" (it's a French expression), and also--that Russia is still basically functioning on the same socialist economy it had before. There are some superficial changes, but the foundation is still the same. Which is sad. There's so much potential in Russia, including creative potential, but the system has never supported developing that potential.
No it's not Ruth.
From my understanding it's actually worse, because of all the money and effort spent on "improvements of consumers goods" the capitalist way.
Worse, because the corruption is much worse, ( there were no opportunities for both the government officials AND"businessmen" to suck the country dry and hide the loot in London's banks on unprecedented scale in socialist times, but it's a case in post-Soviet Russia.) So the changes are not "superficial" - Russia IS a country of oligarchy, that tries to emulate the US in many ways, which is deadly, because it doesn't have either the means or the laws to have any positive results. So basically it's a crony capitalism, which is quite different from socialism, because the latter one, as disadvantaged as it was, at least kept tub on the nomenclature and had the extensive welfare system. The motto of today's Russia is profits for the few at all costs, the costs of human lives including. And THIS is very different from socialism.
I am glad that RUS51 is here too, because he ( most likely, from what I see) represents the class of so-called "liberals" - people represented by PARNAS, the late Nemtzov and so on. People like Nemtsov adore the nineties; they believe that the times when Russia was selling itself to the West right and left were true times of "democracy and future prosperity." These people don't believe apriori that Russia is capable to produce/create anything of value to begin with, so basically they think that everything made during Soviet times should have been destroyed/eradicated and replaced with Western-made goods/factories, where they ( the Westerners) and they ( the liberals on top) would share profits. ( But I am talking about typical "liberals" in this respect, so if Rus51 doesn't share this outlook exactly, he will make it to be known.)
These people regard West as an "ultimate good" and see no value of Russia and "things Russian" per se, when it comes to technology/production, although they usually claim to "love Russian people."
They usually don't acknowledge such things as Russian geopolitical interests - they live in a la-la land, where the West's advantages in this respect are overlooked ( since the West is the righteous one by definition,) but Russia defending its geopolitical interests is the "aggressor." This goes hand in hand with their criticism of Putin, whom they regard as an aggressor, along with an inability of his government to deliver the kind of life they'd like to have (in this respect they are doing it rightfully so I believe.) These people are regarded by Putinbots for the most part as "traitors" and "danger to the motherland," and are often attacked and even killed. ( Not because "Putin ordered it" as some westerners believe, but because of Russians who either a.love Putin too much, or b. hate everyone too much.)
Now Putin's government in its turn being aware of all its shortcomings both on domestic and international fronts is tightening the internal laws in the country and beefs up the military in order to protect itself, and to assure its survival. And that's why today's Russia is on the path of war.
Could you explain what you mean by "all the money spent on improvement of consumer goods"?
More corrupt, possibly, but we don't know the true level of corruption before, do we? (Though you're right that back then, no one was hauling away millions/billions to western banks.) There was cronyism going on then, too, so probably the change after 1991 enabled a tremendous exaggeration/expansion of that. "Crony capitalism", you call it. Well, yes, but only for those at the top, or with connections, right? The rank-and-file, like our new member "51rus" are still basically living under socialism, except that it's no longer illegal to have a second job/source of income to help people struggle by. In some ways, it's a hybrid system. For example, people still get a free university education IF their grades are good enough to qualify. Everyone else has to pay.
So thank you for contributing and pointing out that the situation is more complex than the nutshell I boiled it down to. Oh, and btw, what I meant by "superficial differences" was that people are allowed to have their own small (or large) businesses, but for people like 51Rus, and there are many of those, it makes no difference. It's just icing in the same cake as before.
Last edited by Ruth4Truth; 06-27-2016 at 01:44 PM..
Could you explain what you mean by "all the money spent on improvement of consumer goods"?
What I meant by it - well...as we all know it, Soviet system was not oriented on production of consumer goods; capitalist system supposedly is. But for all the shake-up (change of formation, money and effort spent) the results are not all that great.
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More corrupt, possibly, but we don't know the true level of corruption before, do we?
Yes we do. We know that IDEOLOGY itself was preventing the level of corruption we see in capitalist Russia. It was extremely difficult to convert Russian rubles into "hard currency" since everything has been regulated through the "Vneshtorgbank" ( I think that's what it has been called) and Vneshtorgbank only, therefore each and every transaction has been accounted for, unlike in post-Soviet Russia, where money became easily convertible by practically anyone and started being shipped out of the country by billions dollars. That's number one, number two - the travel restrictions for Soviet citizens ( nomenclature including) were precluding the luxurious life of the "upper class" and their offsprings in foreign mansions, attending the most prestigious Western schools and so on. Back in Soviet times, with the corruption "Soviet style" money were simply changing hands, but remaining in Russian economy. Which is definitely not a case in post-Soviet Russia. And THATS what has far-going consequences.
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(Though you're right that back then, no one was hauling away millions/billions to western banks.)
Yep, there we go. So the WEST benefits from these changes directly, not Russia.
Quote:
There was cronyism going on then, too, so probably the change after 1991 enabled a tremendous exaggeration/expansion of that. "Crony capitalism", you call it. Well, yes, but only for those at the top, or with connections, right?
Yes, pretty much.
Quote:
The rank-and-file, like our new member "51rus" are still basically living under socialism, except that it's no longer illegal to have a second job/source of income to help people struggle by. In some ways, it's a blended system. For example, people still get a free university education IF their grades are good enough to qualify. Everyone else has to pay.
1. From what I know, they have certain number of "reserved spots" offering free higher education for those from "lower income families," but I would think not in each and every school/university. Plus, of course, when Russia "ametricanized" the system of education, the quality of education went down all together.
2. They've got so many poor ( "poor" according to American standards) living under the capitalist system, that "blended system" would be probably a correct way to describe it. I definitely see some "fusion" of capitalist and soviet systems in some respect over there. I don't see how it can be any other way under the kind of crony capitalism they have in Russia.
Quote:
So thank you for contributing and pointing out that the situation is more complex than the nutshell I boiled it down to.
Gosh not at all, because I analyze it myself on a constant basis, since the situation is definitely quite complicated there. And, as I've already said it before, I should have belonged to the "liberal's camp" probably under the circumstances, but I find myself siding more and more with Maxim's camp, who is definitely not a Putinbot, if I interrogate him thoroughly enough)))
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They walked off down the street together. I've never had an issue with one of them except many of them have turned up their noses at what I was offering them as a treat. 
