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The Russians are becoming less and less popular everywhere it seems....
Vodka and hedonism - Europe puts up the shutters to Russian tourists | SOCIETY | The Moscow News The Italian beach resort of Forte dei Marmi caused ripples by introducing new laws to keep it in the hands of locals, with many feeling that Russians are the main target of Adriatic angst.
Meanwhile in Austria the ski-resort of Kitzbuehel put up a frosty front to visitors from the Motherland when 16 out of the town’s 20 four and five star hotels decided to limit their numbers to 10 per cent.
But the view from Egypt is rather different, with Yevgeniya Ugrinovitch admitting that she is embarrassed to tell people she is Russian.
“In Egypt they are uneducated, tough, rough, blunt, drink a lot of vodka (and other strong beverages), swear a lot, don’t care about the rest of the world (i.e. wearing very provoking clothes and walking in purely men’s neighborhoods) and – of course – steal other women's men and sleep around,” she said. “My Italian friend says she supports the restrictions because she doesn't want to be surrounded ‘with heavy gold chains and bucks falling down from their pockets, who have dozens of tall slim blondes around them to pick these bills up from the floor’.
“These bans look ugly, but maybe we deserve it.”
Putin has not invaded a NATO country yet, so he has not revealed anything about NATO. If he invaded a NATO country and NATO did nothing, then he would have revealed a flaw.
Ukraine is quasi-NATO, like it's also quasi-EU, which is why we backed the coup that installed the currently unconstitutional (their constitution is clear on this point) government in Kiev that is more friendly to NATO-EU than the Yanukovych presidency. They want the benefits of EU-NATO friendliness, but they don't want Russia to turn off the oil spigots. The EU is slow playing it as well because they too are on the Russian oil crack pipe, though not to the exact percentage that Ukraine might be.
The leader to watch in all this is not Putin nor Obama, but Merkel. She speaks for the EU, and this is the EU's problem, and right now does not belong to the US minus us giving people sanctioned by the EU one less place to hide.
And Putin hasn't invaded anything, he is protecting ethnic Russians in Crimea from being persecuted by an illegitimate, anti-Russian government that seized power in a US-EU backed coup. Just ask him.
Estonia, as member of NATO and the EU, is more officially problematic, but let us extend the "Crimea = mostly Russian" thinking to Estonia, where the Ida-Viru county that border Russia on the northeast is 70% ethnic Russian, and oh by the way, has the oil shale industry of the whole country that was built by the USSR, blah blah blah.
The EU is slow playing Putin already because they like his fossil fuels. If he decided to "rescue" Ida-Viru Russians from EU "oppression" I think it would be a very, very interesting turn of events. Then we'd see NATO and the EU, who diplomatically "own" Estonia dealing with losing that particular ground, and maybe that's why Merkel is more forceful this week than she was last week. That little nowhere plot of land in NE Estonia that is more Russian than Crimea...yep, that strengthens Putin's oil position and weakens the EU's.
There is the tiny fact Estonia is a NATO member and Ukraine wasn't. If Putin goes into Estonia everyone knows that is war with the west. Ukraine, not so much.
I hope he isn't arrogant enough to move against Estonia, not only because I do not want to see another war.
I don't know if anyone here has been to Estonia, but it is a very lovely country, and times have been tough enough for them. I would like to see them have some peace and prosperity.
Leave it to Europe, we need some peace and prosperity also, it's not our problem, we have enough of our own.
There is the tiny fact Estonia is a NATO member and Ukraine wasn't. If Putin goes into Estonia everyone knows that is war with the west. Ukraine, not so much.
Remember the names Ida-Viru and Sillamäe...I guarantee in the next couple years, they'll be on the front page of a lot of newspapers. And remember who said those names first.
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