The General Russia Thread

Cross post from the US Politics thread - Investigating the Internet Research Agency, a group of paid internet trolls that may be behind some rather serious hoaxes as well as general shit-stirring and pro-Russia propaganda spreading.

Mio - United Russia is spectacularly secure in its power, mostly because every other party is either politically insignificant (e.g. Yabloko) or filled with lunatics and kept around to serve as "well, at least we're not them" fodder (e.g. the Communists). As for Medvedev's presidency, it will most likely be just as forgettable as his last one.

Nox - "Why are our teachers paid so little?" is a tricky question for Medvedev because the two most logical explanations (that our teachers' corps is still pointlessly overstaffed just like it has always been ever since the Soviet population boom ended during Khruschev's reign and that teachers don't need to be prevented from trying to form a derin devlet and organising a coup) are unlikely to be accepted by those who are asking him.

edited 5th Aug '16 10:40:10 PM by KnitTie

So, there's a new memorial tablet◊ for Mannerheim in St. Petersburg, and it has pissed off some locals due to the siege of Leningrad (I get the logic but still...).

In fact the Communists, came out with their own version◊. Which everybody agrees is the most metal thing ever, and should be the official version.

edited 9th Aug '16 12:59:11 AM by TerminusEst

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele

I actually agree: option #2 is way cooler. And, is less likely to attract pots of paint.

edited 9th Aug '16 1:43:35 AM by Euodiachloris

The Siege of Leningrad was absolutely nightmarish, and while I wouldn't go so far as to throw paint at Mannerheim's portrait, honouring him in that exact city seems to be in rather bad taste to me. If they placed him anywhere else, I'd be okay with it, but in Saint-Petersburg? Not the best idea.

edited 9th Aug '16 12:38:33 PM by KnitTie

Apparently it's the building he used to be stationed in when he was an Imperial officer. Otherwise, he terminated the offensive to the East after securing the pre-Winter War borders (and creating a buffer zone), much to the irritation of the Germans. And there was a reason for that.

Oh well, interpretations.

EDIT: Found an article on it from our broadcasting service

edited 9th Aug '16 10:05:52 PM by TerminusEst

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele

I know, and I didn't say it was wrong to erect a plaque to Mannerheim, just that it was in somewhat bad taste. But that's solely my opinion.

I'm sure it is. Wondering what kind of political motivation was behind it? Trying to emphasise his career in the Tsarist army or something else?

edited 9th Aug '16 10:41:28 PM by TerminusEst

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele

Maybe it wasn't political? The guy behind it could just be a big fan of Tsarist Russia - that's popular nowadays among our middle and upper classes.

edited 10th Aug '16 12:07:03 AM by KnitTie

The fancy days of mustaches and funny clothing. I can see the appeal.

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele

Officially it was something like "reconciliation of Finnish and Russian people". In fact, our state policy is to honor our past while denying our Soviet past. That Mannerheim didn't kill Russian people, but killed Soviet people might be the logic. Our country has a severe case of political schizophrenia, what can I say.

Pretending that Communism never existed in your country is apparently a very popular thing to do in the former Eastern Bloc.

...and whoever opposed the communists was a good man a priori. Except Hitler. Maybe.

EDIT: Sort of an offtopic, but this is the only non-dead Russia thread. Last time people discussed TVTropes' Russian translation, they decided that since we cannot have cyrillic titles, it's not worth the effort. Did things change since then?

edited 10th Aug '16 3:23:59 PM by Pz_VI

Don't we have posmotre.li?

The TV Tropes software as is isn't really suited for translations. I've asked for some features in the 2.0 release but that's a long way off.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Trope-wise, posmotre.li sucks. It poses as tvtropes.ru, it even grabbed the name, but still. They even call tropes cliches.

IIRC they always called tropes, ahem, tropes. Haven't been there for a while, but it felt a lot like TVT, if only lacking content-wise.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/get-over-it-russia-we-are-never-getting-back-together_p2/

So what do you guys make of this?

Seems more like a better picture of the US's attitude toward Russia than the other way around...

That is a given, but what are the specific inaccuracies.

Everything they say about them applies about as much to the US vis a vis Russia, for one. For two, Russia has other priorities than messing with the US. For three, a lot of that behavior being listed is (for the purposes of comedy) being overemphasized from limited incidents. Finally, most of that behavior is par for the course among international relations in general.

Russian foreign minister over the Crimea: consequences will never be the same.

Inter arma enim silent leges

I think the only real big mistake is assuming there's anything resembling order among the intelligence and security services. GRU being a bit of an outlier as usual.

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele

So Putin just fired Sergei Ivanov, his (now former) chief of staff.

Nooscope mystery: The strange device of Putin's new man Anton Vaino

It's like the rebirth of Rasputin. Sort of.

edited 19th Aug '16 1:14:49 AM by TerminusEst

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele