The General Russia Thread

There's no immediate incentive to pursue better relations with the west, but in the long term Russia's internal problems are only going to get more severe the longer the current standoff lasts.

Giving that our internal problems are almost entirely decoupled from the current standoff, I don't think that this will be the case. I do hope, though, that whoever replaces Putin will try to end this pointless confrontation.

That implies that Putin is probably not going to end this standoff any time soon.

Well, if he has nothing to gain from doing so (and again, potentially take a hit for his "always a winner" persona), why would he do so?

Well, I guess we will only find out after Jan 20.

I'm actual don't feel very strongly about the Crimean takeover, seeing it as a rather cynical but perfectly understandable course of action.

The continued(?) support of separatist with no real end game other then to destabilize Ukraine is something I'm much less forgiving of.

That aside I do have to wonder, what are Russia's actual internal problems? The only thing that comes to mind is economic depends on the oil market, but that doesn't seem like something that you can't expect to be dealt with anytime soon.

I definitely agree with you on the rebel support issue - it's like what Obama did with the rebels in Syria, except instead of well-meaning icompetence, Putin's refusal to either give them enough support to win or to not get involved in the first place is an example of cynical indifference.

As for internal problems - there's always the corruption, the over-centralisation, the rift between the people and the government and all the Soviet dysfunctionality of the state apparatus in general and its branches in particular that isn't getting fixed fast enough. Our education reform, to give an example, has attracted widespread criticism from both the Soviet dinosaurs and the new generation alike. Russia is a functional state, but everybody is painfully aware that it isn't nearly as functional as it could be.

edited 23rd Nov '16 10:26:14 PM by KnitTie

So basically, if I am to understand right:

The government could use well directed major reforms and a strong anti-corruption purge, but no one is seen as capable of doing so, and Putin for all his faults, is the best possible choice of doing so essentially because at least under him, the Trains, proverbially speaking, come in within 5 minutes of when they're supposed to.

Would that be a fair assessment?

edited 23rd Nov '16 12:56:06 PM by PotatoesRock

You're exactly correct. Give me your address and I'll mail you a cookie.

For an example: A family member of mine, who is Russian, studied Danish at university in order to pursue a diplomatic career. He'd lived a few years of his childhood in Denmark and already spoke the language quite fluently. Thing is, you don't actually get to pick what language you're studying if you want to pursue diplomacy at that university - you're just assigned a language. His dad had to pay the university under the table to get him assigned to the right language course.

edited 23rd Nov '16 2:29:20 PM by math792d

Bitch of a motorist gets her comeuppance.

edited 25th Nov '16 3:29:58 AM by KnitTie

...WTF. Driving on the fucking sidewalk?!

Was a big thing in the 90s. Probably influenced by all the atrocious city planning.

I've always heard that generally in Russia and most of Eastern Europe that traffic laws just sorta...don't exist, really.

How true is that?

Maybe she had no choice because people kept stealing the roads?

Is the Chairface a Russian official?

They do exist, but an increasingly small number of people who started driving in the 90 and have a very apprehensive attitude towards any laws in general choose to ignore them.

edited 25th Nov '16 12:30:34 PM by KnitTie

Man, is that why any video that involves Russians (or Eastern Europeans in general) and automobiles is a varying mixture of awesome, hilarity and horror?

Pretty much, although that's also due to cherry picking - people only post dashboard cam videos if there's something cool in them.

edited 25th Nov '16 12:30:18 PM by KnitTie

From what I know the reason why there are so many dash cams in Russian cars is exactly due to how crappy the Russian laws regarding traffic accidents and insurance are, thus they are used to as evidence to prove the cops wrongfully giving off a ticket or someone trying to scam by claiming you ran them over or hit them with the car.

It's mostly the paranoia itself that's driving people to install dashcams. Both the crooked cops and the scammers have been in decline since the 90s, but all the publicity that the dascams give to the remaining ones has caused a positive feedback loop where people think that dashcam-worthy incidents happen left, right and center, which causes them to buy dashcams and post more videos online, which causes more people to buy dashcams and so on and so forth.

It's a pity that we can't translate this publicity into an actual anti-corruption campaign.

edited 25th Nov '16 2:26:45 PM by KnitTie

Russian MPs accusing FIFA 17 of LGBT propaganda.

edited 5th Dec '16 8:03:37 AM by Julep

I once read news article about russian soldiers who borrowed a tank to go fetch booze. On their way back they got stuck in in a road pit. So yeah, you want to avoid russian roads at any opportunity.

NYT: Aleksei Navalny, Putin Critic, Says He’ll Run for President of Russia

By the way guys, the US Politics thread is increasingly intertwining with this one because of obvious politician reasons. It'd be refreshing to see the Russian tropers offer their input on the matter.

Good luck to him, then. He hasn't seen double-digit approval ratings since the last millenium ended.

edited 13th Dec '16 11:48:46 AM by KnitTie

So how is Trump's saber rattling with China being received in Russia?

While Sino-Russian relations look good on the surface, experts generally agree that it's not a partnership that can last in the long term because of conflicting interests in central Asia. Prior to the crisis in Ukraine, a breach in relations between China and Russia was regarded as more or less inevitable until matters in Eastern Europe put that on the back burner.

If both sides are serious about mending Russo-American relations (which is a big if), that almost certainly means a confrontation in central Asia between Russia and China is in the near future, since that's the only context in which such a move makes sense for Russia. Beijing is undoubtedly aware of that, and there's even some possibility that paranoia about the possibility of an informal anti-China pact between Moscow and Washington will lead to preemptive action on China's part, making the whole thing a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.

edited 14th Dec '16 9:44:34 AM by CaptainCapsase