My Favorite Sayings:

TOPICS: drama + russian-american project + postmodern + time + space + past + present + future + death + woman + resurrection + family + generations +

"I do not rule Russia; ten thousand clerks do." Nicholas I [ advertising space : webmaster ]

ffaga@uaf.edu
Film-North
Sellassie U

In 1990 I suggected that USSR should be renamed into "Moscovia" as it was called before Ivan the Terrible. Why bother with "Russia"? The desintegration is on...

Read on.

Russian Play: hyperdrama & webshow

In Russian and very new! 2002 GeoAlaska:

GeoAlaska: Theatre & Film

new: anti-communism + Russian Diary

2004 & After

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Summary

Ты -- душа божья, человек -- был на земле, а нынче земля на небе. Коммунизм следовал из отрицания Христианством земной природы. А земной человек недостоин неба -- потому растрелы. Или надо назад к Ветхому Завету? Так ли уж душа прекраснее тела? Вель кроме звериной есть и растительная природа поти, мирная... "Душа населения" -- в коммунистическом определении дьвольская точность намеков на божественную суть вещей. Два несовместимых слова. Душа -- узнаю, население -- знаю. Это и есть лучшее опредение мой личности. Разве что "Мертвые Души" лучше. (Дневники)

Questions

"The secret of politics? Make a good treaty with Russia." Otto von Bismarck

Notes

Theatre with Anatoly:

2003. Russia, with a population of 145 million, accounts for less than 2% of world exports, including oil and gas. That is less than Spain’s share with its 40 million people.

In 1913, Russia accounted for 3.8% of the world’s grain exports. Ninety years later, its share has fallen to 1%. Russia’s share of foreign direct investment (FDI) flows hovers at about 0.25% of total FDI. Russia is a minor and peripheral player in the globalized economy.

Tensions between Russian minorities — which make up more than 30% of the population in Latvia and Estonia, 38% in Kazakhstan, 22% in Ukraine and 13% in both Moldova and Belarus — are problematic as well.

In the 20 years after 1917 — in other words, before the institutionalised Stalinist terror — over three million people left the country, many of them scientists, writers and artists.

Beyond the country’s human and cultural resources, there is its immense wealth in energy and natural resources. This wealth is an asset and a potential great opportunity — but it can also be a millstone around the Russian economy’s neck.

The Center for Scientific Research and Statistics reports that average monthly wage in scientific institutions was lower than $200 last year. This is one of the reasons why graduates often agree to start some other trades, not those obtained at the university.

Russia Journal

GLOSSARY (according to Russians):

Censorship: This is the right and responsibly of the authorities to determine the quality and condition of the public sphere. Censorship has a large following, hoping to see the end of paid-for political articles in the media, ending the transmission of pornographic images during primetime television board casts, and protecting what are believed to be national values.

Capitalism: An economic system that benefits a very small minority. While not necessarily a pejorative term, it does connote extreme social and economic inequality, as well as indifference to the common good.

Cold War: The conflict that the Soviet Union did not lose, but the United States claims to have won. Many Russians consider this conflict, with Russia as the legal and historic successor of the Soviet Union, as a source of pride -- international prestige (even if it was actually feared), technical advancement and economic prosperity at home.

Demagogue: See Liberal.

Oligarchy: What "Forbes Russia" calls Russia's 100 wealthiest individuals, is society's "100 Most Wanted." Why income generated from Russia’s natural wealth should benefit the very few, with one buying an English football team, is insulting to Russia’s impoverished workers, pensioners and most of the country beyond the oasis of wealth called Moscow.

Ownership of land: This should be very restricted and controlled. Unfettered right to purchase land would not only result in the oligarchs and foreigners controlling the economy, but end in complete title over sovereign Russia.

Property: It still has not been decided who stole what, when. This idea will be resolved once the economic crimes of the 1990s have been resolved.

State: Without a strong and respected state, Russia will collapse -- like it almost did during the 1990s.

[ Peter Lavelle is an independent Moscow-based analyst and the author of the electronic newsletter on Russia "Untimely Thoughts" (untimely-thoughts.com) ]

Father-Russia, nonfiction

Из плохо понятой истории получается, что СССР вступил в войну 22 июня 1941 года, а не 17 сентября 1939-го. На самом деле мы участвовали в войне с 1939 года. На стороне Гитлера. В союзе с Гитлером. *

...

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Facts... before Y2K

Some pages I have no time to read, never mind, to write my comments.
Russian pages is a quiet place. No visitors, no attacks.

Read other pages...

Facts: Russia today

ANOTHER POPULATION DECLINE RECORDED.
Russia's population dipped by 401,000 or 0.3 percent in 1998 compared with the previous year, according to a preliminary estimate by the State Statistics Committee, ITAR-TASS reported on 4 February. In 1997, the population also fell by 0.3 percent. As of 1 January, 146 million people lived in Russia. JAC
Jan. 5, 1999 RL

1991: the hopes of free Russia

END NOTE

1999: the second war in Chechnya...

DOWN TO SUBSISTENCE

By Paul Goble

Nearly three out of every four Russians now grow some or all of their own food, a measure of the ways in which they are attempting to cope with their ever-increasing impoverishment.

That figure comes from a U.S. Information Agency- sponsored survey of more than 2,000 residents of the Russian Federation. Conducted in September-October 1998 and released last month, this poll not only helps to answer "just how bad" poverty in Russia now is but, equally important, undercuts some assumptions about how Russians are dealing with their economic difficulties. The poll's findings about subsistence farming are perhaps the most striking. More than half of all Russians -- some 55 percent--currently grow approximately half or more of their food in private gardens, at their dachas, or on other plots of land. Only 27 percent, the poll found, do not grow any of the food they consume--and that in a country whose population remains more than 70 percent urban.

But this is just one of the ways Russians are trying to cope at a time when only 50 percent of Russian adults are employed and only one in four of those who are employed are being paid on a more or less regular basis.

Not surprisingly, many Russians are turning to family and friends. Some 57 percent of those polled had borrowed money, and another 52 percent had accepted assistance of one kind or another from family or friends in the six months before the poll. But most expressed fear that this source may be drying up. Fewer than 40 percent said they believe they can count on this source of alternative income if things become even worse. Russians are not turning to two potential sources of income that many have assumed they are using to keep afloat.

As the USIA report notes, "contrary to popular accounts, the substitution of barter for wares overall is not that prevalent." And workers not paid on time are not making money "in a flourishing second economy."
With regard to barter, the survey found that in the six months before the poll, only 27 percent of those working had received goods in lieu of wages and that in half of these cases, this was only a one- or two-time event. And the survey found such wage substitutes are doing little to help those not being paid on a regular basis. Some 35 percent of workers who have either not been paid or have been paid more than a month late "never receive payment in kind," the report said.
With regard to the question of second jobs, the USIA survey failed to find much evidence that Russians are making use of them to supplement their incomes. While some may have underreported their participation in such jobs owing to concerns about taxation, 82 percent said they do not have a second job. Only 10 percent said they have a regular second job, and only 6 percent indicated they sometimes do.

Moreover, most of these jobs provide relatively little income. Forty-three percent of those with such jobs say it provides them with less than 25 percent of their income; only 16 percent say that it provides more than half. Given the assumptions many have made about the role of the second economy in Russia, the USIA survey intriguingly found that those not paid regularly are no more likely to have a second job than those who are paid on time. That lack of individual entrepreneurship in much of the Russian labor force was reflected in another finding of the USIA-sponsored poll: namely, that large majorities of working Russians were unwilling to leave their current jobs even if they are not being paid on a regular basis. Most believe that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find an equivalent position quickly or at all. And all are aware that the government is unlikely to provide them with unemployment benefits in the interim. Indeed, two out of three unemployed Russians today have never received such benefits. Given such concerns and difficulties, Russians are turning toward subsistence, an obvious survival strategy and one that represents an unspoken call for help from the outside.

@1998-2005 Anatoly Antohin Chechen
Словарь Яндекс.Лингво

RUSSIA (CIA factbook): largest country in the world in terms of area but unfavorably located in relation to major sea lanes of the world; despite its size, much of the country lacks proper soils and climates (either too cold or too dry) for agriculture.

Ropulation: 143,782,338 (July 2004 est.)

Population growth rate: -0.45% (2004 est.)

chancery: 2650 Wisconsin Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20007
telephone: [1] (202) 298-5700, 5701, 5704, 5708
FAX: [1] (202) 298-5735

Diplomatic representation from the US:
chief of mission: Ambassador Alexander VERSHBOW
embassy: Bolshoy Devyatinskiy Pereulok No. 8, 121099 Moscow
mailing address: PSC-77, APO AE 09721
telephone: [7] (095) 728-5000
FAX: [7] (095) 728-5090

Economy - overview:
Russia ended 2003 with its fifth straight year of growth, averaging 6.5% annually since the financial crisis of 1998. Although high oil prices and a relatively cheap ruble are important drivers of this economic rebound, since 2000 investment and consumer-driven demand have played a noticeably increasing role. Real fixed capital investments have averaged gains greater than 10% over the last four years and real personal incomes have averaged increases over 12%. Russia has also improved its international financial position since the 1998 financial crisis, with its foreign debt declining from 90% of GDP to around 28%. Strong oil export earnings have allowed Russia to increase its foreign reserves from only $12 billion to some $80 billion. These achievements, along with a renewed government effort to advance structural reforms, have raised business and investor confidence in Russia's economic prospects. Nevertheless, serious problems persist. Oil, natural gas, metals, and timber account for more than 80% of exports, leaving the country vulnerable to swings in world prices. Russia's manufacturing base is dilapidated and must be replaced or modernized if the country is to achieve broad-based economic growth. Other problems include a weak banking system, a poor business climate that discourages both domestic and foreign investors, corruption, local and regional government intervention in the courts, and widespread lack of trust in institutions. In addition, a string of investigations launched against a major Russian oil company, culminating with the arrest of its CEO in the fall of 2003, have raised concerns by some observers that President PUTIN is granting more influence to forces within his government that desire to reassert state control over the economy.

Economic history of the Soviet Union

Russia undertakes the transition with advantages and obstacles. Although only half the size of the former Soviet economy, the Russian economy includes formidable assets. Russia possesses ample supplies of many of the world's most valued natural resources, especially those required to support a modern industrialized economy. It also has a well-educated labor force with substantial technical expertise. At the same time, Soviet-era management practices, a decaying infrastructure, and inefficient supply systems hinder efficient utilization of those resources...

[ wikipedia ]

A Country Study: Russia

The Library of Congress

Russia from MagPortal.com