Protests in Moscow, St-Petersburg

[Krauter]

Seems as if the public if riled up at accusations that the Medvedev's United Russia party rigged the results of the elections on the 4th of December.

Anyone have any more info or insight into this?

[Oberon]

So long as no-one takes over this ship...we'll be alright.

[soopaman2]

Authoritarian? Not in mother Russia!

Simply a continuation of 1960s to me.

You got rid of a moderate Gorbechev and his commies, and got the second coming of Stalin with Putin, this many years later.

Revolt proud Russia, you deserve freedom.

[Krauter]

Originally Posted by Oberon

So long as no-one takes over this ship...we'll be alright.

Very true, still, I'd rather that then this:

Originally Posted by soopaman2

Authoritarian? Not in mother Russia!

Simply a continuation of 1960s to me.

You got rid of a moderate Gorbechev and his commies, and got the second coming of Stalin with Putin, this many years later.

Revolt proud Russia, you deserve freedom.

I'd encourage a revolt also, but who else is a candidate for a new head of government? A new communist government? Liberal democratic? All the heads of party are reminiscent of the old system.

[Oberon]

There's only one system that works in Russia and that is authoritarian, otherwise it's Yeltsin all over again and nothing gets done. Like him or not under Putin Russia has pulled itself out of the wreck it was in the 1990s and once again become a major power...although the ludicrously high rise in oil prices probably also helped.
Yes, there is a lot of corruption, and yes the Mafia owns most of Russia, but how is that different from the past two hundred years? Even in the years of the Czars the government was authoritarian, so the people rose up and replaced them with another authoritarian government and so on and so forth.
Same old government, different faces, that's Russia.
A word you might hear used a lot in Russia about now is the Siloviki...I had a friend of mine who did a lot of research into present day Russia send me this link and to my shame I still haven't got around to reading it in its full:

http://www.twq.com/07winter/docs/07winter_bremmer.pdf

I imagine that term will be coming to the forefront over the next half-decade.

[Krauter]

Originally Posted by Oberon

There's only one system that works in Russia and that is authoritarian, otherwise it's Yeltsin all over again and nothing gets done. Like him or not under Putin Russia has pulled itself out of the wreck it was in the 1990s and once again become a major power...although the ludicrously high rise in oil prices probably also helped.
Yes, there is a lot of corruption, and yes the Mafia owns most of Russia, but how is that different from the past two hundred years? Even in the years of the Czars the government was authoritarian, so the people rose up and replaced them with another authoritarian government and so on and so forth.
Same old government, different faces, that's Russia.
A word you might hear used a lot in Russia about now is the Siloviki...I had a friend of mine who did a lot of research into present day Russia send me this link and to my shame I still haven't got around to reading it in its full:

http://www.twq.com/07winter/docs/07winter_bremmer.pdf

I imagine that term will be coming to the forefront over the next half-decade.

There is only the authoritarian government for Russia, that I will agree is realistic. The only other form of government I can think of is a breakup of Russia as a whole and being divided into ethnically ruled regions.

My coach, who is a former native of Moldova who moved on to live in St-Petersburg, Moscow, Chelyabinsk and Krasnoyarsk has told me during conversations that Russians do not know the true meaning of the word freedom. Because, as you've said, they've only known authoritarian rule for the past 200 years or so, they cannot yet judge what's so good about freedom and how far it extends. Those who have, are those who rule now in Russia.

As far as I am concerned, Putin, and his monkey Medvedev, as well as the Siloviki is the Soviet Union and the Politburo all over again. For example, whilst reading about the protests and corrupted votes, the EU and the U.S are critical, whereas the CIS (?, Commonwealth of Independant States, the old Soviet Republics basically) state that Russia has followed all procedures and that the U.S is mistaken, rings back to history where Byelorussia and Ukraine fell under the Kremlins thumb.

Edit: Also, thank you Oberon for that link, it's an interesting read so far.