New game: "Who dropped the missile"?

[Happy Times]

Saacashvili - best new leader :hmm: Then I wonder why many Georgians come to work illegaly to Russia. If he was really "best leader" I think he could find the work for them in their own country other than produce all this silly anti-Russian histeria. I absolutely agree with CCIP - its completely pointless.

They seem to be making good progress even with the Russian embargo.

IMF reports.


http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle...73acf6f82.html

http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2006/pr06276.htm

http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2007/pr07182.htm

As for territories which he thinks Russia is dreaming to take from Georgia - he'd better ask their peoples with whom they want to live. With people who fired from helicopters at holiday-makers on the beaches or with people who are protecting them against such treatment. Shure Abhazes inflicted a lot of suffers to Georgians who lived in Abhazia too. But it was Georgia who started that severe war. And Georgia has nothing to do in Abhazia. On the other hand joining of Abhazia and South Osetia into Russian Federation is of no great interest to us as these are regions with ruined during the war infrastructure. It's up to their peoples to decide what to do - to stay within Georgia, to live independently, or to join Russia.

Should we give that right to the Chechens also?

As for "russification" - my wife was born in Samarkand (ancient city in Uzbekistan) She is Russian. She studied at school during Soviet times and they had both Russian and Uzbek lessons - because Russians living in Uzbekistan ought to have known local language and habbits. And locals ought to have known Russian to communicate with persons of other CCCP nationalities.
Any "threats" to national identity of Soviet republics are mostly far-fetched. There are lots of small peoples in Russia who never complain on that cases - Buryats, Yakuts, Evenks, Chukches, Nentzes, Volga's Tartars, Mari El, Komi, Hants, Mansi and many others. All of them have their unique culture and habbits and language. Of course youth of smaller peoples seduced by comforts of civilized life leave their Stone-Age villages, come to big cities and gradually assimilate - but the same unhappy processes are world-wide. This is called Globalization and Urbanisation and NOT the "Russification".
In your oppinion what language should CCCP and Russian Empire have had as international - Chinese maybe ? Or English? Think, in the last case Saacashvili would have been happy .

Maybe there is a reason you cant hear these stone age people complaining?

Situation of Finno-Ugric and Samoyed Peoples

http://www.mari.ee/eng/scien/topical...ks_Report.html

Mordovian authorities attack opposition newspaper

http://www.mari.ee/eng/news/polit/2007/08/01.html

Ethnic rights activist severely beaten in Russia’s Mari Republic

http://www.mari.ee/eng/news/polit/2007/01/03.html

MEPs condemn attack on Mari activist.

http://www.mari.ee/eng/news/polit/2007/03/01.html

Appeal to the President of Russia from the Association of Nenets People “Yasavei”.

http://www.mari.ee/eng/articles/soc/2006/11/01.html

Will Democracy and Press Freedom Return to the Komi Republic?

http://www.mari.ee/eng/articles/polit/2006/05/01.html

FSB Denounces Finnish Journalist as Western Intelligence Agent.

http://www.mari.ee/eng/articles/polit/2006/01/01.htm

Suspicions of "Finno-Ugric conspiracy" in Russia.

http://www.mari.ee/eng/articles/polit/2005/10/02.htm





Best Regards

[Happy Times]

Originally Posted by Dmitry Markov

By the way, Happy Times, those wines - some of them are really good. Problem is that the best of them are not very suitable for transportation so you should come to Georgia to taste them. Otherwise they tend to resemble cheap Chilean wines.
Kindzmarauli rulezzz Mukuzani also

Best Regards again

Seems some can be get in Finland,

http://www.telianivalley.com/

[Dmitry Markov]

They seem to be making good progress even with the Russian embargo.

Maybe, but it doesn't explain why there are still so many of them doing business in Russia and Ukraine or working illegaly at construction areas? If they are "making good progress" without us? They say they don't need us but they agree that no one else need them. If they don't need Russia why don't they just go and try to make business in Finlandia or Estonia for example. I wonder what Estonian or Finnish farmers would say when Georgians would aquire 90% of their market places and shops and would collect huge fee for the right to trade there They cry we discriminating their business here in Russia but didn't they allow any Russian business on their territory? Abhazes did but Georgians not.

As for Chechens, I hope someday our government would let them go their way just to stop spending our budjet money on them. In my humble opinion profit we gain from Chechnya being Russian territory is much less than expences we wear. But Chernomyrdin and Lebed' have once gaven them freedom de-facto. And what did
we achieve - terroristic bandit hole on our border. Now they say they have dealed with terrorists and rebuilding republic. Amazing but there is one detail - according to Chechen habbit the only heir is the oldest son - others receive nothing at all. Taking into account they have four or five children in families it helps to regulate heirloom conflicts inside the family but leaves a lot of young MEN who cannot find place in their region. So they come to Stavropol, they come to Moscow, they come to Kondopoga and so on... Tajiks come to this places too, and Armenians do and many others, but they live with respect to local habbits and traditions and young Chechens not. They treat us as enemies in their region - I can understand that - it has deep roots, but they think they have right to come to our cities and do whatever they want, they place tribal rules of their diasporas higher than our country laws in summary with our inept and corrupted regional police this leads to complete lawless mess in some cases. Another thing about them - is that they never had any kind of normal traditional business. You won't find any restaurant of Chechenian cuisine or you won't find Chechenian craftsman or Chechenian builder or Chechenian gastarbaiter at last. They think they are higher than this "dirty" professions. Their usual occupations are extortions, kidnapping, car-stealing and so on.
Guys who wear weapons with them any time of day despite our common country laws, who allow themselves to beat unmercifully teenagers with Russian Flag near Red Square in Moscow crying "Allah Acbar" "Russian pigs" and so on being 50 hands to 10 aren't neighbours you've always wanted to live with.
For most of us it would be safier to let them mess with themselves. It would be of mutual benefit I suppose. But then we would need to recreate Cossak militia to defend our South border regions - Stavropol'e and and allow Cossaks to wear weapons to defend their homes from inevitable bandit raids.
Of course there are a lot of normal Chechens like those who are really trying to rebuild their towns. All the things I've said higher concerns only those passionaries who are doing all this mess here in Russia. I believe, in France they have same feelings about arabs, Algerians and other people from former colonies who live there.
But really I don't know what should our government do to manage all this stuff right way. If I knew - I 'd worked in government

Best Regards

[TLAM Strike]

One word: TFOA

[CCIP]

Haha, I think no word can describe how messy the Caucasus is. I don't know any nation there who doesn't, to some extent, have their hands dirty. It's vastly complicated by cultural differences - there's practically nothing in common between many of the nations. On the one hand there's Georgia which is an ancient, Christian, well-organized state - on the other hand there's Chechnya and many other highland places which are really still very much tribal territory, compared better to Afghanistan.

Yea, I agree that Chechnya and the Chechen war were totally useless as far as 'imperialism' goes. The only thing worth fighting for in Chechnya was the massive oil refinery in Grozny, but even after the 1st Chechen war it was basically obliterated in the artillery barrages and bombing. Which were in themselves horrible.
Then the Khadyrov government in Chechnya today is also very much an "our bastard" regime from the Russian perspective. But unfortunately, I think there IS a need for Russia to maintain some sort of strong faction and even some sort of military presence in Chechnya - because we all know what sort of criminal and terrorist groups it tends to produce. It's a massive security threat. Just imagine what the US reaction would be if they had a little patch somewhere in south Texas where the Taleban ran free...

Personally, I would rather Russia stay as a garantor of the status quo in the Caucasus. Besides the Chechen issue, which I hope will eventually be resolved, there's no other Russian territories in the region that I'm aware of which want to split. Conversely, there is some indication that South Ossetia would even want to join, but that's an initiative coming from them and not Moscow. Moscow has kept quiet on the issue.
If anything, I think Chechnya has taught Russia to keep out of the Caucasus as much as possible in the direct sense. I'm not aware of Putin's government actively pushing for Abkhazian or Ossetian formal independence, just passively supporting de facto independence via peacekeepers. I certainly don't think Russia will ever send troops to fight Georgia over Abkhazia or Ossetia. For one, because the Abkhaz and Ossetians can do it themselves if push comes to shove (as they did a decade ago), for another, because I think Moscow knows what a mess it'll turn out to be.

Now if we theoretically remove Russian presence from anywhere in the region, I guarantee you, all hell would break loose. Starting very much with Georgia; but otherwise there is an amazing number of peoples and clans in the Caucasus with beefs against each other. Who will fix it? NATO?
Okay, so maybe Russia isn't the best thing to happen to the Caucasus. But at this moment, I don't think there's anything worse that could happen to the Caucasus than letting the likes of Saakashvili have free run and destabilize the region. Again, I emphasize: the Caucasus is an amazingly volatile area. I don't think most people, especially in the west, have so much as an appreciation of how complex - ethnically, culturally, and politically - it is. Right now it's a rather precarious system of checks and balances that keeps it relatively stable. Back in the early 90's, we've already seen what happens when the Evil Empire goes out of sight for a moment - all hell broke loose, all over the region, following the collapse of the USSR.
Again, I don't think we need any empire to return there. And Putin isn't stupid enough to push for anything but a normalization of relations in the region. The last thing Russia would want, I think, is to go deeper into the Caucasus. But trust me, anyone who wants peace and stability in the Caucasus has to be pragmatic and cautious, NOT a flaming nationalist like Saakashvili. Nationalism is the last thing that the region needs right now.

[geetrue]

Georgia now says they fired at a Russian plane today and that people reported hearing an explosion in a rural area of Georgia.

http://www.mail.com/Article.aspx?art...bcat=&pageid=1

[Happy Times]

If they don't need Russia why don't they just go and try to make business in Finlandia or Estonia for example. I wonder what Estonian or Finnish farmers would say when Georgians would aquire 90% of their market places and shops and would collect huge fee for the right to trade there They cry we discriminating their business here in Russia but didn't they allow any Russian business on their territory? Abhazes did but Georgians not.

I would like to hear more about this, just sounds impossible.

As for Chechens, I hope someday our government would let them go their way just to stop spending our budjet money on them. In my humble opinion profit we gain from Chechnya being Russian territory is much less than expences we wear. But Chernomyrdin and Lebed' have once gaven them freedom de-facto. And what did
we achieve - terroristic bandit hole on our border. Now they say they have dealed with terrorists and rebuilding republic. Amazing but there is one detail - according to Chechen habbit the only heir is the oldest son - others receive nothing at all. Taking into account they have four or five children in families it helps to regulate heirloom conflicts inside the family but leaves a lot of young MEN who cannot find place in their region. So they come to Stavropol, they come to Moscow, they come to Kondopoga and so on... Tajiks come to this places too, and Armenians do and many others, but they live with respect to local habbits and traditions and young Chechens not. They treat us as enemies in their region - I can understand that - it has deep roots, but they think they have right to come to our cities and do whatever they want, they place tribal rules of their diasporas higher than our country laws in summary with our inept and corrupted regional police this leads to complete lawless mess in some cases. Another thing about them - is that they never had any kind of normal traditional business. You won't find any restaurant of Chechenian cuisine or you won't find Chechenian craftsman or Chechenian builder or Chechenian gastarbaiter at last. They think they are higher than this "dirty" professions. Their usual occupations are extortions, kidnapping, car-stealing and so on.
Guys who wear weapons with them any time of day despite our common country laws, who allow themselves to beat unmercifully teenagers with Russian Flag near Red Square in Moscow crying "Allah Acbar" "Russian pigs" and so on being 50 hands to 10 aren't neighbours you've always wanted to live with.
For most of us it would be safier to let them mess with themselves. It would be of mutual benefit I suppose. But then we would need to recreate Cossak militia to defend our South border regions - Stavropol'e and and allow Cossaks to wear weapons to defend their homes from inevitable bandit raids.
Of course there are a lot of normal Chechens like those who are really trying to rebuild their towns. All the things I've said higher concerns only those passionaries who are doing all this mess here in Russia. I believe, in France they have same feelings about arabs, Algerians and other people from former colonies who live there.
But really I don't know what should our government do to manage all this stuff right way. If I knew - I 'd worked in government

I only used Chechens just as an exsample when you said the Ossetians and Abkhaz should be allowed to decide what to do. The Finno-Ugrians in their republics arent immigrants, they have lived there thousands of years. It seems your goverment has chosen a very hard line of russification. Its a shame because a lot of Russian culture comes from these people, and most Russians are related to them. If you don believe me, contact these people and ask, but you do it with the risk of getting FSB interested on you.
You sound like a very decent person btw. Поехали!