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Posts tagged Russia
If you care about me AT ALL, you will watch AND DISCUSS this video of Putin speaking IN ENGLISH to the delegates of the general assembly of the World Expo regarding Russia’s bid to host in 2020.
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As I mentioned before taking off for it, I spent last week at a conference “for young experts on Eastern Europe” in Berlin (Aside: I met up with a Berlin-based Fulbright friend one evening, which was enough for me to conclude that I still love Berlin. END ASIDE.). I was on a panel on dissidence, protest, and opposition (with a man who already had his PhD and a woman who had, I am fairly certain, already written or contributed to a book) and presented a paper that was essentially the summation of my research this year.
I should say firstly that the whole thing was a tremendously positive experience. The conference was in German (though I presented and took/answered questions in English), which was a validating experience in and of itself. I learnt so much from so many. My paper was both really well received, and the criticism that it did get was entirely constructive.
Which brings me to my second and, for me, more important point, which is this: There were times this year that I, sitting in the archives or in my apartment or walking along the streets of Bremen, that I wondered why I had dragged myself halfway across the world for this project, and what I was even doing here in the first place. But this weekend I was asked, based on the work that I had done and demonstrated, if I was finishing up my PhD dissertation or a book, and the aforementioned “Doktor” on my panel asked me for my opinion on Navalny. And I realized that this was—is—a community, and that it’s one into which I have spent the year inserting myself.
And I realized—and, if this reeks of humble braggadocio, I apologize—that I was able to have my research and writing taken seriously because I myself took it seriously. Because I went to the archives even though nobody was there making me do so. Because I attended the weekly “Kolloquium” at the centre where I do research. Because I read and read and read about the part of the world that I study. Because I asked questions when I was curious, even if I wasn’t the smartest or best educated or most fluently German-speaking person in the room. And because, as horribly nervous as I was before speaking, I was not so nervous that I could not tell myself to speak with the confidence that comes from knowing what one’s talking about. Because I do. And because people will take your ideas and ambitions as seriously as you do.
I learnt how to pull up a seat at the table this year. That’s what I was doing in Bremen. I just needed to go to Berlin to understand.
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These are beautiful and very, very cool.
However, I’m trying to figure out how to reconcile this statement
“The three new medals feature, according to a statement, Sochi’s ‘Patchwork Quilt,’ described as ‘a mosaic of national designs from the various cultures and ethnicities of the Russian Federation.’”
with the fact that the Moscow mayor just opined that people who don’t “speak good Russian” and come from different cultures (or, as the publication puts it, “guest workers from Central Asia”) should live not in Moscow, but “in their own countries.”
These people are good enough, I guess, to be represented on the Olympic medals and be used in PR. Just not enough to live and work in the capital city.
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It’s the 310th birthday of the tremendously special place that is St. Petersburg.
С днем рождения, Питер! Скучаю по тебе каждый день.
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The whole article is great and worth reading in its entirety, particularly because of the lengths to which the author goes to put what’s happening in Georgia in the context of the larger region.
In particular, this quote
“Instead of reviving the economy and creating jobs as he promised, billionaire-turned-politician Ivanishvili now appears to be fixated on an unrelenting campaign of political revenge.”
The whole piece is great, and you should read it in its entirety, but, if you don’t, the conclusion is this:
“For now though, America is a big deal for Russia whereas Russia is a nusiance for America. The real lesson of the whole affair is thus likely one learned by the Kremlin — any outrage from Moscow will be matched by shrugs in Washington.”
Recently, a friend of mine who majored in East Asian Studies and I were talking about Russia. And about how nobody asks her why she studied China, but they tell me—very directly—that studying Russia was a waste, or a mistake, or both. And she said that that would probably change soon, based on how things are going with Russia.
And I wondered aloud how our foreign relations would be different if we didn’t wait for Russia to become the problem child before we started paying actual attention to it. If we greased the wheel before it started squeaking, squeaking, squeaking, so loudly that it’s all that can be heard.
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The content of this (excellent) piece is not funny in a humorous way, but it is humorous in its absurdity. Why?
Firstly, because it seems that Ryan Fogle, the spy masquerading as a diplomat, was not actually set up. The theory that I had read (and believed) was that, while he was a CIA agent, he was framed by Russia to make his forced exit all the more dishonorable (as in, he did not actually write that poorly worded letter, etc.). But it seems—from this piece, anyway—that it was all—the wig; the ridiculous letter; the compass(!?!?); the thousands of euros on hand—actually just the work of Ryan “Genuinely Terrible Spy” Fogle.
And secondly:
“The intensifying pressure has already prompted two U.S. democracy promotion organizations to pull out of Russia earlier this year. Dozens of Russian NGOs have stopped applying for U.S. grants for fear of being prosecuted as ‘foreign agents.’ These tensions aren’t about to go away anytime soon. The political scientist and former Kremlin adviser Sergei Markov is convinced that the Kremlin will never stop putting pressure on pro-American ‘agents.’ ‘Nobody,’ he says, ‘is going to give a chance to American organizations inspired by radical characters like John McCain to foment a revolution in Russia.’ And so, he says, as long as America pursues attempts to overthrow Putin, ‘the two countries will continue to live in a state of cold peace.’”
That John McCain is considered a radical character means it is a sad, sad day for radicalism.
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I wrote this partly to espouse my views on the EU and Russia, but mostly to make my love of Andreas Schockenhoff as public as possible.
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I know that my father only sends me these Wall Street Journal pieces because he’s still hoping that I’l become a Republican (sorry, Dad—”Scoop Jackson Democrat”), but this one actually confirms what I already thought.
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I read Andrey Kurkov’s Death and the Penguin on the train ride home from Heidelberg yesterday. I guess that I don’t have much to say about it, except that it was recommended to me a while ago (thanks, Hannah) and I finally read it; that I’m deliriously glad I did; that the plot, roughly, is about a man with a pet penguin who begins to write obituaries for notable who have not yet died, but that that doesn’t begin to address what happens in this book; that it’s an answer to everyone who asks about the state of post-Soviet Russian literature; and that I think it should be taught in every Russian literature program (and, failing that, that every student of Russian literature should make the time to read it on a train).
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