Donald Trump's ties to Russia

A lot of good stuff there, best of all, get involved.

^ We don't know what Trump's winning means yet,  but so far most signs still point towards not good. I try to remain positive in any situation, but considering the things that he said that made him popular, it says some very bad things about my country (US).

Edited by js - 11 Nov 2016 at 10:03am

Returning back to the thread's main theme:


http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/moscow-had-contacts-with-trump-team-during-campaign-russian-diplomat-says/2016/11/10/28fb82fa-a73d-11e6-9bd6-184ab22d218e_story.html



I spoke on phone yesterday night with our friends from US East Coast, they believe that the party and the team will assure that America's course wouldn't be drastically changed.  We will see....



Edited by snobb - 11 Nov 2016 at 3:41am

Vilnius looks like this nowadays


few more illustrative pictures representing Lithuania:


Old Castle on the island of a lake in Trakai in former
 Lithuanian capitol of Trakai 




Seaport of Klaipeda




Edited by snobb - 11 Nov 2016 at 2:03am

Yeh, we are too close for love.... In 13-14 century Lithuania was largest country in all Europe, later we issued first Constitution in Europe (second in the world - after US). And then - starting from late 1700s we were occupied by Russian Empire up to the end of WWI. With total ban of Lithuanian books,papers and schools - in fact under total rusification. Freedom came in 1918 and lasted up to 1940 - Russia occupied us again. With short break between 1941-1944 (we were occupied by Hitler's Germany), Soviet Russian occupation lasted up to late 80s. During WWII on ALL fronts Lithuania lost  around 20 000, starting from 1940 Russian occupants killed or departed to Gulags and Siberia more than 200 000, many of them just died there. Catholic churches around country have been used by occupants for cement or grain warehousing...    But saddest thing is that when Soviet Union just broke up, we all thought that it's a beginning of new possibilities for us and Russians as well. Now , 25 yrs after, they returned back to XIX century Eurasian Empire concept with aggressive rhetoric and even more aggressive actions. Their dictator tries to restore "Great Empire" taking back one or another piece of territory of their neighbors by power, and - what is much more pity -  absolutely bigger part of their population support him in this. In Soviet Union times everyone hated the regime - doesn't matter if it was people of occupied countries, or Russians themselves. Now they support regime because Putin promised them "to make Russia Great again" 


Amber is kind of national totem here, like kangaroos in Australia or kiwis in New Zealand. For sure you can find jewelry and souvenirs with it everywhere, but it's hardly an industry. Main country's income comes from FinTech and IT services for banking industry (European IT services centers for UK's Barclays, Western Union, Swedish Swedbank,SEB are all based here in Vilnius). We produce lot of IT soft ware for world leading IT companies, as IBM. Then - most modern laser technologies (selling to Japan mostly) and biotech (new technologies and products for US). From more traditional fields -   foodstuff industry, machinery production, partially agriculture. and tourism,transport and logistics. We have one of the fastest internet in the world covering 98% of territory (only optical) and 4G mobile operators covering 95% of country's territory, so generally we are quite modern nowadays. I lived for years around Europe (incl. UK, Netherlands,Austria,etc) and in some fields we are surprisingly ahead of many highly-developed lands. You still can find lot of Russian occupation scars almost everywhere, mostly in a form of ugly faceless Soviet-type buildings (for sure you saw lot of them in Russia and Belorus, they were absolutely same everywhere) and even more deep scars in some people mentality.


Edited by snobb - 10 Nov 2016 at 9:47am

Right 4 days ago (at November 7, the 99-th Jubilee of Bolshevik's Revolution in Russia) there in Minsk Belorussian President Lukashenka opened new Lenin (!) monument in Minsk's central square. No Castros/ Venezuela spend money on such things nowadays. I live just 160 miles away from Minsk, so it's like a time machine travel to the past (it takes 2 hours by modern train, but all Westerners need visas to visit Belorus; traveling by car is more complicated since besides of having visa one must declare his own car as "temporary import item" on Belorussian border, it usually takes few hours  and requires same operation ("re-import of your own car procedures") on return)

Westerners unfamiliar with roots of Russian mentality often  call it "mystical", sometimes it attracts them. Reality is much simpler - Russian mentality/culture has been formed under influence of two strongly opposite factors: Central Asian nomads (starting from Genghis Khan) tradition and West European civilization. Russians are most Western of all Central Asian nation (or most Eastern of European nation - as rusophiles say) and their mentality is a mix of naturally antagonistic Asian irrational mysticism and European rationalism and logic (cemented by Orthodox Christianity - most radical and irrational form of major Christian religion wing)

All history of Russia is a history of internal fights between their two main streams, with variable success from one or another side. Unfortunately for us Westerners, what they are today is an explosive mix of Western consuming society and dark Eurasian irrational believing that nothing depends on single individual, with wish of having "good Czar"  who will  solve all their problems and will make their life better and almost panic fear to make any decision by themselves (and being responsible for the result).

So, for hundreds years Russia was a great soil for millions of mystic and irrational fairy-tails, religions, theories,etc,etc. From Rasputin to Bakunin, to Altay Mountains and Siberian taiga myths,etc,etc. I grew up hearing all that sh*t around and we all insiders knew very well that 99% of that all always were lies. Irrational believers under long-time pressure from dictators just tried to make their life ... "more colorful" creating all that myths (and very often believing in them themselves). If you will dig deeper under almost any of such myth you will realize one day that it's just another nice fairy-tail, you can't blame the nation who stayed in darkness and under pressure for ages for dreaming to live better life though.  Since you speak Russian you most probably know some great books of Russian greatest writer from 90s Victor Pelevin on that subject.

Pelevin was extremely popular during their more liberal period in 90s (during Yeltzin president-ship)
but with increase of Putin's regime many Russians started hating Pelevin and he left Russia for Tibet (not sure if he's still alive and lives there).

Anyway, Westerners for years were attracted by some irrational cultures, just depending on personal taste (and financial possibilities) one could chose Goa,Tibet or less touristic Russian Siberia


Edited by snobb - 10 Nov 2016 at 1:18am

I know Hrodna - whole Belarus is quite unique museum of Soviet Union stayed till nowadays. Russia mostly lost this spirit, but Belorus behave as if Soviet Union still exists.  In some places you can feel like you're in Russia ca. 1985.

Baltics have no relation with all this , closest town to imagine what Vilnius is is Krakow


Not sure what kind of Soviet researches you mean - technological? Soviets did a lot but almost everything has been related with military industry. Almost nothing has been done till the proper stage though. Soon after graduation in mid 80s I dealt with nano-coverings projects, five or six yrs ago I did some research for Oxford University on same subject - Russians offered them technologies from that field. I've been almost shocked that the technology was almost at the same level as in late 80s, and still unfinished.




Edited by snobb - 09 Nov 2016 at 1:52pm

Krakow and Prague are excellent places to live, as well as Budapest or Vilnius as well All these places are million miles away from any Russian town

If you know Russian history and culture you know that what you call "problem" with Russian way is not after WWII problem, but last 700-800 yrs problem. It's a theme for separate discussion, but for sure you know that they don't find their way starting from Novgorod Rus' and Moscow Rus' era. Are they Europe - no way. Are they Asia - partially yes. Their elite are often impressed by Western civilization, but simple people and big part of authorities are heavily rooted in Genghis Khan Golden Horde culture.

siLLy puPPy wrote: That's true but it's a drop in the bucket compared to what the US does in world occupation and theft of other nation's resources. I'm not defending Russia's aggressive behavior in that region by any means but the Syria thing is riddled with inconsistencies in reporting and i have not been convinced either way about what is happening there. And when it's all said and done, it's not our business as Americans to be there. We have a crumbling country and spend all our resources keeping corporations rich. I respect Putin for a reasons. He has allowed Edward Snowden asylum. Snowden has been heroic in exposing how invasive and insidious our government really is. Also he has been rejecting genetically modified crops and the whole notion of corporations being able to patent life forms.  In short, Russia has not done anything the US hasn't done a million times over. It's a mixed bag for sure but i'm happy to see another power fighting back against the world domination that our leaders seem to be salivating over. The same could be said about China, India, Brazil. There are both positive and negative aspects of their nations all playing out simultaneously. Unfortuantely we live in a univesre where negative and postive energy are in constant flux. This plays out in the human world as dictated by physics. It has always been this way and always will unless we literally pop into a different dimension or something where the rules are different

Edited by snobb - 09 Nov 2016 at 12:26pm

The sins of the US are no excuse for the sins of Russia, the fact remains that Putin is an aggressive murderous thug who welcomes your complacency in the face of human suffering.