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Old 30-04-2007, 03:58   #61
la aurora la aurora is offline
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Originally Posted by simon View Post
Actually, it doesn't work that way in the west. Unlike in the USSR and Putin's Russia, alternative viewpoints aren't suppressed by the state. There is a lot of self-criticism about things that were done in the past, such as colonialism. Many countries that were once ruled by Britain removed all the memorials the British put up. Britain doesn't do anything about that. British people don't get angry that people in those countries aren't grateful for having been colonised.
Yes, your government doesn't surpress alternative viewpoints. They (+media) just don't give you alternative viewpoints to consider. They feed you the same old story about evil USSR and anti-democratic Russia. Look at your own words. You almost put a "=" sign between USSR and Putin's Russia when it comes to surpressing opinions. You make it sound like it's a fact, you don't even consider other options. I wonder if you visited Russia, lived here for a year at least, watched our TV, read our media, digged into history of last 20 years at least to see differences and similarities between USSR, Eltsin's Russia and Putin's Russia, analyzed what happened to the country after USSR collapsed and what mistakes were made. If you did all this, then I'd respect this your statement at least. But something tells me you didn't. All I hear from you now is what I hear from other Europeans, what I hear from European politicians and read in Western media. I don't really see why one would be proud with the 'freedom of speech and thinking' if he never considered actually using advantages of those.

I grew up in USSR, I do remember many things about 'communism'. Some of those were really bad and I'm really sorry that it happened to all countries under this regime including my own. But I also remember a lot of good things that I really miss now. For me history is not black and white, I've been raised with idea that memories should be treasured, bad things should felt sorry about and taken as lessons, good things should be apperciated, respected and carried further.

I've seen many things with my own eyes, I have older people around to tell me how things really were for them back in years, I have old movies and documentaries, novels and songs, art work to see how it 'felt' for people. I have modern russian media writing about things that happened back then, revealing archives that lost their 'secret information' lable lately. I have my history lessons that I got in new democrating Russia with new re-written books and quite an open-minded teacher. The lesson about WWII didn't start with 'evil Hitler attacked our beloved homeland'. It began with pre-1941 events, Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Stalin's plan to catch Hitler out guard with sudden attack, secret services reporting Stalin exact date of Hitler's attack and Stalin not taking it seriously enough and not using an opportunity to prepare which caused extra victims and diffculties for us in the begining of war on our territory. I have my literature lessons and Solzhenitsin was one of obligatory authors in my school. And on the top of this all I have western media to give me yet another perspective on things. I read those articles online or see them on tv. You know, in this 'totalitarian' country almost every channel has 'foreign media' section on their news that does inform us of 'your' opinion on things. Surprisingly, those channels are still feeling pretty well and journalists responsible for this aren't killed or prisoned.

This is where my opinion comes from and I don't feel it being suppressed by anything or anyone. I can go to Red Square now and shout it out, I can write in my blog and no one will look for me to punish, I can tell it to my boss at work, I can tell it to Putin personally if I meet him without any fear, I can write in in the news-paper and it won't be closed. What's yours based on? A couple of books by western writers and western media with their prejudices and political interests? And if I don't share your ideas about everything about USSR and Putin being black, if I don't feel like spitting into face of my grandparents for that war and feel thankful they suffered and died not allowing Hitler to take over this country and whole Europe, it means my opinion is wrong, suppressed and comes from brain-washing? Because with this your whole post you made me feel like this is how you see it.

I honestly don't know what kind of British monuments were removed in your ex-colonies. If those were set just as symbols of British domination then yes, there's nothing wrong with removing them just as there's nothing wrong with East-European countries removing varios 'CCCP' signs, random soviet red stars, monuments dedicated to communism, communistic party and special events of that time, monuments to Lenin, Stalin and so on. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that and we removed quite a lot of those ourselves.
But monuments to unknown soldier set near places where people were burried together in one grave is a whole different issue. Those people didn't come there as conquirers. They were fighting for 'freedom', they were fighting against Hitler, against dark power of fascism and they had no goddamn idea on what would happen next. Have you ever looked in the eyes of those people that stayed alive and lived it long anough to still be here now? I did and heard them telling stories about how it was. They feel really sad about a lot of things that happened. They themselves didn't expect to live under fear of being killed and deported due to 'traitors' paranoia that happened after the war was over, they didn't expect to be labled 'occupants' by people who's freedom they believed they fighted for. They are really old now, most of their friends that did share their memories died already. On the 9th of May they just put their uniform on and go outside to meet few people that remember that are still alive, they go to those monuments to leave some flowers to those dear friends, children, beloved ones that never fillfulled their promise to come back. And they shyly accept flowers from random people relieved that there are people that apperciate what they did, that everything they came from during and after the war wasn't for nothing.

It's these people that monument was set for, it's these people who were burried there, it's for people that cried in Berlin not believing the hell was over. It's these people that got this slap, not Stalin or Soviet Government that are gone long ago.

There's a monument of a soviet soldier holding a German girl in one hand and a sword ripping fascist Iron Cross apart in another in Berlin. Somehow no one is removing it, Germans actually spent 1.5 mlns Euro reparing it few years ago. No matter how monsterious Stalin and soviet regime was, it still was a soviet army to break into Berlin loosing thousands of people there and destroying last remanings of fascism there. And there's nothing wrong with honoring dead people that did this, there's nothing wrong with allowing others who feels thankful to come a bring flowers to the monument that is dear to them. That's what democracy is about I guess - respect.
Quote:
Originally Posted by simon View Post
It's absurd to make out that what the western allies did is equivalent to what Stalin did in eastern Europe. Did the US and UK deport millions of people to their death in labour camps?
Huh? I was talking about human behavior during the war. I was saying that it's wrong to claim all soviet soldiers were bad and all western soldiers showed nothing but heroism in this war. There were heroes even in German army. What does it have to do with Stalin at all?
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Originally Posted by simon View Post
The western allies did do things that were wrong, but nothing they did was comparable with what Stalin or Hitler did. Stalin was as evil as Hitler and he killed a lot more people. For the Estonians, the Soviet occupation was at least as bad as the Nazi one.

It's completely untrue that the Estonians officially celebrate the Waffen SS Legionnaires. Estonia is a democracy where people are allowed to hold demonstrations. It's not like Russia where anti-government demonstrations are violently broken up and the participants arrested, as happened in Moscow and St Petersburg recently. In a free, democratic country even people we don't agree with are allowed to hold demonstrations. It's scary that you don't understand that.

But people that fought against Stalin on the German side also believed they were doing a good thing. That doesn't mean there should be statues celebrating their heroism.
June 2002. Pyarnu, Estonia.
August 2004. Lihula, Estonia.
2 attempts to install a monument for 'heroic fighters for freedom of Estonia'. It was same monument actually with a soldier in SS uniform, with fascist Iron Cross and german gun in his hands. Both times the monument was removed under pressure of EU, USA and russian and jewish organizations. In 2005 third attempt almost happened but then they desided to put the monument into museum of 'History of the fight for liberation of Estonia' (not sure about the exact translation).

16 March is an un-official day of Latvian SS Legioner in Latvia. In 2005 nationalistic groups were officialy allowed to organize demonstration. Anti-fascist groups dressed in prisoners' suits, stood on the way of this demonstration and were 'cleared from the way' by police. Your media did show it I believe. That moment made it to many tv reports. In 2006 authorities of Riga have forbidden any demonstrations on this day in fear to get another fight on the streets and they had NATO summit coming later that year. In 2007 all 'selebrations' were once again officially allowed.

I don't really see anything bad about feeling sorry for victims of this war whatever side they were on. That was an ugly war, as I already said, and a lot of things were twisted but people suffered and died for things they believed in.

It's just amazes me how while they show tolerance to SS soldiers and allow nationalists to organize demonstrations (which is indeed their democratic right), they can't do same for people that fighted against Hitler in that war.

It's not about being madly in love with soviet regime. But don't you see that trying to get closer to Europe and/or feeding nationalistic feelings in their countries, they go for another extreme. They try to re-write history, they discriminate people here in 2007. They shave away modern democratic Russia and russians like they are some kind of desease. They stopped considering the day nazis were out of their countries any good. New ideology is praising 'fighters for freedom' and the excuse for wearing SS uniform is ' they planned to free themselves from soviets first with the help of german army and after that they planned to get rid of germans as well'. I see more and more people actually believing this without realizing how absurd it does in fact sound. That's what scary.

Russians, estonians, latvians, lithuanians, georgians etc were actually in pretty same position under this regime. Deportations, prisons, limitations of freedome, propaganda - we all were getting it. Never ever were those nations considered 'our slaves' or something. The ideology itself wasn't as bad as the methods used to enforce it. For generations of soviet russians estonians and latvians were nothing but 'brothers'. It's history now after USSR collapsed and every country was suggested to 'take as much independence as they could handle'.

It's modern russians they raise hatered for in their children.
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Originally Posted by simon View Post
So are you saying the US should have fought a war or used nuclear weapons to prevent Soviet occupation of eastern Europe? That it's their fault that Stalin murdered millions of people in the countries he occupied? The US didn't do that in the countries they liberated and nothing they ever did was anything like as bad as what Stalin did.
You don't have to really use the button that only you own to push your interests forward. I never digged deep enough into this situation but everything has its reasons. Allies + USA had everything to demand liberation of those countries from USSR right till 1949 when Stalin got a heavy 'leave us alone' argument. Russia lost quite a lot of blood in domestic wars in the first quater of the century. Commies took over and began building this regime. USA and Europe did nothing to stop it when they could just like they did nothing to stop Hitler when he began doing his thing in the country weakned by the WWI. Why did they alow Stalin to take over Eastern Europe? I dunno. Probably it had something to do with those documents that give hints into direction of British&American plans to attack USSR a bit later and probably it was just the opposite and they let Stalin to do that to prevent WWIII that could begin right after WWII. I don't know. Do you?
Quote:
Originally Posted by simon View Post
As a Brit, I'll give you some advice. Don't expect people from countries that your country victimised to be grateful for it. I wouldn't dream of telling Irish people or West Indians, for example, that we have a lot in common in terms of language and culture. I know it would be an incredibly tactless thing to say because the strong British cultural influence is due to colonialism and oppression. A bit of contrition about what was done will go a long way. We do it, so you can do it too.
Would be a good advise if our similarities were really due to occupation. But you see, we are both slavic, our languages have a lot of similar words for many centuries as we have similar orgins. My parents grew up on Polish TV shows, movies, music and were happy getting clothes produced in Poland. How comes all this doesn't matter suddenly just because USSR 'occupation'? They indeed were under soviet influence but they weren't part of USSR. In many ways Poland was the most 'western' country of the region. Do you really think this is enough of excuse to raise children feeding them ideas of hate for whole Russia (that is not USSR btw)? So if whole this commie thing never happened, would we be right hating all Polish people for the Polish Intervention we had earlier in our history? It's not like we got introduced to each other in 20th century, you know. We've been 'entertaining' each other for many centuries with 'bright' moments for both sides. Sorry, but I honestly believe this all should be left there, in the past.
Quote:
Originally Posted by simon View Post
The Soviet-style propaganda is in the government-controlled Russian media. Russia needs to understand that it has to sincerely apologise for the crimes of the past like Germany did to the Jews and Britain did to Ireland. It's unreasonable to expect people in countries that experienced the horror of Soviet occupation, mass rape, mass murder and mass deportations not to feel bitter about it. Russians getting angry with them for being bitter about what was done just shows insensitivity.
This video was made by British guy who has Latvian wife. Of course it's just an 'opinion' of 1 person and it can't be taken as 100% truth. I do believe he exaggerated a bit even. But may be his point of view you'll at least consider without throwing stones at the country the person comes from. May be you'll get an idea on what kind of 'propaganda' I actually mean.

As for appologizing... you know, if I meet some Latvian and Estonian and he tells me a sad story of something that happened to his family, I'll sincerely say 'I'm sorry your family had to come through all this'. But the country you expect appology from doesn't even exist anymore... majority of russians suffered from this regime just as much as other nationalities did, as I said already. It's not the case when one country slaves another. The thing is much more complicated than this.
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Originally Posted by simon View Post
Actually, they did get the permission of the countries where those bases are to be located. It would have been more accurate to write: "The US plan to put bases in countries close to Russia that that have been occupied by Russia in the past and joined NATO for future protection. Those countries have the cheek to invite the US to put bases there without getting Russia's permission."
Would it really be more accurate? That's your subjective view on things. Russia never occupied those counrties, it was USSR that did. Russia hasn't done anything to threat these countries after USSR collapsed. And it's not Russia's permission I was talking about. I was talking about NATO as organization. I find it very wierd that you find dissing Russia more important than actually thinking about what's going on. USA plans to expand military power of NATO on European continent without giving a damn about what other members of NATO think about that. It does look like they do it for their own needs.
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Originally Posted by simon View Post
I see. If other countries that have previously been occupied by the USSR want the Americans to protect them that goes against Russia's interests. Well, of course! But try looking at it from the other person's perspective.
Why would I look at things from different perspective while giving reasoning behind Putin's words about this situation? I wasn't discussing what's fair or not, what's good or not. It IS against Russian interests. That's all.
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Originally Posted by simon View Post
The US isn't going to attack Russia. That's a fantasy. You have thousands of nuclear weapons. What Russia is really concerned about is that it won't be able to bully its neighbours as it's doing to Estonia right now.
Why wouldn't USA attack Russia? Because it can't happen in the modern world, right? WWIII could be a serious threat for whole humanity when nuclear potential of small group of countries is enough to destroy this planet fully and more than once. Then why the hell do all those small countries we don't give a damn about for almost 20 years need protection from Russia? Double standards or what? And please explain me how we bully Estonia. All we did was express our disgust with this their action.
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Old 30-04-2007, 13:14   #62
simon simon is offline
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Originally Posted by la aurora View Post
Yes, your government doesn't surpress alternative viewpoints. They (+media) just don't give you alternative viewpoints to consider. They feed you the same old story about evil USSR and anti-democratic Russia. Look at your own words. You almost put a "=" sign between USSR and Putin's Russia when it comes to surpressing opinions. You make it sound like it's a fact, you don't even consider other options.
I didn't claim that the USSR and Putin's Russia were the same. I'm well aware that there is more freedom than in the USSR.

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I've seen many things with my own eyes, I have older people around to tell me how things really were for them back in years, I have old movies and documentaries, novels and songs, art work to see how it 'felt' for people. I have modern russian media writing about things that happened back then, revealing archives that lost their 'secret information' lable lately. I have my history lessons that I got in new democrating Russia with new re-written books and quite an open-minded teacher. The lesson about WWII didn't start with 'evil Hitler attacked our beloved homeland'. It began with pre-1941 events, Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Stalin's plan to catch Hitler out guard with sudden attack, secret services reporting Stalin exact date of Hitler's attack and Stalin not taking it seriously enough and not using an opportunity to prepare which caused extra victims and diffculties for us in the begining of war on our territory. I have my literature lessons and Solzhenitsin was one of obligatory authors in my school.
I never claimed that criticism of Stalin and the USSR isn't allowed in Russia today.

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And on the top of this all I have western media to give me yet another perspective on things. I read those articles online or see them on tv. You know, in this 'totalitarian' country almost every channel has 'foreign media' section on their news that does inform us of 'your' opinion on things. Surprisingly, those channels are still feeling pretty well and journalists responsible for this aren't killed or prisoned.
Unlike Anna Politkovskaya, who strongly criticised Putin, was poisoned on her plane journey to Beslan and later assassinated. Or Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned in London.

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This is where my opinion comes from and I don't feel it being suppressed by anything or anyone. I can go to Red Square now and shout it out, I can write in my blog and no one will look for me to punish, I can tell it to my boss at work, I can tell it to Putin personally if I meet him without any fear, I can write in in the news-paper and it won't be closed.
I mentioned how peaceful anti-government demonstrations in Moscow and St Petersburg were recently violently broken up and the participants arrested.

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And if I don't share your ideas about everything about USSR and Putin being black, if I don't feel like spitting into face of my grandparents for that war and feel thankful they suffered and died not allowing Hitler to take over this country and whole Europe, it means my opinion is wrong, suppressed and comes from brain-washing? Because with this your whole post you made me feel like this is how you see it.
That's not at all what I said. You keep equating opposition to the Soviet Union with support for Hitler. It's extremely offensive.

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I honestly don't know what kind of British monuments were removed in your ex-colonies. If those were set just as symbols of British domination then yes, there's nothing wrong with removing them just as there's nothing wrong with East-European countries removing varios 'CCCP' signs, random soviet red stars, monuments dedicated to communism, communistic party and special events of that time, monuments to Lenin, Stalin and so on. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that and we removed quite a lot of those ourselves.
But monuments to unknown soldier set near places where people were burried together in one grave is a whole different issue.
No, British war memorials were removed too. It happened first in Ireland after independence and then in many of the other countries that later got independence.

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Those people didn't come there as conquirers. They were fighting for 'freedom', they were fighting against Hitler, against dark power of fascism and they had no goddamn idea on what would happen next. Have you ever looked in the eyes of those people that stayed alive and lived it long anough to still be here now? I did and heard them telling stories about how it was. They feel really sad about a lot of things that happened. They themselves didn't expect to live under fear of being killed and deported due to 'traitors' paranoia that happened after the war was over, they didn't expect to be labled 'occupants' by people who's freedom they believed they fighted for.
But they did come as conquerors and they weren't bringing freedom. The USSR occupied those countries for the next 50 years. Those people didn't have a choice and so it's not their fault, but we can't deny the truth just because it's more comfortable for you to pretend something else.

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There's a monument of a soviet soldier holding a German girl in one hand and a sword ripping fascist Iron Cross apart in another in Berlin. Somehow no one is removing it, Germans actually spent 1.5 mlns Euro reparing it few years ago. No matter how monsterious Stalin and soviet regime was, it still was a soviet army to break into Berlin loosing thousands of people there and destroying last remanings of fascism there. And there's nothing wrong with honoring dead people that did this, there's nothing wrong with allowing others who feels thankful to come a bring flowers to the monument that is dear to them. That's what democracy is about I guess - respect.
I'm of Jewish ancestry so I have more cause than most people to be glad the Nazis lost the war. Nazi ideology was certainly worse than Soviet ideology. But in practice Stalin was as evil as Hitler. Both murdered millions of people, just for different reasons. The most important difference is that after Stalin died the Soviet regime became much less bad, whereas the Nazi regime would probably have continued to be just as bad for a lot longer.

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June 2002. Pyarnu, Estonia.
August 2004. Lihula, Estonia.
2 attempts to install a monument for 'heroic fighters for freedom of Estonia'. It was same monument actually with a soldier in SS uniform, with fascist Iron Cross and german gun in his hands. Both times the monument was removed under pressure of EU, USA and russian and jewish organizations. In 2005 third attempt almost happened but then they desided to put the monument into museum of 'History of the fight for liberation of Estonia' (not sure about the exact translation).
The fact you don't mention was that these monuments weren't official. It was private groups that attempted to put them up. And they weren't allowed to.

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16 March is an un-official day of Latvian SS Legioner in Latvia. In 2005 nationalistic groups were officialy allowed to organize demonstration. Anti-fascist groups dressed in prisoners' suits, stood on the way of this demonstration and were 'cleared from the way' by police. Your media did show it I believe. That moment made it to many tv reports. In 2006 authorities of Riga have forbidden any demonstrations on this day in fear to get another fight on the streets and they had NATO summit coming later that year. In 2007 all 'selebrations' were once again officially allowed.
It was wrong of the Latvian authorities to clear the way for the demonstration like that. Latvia is not Estonia.

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I don't really see anything bad about feeling sorry for victims of this war whatever side they were on. That was an ugly war, as I already said, and a lot of things were twisted but people suffered and died for things they believed in.
I agree. The statue and the associated graves are not being destroyed, they are being moved from Freedom Square in the centre of Tallinn to a military cemetery.

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It's not about being madly in love with soviet regime. But don't you see that trying to get closer to Europe and/or feeding nationalistic feelings in their countries, they go for another extreme. They try to re-write history, they discriminate people here in 2007. They shave away modern democratic Russia and russians like they are some kind of desease. They stopped considering the day nazis were out of their countries any good. New ideology is praising 'fighters for freedom' and the excuse for wearing SS uniform is ' they planned to free themselves from soviets first with the help of german army and after that they planned to get rid of germans as well'. I see more and more people actually believing this without realizing how absurd it does in fact sound. That's what scary.
You're making a false equation where opposition to the Soviets equals support for the Nazis and the SS. There were genuine partisans in all those countries who fought both the Nazi and the Soviet regimes. Those people should be celebrated and have statues in places like Freedom Square, not the Soviet invaders. We don't have to celebrate conquest by one monstrously evil regime because it was perhaps slightly less monstrously evil than another one. Nobody forced the USSR occupy the Baltic states and central Europe for the next 45 years.

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Russians, estonians, latvians, lithuanians, georgians etc were actually in pretty same position under this regime. Deportations, prisons, limitations of freedome, propaganda - we all were getting it. Never ever were those nations considered 'our slaves' or something. The ideology itself wasn't as bad as the methods used to enforce it. For generations of soviet russians estonians and latvians were nothing but 'brothers'. It's history now after USSR collapsed and every country was suggested to 'take as much independence as they could handle'.

It's modern russians they raise hatered for in their children.
Now you're equating not wanting to celebrate the Soviet conquest of Estonia with hatred of Russians. You keep trying to change the subject.

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You don't have to really use the button that only you own to push your interests forward. I never digged deep enough into this situation but everything has its reasons. Allies + USA had everything to demand liberation of those countries from USSR right till 1949 when Stalin got a heavy 'leave us alone' argument. Russia lost quite a lot of blood in domestic wars in the first quater of the century. Commies took over and began building this regime. USA and Europe did nothing to stop it when they could just like they did nothing to stop Hitler when he began doing his thing in the country weakned by the WWI. Why did they alow Stalin to take over Eastern Europe? I dunno. Probably it had something to do with those documents that give hints into direction of British&American plans to attack USSR a bit later and probably it was just the opposite and they let Stalin to do that to prevent WWIII that could begin right after WWII. I don't know. Do you?
They allowed it to happen because they didn't want to start World War III. I don't think that makes them morally responsible for it.

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Would be a good advise if our similarities were really due to occupation. But you see, we are both slavic, our languages have a lot of similar words for many centuries as we have similar orgins. My parents grew up on Polish TV shows, movies, music and were happy getting clothes produced in Poland. How comes all this doesn't matter suddenly just because USSR 'occupation'? They indeed were under soviet influence but they weren't part of USSR. In many ways Poland was the most 'western' country of the region. Do you really think this is enough of excuse to raise children feeding them ideas of hate for whole Russia (that is not USSR btw)? So if whole this commie thing never happened, would we be right hating all Polish people for the Polish Intervention we had earlier in our history? It's not like we got introduced to each other in 20th century, you know. We've been 'entertaining' each other for many centuries with 'bright' moments for both sides. Sorry, but I honestly believe this all should be left there, in the past.
You start out saying that the cultural similarities weren't due to occupation, but then you mention how Poland and the USSR were close because Poland was under Soviet 'influence'. You mention the brief Polish intervention after WW I, but not that czarist Russia occupied most of Poland for 150 years before that. Poland has a long history of Russian domination. That's not your personal fault, just like the British Empire wasn't my fault, but it calls for a certain sensitivity in dealing with people from countries like Poland and Ireland.

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As for appologizing... you know, if I meet some Latvian and Estonian and he tells me a sad story of something that happened to his family, I'll sincerely say 'I'm sorry your family had to come through all this'. But the country you expect appology from doesn't even exist anymore... majority of russians suffered from this regime just as much as other nationalities did, as I said already. It's not the case when one country slaves another. The thing is much more complicated than this.
Russia inherited the USSR's permanent seat on the UN Security Council, the Soviet nuclear arsenal and has the same national anthem as the USSR. It's reasonable to consider it the main successor state.

When the Irish Famine took place in the 1840s, Ireland was a constituent part of the UK. Even so, Tony Blair apologised to Ireland for what the UK government had done during the famine. You're taking a legalistic position.

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Would it really be more accurate? That's your subjective view on things. Russia never occupied those counrties, it was USSR that did. Russia hasn't done anything to threat these countries after USSR collapsed. And it's not Russia's permission I was talking about. I was talking about NATO as organization. I find it very wierd that you find dissing Russia more important than actually thinking about what's going on. USA plans to expand military power of NATO on European continent without giving a damn about what other members of NATO think about that. It does look like they do it for their own needs.
If those countries want US bases on their territory, that's for them to decide. It's not for other countries to tell them whether or not they can.

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Why would I look at things from different perspective while giving reasoning behind Putin's words about this situation? I wasn't discussing what's fair or not, what's good or not. It IS against Russian interests. That's all.

Why wouldn't USA attack Russia? Because it can't happen in the modern world, right? WWIII could be a serious threat for whole humanity when nuclear potential of small group of countries is enough to destroy this planet fully and more than once. Then why the hell do all those small countries we don't give a damn about for almost 20 years need protection from Russia? Double standards or what?
Russia is currently supporting breakaway armies in Georgia and Moldova. Russian troops are backing up the breakaway republic in Moldova. Russia is imposing an economic blockade on Georgia. Last July, Russia cut off the oil pipeline to Lithuania because of a 'leak' immediately after Lithuania sold an oil complex to a Polish company rather than a Russian one. Nine months later, the pipeline still hasn't been 'repaired'.

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And please explain me how we bully Estonia. All we did was express our disgust with this their action.
Kommersant, 27 April 2007: State Duma International Relations Committee chairman Konstantin Kosachyov echoed the sentiments of his party's leader and threatened the Estonian authorities with harsh retaliation from Moscow. "These measures will not necessarily take the form of official sanctions – the palette of our possible actions is very wide, and the actions of the Russian authorities will be very effective and will have an extremely painful impact on the state of the Estonian economy," said Mr. Kosachyov.
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Old 30-04-2007, 17:07   #63
Argos Argos is offline
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Originally Posted by simon View Post
...Anna Politkovskaya, who strongly criticised Putin, was poisoned on her plane journey to Beslan and later assassinated. Or Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned in London.
What an argument! Politkovskaya's murder had nothing to do with the Kremlin. She had practically no influence on politics and public opinion and was of no danger for Putin whatsoever. Better look for the assassinators in another direction.

Litvinenko was a Polonium dealer. He transported that substance (in huge amounts!!!) in a not correctly closed container and the Polonium vaporized and contaminated every location, where Litvinenko went, for days. He simply inhaled enough that he had to die of a lethal dosis. It was an accident. It's quite unlogical to assume that somebody tried to kill him like this. It's like giving him a motor-cycle expecting he would die in a road accident. Assassinators work differently.

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Originally Posted by simon View Post
If those countries want US bases on their territory, that's for them to decide. It's not for other countries to tell them whether or not they can.
You don't mean that seriously, do you? No country wants a military basis of it's strategic opponent at it's borders.There will always be intense reactions from their side. Think about, what would the USA do if some Latinamerican country decides to build a Russian basis on their territory? And what have they done when something like that happened (Cuba)?

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Originally Posted by simon View Post
Russia is currently supporting breakaway armies in Georgia and Moldova. Russian troops are backing up the breakaway republic in Moldova. Russia is imposing an economic blockade on Georgia.
Russia has tried for years to convince EU and USA to help solve the ethnic problems in these countries, but they refused, IT'S NOT IN THEIR INTEREST. They have their fun seeing Russia surrounded by their numerous problems with their former 'provinces', keeping them constantly occupied with unsolved conflicts, so they can't work on foreign politics of global scales. Russia now does what they have to do, no matter whether we like it or not. We had our chance.

The last years we have witnessed more than enough of those strategies, thought up in Washington, to keep Russia at it's place. It's a simple defence concept of the USA to keep their power. A high amount of conflict potential lets the USA remain the most powerful country in the world. An almost conflictfree, prospering world, especially in Eastern Europe and West Asia, makes the EU stronger. Therefore the EU should help solve the problems there, not support the USA with those politics. Helping Russia to develop it's economy and solving the numerous problems of this area will make Europe the most powerful institution of the world and it's really sad that an alcohol-abuse demented Texas cowboy takes us Europeans by the nosering and pulls us everywhere he wants. (Well, what to expect from a region, whose name comes from a cow, who was the fuck-toy of the Big Boss - who obviously fucks her till now!)

It's not important, who is right or who is wrong, and what happened in the past - the main concern is the future. The neighbour-countries will have much profit from a working-together with Russia, there is no use for nationalist actions and revenge for things, which are not in the responsibility of the current political leaders in Russia.

Another fact to observe: Putin had to fight from the first day of his reign against the 'family' and the nationalist military fraction. Every nationalist conflict in the former republics with their strong Russian minorities strengthens the power of the military and puts pressure on the government to act 'appropriately' and Russia is in constant danger that they may overtake the government or at least win the next presidental elections, which will be a highly undesired development for the EU. The EU should consider, how to build the house Europe for the future as long as we are able to do it.
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Old 30-04-2007, 17:41   #64
simon simon is offline
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What an argument! Politkovskaya's murder had nothing to do with the Kremlin. She had practically no influence on politics and public opinion and was of no danger for Putin whatsoever. Better look for the assassinators in another direction.
I also mentioned her poisoning on her way to Beslan. Politkovskaya was unimportant domestically, but important and famous internationally. She was an irritant to the Kremlin and its puppet government in Chechnya. Nobody else seems to have had a strong motive to kill her.

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Litvinenko was a Polonium dealer. He transported that substance (in huge amounts!!!) in a not correctly closed container and the Polonium vaporized and contaminated every location, where Litvinenko went, for days. He simply inhaled enough that he had to die of a lethal dosis. It was an accident. It's quite unlogical to assume that somebody tried to kill him like this. It's like giving him a motor-cycle expecting he would die in a road accident. Assassinators work differently.
Do you have any evidence for this extraordinary allegation? The forensic evidence actually shows that Lugovoi and Kovtun were already contminated with polonium before they met with Litvinenko. They were travelling with polonium, Litvinenko was living quietly in London. Yet Litvinenko was the one who got a lethal dose of polonium at their meeting, not them.

Quote:
Russia has tried for years to convince EU and USA to help solve the ethnic problems in these countries, but they refused, IT'S NOT IN THEIR INTEREST. They have their fun seeing Russia surrounded by their numerous problems with their former 'provinces', keeping them constantly occupied with unsolved conflicts, so they can't work on foreign politics of global scales. Russia now does what they have to do, no matter whether we like it or not. We had our chance.

The last years we have witnessed more than enough of those strategies, thought up in Washington, to keep Russia at it's place. It's a simple defence concept of the USA to keep their power. A high amount of conflict potential lets the USA remain the most powerful country in the world. An almost conflictfree, prospering world, especially in Eastern Europe and West Asia, makes the EU stronger. Therefore the EU should help solve the problems there, not support the USA with those politics. Helping Russia to develop it's economy and solving the numerous problems of this area will make Europe the most powerful institution of the world and it's really sad that an alcohol-abuse demented Texas cowboy takes us Europeans by the nosering and pulls us everywhere he wants. (Well, what to expect from a region, whose name comes from a cow, who was the fuck-toy of the Big Boss - who obviously fucks her till now!)
Your conspiracy theories are demented. The US and EU aren't forcing Russia to occupy part of Moldova, blockade Georgia, cut off Lithuania's oil pipeline or threaten to cripple Estonia's economy. Those are Russia's decisions.

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It's not important, who is right or who is wrong, and what happened in the past - the main concern is the future. The neighbour-countries will have much profit from a working-together with Russia, there is no use for nationalist actions and revenge for things, which are not in the responsibility of the current political leaders in Russia.
Russia's current leaders are responsible for their bullying of their neighbours.

Quote:
Another fact to observe: Putin had to fight from the first day of his reign against the 'family' and the nationalist military fraction. Every nationalist conflict in the former republics with their strong Russian minorities strengthens the power of the military and puts pressure on the government to act 'appropriately' and Russia is in constant danger that they may overtake the government or at least win the next presidental elections, which will be a highly undesired development for the EU. The EU should consider, how to build the house Europe for the future as long as we are able to do it.
Russia is indeed a threat to its neighbours. We shouldn't appease Russian nationalist bullying as you suggest, we should stand up to it.

Last edited by simon; 30-04-2007 at 17:54.
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Old 30-04-2007, 18:02   #65
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Originally Posted by la aurora View Post
This video was made by British guy who has Latvian wife. Of course it's just an 'opinion' of 1 person and it can't be taken as 100% truth. I do believe he exaggerated a bit even.
It's an interesting video (i have no doubt that there is an extreme-right in Latvia) but the person who made it loses credibility when you read his comments, he goes as far as to say that Latvian people do not really exist and that the Latvian language is just some primitive Russian dialect.

The Latvian language is part of the Baltic family of Indo-European languages, that family is no more and no less related to the Slavic or Germanic ones, it's not a Slavic sub-group, it's a language family in its own right.
Linguists actually find the Baltic family (particularly Lithuanian) to be extremely interesting since it has kept many archaic features and its comparison with Sanskrit and Ancien Greek is a great help to determine what the original Proto-Indo-European language looked like.

As for Latvian people, the presence in the area of tribes who were clearly Indo-European but distinct from Slavic and Germanic tribes is historically well attested (notably by Teutonic Knights and Scandinavian sailors).

Balts are not a Russian (or even Slavic) sub-group.


Other than that, i mostly agree with simon (except about US bases in Europe obviously). Russia can't expect people who were colonized and russified by force to be greatful for what was done to them. People can easily reconcile (French and Germans are proof of that) but faults have to be officially acknowledged by the states.
The main thorn in EU/NATO relations with Russia is that the Russian regime is becoming more and more authoritarian and that can't be good for anyone.


And regarding the citizenship issue of ethnic Russians in Estonia and Latvia, as far as i understand it, Latvia and Estonia decided to grant citizenship to all residends except those who were sent there as Russian colonists during the Soviet occupation after 1940, which is their right and understandable considering those colonists were part of a forced russification process of the area.
And it's not like Russians don't have a homeland, they have a massive 17 million km2 one right next to Latvia, surely that's big enough and they don't need the small Latvian territory.
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Old 30-04-2007, 20:06   #66
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Originally Posted by simon View Post
Do you have any evidence for this extraordinary allegation? The forensic evidence actually shows that Lugovoi and Kovtun were already contminated with polonium before they met with Litvinenko. They were travelling with polonium, Litvinenko was living quietly in London. Yet Litvinenko was the one who got a lethal dose of polonium at their meeting, not them.
If you listen to experts of physics and chemistry of Polonium, everybody tells you, that there is no room for ANY assassination theory, irrelevant who ever is the murderer. I've read some of them. Unfortunately I didn't gather them, but I have at least one quite elaborate theory, how it may have happened and why assassination is practically out of question, here.

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Originally Posted by simon View Post
Your conspiracy theories are demented. The US and EU aren't forcing Russia to occupy part of Moldova, blockade Georgia, cut off Lithuania's oil pipeline or threaten to cripple Estonia's economy. Those are Russia's decisions.
I don't talk about conspiracy, but about global politics. Every superpower has it's own strategy, USA has it, Russia has it, China has it - only the EU has not. You are right, EU and USA didn't force Russia's actions, those were Russia's decisions, but they were predictable like in a chess game, where each move forces a response from the other side. If you are good in your game, your opponent does what is in your interest. At least in the Caucasus Europe is not so innocent of the escalation, as Caspic oil is the modern Helena.

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Originally Posted by simon View Post
Russia's current leaders are responsible for their bullying of their neighbours.

Russia is indeed a threat to its neighbours. We shouldn't appease Russian nationalist bullying as you suggest, we should stand up to it.
We are talking about a super-power, the USA and China are not that different. Their tactics may differ a bit, the result is the same - promises, bribery, blackmail. You are right, we should not give in, when countries are threatened by Russia, but we should prevent aggressive nationalism on both sides. Russia is too valuable for the EU to ruin the relations because of those childish nationalistic revenge acts. Russia is the future of EU's struggle for being THE economic worldpower. Therfore, outwit Russia to play our game, not that of America and not their own, that should be the target for the EU.
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Old 30-04-2007, 20:09   #67
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Originally Posted by simon View Post
I didn't claim that the USSR and Putin's Russia were the same. I'm well aware that there is more freedom than in the USSR.
You've put them on one side of equalation in your suppressing alternative points remark without giving any differences. You kept using Russia instead of USSR when it came to occupation matters and modern threat to East European countries. It did give impression that even if you do see some differences, they aren't that strong. Sorry, if this impression I got was wrong but there was no single hint in you long post to make me think otherwise.
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I never claimed that criticism of Stalin and the USSR isn't allowed in Russia today.
I wasn't saying this to prove you that we can criticise Stalin. I was just saying that I'm not exactly brain-washed and I got a relatively healthy look on our past and present. And I was saying that I probably got a bit more information than you do, that this information includes views on this from USSR, democratinc Russia and the West at the same time, while you have only western look on things. You did have that tone of a person who talks like he knows for sure what he talks about and you've put lables on many things like you had right to.
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Originally Posted by simon View Post
Unlike Anna Politkovskaya, who strongly criticised Putin, was poisoned on her plane journey to Beslan and later assassinated. Or Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned in London.
And you do know for sure that it was done by our current government or Putin personally? It could easily be a provocation. Putin's position is strong enough here not to do such things. Killing people became a traditional way to 'solve problems' here quite a while ago. In many ways this tradition began in Yeltsin's Russia. The chaos we had in attempt to build democracy was quite bad, criminality level got terribly high, most political and business issues were solved in a ways that were really far from democratic. The list of journalists killed in 90ies is way longer than what we had with Putin so far. It's sad that it's happening, I hope that one day we'll be civilized enough for this to stop. You don't build a new perfect country in less than 20 years starting with the mess we had. I'll wholeheartedly agree if you say that we are still far from being as civilized and democratic as some countries with a long history of democratic regime. But I won't agree with saying Russia got worse with Putin taking the presidents chair. I feel it being much better actually. Musch safier and more stable to live in.
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I mentioned how peaceful anti-government demonstrations in Moscow and St Petersburg were recently violently broken up and the participants arrested.
Those demonstrations were illegal, weren't they? As far as I remember, t.A.T.u. weren't allowed to gather all those girls in the center of London without asking for permission, they were also peaceful enough. But you can't do whatever your want even in democratic country. Official permission allows authorities to send police there to make sure everything goes smooth. In Russia such things are especially dangerous. We are not yet happy enough as a nation and people get agressive quite a lot. I still remember the bashing of center of Moscow after that football match against Japan as well as remember terracts we had there. It's important to keep things in order.

We have elections comming, you know. And life always gets 'interesting' at such moments. I won't say Putin or current government are saint. But I wouldn't call those demonstrants victims either. Some of those guys get arrested few times a year for various provocations. I don't know who's right and who's wrong. All I know is those demonstrants needed a scandal much more than Putin did. Western media taking the side of anti-governmental demonstrants was rather predictable, so I personally wouldn't dramatize things too much here.
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That's not at all what I said. You keep equating opposition to the Soviet Union with support for Hitler. It's extremely offensive.
I'm sorry if you got this impression and double sorry if you found it offensive. I didn't mean that and I never suspected you in support for Hitler. What I meant was that while many bad things happened in USSR, there were good things too. You sounded like you believe Soviet Union was a home for evil, you keep talking about occupants, Stalin, suppressed opinions in modern Russia and all other bad things and expect me to accept this your view. You we giving me advises, saying how scary it is that I don't understand things etc. But for me it's the country I was born in, where my parents and grandparents were born and grew up, it's an important part of our history and culture. I can't and don't want to shave all this away and it has nothing to do with me not understanding what's bad, it's just that I can apperciate something that's good. I just count on you respecting this my position.
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No, British war memorials were removed too. It happened first in Ireland after independence and then in many of the other countries that later got independence.

But they did come as conquerors and they weren't bringing freedom. The USSR occupied those countries for the next 50 years. Those people didn't have a choice and so it's not their fault, but we can't deny the truth just because it's more comfortable for you to pretend something else.
If we are talking about memorials to dead, then my opinion is they shouldn't be removed. I can understand why some may dissagree with me here but past is past and removing memorials for half of the dead won't bring another half back to life. I believe that majority of soldiers that died there didn't have much choice and theu died for something they believed was right even it was a mistake in historical meaning.

The case with this estonian memorial is more complicated. Those soldiers didn't come there to conquire a free country. They were freeing it from nazis and that was a good thing to do. What happened next happened on some political level. Civil soviet people didn't even realize it was 'an occupation'. Estonians voted for parliment, parliment decided to join USSR, welcome 'brothers', let's build communism together. As I already said, Estonia was never treated as 'colony' and estonians were never slaves. They were a part of big country, USSR did use its resources to build infrastructure there. Generations of estonians themselves didn't see it as 'occupation'. Soviet propaganda was effective enough and they were born and grew up in a 'happy soviet brotherhood' with no one daring to tell them otherwise without risking to be shot or repressed. Those soldiers weren't 'occupants' in their heart during the war and weren't after it. Some of them died without ever seeing things this way.

That was an occupation on some top political level. No doubts here. Soviet Regime commited serious crimes against humanity. No doubts here either. But this part of the history is complicated. Even after USSR collapsed, after painful realization of what kind of hell soviet regime was, we kept feeling that all those people are not really foreigners to us. And it's not because we thought we still 'own' them, I repeat. We never did 'own'. We grew up with the idea they were 'brother nations' to us. We got used to respect and support them and counting on them doing same back. Such things are very hard to erase from mentality. For example when watching some sport competion on TV, you support ex-USSR sportsmen like if they were 'urs', you don't really think about it, you just feel this way. Or if you meet someone from those countries in far foreign country, you feel happy to see them like if they were russian. And russians weren't alone in feeling this way for a while till this 'let's go west' idea governments of those countries began to push.

With all this current situation does make russians feel bit betrayed. This war meant a lot to us and it's very offensive to see how they remove the monuments for our dead and make it look like ones that fighed in Hitler's side were more of a heroes than ones that fighted against. It's hard to understand such things from where you are as you don't share our memories. But Estonians knew what they were doing pretty well.

West takes anything that's ani-russian as a sign of liberation, West takes any our protest as an attempt to bully countries we once 'occupied'. Governments of these newly independent countries want to be a part of modern Europe, want to be supported by NATO and EU and they hurry to please the West often taking things to extreme. It's very hard to see the line between some things for both Russia and the West.
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I'm of Jewish ancestry so I have more cause than most people to be glad the Nazis lost the war. Nazi ideology was certainly worse than Soviet ideology. But in practice Stalin was as evil as Hitler. Both murdered millions of people, just for different reasons. The most important difference is that after Stalin died the Soviet regime became much less bad, whereas the Nazi regime would probably have continued to be just as bad for a lot longer.
Yes, I agree that Stalin and Hitler were equally bad as historical figures. Well may be not absolutely equal but so outstanding from the rest that you can make it equal. Nazi regime was way scarier though and it's scary when people forget it and actually start believing it would be better if Hitler was there instead of soviets. I'm talking about those 'we wanted to defeat soviets and then Hitler' ideas that are used as excuse to replace soviet 'heroes' with 'SS Legion heroes' in people's minds. I wonder how they'd do that. People's minds get twisted for pragmatic reasons of the government. That's bad.
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The fact you don't mention was that these monuments weren't official. It was private groups that attempted to put them up. And they weren't allowed to.
That's not fully true. It's quite hard to say what's official and what's not. There were officials of the country present during the opening ceremony for the first one. Second one was installed with permission of authorities of the region. It's not the case when a small group of nationalists does it overnight. In this case I'd expect it removed next morning when people wake up and find out. It wouldn't need any 'pressure' from USA, EU and others. Don't forget that there are other monuments with Nazi symbolics (for example for Belgian and Netherlandian SS members). There were medals given out to the 'heroes of that another side'. There's quite some propaganda going on about this matter with new historics writing new view on old history. 2 countries that provided Hitler the strongest support in the region (Lithuania refused for example) in attempt to make the 'soviet' part of the history as dark as possible, look for another extreme. Someone had to fight for good in that war and who fighted soviets? You know know the answer. I don't say that Estonians or Latvians are Nazis or were Nazis during the war. It would be unfair. But their current authorities try really hard to please the West with being anti-soviet and anti-russian enough and in this attempt they take acceptance for fascism too far.

Look at you only country. You never were pro-soviet, UK was always one of the strongest opponents of USSR in this cold war and public opinion does reflect it pretty well nowadays. You aren't exactly on the Russian side in curent silent Cold War either. You are anti-soviet in all ways possible. But could such things happen in your democratic country? Don't you really see the difference between being anti-soviet and pro-nazi?
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It was wrong of the Latvian authorities to clear the way for the demonstration like that. Latvia is not Estonia.
I see similar tendencies in these 2 countries. Of course Latvia is not Estonia but their governments are going into similar directions lately.
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Originally Posted by simon View Post
I agree. The statue and the associated graves are not being destroyed, they are being moved from Freedom Square in the centre of Tallinn to a military cemetery
That's a new 'excuse' actually. They came up with it after making decision to remove the monument. There were some troubles with this monument some time ago. A group of nationalists organized a loud event there demanding for the monument to be removed from the square. And later at night the monument was vandalized. Authorities had to bring police forces in there not to allow similar events to happen again. And then they decide to do exactly what those nationalists demanded.. This monument was there for years and there are people burried not far from that place. Now would you like if someone took a grave stone from your granddad's grave and moved it to another cemetry?
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They allowed it to happen because they didn't want to start World War III. I don't think that makes them morally responsible for it.
We don't know for sure why they allowed Stalin to 'occupy' Eastern Europe. Your theory is just a theory. But they could stop him and Hitler much earlier and prevent WWII. There were quite ugly moments in WWI as well. It's not about moral responsibility. I'm just saying no one was saint and it's not fair to say otherwise.
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You start out saying that the cultural similarities weren't due to occupation, but then you mention how Poland and the USSR were close because Poland was under Soviet 'influence'. You mention the brief Polish intervention after WW I, but not that czarist Russia occupied most of Poland for 150 years before that. Poland has a long history of Russian domination. That's not your personal fault, just like the British Empire wasn't my fault, but it calls for a certain sensitivity in dealing with people from countries like Poland and Ireland.
I don't say we were close because of this 'influence'. I say I do know this 'influence' did take place and it would be unfair of me to claim otherwise.
And no, I wasn't mentioning intervention after WWI. I meant something that happened much earlier in czarist Russia. We have a long and intense history together since the time we were 'Kievskaya Rus' and 'Rech Pospolitaya'. There were a lot of attacks from both sides and I see no point in trying to remember who was worse. It shouldn't justify hate in the modern world.
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Originally Posted by simon View Post
Russia inherited the USSR's permanent seat on the UN Security Council, the Soviet nuclear arsenal and has the same national anthem as the USSR. It's reasonable to consider it the main successor state.
Yes, Russia did also get most of the territory of USSR and took responsibility for financial debts USSR had. Someone had to. We took different anthem and flag after USSR collapsed and it stayed this way for years. It's not that long ago we decided to change our anthem as one by Glinka had no words and was very hard to sing to. Not wanting 3rd melody in a short time and knowing that everyone here knows Alexandrov's melody by heart, we went for this one with re-written lyrics. Nuclear arsenal had to go to someone, right? Deviding it between all countries of ex-USSR would be a disaster. We've left quite a lot of important objects for countries that had those on their territories.
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Originally Posted by simon View Post
When the Irish Famine took place in the 1840s, Ireland was a constituent part of the UK. Even so, Tony Blair apologised to Ireland for what the UK government had done during the famine. You're taking a legalistic position.
So how many years did you need to come up with an apology? Probably Russia will do it too with time when things settle down. Right now it's still too painful. It can encourage some negative tendencies going on in the countries that only try to get stable politically. Plus majority of alive Russians were born in USSR and won't feel that great if the president on their behalf appologies to others when no one ever appologized to them who came through exactly the same shit.
Just give this time.
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If those countries want US bases on their territory, that's for them to decide. It's not for other countries to tell them whether or not they can.
It's not how things work in the modern world. Or let everyone work on nuclear weapons system. That's their business right? If they want to feel more secure, they should be allowed. Those bases are a change in the military system of NATO and Europe itself, it's not only a business of these 2 countries and USA.
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Originally Posted by simon View Post
Russia is currently supporting breakaway armies in Georgia and Moldova. Russian troops are backing up the breakaway republic in Moldova. Russia is imposing an economic blockade on Georgia. Last July, Russia cut off the oil pipeline to Lithuania because of a 'leak' immediately after Lithuania sold an oil complex to a Polish company rather than a Russian one. Nine months later, the pipeline still hasn't been 'repaired'.
All this is not something those countries need military shields against. Russia has enough of independence to deal with things inside of the country without intervention but it can't and has no intention to attack or even threat with attack any of these countries.
Case with Lithuania is just a routine of the war for the oil market. We don't attack them, we don't rob them off anything. We just stop selling them something we aren't obliged to sell at all. Dirty? Yeah for sure. But these are games not only Russia plays.

Other 2 cases are not as simple as you make them sound. It's not like we just came up with the idea 'lets show Gergia who's the boss' and started bullying them. There are quite serious troubles there and new Georgian government knows what to do and who's help to count on. Don't make them look all poor and unprotected. In this situation they definitely aren't or they wouldn't take actions they take.

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Kommersant, 27 April 2007: State Duma International Relations Committee chairman Konstantin Kosachyov echoed the sentiments of his party's leader and threatened the Estonian authorities with harsh retaliation from Moscow. "These measures will not necessarily take the form of official sanctions – the palette of our possible actions is very wide, and the actions of the Russian authorities will be very effective and will have an extremely painful impact on the state of the Estonian economy," said Mr. Kosachyov.
And? You don't have politics that say stupid things from time to time? There's no official economical blockade on Estonia. Even if there was, it would be our right not to do business with the country we don't want to be dealing with. It has nothing to do with military threats once again.

What those countries need is not american bases to protect them from Russian military forces. They need stable economics not to feel economically dependant on us. It's wierd to constantly do things to annoy us and at the same time expect 'special treatment'.

Last edited by la aurora; 30-04-2007 at 20:32.
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Old 30-04-2007, 20:16   #68
la aurora la aurora is offline
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haku,

I said it that that video is just an opinion and that I personally don't agree with everything shown there and written in comments.

I really haven't ever thought of Latvian not being a language on its own.

But tendencies I see in those countries do make me feel uneasy.

Of course its 'their right' to tell people that lived there for 80+ years to pack their things and go 'home' but it's really doesn't sound as an example of modern european democracy for me. Some of those people lived there for even longer but lost papers, majority didn't come their voluntary after WWII. Don't you find it unhuman to discriminate them for whatever reason?
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Old 01-05-2007, 05:10   #69
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Originally Posted by la aurora View Post
Of course its 'their right' to tell people that lived there for 80+ years to pack their things and go 'home' but it's really doesn't sound as an example of modern european democracy for me. Some of those people lived there for even longer but lost papers, majority didn't come their voluntary after WWII. Don't you find it unhuman to discriminate them for whatever reason?
Well, personally, i think Latvia and Estonia should have granted citizenship to ethnic Russian residents (if desired, i don't know if many of those ethnic Russians would want to renounce Russian citizenship) in 2004 when they became EU members. I'm guessing they were afraid of being overwhelmed by such a large Russian population, but once in the EU, half a million Russians do not really pose a threat in a block of 500 million Europeans.
That being said, each EU state is free to define its own citizenship rules (within EU regulations).


************
A BBC article about the various fates of Soviet memorials in Eastern Europe.


************
Another account of the mass rapes commited by the Red Army in Eastern Europe, from this book.
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Sadly, it was the weak and defenseless, the villagers and townspeople of Eastern Germany, who first felt the impact of the Soviet army. Pumped up with Zhukov's rhetoric, Soviet soldiers unleashed a campaign of terror in the Eastern German lands of Pomerania, Silesia, and East Prussia that was barbaric even by the standards of an already ghastly war. Not only were Germans abused, terrorized, and driven off their land, but they were murdered in large numbers, and women in particular were made into targets of abuse. German women were raped in unimaginable numbers, then often killed or left to die from their wounds. Some women's bodies were found raped, mutilated, and nailed to barn doors. Hundreds of thousands of women have given testimony to the rapes they endured at the hands of the Russians; historian Norman Naimark has estimated that as many as 2 million may have been sexually assaulted. Worse, most women were victims of repeated rapings; some were raped as many as sixty to seventy times.

With cruel irony, this outburst of violence seemed to confirm the wartime fulminations of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister, that the Russians were inhuman beasts. One member of an anti-Nazi cell in Berlin, a woman named Ruth Andreas-Friedrich, has left a vivid account of the sense of shock and fear that these assaults left upon German people. Writing in her diary on 6 May 1945, she observed:

These days have become dangerous to many. Panic prevails in the city. Dismay and terror. Wherever we go, there is pillaging, looting, violence. With unrestrained sexual lust our conqueror's army has flung itself upon the women of Berlin.

We visit Hannelore Thiele, Heike's friend and classmate. She sits huddled on her couch. "One ought to kill oneself," she moans. "This is no way to live." She covers her face with her hands and starts to cry. It is terrible to see her swollen eyes, terrible to look at her disfigured features.

"Was it really that bad?" I ask.

She looks at me pitifully. "Seven," she says. "Seven in a row. Like animals."

Inge Zaun lives in Klein-Machnow. She is eighteen years old and didn't know anything about love. Now she knows everything. Over and over again, sixty times.

"How can you defend yourself?" she says impassively, almost indifferently. "When they pound at the door and fire their guns senselessly. Each night a new one, each night others. The first time when they took me and forced my father to watch, I thought I would die."

..."They rape our daughters, they rape our wives," the men lament. "Not just once, but six times, ten times and twenty times." There is no other talk in the city. No other thought either. Suicide is in the air ...

"Honor lost, all lost," a bewildered father says and hands a rope to his daughter who has been raped twelve times. Obediently she goes and hangs herself from the nearest window sash.

For a generation of Germans, then, the spring of 1945 would forever be linked with the image of a grime-encrusted, battle-scarred Russian soldier, boots on, forcing himself upon a German woman.
Reading this helps to understand how some people and countries can find Soviet memorials offensive. A memorial to the raped women of WWII should probably be built somewhere actually.
~~~~~~~~~~~
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Old 01-05-2007, 06:41   #70
la aurora la aurora is offline
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Originally Posted by haku View Post
Well, personally, i think Latvia and Estonia should have granted citizenship to ethnic Russian residents (if desired, i don't know if many of those ethnic Russians would want to renounce Russian citizenship) in 2004 when they became EU members. I'm guessing they were afraid of being overwhelmed by such a large Russian population, but once in the EU, half a million Russians do not really pose a threat in a block of 500 million Europeans.
That being said, each EU state is free to define its own citizenship rules (within EU regulations).
Well it's good that you are so kind yourself that you would, really.

The question is 'What would be reaction of western media if Russia left such a big amount of people without basic rights?' And how would it influence the public opinion on Russia. I don't ask this for the sake of arguing or being defensive, I just geniously wonder what do you think would happen and would there be zero reaction or would anyone bother to look for excuses because 'it's our right to define our own citizenship rules'? Be honest please.

I somehow guess it would be different. But may be I'm wrong.

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Another account of the mass rapes commited by the Red Army in Eastern Europe, from this book.
Reading this helps to understand how some people and countries can find Soviet memorials offensive. A memorial to the raped women of WWII should probably be built somewhere actually.
How would you call people that eat bodies of other people? Dead bodies. They did do it in Leningrad during blockade. It's very easy to sit at the comfy chair, drink morning coffe and blame people that could fall so low to do all those ugly things. 5 years are quite a time even in modern world. Do you realize how long they could seem in the hell? How long days are without when you don't get sleep, proper food, medicine, when you haven't seen faces of people you love for years and have no idea if they are even alive, if this all will be ever over? When you see places you once found beautiful and peaceful turn into bloody ugly mess? When you have random people around you that you have to trust you life to and at the same time expect them to die any moment? When you see small kids and women taking guns and dying under tanks? Or how nice was the sight of people freed from concentration camps? Or the feeling that you just can't go further anymore but have only 2 options: to crawl or to die? Discipline in those armies was so much less human than it is now: turn back and get shot. Easy. Their children and women were tortured and raped, whole existence of their nation was put under question.

Are you sure you'd manage to stay sane in such situation? That you wouldn't forget all the laws of common sense and politeness? That you'd know who to love and who to hate? That you'd keep basing your actions on common sense and remember about human rights?

There were people that managed to stay human with all this. And there were ones that lost mind totally and never really recovered from what they came through and saw with their eyes. After 5 years they made it to the Heart of Hitler's Empire and some of them didn't put smokings on and invite german girls for a dance.

I'm really sorry for every victim for this war. For every girl that was raped, turtured and murdered by either of the sides. This shouldn't happen. Neither of them deserved even 1/10th of what they had to come through. I don't really want to excuse ones responsible for those cruel unhuman actions. But big amount of those people that made it there weren't human anymore and it wasn't exactly their choice.

It's ok to call bad things 'bad'. But I'm not sure it's ok to make it look like millions of people (part of those were small children and women) were rapists and occupants and neither of them deserves any respect for what they came through. Where would I be if they didn't go through it? Where would you be? Where would Estonians and Latvians be if soviets lost that one? How comes a soviet soldier doesn't deserve any respect for surviving or dying in this war while SS Legioner that also raped women, killed their own people (I'm not even talking about Jewish people) deserves it because it's new fasion to call him 'figher for free Latvia'?

I really think we shouldn't spit in the faces of those who already had it hard enough. And that we should suddenly feel disgusted and hateful for whole army that fighed against Hitler just because some of them didn't behave properly according to modern view on the things.

It's cool to be cool and fair and judge people that did it 'wrong' at some point. It's really cool. Just not exactly human.

Come here on the 9th of May one day. Just hurry, because most of them won't really wait for long. Come, find an old man sitting on the bench in his uniform all alone because his friends didn't make it there and never will anymore. Come and tell him that all his life was a big mistake, that in that war he was actually an cruel occupant, that all he came through was actually something no one needed. Estonians basicaly did this when removed that monument and they did it because some young nationalists didn't want to see it there. Neither those nationalists that vandalize monuments, nor a big % of authorities that run the country now have no idea what the war feels like, they weren't born early enough to be raped, killed or repressed by Stalin. They hate things written in a book and praise things written in the book and twist facts whatever way they want. It's not that hard to do, really. They didn't see what that regime in all its glory. That guy on the bench did.

I know this all can sound over-emotional and you may blame me for not accepting things that seem 'facts' for you. But those people are around me, you know. I can't really talk about it like it was a movie or something, like it happened somewhere else.
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Old 01-05-2007, 09:00   #71
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The speech of Estonian prime-minister was posted on the russian branch of this forum. Pity it's in Russian.

He's very sad about this whole sitiation...

He hadn't mentioned even a single possibility some of those people on the streets actually felt hurt. He called them vandals, maradeurs and hooligans. (And then he talks about tolerance, respect for each other's memories and cultures)

While over a million of good estonians stayed at home (then follows a long speach with thanking their mothers, fathers, school teachers etc for rasing such tolerant and calm children), some maradeurs went out and did their vandalizing thing. Behavior of people definitely tells a lot about how democratic the contry they come from is.
It was some cirtain dark power that was spreading untrue information and causing the trouble between nations.
(Yes sure, some western channels already showed the guy who had a small portrait of Putin with him. Of course it was those evil provocators that caused the trouble, Estonian authorities that removed the monument knowing half of their own population will feel absolutely shocked and offended, had nothing to do with it)

They respect the dead a lot, they respect the memories and culture of other nations. They had to move the monument to save it from drunk maradeurs. They basicaly had no choice because seeing how memories of dead soldiers are accociated with drunk maradeurs and are mentioned in same context on the news channels hurts their feelings. Dead should be respected (I thought 'maradeurs' came there because the monument was removed, not vice versa. There were over dozen of dead bodies next to that monument. Getting them out of the ground, removing the monument from the place lots of people used to attend and bring flowers to, calling them occupants is indeed the biggest sign of respect one could ever show).
________________________________________

No single mention of this monument being offensive for a part of their population. All was done only to take care of the monument and show respect to the dead.
Absolutely no responsibilty taken for 1 dead, hundreds of injured and arrested. Only evil powers of some known orgin to blame. They have absolutely nothing to do with it, they are shocked it happens.
Without saying it directly, he made it quite clear that all anti-democracy in Estonia comes from ethnic russians that are drunk maradeurs, vandals and hooligans, that whole thing was organized by russian authorities. And then he blames 'someone' for creating an atmosphere of hate and missunderstanding between 2 nations.
Long speech about how tolerant, democratic and economically well they are.

If this isn't one of the most hypocritical things I've ever heard, I don't know what it is.

And while he talks his bullshit, his own country is a mess and people get beaten and it will keep happening due to the perfect timing for this action they've chosen. Relationship between 2 countries will get much worse. Level of hate between people will raise drastically. And he knows for sure that whatever happens, western media and politics will blame everything on 'evil' Russia that keeps bullying small members of EU. For now most of european politics showed their support and only some Belgians pointed out that this monument was much less dangerous while it was where it was.
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Old 01-05-2007, 21:14   #72
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You've put them on one side of equalation in your suppressing alternative points remark without giving any differences. You kept using Russia instead of USSR when it came to occupation matters and modern threat to East European countries. It did give impression that even if you do see some differences, they aren't that strong. Sorry, if this impression I got was wrong but there was no single hint in you long post to make me think otherwise.
Under Yeltsin, I thought Russia really had changed. But Putin isn't a democrat, he's an authoritarian. There is a longer Russian tradition of imperialism going back to Peter the Great that Putin has plugged in to. The Bolsheviks created the USSR to maintain that Russian empire. Yeltsin let the other countries go, although he later helped breakaway states in Georgia and Moldova to undermine those newly independent countries. Under Putin, we've seen a more aggressive approach to the neighbours.

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I wasn't saying this to prove you that we can criticise Stalin. I was just saying that I'm not exactly brain-washed and I got a relatively healthy look on our past and present. And I was saying that I probably got a bit more information than you do, that this information includes views on this from USSR, democratinc Russia and the West at the same time, while you have only western look on things. You did have that tone of a person who talks like he knows for sure what he talks about and you've put lables on many things like you had right to.
So I must be brain washed? I don't have only the western perspective. I read RIA Novosti and other Russian news sources on Google News. I notice how the Russian state media's presentiation of events is so different from that of news sources from other countries around the world and Russia's Kommersant. Everyone's biased except the Russian state media?

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And you do know for sure that it was done by our current government or Putin personally? It could easily be a provocation. Putin's position is strong enough here not to do such things. Killing people became a traditional way to 'solve problems' here quite a while ago. In many ways this tradition began in Yeltsin's Russia. The chaos we had in attempt to build democracy was quite bad, criminality level got terribly high, most political and business issues were solved in a ways that were really far from democratic. The list of journalists killed in 90ies is way longer than what we had with Putin so far. It's sad that it's happening, I hope that one day we'll be civilized enough for this to stop. You don't build a new perfect country in less than 20 years starting with the mess we had. I'll wholeheartedly agree if you say that we are still far from being as civilized and democratic as some countries with a long history of democratic regime. But I won't agree with saying Russia got worse with Putin taking the presidents chair. I feel it being much better actually. Musch safier and more stable to live in.
I don't know who was behind the killing of Anna Politkovskaya. I doubt it was a provocation, though, because she was far more helpful to Putin's opponents alive than murdered. She was really listened to in the West.

Russia under Yeltsin was lawless and chaotic. Putin has brought more order, but used it as an excuse for authoritarianism. Order doesn't require authoritarianism.

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Those demonstrations were illegal, weren't they? As far as I remember, t.A.T.u. weren't allowed to gather all those girls in the center of London without asking for permission, they were also peaceful enough.
The demonstrators had a permit, but they had been forbidden to march anywhere. When people tried to leave that was interpreted as a violation and they, the bystanders and journalists were violently beaten and many were arrested. In London, there had been no permit request, but the girls, the bystanders and journalists weren't beaten or arrested.

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But you can't do whatever your want even in democratic country. Official permission allows authorities to send police there to make sure everything goes smooth. In Russia such things are especially dangerous. We are not yet happy enough as a nation and people get agressive quite a lot. I still remember the bashing of center of Moscow after that football match against Japan as well as remember terracts we had there. It's important to keep things in order.
The Yabloko supporters demonstrating weren't football fans or terrorists, they're very mild-mannered liberals. A lot of the people beaten were pensioners.

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We have elections comming, you know. And life always gets 'interesting' at such moments. I won't say Putin or current government are saint. But I wouldn't call those demonstrants victims either. Some of those guys get arrested few times a year for various provocations. I don't know who's right and who's wrong. All I know is those demonstrants needed a scandal much more than Putin did. Western media taking the side of anti-governmental demonstrants was rather predictable, so I personally wouldn't dramatize things too much here.
Sure, they demonstrate because they like getting beaten so much. Peacefully demonstrating is not a 'provocation' as you call it. It's a democratic right.

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I'm sorry if you got this impression and double sorry if you found it offensive. I didn't mean that and I never suspected you in support for Hitler. What I meant was that while many bad things happened in USSR, there were good things too. You sounded like you believe Soviet Union was a home for evil, you keep talking about occupants, Stalin, suppressed opinions in modern Russia and all other bad things and expect me to accept this your view. You we giving me advises, saying how scary it is that I don't understand things etc. But for me it's the country I was born in, where my parents and grandparents were born and grew up, it's an important part of our history and culture. I can't and don't want to shave all this away and it has nothing to do with me not understanding what's bad, it's just that I can apperciate something that's good. I just count on you respecting this my position.
I said that Stalin was extremely evil, but the Soviet system became much less evil after his death. I didn't say and don't think that the people of the USSR were evil or that everything about life in the USSR was bad. It was a place where a great deal of normal life took place, where you and your family lived. I understand all that, I was married to someone who grew up in Ceausescu's Romania. I understand how people can live normal lives and feel attached to their homeland even under dictatorship.

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The case with this estonian memorial is more complicated. Those soldiers didn't come there to conquire a free country. They were freeing it from nazis and that was a good thing to do. What happened next happened on some political level. Civil soviet people didn't even realize it was 'an occupation'. Estonians voted for parliment, parliment decided to join USSR, welcome 'brothers', let's build communism together. As I already said, Estonia was never treated as 'colony' and estonians were never slaves. They were a part of big country, USSR did use its resources to build infrastructure there. Generations of estonians themselves didn't see it as 'occupation'. Soviet propaganda was effective enough and they were born and grew up in a 'happy soviet brotherhood' with no one daring to tell them otherwise without risking to be shot or repressed. Those soldiers weren't 'occupants' in their heart during the war and weren't after it. Some of them died without ever seeing things this way.
But the Estonians didn't really vote any more than Russians did. Everybody knew the 'elections' were a sham. Tens of thousands of Estonians were sent to labour camps and many never returned. The Estonians did see it as occupation, not as 'happy soviet brotherhood'. The minds of the Balts weren't colonised by communism in the way that the minds of the people in other nations of the USSR were. That's why they made a speedy transition to the West afterwards and the other countries didn't.

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That was an occupation on some top political level. No doubts here. Soviet Regime commited serious crimes against humanity. No doubts here either. But this part of the history is complicated. Even after USSR collapsed, after painful realization of what kind of hell soviet regime was, we kept feeling that all those people are not really foreigners to us. And it's not because we thought we still 'own' them, I repeat. We never did 'own'. We grew up with the idea they were 'brother nations' to us. We got used to respect and support them and counting on them doing same back. Such things are very hard to erase from mentality. For example when watching some sport competion on TV, you support ex-USSR sportsmen like if they were 'urs', you don't really think about it, you just feel this way. Or if you meet someone from those countries in far foreign country, you feel happy to see them like if they were russian. And russians weren't alone in feeling this way for a while till this 'let's go west' idea governments of those countries began to push.
I've read a lot about the difficulty that Russians have had in coming to terms with the end of the USSR and the economic collapse that came with it. I understand why people are nostalgic for the past. I also understand how Russians identified with the USSR rather than as Russians and found it hard to discover everyone else had seen them as foreigners.

I understand it a lot better than you might think because my parents were English and I grew up in Scotland. Yes, I'm kind of like those Russians rioting in Tallinn. The United Kingdom is a little like the USSR. For hundreds of years the English have confused Englishness and Britishness. I grew up in Scotland as it was experiencing its national re-awakening before it got its parliament back. I understood the differences between being British, being English and being Scottish - and I felt all three. I could see why the Scots felt aggrieved at the English and shared their frustration at English bossiness. I also hated Scottish parochialism and being an outsider in the country of my birth. But politically I sympathised with the Scots and how they felt about the relationship with England. Since Scotland and Wales got devolution in 1999, the English have come to realise that being English and British are different. It's something I always understood.

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With all this current situation does make russians feel bit betrayed. This war meant a lot to us and it's very offensive to see how they remove the monuments for our dead and make it look like ones that fighed in Hitler's side were more of a heroes than ones that fighted against. It's hard to understand such things from where you are as you don't share our memories. But Estonians knew what they were doing pretty well.
It's the Estonians' country. You can't expect them to be grateful for being colonised. You were living in an illusion under the USSR and now reality bites.

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West takes anything that's ani-russian as a sign of liberation, West takes any our protest as an attempt to bully countries we once 'occupied'. Governments of these newly independent countries want to be a part of modern Europe, want to be supported by NATO and EU and they hurry to please the West often taking things to extreme. It's very hard to see the line between some things for both Russia and the West.
Those countries weren't 'occupied'. They were occupied. Pretending it didn't really happen doesn't fool anyone except you.

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That's not fully true. It's quite hard to say what's official and what's not. There were officials of the country present during the opening ceremony for the first one. Second one was installed with permission of authorities of the region. It's not the case when a small group of nationalists does it overnight. In this case I'd expect it removed next morning when people wake up and find out. It wouldn't need any 'pressure' from USA, EU and others. Don't forget that there are other monuments with Nazi symbolics (for example for Belgian and Netherlandian SS members). There were medals given out to the 'heroes of that another side'. There's quite some propaganda going on about this matter with new historics writing new view on old history. 2 countries that provided Hitler the strongest support in the region (Lithuania refused for example) in attempt to make the 'soviet' part of the history as dark as possible, look for another extreme. Someone had to fight for good in that war and who fighted soviets? You know know the answer. I don't say that Estonians or Latvians are Nazis or were Nazis during the war. It would be unfair. But their current authorities try really hard to please the West with being anti-soviet and anti-russian enough and in this attempt they take acceptance for fascism too far.
Pro-Nazi gestures certainly aren't an attempt to please the West. The thing the West still hates most is Nazism. I don’t believe that there should be statues celebrating the Nazis or the Soviets.

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Look at you only country. You never were pro-soviet, UK was always one of the strongest opponents of USSR in this cold war and public opinion does reflect it pretty well nowadays. You aren't exactly on the Russian side in curent silent Cold War either. You are anti-soviet in all ways possible. But could such things happen in your democratic country? Don't you really see the difference between being anti-soviet and pro-nazi?
It may surprise you to hear this, but the UK was anti-Nazi as well as anti-Soviet. We fought the Nazis when Stalin was carving up Poland with Hitler.

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That's a new 'excuse' actually. They came up with it after making decision to remove the monument. There were some troubles with this monument some time ago. A group of nationalists organized a loud event there demanding for the monument to be removed from the square. And later at night the monument was vandalized. Authorities had to bring police forces in there not to allow similar events to happen again. And then they decide to do exactly what those nationalists demanded.. This monument was there for years and there are people burried not far from that place. Now would you like if someone took a grave stone from your granddad's grave and moved it to another cemetry?
I've read in Kommersant that the identities of the people buried aren't known and that they didn't even know how many bodies are buried in Freedom Square.

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We don't know for sure why they allowed Stalin to 'occupy' Eastern Europe. Your theory is just a theory. But they could stop him and Hitler much earlier and prevent WWII. There were quite ugly moments in WWI as well. It's not about moral responsibility. I'm just saying no one was saint and it's not fair to say otherwise.
Stalin didn't 'occupy' eastern Europe. He occupied it.

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I don't say we were close because of this 'influence'. I say I do know this 'influence' did take place and it would be unfair of me to claim otherwise.
And no, I wasn't mentioning intervention after WWI. I meant something that happened much earlier in czarist Russia. We have a long and intense history together since the time we were 'Kievskaya Rus' and 'Rech Pospolitaya'. There were a lot of attacks from both sides and I see no point in trying to remember who was worse. It shouldn't justify hate in the modern world.
Poland spent 191 years of the last 235 years under Russian or Soviet occupation and you think that there's no point remembering that? You really did make me laugh! Russians certainly need to remember that and not pretend innocence.

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All this is not something those countries need military shields against. Russia has enough of independence to deal with things inside of the country without intervention but it can't and has no intention to attack or even threat with attack any of these countries.
Russia isn't doing it directly. They instead support breakaway armies in Georgia and Moldova.

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Case with Lithuania is just a routine of the war for the oil market. We don't attack them, we don't rob them off anything. We just stop selling them something we aren't obliged to sell at all. Dirty? Yeah for sure. But these are games not only Russia plays.
You don’t have to attack a country militarily to bully it.

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Other 2 cases are not as simple as you make them sound. It's not like we just came up with the idea 'lets show Gergia who's the boss' and started bullying them. There are quite serious troubles there and new Georgian government knows what to do and who's help to count on. Don't make them look all poor and unprotected. In this situation they definitely aren't or they wouldn't take actions they take.
There are quite serious troubles in Georgia because Russia has been supporting armed groups there. Georgia is poor and unprotected. Russia’s embargo is making life hard for the Georgians. Russia’s military support for Transdnestria is destabilising and impoverishing Moldova.

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And? You don't have politics that say stupid things from time to time? There's no official economical blockade on Estonia. Even if there was, it would be our right not to do business with the country we don't want to be dealing with. It has nothing to do with military threats once again.
Threatening to cripple Estonia’s economy, as the chairman of the Duma foreign relations committee did, is a bullying threat.

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What those countries need is not american bases to protect them from Russian military forces. They need stable economics not to feel economically dependant on us. It's wierd to constantly do things to annoy us and at the same time expect 'special treatment'.
It's not asking for special treatment to want Russia to stop backing rebel armies and stop imposing economic blockades on them whenever they do anything Russia dislikes.
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Old 02-05-2007, 01:38   #73
Eku1 Eku1 is offline
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Oh God, I couldn't read everything about Estonian case you have written here, but what I read, especially written by la aurora as Russians point of view, there needs to be lot of explainations and discussing. I'm just too tired to do it for now, but I'll do that soon.
Btw. I'm an Estonian myself.

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Old 02-05-2007, 10:34   #74
simon simon is offline
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Absolutely no responsibilty taken for 1 dead, hundreds of injured and arrested. Only evil powers of some known orgin to blame. They have absolutely nothing to do with it, they are shocked it happens.
The person who died was stabbed by a rioter. It's reasonable to stop and arrest rioters. A riot is not a peaceful demonstration.

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And while he talks his bullshit, his own country is a mess and people get beaten and it will keep happening due to the perfect timing for this action they've chosen. Relationship between 2 countries will get much worse. Level of hate between people will raise drastically.
The video clip is has the title 'eSStonia'. It shows police non-violently arresting people. It, rather than the Estonian prime minister, is inflaming the situation and creating hate.

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And he knows for sure that whatever happens, western media and politics will blame everything on 'evil' Russia that keeps bullying small members of EU.
For now most of european politics showed their support and only some Belgians pointed out that this monument was much less dangerous while it was where it was.
I know, everyone in Europe is wrong except poor little Russia.
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Old 03-05-2007, 15:19   #75
tanrah tanrah is offline
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I know, everyone in Europe is wrong except poor little Russia.
Today JSC "Russian railways" has interrupted suppling Estonia with oil by technical reasons - of course. I suppose this argument will be undersandable for estonian nazi.

It is absolutely clear that your NATO countries respect only power and violence. Be calm - all your protests againest "russian imperialism" will be ignored by European goverments. Agreement with Gasprom and Transneft is more important.))))))

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Poland spent 191 years of the last 235 years under Russian or Soviet occupation and you think that there's no point remembering that?
Do you understand the term "occupation"? Poland was an independent state - UNO member and Warshaw pakt member. Following your conclusions I can consider UK as occupied country - becouse last one is a NATO and EU member. And your "independent" goverment allows US to have airfields and bases in Kingdom.

Being UK citizen I would be confused to speak about "occupation" and colonialism - since hands of your militants covered with blood of many nations in Asia and Africa.

And the last one. 3 weeks ago Lord-mayor John Stattard visited Saint-Petersburg. At press conference he had declared that about 60% of super-expensive (more than USD 5 mln for 1 building) real estate in City of London belongs to russins. What's about occupation?
~~~~~~~~~~~
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Old 03-05-2007, 17:38   #76
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NATO rebukes Russia over Estonia statue dispute

NATO has stepped into the dispute between Russia and Estonia over a Soviet-era statue, asking that Moscow put a stop to the violence outside the Estonian embassy in the Russian capital.

In a statement issued on Thursday (3 May), the organisation said it was "deeply concerned by threats to the physical safety of Estonian diplomatic staff, including the ambassador, in Moscow, as well as intimidation at the Estonian embassy."

"These actions are unacceptable and must be stopped immediately; tensions over the Soviet war memorial and graves in Estonia must be resolved diplomatically between the two countries," it continued.

The NATO comment comes amid escalating tension between Moscow and Tallinn concerning Estonia's decision to move a bronze statue of a soldier erected by the then Soviet authorities in 1947.

The Bronze Soldier is seen by many Russians as a testament to the Soviet Union's painful contribution to the World War II effort, but it is regarded by most Estonians as a symbol of 20th century Soviet oppression.

The authorities shifted the statue from the centre of Tallinn to a military cemetery last week, sparking riots in the Estonian capital - around one quarter of Estonia's 1.3 million population is ethnically Russian. The "siege" of Estonia's embassy in Moscow began around the same time.

Vienna Convention
The EU has also called on Russia to put a halt to the violence in Moscow, taking the unusually quick step of issuing a formal request for Russia to fall in line with the UN's so-called Vienna Convention on diplomatic protection.

But Russia denies it is in the wrong, saying instead that Estonia's "provocative" actions have led to the dispute between the two countries.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that moving the statue has "led to seriously negative consequences for Russian-Estonian relations," according to the BBC.

The Russian foreign ministry also spoke with the Moscow ambassadors of the European Commission, Germany and Portugal (the current and next EU presidencies, respectively) on Wednesday night, Reuters reports.

Russian officials expressed "deep bewilderment" at the meeting about what they called the "lack of a principled assessment by the European Union of the actions of the Tallinn government."

Energy dimension to political row
In the meantime, Moscow has also halted rail supplies of oil to the small Baltic state.

Although it has denied the oil move is politically-motivated, the action is likely to once more raise EU fears about Russia's willingness to use its vast oil and gas resources as political weapons.

The same fears were sparked last year when Moscow cut off gas supplies to Ukraine and again this year, when it stopped gas supplies to Belarus.

The two incidents prompted a major rethink of EU energy policy, a key aim of which has now become to reduce EU dependency on Russian oil and gas in future.

The Russia-Estonia dispute is also taking place within the wider context of Moscow's unhappiness over NATO's recent expansion to include several countries - Estonia among them - that were previously within the Soviet sphere of influence.

EU Observer
~~~~~~~~~~~
Patrick | TatySite.net t.E.A.m. [ shortdickman@free.fr ]
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Old 04-05-2007, 00:43   #77
simon simon is offline
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Today JSC "Russian railways" has interrupted suppling Estonia with oil by technical reasons - of course. I suppose this argument will be undersandable for estonian nazi.

It is absolutely clear that your NATO countries respect only power and violence. Be calm - all your protests againest "russian imperialism" will be ignored by European goverments. Agreement with Gasprom and Transneft is more important.))))))
It seems from the latest news that NATO isn't as cynical as you are.

Quote:
Do you understand the term "occupation"? Poland was an independent state - UNO member and Warshaw pakt member. Following your conclusions I can consider UK as occupied country - becouse last one is a NATO and EU member. And your "independent" goverment allows US to have airfields and bases in Kingdom.
Is this a joke? Poland was a member of the Warsaw Pact because its government was imposed on it by Soviet troops. As soon as the Soviet Union allowed Poland to have free elections they elected a government that left the Warsaw Pact and asked for Soviet forces to leave. Poland then freely decided to apply to join NATO and the EU. All the other countries that the USSR had occupied at the end of WW II made the same decisions as soon as the Soviet Union allowed them to choose their own governments. Freely elected governments in the UK and other countries decided invite the US to have bases to defend us from the Soviet Union and to join NATO and the EU. Nobody forced us to do those things. The Warsaw Pact was to NATO as rape is to consensual sex.
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Old 04-05-2007, 05:14   #78
la aurora la aurora is offline
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simon,

there's of course some truth in what you are saying but at the same time you ignore quite a lot of very important facts and factors and you tend to idealize EU, NATO, USA and Allies army back in years. It's much more complicated than that and there was always quite a lot of hypocricy shown from all sides, including current situation.

NATO reacted only when they got an excuse of Russia breaking the agreements of Vienna Convention. It's a safe playing. They've picked up on something obvious and stayed silient when it comes to other things.

But where were they when Russian authorities sent official requests to investigate situations in Estonia, Latvia and some other East-European countries? International community decided to ignore them completely.

And don't expect NATO and USA in particular to make decisions on honorable issues alone. Give it some time, all 3 sides will get tired of playing 'democracy' and 'patriotism' and will concentrate on something that's more important for them. West won't openly confront Russia for poor little Estonia, they'll find financial interests and political stability more important. Estonia will come back to senses too when they see that EU is not going to sponsor them and they'll find themselves in serious trouble as economically they depend on Russia a lot (Russian market for their goods and huge money they get from transits through Estonia by Russian companies). Russia won't be too mad for too long either. We can afford acting offended for a bit but in the end we have some established business ways that go through Estonia and looking for new ones takes time and money.

Anyway, I'm planning to post some essay on issues regarding our government, situation is the region and military issues with our neighbours. May be it will give you a better idea on some things as I can see you aren't informed well enough concerning some issues.
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Old 04-05-2007, 09:24   #79
tanrah tanrah is offline
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Is this a joke?
You are victim of govermental propaganda. We lived in USSR with strong state ideology - so we have critcal point of view - we used not to beieve in any official news and we are are ready to hear your opinion. I don't want to confrontate with you this forum.
So I have a right to consider you and your owner (US) as an enemy and you have the same right. But take in account that 90s years finished and Russia as an enemy is not the best situation for you...

Quote:
The Warsaw Pact was to NATO as rape is to consensual sex.
Bullshit... WP and NATO are the military alliances. Or your statments based on grandpa's magazines...
Your mind is heavy armoured againest any other viewpoint - you look like official from Communist party propaganda department.

Quote:
NATO isn't as cynical as you are.
Just business - nothing personal)) This idiom was born in your world. I believe in Gasprom and Rurgaz management experience.
~~~~~~~~~~~
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Last edited by tanrah; 04-05-2007 at 12:11.
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Old 04-05-2007, 12:32   #80
simon simon is offline
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Originally Posted by tanrah View Post
You are victim of govermental propaganda. We lived in USSR with strong state ideology - so we have critcal point of view - we used not to beieve in any official news and we are are ready to hear your opinion. I don't want to confrontate with you this forum.
So I have a right to consider you and your owner (US) as an enemy and you have the same right. But take in account that 90s years finished and Russia as an enemy is not the best situation for you...

Bullshit... WP and NATO are the military alliances. Or your statments based on grandpa's magazines...
Your mind is heavy armoured againest any other viewpoint - you look like official from Communist party propaganda department.
I point out that Poland was forced to join the Warsaw Pact and freely decided to join NATO. You respond that I'm repeating government propaganda like a Communist official! The inconsistency and hypocrisy in your position is laughable.
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