The Brave Little Deer is a Russian animation made around
1945 by directors Olga Khodataeva and Leonid Aristov. The story takes
place in the winter season at the Cold Sea where all the animals migrate down
to a warmer climate. The animation introduces the herd of deers and their
leader Тургун. The group of
deers must journey to the other side of the mountain where greenery grows. In
the herd, there is one female deer called Тенгене, her fawn Аукно
and an older grumpy female deer that sees Аукно as a scared and timid fawn who tries to put on a brave face
for his mother. Then, the group is being followed by a pack of wolves that are
sniffing down the deers track. When the leader Тургун sends the group off first into the mountain, he acts as a
diversion and runs towards the wolves. The wolves then try attacking. Тургун knew the wolves were
stronger in packs so he ran towards a cliff and jumped on the other side. The
wolves could not jump from a far distances and plumped it to their doom. Soon,
the group continued on their journey to the mountain. But what they did not
know was that one of the wolves survived the fall. Though the wolf was injured,
the wolf continued the search for the deers. While the deers had to jump over a
small cliff to get where they need to, Аукно stopped dead in his track—for he was scared of the height. The
older female deer then told Аукно
that he has a heart of a hare but his mother Тенгене encourages and helps him to keep trying his best. Unfortunately
due to the snow storm, Аукно
and Тенгене were separated by
the group. When daylight came out, Тенгене
and Аукно were trying to find
the group, they encountered the wolf. They barely managed to escape the wolf
for a brief while but soon, they faced another problem when Тенгене fell into the river which was
covered by ice. She tried getting back on the ice but kept breaking. Аукно tried helping his mother but
she had told him to go find Тургун
and the other deers. So, Аукно
ran as fast as he can and found the group and Тургун. When told Тургунthat his mother was in trouble and looked yonder the landscape,
Аукно saw the wolf
approaching his mother. So Аукно
ran and with courage, he ran towards the wolf and acted as the diversion. With
that, Тургун and the other
deers were able to save Тенгене,
and in turn the whole deer group pushed the wolf down to the river where it
drowned. Тургун then told Аукно that he had a brave heart and
especially the old grumpy female deer then recognized Аукно’s horns and said he was a brave fawn.
This story in some way is similar to the Disney animation
Bambi however, the difference was that the fawn was able to save his mother from
death. Giving the animation a happy ending and showing that anyone can be brave
if they put their efforts into it.
Or known to Americans as Borscht,
is a chief dish in Russia. Borscht is essentially Russian beet soup, composed of
several different ingredients and mainly beets. As with any dish there are many
variations in how to prepare and cook it but I found one online that seems to
be pretty simple. To prepare borscht you first need to prepare the broth. You
can either buy store bought beef broth and add vegetables to it or make your own
beef and vegetable broth- which is very simple. The actual soup part that makes
this dish known as borsch is what will be explained.
So, once the broth is simmering
hot, you can then add finely chopped potatoes. It is important to make sure you
add the potatoes first! After this, and off to the side begin to caramelize
some onions and chop and cook the beets. Both the onions and beets are cooked
in the same pan. After the beets have cooked for several minutes you then add
the tomato paste to them and mix it thoroughly along with chopped carrots. You
continue to let this mixture cook in a pan. After the beets have been cooked
for about 15 more minutes, the contents from the pan can be added to the broth!
In addition at this time you can add parsley root, celery, peppercorns, bay
leaves, soup seasoning, and salt. After 15 more minutes of cooking you can then
add the cubed tomato, peas, and dill. 10 minutes later, the soup will be done
cooking! After it has cooled a bit you can then serve it with sour cream on
top- yummy!
The
second largest city in Russia, St. Petersburg is the country’s
cultural heart. View splendid architectural gems like the Winter
Palace and the Kazan Cathedral, and give yourself plenty of time to
browse the world-renowned art collection of the Hermitage. Sprawling
across the Neva River delta, St. Petersburg offers enough art,
nightlife, fine dining and cultural destinations for many repeat
visits. Some people call it the Venice of the East.
Carl
von Clausewitz, an early 19th
century Prussian general, once said that war is an extension of
politics.1
In the modern era, the line between the two has been inexplicably
blurred. The internet age has brought with it new and changed forms
of warfare; in particular, information warfare is of new importance.
Information warfare (IW) is a blanket term that can include different
methods ranging from cyber-attacks against internet infrastructure,
to espionage of poorly guarded sensitive material, to spreading a
certain view through the media. It may also be known as information
or psychological operations.2
For the purposes of this paper, IW explicitly refers to the
propaganda element. No longer are the generals of information warfare
solely censoring productions and jamming radio signals from abroad to
attempt to control the image that their populace receives. The
propaganda of revolutionary foreign policy has evolved. Russia openly
views information warfare as a critical component of soft power, and
has underlined the importance of using the media as a tool of “soft
propaganda” for controlling the information environment; its most
recent and seemingly innocuous weapon is its state-owned
international news outlet, RT – formerly known as Russia Today. To
understand this new use of media as a weapon, the theory behind RT
must be examined, along with the outlet's status, its content and
critique, along with the rebuttal of its defenders.
Russian
Professor Aleksandr Selivanov, writing in Voyenno-Promyshlennyy
Kuryer, states that the purpose of IW is “to form a stratum of
people with transformed values in society who actually become
carriers of a different culture and of the tasks and goals of other
states on the territory of one’s own country.” He further states
that territory can even be seized through the use of IW by
“‘nontraditional occupation’ as the possibility of controlling
territory and making use of its resources without the victor’s
physical presence on the territory of the vanquished.”3
According to Timothy Thomas, an analyst whose works are published by
the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College, Russia's
strategy is using IW as a replacement for the loss of ideology.4
Whereas rudimentary IW was a tactic of revolutionary foreign policy
in the Soviet past, it is now an entity unto itself – applicable at
both foreign and domestic fronts. Russia portrays its IW practices as
a method of self-defense.5
There are two fronts of IW – domestic and foreign. On the domestic
front, there is a fear of foreign agents. Professor Igor Panarin –
a Russian political scientist analyst regularly cited by Russian
media for his expertise in IW – accuses the West, particularly
through military intelligence operations, of installing
anti-government agents in the more liberal media such as Novaya
Gazeta and Radio Echo, forcing the Russian government's hand in
creating state-run media.6
Despite the conspiracy-theory level of Panarin's claims, the idea
that the West is playing information warfare is taken seriously by
the Russian media. Defenders of Russia's IW practices regularly quote
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who said,
"We are in an
information war and we are losing that war. Al Jazeera is winning,
the Chinese have opened a global multi-language television network,
the Russians have opened up an English-language network. I’ve seen
it in a few countries, and it is quite instructive.7"
Walter
Isaacson, Chairman of the U.S. Government's Broadcasting Board of
Governors – which runs state-owned outlets including Voice of
America, requested higher funding because “We can't allow ourselves
to be out-communicated by our enemies.” He explicitly mentioned
channels such as RT.8
This motif of self-defensive soft power has continued. According to
RT, the modern information war was started by the United States.
Unlike many other international media outlets, RT's coverage is not
merely limited to its home nation and the near-abroad. In fact, RT
has had a shift from covering mostly Russian news to covering western
news with a Russian perspective, or hiring “alternative media”.
When interviewed by The New York Times, Aleksei Makarkin, an analyst
at the Institute of Political Technology, stated that “The
Americans have a view of Russia and they show it to us. Russians have
a point of view about America, too, and we want to show it to you.”9
RT
is certainly capable. RT now rivals Al Jazeera in Britain as the most
popular foreign English news channel.1011
Pew Research shows that RT is the top source for news videos on
YouTube.12
American viewers doubled in 2012 from 2011; in some regions of the
US, such as New York, viewership nearly tripled, and Nielsen Media
Research surveys indicate that audiences tend to prefer watching RT
as compared to other international news channels. 13
There is evidence of a continued push for utilizing state-owned media
as part of the information war. RT's funding has generally increased
every year. In US dollars, RT's budget has gone from 80 million in
2007, 120 million in 2008, 380 million in 2011, to 300 million in
2012 – a slight decrease.14
Recently, President Putin refused to allow Russia's Finance Ministry
to slash funding for state-run media, notably including “Rossikyskaya
Gazeta” and RT; simultaneously, funding for non state-run news
organizations such as ITAR-TASS was drastically cut – ITAR-TASS
alone had its funding cut by nearly 40%.15
Furthermore, RT is no longer a single channel, as it has been
expanded to Spanish and Arabic broadcasts, bringing RT to three
global channels.16
RT's performance has been chalked up to a combination of its young
staff, its provocative image, and its “alternative” take. Heidi
Brown, writing for Forbes, states that RT uses sex appeal of
attractive, young anchors as a method of the Kremlin “using
charm... to appeal to a diverse and skeptical audience.” 17
As
aforementioned, RT's coverage is self-admittedly aimed at giving a
“Russian perspective” of events in the West – or, more
accurately, RT has a hard agenda of representing the state view in a
positive light. There are two sorts of coverage that RT provides,
much like other cable media outlets: talk shows, and regular news.
Talk shows featured on RT are of particular interest, as RT has shown
willingness to be the soapbox for dissident voices in the West –
not merely Russian critics. Anti-war Marine veteran, libertarian
activist, and self-proclaimed anarchist Adam Kokesh was featured in a
show entitled “Adam versus the Man” on the English RT, regularly
criticizing the US government.18
His show also interviewed anarchist philosopher Stefan Molyneux, a
Canadian and host of the popular, online, anti-government podcast
Freedomain Radio.19
Adam Kokesh and others also regularly interviewed Alex Jones, founder
of InfoWars.com, an online platform for anti-government conspiracy
theories. 20
Recently, Julian Assange, founder of the Wikileaks organization was
even given a show, although Assange openly stated that he believed
that would not have been the case had Russian documents been part of
Wikileaks.21
RT's regular operations, from advertisement to news, have also come
under fire as an example of being propaganda, right down to its
slogan of “Question more.” RT correpsondant William Dunbar
resigned in protest, claiming that RT was intentionally censoring the
Georgian side of events in their coverage of the 2008 South Ossetian
War.22
RT placed ads superimposing US President Barack Obama and Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's face together with the question of
“Who poses the greater nuclear threat?” in Britain, and these ads
were quickly banned in American airports.23
The Southern Poverty Law Center criticized RT as pushing conspiracy
theories and white supremacy in its 2010 intelligence report by Sonia
Scherr, which also accuses the channel of making the United States
“look bad,” and that it gives the false impression that many of
these individuals are taken seriously in mainstream political
discourse.24
Cliff Kincaid of the conservative media-watchdog group Accuracy in
Media called Kokesh a “Russian agent of influence and a member of
the Moscow-funded 'resistance' to the U.S. Government on American
soil...KGB TV,” and he cites former KGB agent Preobrazhensky's
conspiracy theory that RT is nothing more than “propaganda...
managed by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service.” Kincaid goes
further, blasting those who appear on the program as “playing into
Moscow's hands.” Preobazhensky further states that RT is “a part
of the Russian industry of misinformation and manipulation.” 25
It
would be a mistake to label RT as simply old-school propaganda.
According to James Painter, writing for the Reuters Institute for the
Study of Journalism at Oxford University, RT and other channels like
it represent a new wave of “soft-propaganda” but the staffers
within instead view themselves “counter-hegemonic” media. While
there is a bias, Painter says, Western media is hardly free of such a
bias, even in corporate media such as FOX News. Painter goes on to
say,
If there is evidence
of a soft or hard agenda in a station’s coverage, it can of course
be debated if this is a result of a conscious agenda, or rather as a
product of an unconscious ‘attitudinal’ set of values... [this
can be] seen as another example of a more general trend observed in
different parts of the world, namely the growing phenomenon of ‘news
with views’. The abundance of new 24x7 channels and news web sites
makes it more possible to choose a source of information which
confirms a news consumer’s particular point of view. Fox News is
the classic example of this, but there are plenty of others. 26
Glenn
Greenwald, writing for Salon.com, shot back at critics of RT by
answering criticism with criticism.
Let’s examine the
unstated premises at work here. There is apparently a rule that says
it’s perfectly OK for a journalist to work for a media outlet owned
and controlled by a weapons manufacturer (GE/NBC/MSNBC), or by the
U.S. and British governments (BBC/Stars & Stripes/Voice of
America), or by Rupert Murdoch and Saudi Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal
(Wall St. Journal/Fox News), or by a banking corporation with
long-standing ties to right-wing governments (Politico), or by
for-profit corporations whose profits depend upon staying in the good
graces of the U.S. government (Kaplan/The Washington Post), or by
loyalists to one of the two major political parties (National
Review/TPM/countless others), but it’s an intrinsic violation of
journalistic integrity to work for a media outlet owned by the
Russian government. Where did that rule come from?
Greenwald
further argues is that there is a hypocritical view of RT by those in
the West, for doing – what he argues – the West does in Russia.
Josh Kucera, a journalist specializing in Russian affairs, states
that “RT covers the US like US media covers Russia – emphasizing
decline, interviewing marginal dissidents.”27
RT itself has come out in self-defense, stating that while they are
state-funded, they are editorially independent. The media outlet
further goes on to say that it readily embraces its role in in what
it claims is an information war declared by the US.28
The editor in chief of RT adds, in response to criticism over
supposedly negative reporting on America, that they are merely
applying the same standards Western reporters use in covering
Russia.29
Adam Kokesh stated in much plainer language, revealing his reasoning
behind dissident use of the network as a soapbox,
Truth is the best
propaganda. I love it! I really love the concept of that. It's funny:
People say we're hiding shit as a network. No, no—we put the fact
that this is propaganda right out front. We're putting out the truth
that no one else wants to say. I mean, if you want to put it in the
worst possible abstract, it's the Russian government, which is a
competing protection racket against the other governments of the
world, going against the United States and calling them on their
bullshit.30
It
is obvious that RT has a bias, if not indirect control by the
Kremlin. What RT is not, however, is “Pravda 2.0.” No permeating
ideology is attached to RT, and it has been used as a platform for
adversarial journalism – the only string attached is that the
information is anti-hegemonic, typically painting Russia's rival
states in a very negative light. The Kremlin obviously finds RT
useful, having tended to increase funding almost every fiscal year,
but the individuals attached to RT are anything but “useful idiots”
as displayed by Kokesh's frank statement on his lack of love for the
Russian government. Nevertheless, state-run media will continue to be
an important part of soft power and revolutionary diplomacy. There
is, and has been for some time, a raging war for the hearts and minds
of citizens. The use of the media as part of information warfare is
not unique to Russia – Russia did not start it, but Russia has
certainly been more apt about it. RT has been confronted with
relatively few incidents of outright misreporting, no more than
average. The critics themselves of RT have often been ideologically
biased; Kincaid even attempted to make the case that RT was “extreme
left propaganda” due to their interviewing of Americans on the far
left, despite the fact that the Kremlin as of today is anything but
liberal. RT is more than just a vanity project, and RT is not merely
a tool of the Kremlin, but neither is it purely objective. Then again
– there may not be such a thing. One may state that all media is
propaganda – RT does not claim otherwise.
18 Cliff
Kincaid. “KGB TV to Air Show Hosted by Anti-War Marine Vet.”
Accuracy in Media. 5 Apr. 2011.
19 Adam
Vs The Man: Episode 1. Produced by RT. Hosted by YouTube.
20 “Alex
Jones on RT's Adam vs the Man.” InfoWars.com
21 Jerome
Taylor. “Hello, Good Evening and Welcome to My Country House
Prison: Assange Makes His Talk Show Debut.” The Independent. 18
Apr. 2012. Gale:
Questia.
22 William
Dunbar. “They Forced Me Out For Telling the Truth About Georgia.”
The Independent. 20 Sep. 2010.
23 Ian
Burrell. “From Russia With News.” The Independent. 15 Jan. 2010.
24 Sonia
Scherr. “Russian TV Channel Pushes 'Patriot' Conspiracy Theories.”
Southern Poverty Law Center. 2010.
25 Cliff
Kincaid. “KGB TV to Air Show Hosted by Anti-War Marine Vet.” 5
Apr. 2011.
26 James
Painter. “The Boom In Counter-Hegemonic News Channels: a Case
Study of TeleSUR. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at
Oxford University. 2006.
27 Glenn
Greenwald. “Attacks on RT and Assange Reveal Much About the
Critics.” 18 Apr. 2012.
Located in Pushkin Square, the Cafe Pushkin is very well known for its unique architecture and cuisines. The cafe has been there since 1999 of June 4th. The cafe was open and made by Andrey Dellos who knew a famous French chasonier name Gilbert Becaund. The chasonier sang a song dedicated to his Russian interpreter Natalie and it was based on his journey with Natalie in Pushkin square and a fantasize Cafe Pushkin. Although much of its history is not detailed, the cafe does consists of 3 main halls on 3 levels and the interior decor revives the wonderful atmosphere of the early 20th century. The first level: the "Drugstore" room reminds of an old drugstore of the 19th century with such attributes as volumetric flasks, measuring glasses and pharmaceutical scales. The second level: the "Library" room with telescopes and terrestrial globes, bookshelves and ancient woodcuts. The third level: "Entresol" which is the balcony of the "Library" room. The cafe have both French and European cuisines such as beet soup, Russian dumplings and much more. This cafe is well known and recommended from the locals living in Moscow to the TIMES magazine. If I ever travel to Russia and stop by Moscow, I will enjoy the cuisine and especially their desserts such as honey cake and strawberry with ice cream which has a caramel dome.
Dmitri Mendeleev was a Russian chemist who is best known for
his organization of the periodic table in 1869.He organized the elements according to their atomic mass and left spots
open for future elements. He did not only predict that there were missing
elements but also their properties. His theory of missing elements was not
widely accepted until they were discovered and his theory was proven correct. As
creator of the modern periodic table, Mendeleev has an element named after him
element 101 or Mendelevium. He was born in Tobolsk, Siberia in 1834. His father
was a headmaster of the local secondary grammar school and his mother owned a
glass making factory. In his teenage years tragedies struck the family, his
father became blind then passed away and the family factory burned down. He
studied in St. Petersburg at the university where his father had attended.
The Dima Yakovlev Law was enacted in Russia, and defines sanctions against U.S. citizens involved in violations of the human rights and freedoms of Russian citizens. It creates a list of citizens who are banned from entering Russia, and also allows the government to freeze their assets and investments. The law also bans US citizens from adopting Russian children.
The name come from that of a Russian toddler who was adopted by Miles Harrison of Virginia.
In July 2008, less than three months after he arrived in America, Dima died while he was strapped into his adoptive father's car. Shockingly, he was left inside for nine hours.
The case became national news, and now Russians are focused on highlighting other abuse cases involving adopted children. The law was signed by President Vladimir Putin on 28 December 2012 and took effect on 1 January 2013.
Another recent example is the death of three-year old Max Shatto. He was found unresponsive outside his parents' Texas home. Bruises found on Max's body appear to have been the result of accidental injuries, resulting in the inability to press charges. However, Russians are not convinced, and the debate over foreign adoption will continue.
Vladimir Putin
was born in the former USSR in 1952 and became the president of
Russia (1999-2008 and again in 2012). Before being elected to become
the president, he was with KGB and also 6 years in Dresden, E.Ger. He
became the protector of Leningrad State University in 1990 after
resigning from KGB. It was then that he also rose to become the first
deputy mayor of the city. Pavel Borodin who was the chief
administrator of Kremlin in the year 1994 accepted Putin to be his
deputy and join the presidential staff.
The then
President of Russia Boris Yeltsin, made Putin the director of the
Federal Security Service in the year 1998. Putin was initially not
accepted as a minister, though Yeltsin appointed him as one, because
many observers thought that he appeared to have a bland personality
and also that he was inexperienced in political issues. But this was
not for long because Putin increased his appeal among everyone by his
role in the war with Chechnya, and soon his fame was all over the
place and he had more than 50 percent ratings.
Putin’s Unity
party participated in the 450 seat Duma elections and was a close
second after the Communists. In the year 1999 Yeltsin announced his
resignation from the presidential post and thus naturally made Putin
to be the acting president till the elections which was only a couple
of months after, thus the other parties did not have any time to
prepare for it. Putin therefore became the president with the
popularity that he had from the Chechnya war. Some say that it was a
craftily calculated move from Yeltsin to pass over his post to his
ever loyal successor Putin.
To back up
these allegations, immediately after Putin became president, Yeltsin
was offered immunity from any form of criminal investigations and he
and his entire family was granted with continued facilities. Soon
after Putin took on the presidential post other nations tried to get
some ink on him, but since he was a spy in the KGB before this, it
was not very easy to get him on paper. His first term had regular
terrorist attacks from Chechen terrorists. He also had to assert
control centrally over the 89 regions of Russia.
Putin is a
person who is known to be a very silent person who does not show much
expression and generally keeps his life apart from politics to be
very personal. He won the presidential election for a second time in
the year 2004 and was later succeeded by Dmitri Medvedev in the year
2008. In 2012 Putin was reelected as president.
