Corruption in Russia

In Russia, corruption is considered in much the same way as the climate: something that makes life harder and causes constant grumbling, but is an unchangeable part of the fabric of life.

Revealed: t

“Of course all politicians are corrupt, we’ll never be able to do anything about it,” says Nadezdha, a 47-year-old housewife in the town of Kimry, about 100 miles from Moscow. She had not heard of the allegations in the Panama Papers, which suggested members of Vladimir Putin’s family, and those close to him, had benefited from dubious cash flows. Instead, she insists the Russian president is part of the solution, not the problem.

“Poor Putin is trying to fight these bloodsucking bureaucrats, but he can’t clean up everything on his own.”

Save for limited online discussion among the politically active classes – one video compares the $2bn (£1.4bn) that passed through a company controlled by Putin’s friend, the cellist Sergei Roldugin, to state spending on healthcare, roads and pensions – for the most part the leaks have passed by with little fanfare. The allegations, published in Russia by the small independent paper Novaya Gazeta, were dismissed by Putin, and state TV, as a western plot.

The above is an excerpt from an article discussing corruption in Russian. This woman believes that Putin is not a part of the problem, but instead a way of solving this massive "corruption" present in their nation. 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/13/vladimi-putin-russia-unmoved-by-offshore-revelations

Here is the full article discussing this, I also wanted to do a blog post on these photos from the 20th century Russia, fully colored now, which are really fascinating and have wonderful captions.

http://imgur.com/a/cxMZT#0

Whats up with the whole gay thing?

So I went on Reddit and this was the response to the top post ever on /r/russia with the prompt of "Whats up with the whole gay thing?" I honestly found the response fascinating, please find the entire post linked at the bottom of this blog post if any of the people who actually read these would like to read more. 

What you have to understand is that Russia is a very conservative country that never got around to a proper, linear sexual revolution with more things gradually becoming more acceptable. There also weren't any "waves" of feminism, as women were granted all rights and responsibilities right after the revolution and there wasn't the sort of gradual acceptance like there was in the West. Those things are related. Homosexuality was only decriminalized very recently, and taken off the list of mental illnesses very begrudgingly without much public debate around the issue. When the Soviet Union started falling apart, pretty much everything was instantly allowed, porn, prostitution, all at once were out in the open like a shock wave, so the sexuality of a typical Russian is a really weird thing.

You're expected to get married and have kids, the younger the better. There is a lot more involvement of your parents and grandparents in a traditional Russian family, many people even live with their parents after getting married and having kids, because realty is very expensive. At the same time, there is a sort of neurotic sexuality everywhere. Russians are very promiscuous. Infidelity is excepted, divorce is almost guaranteed. Sex is supposed to be that thing men do to women, too, which is a remnant of the former, more conservative times. Sex is somehow both a taboo humiliating act done to another person and a normal thing. You're expected to be sexually active, but at the same time, you're also shamed for it quite a lot. The image of any sexual deviation from a certain norm is pretty much a caricature. People confuse transsexuals, homosexuals and pedophiles, too. And this is in a country where you're not even supposed to look weird.

The prison culture also has a very strong influence. Lots of people, even educated people, know prison slang and basic laws and rules of prison life. One of those laws is that, basically, the guy who's at the end of the food chain is supposed to take it up the ass. That is a very shameful thing.

Then there is the concept of "tolerance" which is almost a swear word in the media. Basically, to distance us from the west, we are told that the West is on decline, because they allow various minorities more rights than "normal people", and they allow women too many rights, so their birth rates are down and they'll all be replaced with Arabs soon. Demographics is a very important issue here, because the population is aging and dying out. There is a derogatory term "tolerast" which is a combination of tolerant + pederast, that describes someone who would allow themselves to be dominated by all those "lesser" beings. The remnant of the idea of an outside enemy who wants to destroy mother Russia by making it weak is pretty strong, too, and a strong Russia is something people want. Then there is the issue that this is a poor country and people have a lot of bigger problems than simple social acceptance. Basically, if you can't afford to raise your children, you still have to live with your mom at 30, and your hospital has rats and no central heating, you don't have the capacity to worry about someone's feelings. Human rights activists are viewed as rich, sheltered fools like those people you might see on /r/TumblrInAction. There isn't much of an open discourse.

A whole series of laws appeared at approximately the same time, and I personally think they're a reaction to a strong forming opposition: any organization with foreign funding is supposed to register as a "Foreign agent", which does pretty much nothing, mostly affects charities and makes them seem like CIA spies; you may no longer "offend people's religious feelings", which was written specifically after the Pussy Riot thing; and then there's the law forbidding "propaganda of homosexuality and pedophilia to minors" which was later changed to "denying traditional values". Basically, it's a pretty strong ideological attack on people who aren't happy with the current government. You don't like something? You're an American spy and you want to molest children and you also take it up the ass.

https://www.reddit.com/r/russia/comments/1jpagi/whats_up_with_the_whole_gay_thing/

Dash Cams

Dash cams are an interesting phenomenon which is growing in popularity every day. However, in Russia, they are exceptionally more common than they are practically everywhere else - including America. There are tons of videos circulating around the internet from Russian dash cams.

http://imgur.com/gallery/ZE6Xj

These videos show a wide variety of hilarious things - making us exclaim "only in Russia," or something of the sort. Videos of cranes falling, the strangest accounts of road rage I've ever seen - in addition, apparently there is another one of a meteorite falling as well. All captured via the dash cam. The real question, however, is why do Russian's as a whole seem to have an exuberantly large number of dash cams? The answer, as some of the clips from the above link show you, is to protect themselves from scams and other types of auto-fraud. Common ones, funny enough, involve pedestrians jump into oncoming cars. Only in Russia, right? Apparently there is actually a developed "industry" in Russia where people purposefully get in accidents in order to get money from insurance companies.

History of Russia

In Dr. Fowler's class titled: "Introduction to REES," we spent the first couple weeks discussing how Russia came to be the way it was. We did this through analyzing the works of three different authors (Poe, Kotkin, and Snyder). Poe stressed the combination of both European and Asian culture forming something uniquely Russian, Kotkin left us with amusing allusions to democracy-focused scholars failing to understand the power and effectiveness of autocracy, and finally Snyder, with his focus on the extremely strong nationalism felt by the various groups of people (Polish and Ukrainians in his argument, but this can be applied, in my opinion, to all of the nationalities in this region) – a nationalism that can divide as easily as it can unify. The key thing to take away from these readings is the vast differences in how each historian approaches Russia's vast and expansive history. Each emphasizes a very different part of Russia and attempts to sell us on the fact that that specific aspect was the most influential one in forming Russia into the unique cultural phenomena that it is today. 

Russia's Strange Obsession

When people think of Russia, their minds fill with the thoughts of cold climates, acres upon acres of desolate landscape, and a surprisingly thriving culture. Alas, what they think not of is but a small fern, to some, even, a weed, that has managed to find its way into nearly every meal served in Russia. Perhaps a light bulb now goes off in your head, or even better yet, you know not of that which I now speak of - dill. Yes, this measly, seemingly insignificant addition to our already overly copious selection of green foods is, in fact, not insignificant at all. Dill has aggressively inserted itself into the Russian diet, and recent trends show no sign of change as this disgusting food manages to gain popularity despite its lack of a resemblance to anything close to a stimulating or satisfying taste. When something can be compared to the invasion of cane toads in Australia, perhaps it should not be so widely celebrated. Dill has gotten further into Russia than the Germans ever did, and were our reality to be some classic alien invasion movie that began with the poisoning of our ferns, Russia and her people would be dead within minutes. Alas, in movies these days, Russians always appear to be the bad guys, so perhaps this would not be such a horrible thing.

You know its bad when you have potato/dill flavored potato chips. Come on!

Religion in Russia

Sources appear to disagree on the specifics and percentages regarding the different religions. One site states the existence only a 41% Orthodox Christian population, with a 6.5% Muslim population and a nearly nonexistent Jewish population. Yet another claims a massive increase in the Orthodox personage to 75%, whilst maintaining a similar Muslim percentage at a crisp 5%. However, a highly reputable source in Stetson's Dr. Denner claims that, in Moscow, a solid 90% of Russia's population is Orthodox Christian, with 5% coming again from Islam, and only an estimated 10,000 Jews. We can infer several key points from such disparities and similarities - Moscow, a much more highly concentrated part of Russia than the more often seen countryside, has a larger percent of Orthodox Christians. Such a large portion of Moscow being Orthodox most likely comes from continuous efforts at Communism throughout the 20th century -- such efforts appearing in a much more concentrated form in the city (Moscow). The consistent 5ish percent of Muslims comes from the attempted integration of countries directly south of Russia - while other religious parties are missing from Russia's conglomerate of religion.



The graph above shows an even different approximation of "Russian Religions," with Muslims making up just nigh of 20% this time around.
While the numbers may differ, what we can take away from this is obvious in the graph.

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is an amazing, historically rich city located in the northwest of Russia. At the second largest city in Russia, behind only Moscow, Saint Petersburg boasts over 5 million inhabitants. Although Saint Petersburg was founded by Peter the Great (in 1703), it was not in fact named after him. Peter the Great named the city after his patron saint, Saint Peter. While Saint Petersburg both started and ended up (today) with the same name, it did not hold that name throughout Russia's turbulent history. During the Russian Revolution, and again once the Bolosheviks were firmly established in power, Saint Petersburg became Petrograd (in 1914) and then Leningrad (in 1924). Finally, in 1991, Saint Petersburg was given back its original name. In Russian, or Cyrillic, Saint Petersburg is Санкт-Петербу́рг. Saint Petersburg takes after its founder with regards to its relation to the west - Peter the Great was always very interested in the west, attempting to catch Russia up to its western counterparts in regards to not only culture but other areas as well. Saint Petersburg follows in his footsteps, to this day being the most Western city in Russia - even cited as the cultural capital of Russia.

Red October

The Hunt for Red October is a 1984 novel written by the late Tom Clancy, a famed author specializing in realistic military fiction. The reason I find this particular story interesting as opposed to all the others (many of which involve both Russia and its people) is the thrilling film made in 1990. The plot details an advanced submarine leaving Russia during the height of tensions between Russia and the United States. Through three points of view (in Russian, on the submarine, and in America), Clancy expertly reveals the story of a defective Russian submarine.

The commander of the submarine, a certain Marko Ramius, decides to defect on the Red October's debut mission due to both personal and political factors which began influencing him far before the submarine leaves Russian soil (or water, I suppose). Once both Russians and Americans hear of Ramius' plan to defect from Russia to America with a state-of-the-art nuclear submarine, the race to find the submarine is on. There's only one problem - Ramius' sub includes a new propulsion system, making the underwater machine virtually undetectable to current technology.

Throughout this exceptional page-turner, Clancy brings us less into a world of weapons and violence, but more so into the world of politics, where often times the obvious choice is never the right one. I won't spoil the rest of the story for anyone who has actually read this far into my blog post, but if you haven't read this, I certainly recommend it.

Sports in Russia

Although Russia is certainly a massive country, they have but a mere 150 million people inhabiting their humongous nation. However, this does not prevent them from competing at the highest level in various sports across the world. While football is the most common sport in Russia, members of their lovely, nearly permanently snowed in and cold country play many other sports as well. Russia is well known for having great showing at the Winter Olympics every four years, especially in hockey. In addition to sports where the Russians have a clear advantage (who wouldn't be good at hockey if every time you looked outside you realized it was faster to skate somewhere than to walk there), Russians also have big names and important championships and accomplishments in other, less well known sports. In chess, Russia has won several world championships, consistently performing exceptionally every year relative to the intense competition that the sport provides. All in all, Russia does well in sports, including the one that Dr. Denner mentioned that I can't find online that resembles bowling and cricket or something.