Why are Russians such complete shit-heads?

Is good. Now you have glass of best Russian vodka.

They are basically white Chinese.

Joseph Stalin killed millions of his own fellow Russians. I have a book written by a Russian woman who was put in one of his detention camps not once but twice and managed to survive. She finally moved to the USA and died there.

Hillbillies with Vodka instead of moonshine.

disgusting people.

A nation of psychopaths

Yes, Russia has always been about uncouth savages, peasants, mud, and pickled foods. It's a shithole, although St. Petersburg is truly beautiful. And Russians love their dictatorial strong leaders. Anyone who understood the Russian character knew when the Communist Party fell, it was only a matter of time before another corrupt, "strong" leader would take over. Enter Putin.

It's the toilet paper.

Is there a problem with an over consumption of Vodka and alcoholism which is affecting their brains?

As the world weans itself off fossil fuels, how soon before Russia's complete collapse?

They were serfs for hundreds of years, which means they were owned slaves. It was a wretched existence.

I visited Russia and found Russians gruff but kind. They've had a hell of a history I don't blame them for wanting a drinkie poo now and again.

They don't suffer fools though, and detest the fake cheerfulness of Americans.

Awful fucking people. There are too many nicer cultures and people out there to be dealing with these fuckers if you don't have to.

[quote]Joseph Stalin killed millions of his own fellow Russians

Stalin was Georgian, not Russian.

I've met several who are ok, but they were into yoga and mysticism and had the ugly under control. Went to school with two of them (male and female) in a highly competitive health care program and watched them cheat and lie about it. They had such an attitude of entitlement, as evidenced by their excuses when they were confronted. No ethics, just excuses and cries of superiority. They actually had the nerve to point to the Hispanic students and claim they belonged there more than they did.

big racists and homophobes

If you want more examples, visit the Fairfax area of Los Angeles.

You're a bigot OP. A xenophobe. Saying "Russians!" like this is no different then someone saying "Mexicans!". It's offensive.

Too much vodka, long winters, melancholy Russian souls and Communist hangover do not make a happy people.

Uh, you just insulted Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Turgenev, Pushkin, and Nabakov some of the greatest writers ever (esp the first).

Go directly to Siberia and don't collect 200 Rubles.

Adding to R20's list of Russian greatness Pasternak, Mandelstam, Ahkmatova, Bulgakov, Yevtushenko, Astafyev, Gogol, and Gorky.

Many have mentioned the history of Russia here - you have to add the fear and trembling they suffered at the hands of the Tzar. Government censorship kept many people from publishing; Dostoevsky was a member of a socialist circle and was condemned for *reading a letter* from Belinsky to Gogol (another fabulous writer). He was blindfolded, sent before a firing squad, and within seconds of being shot, reprieved. The Tzar wanted to teach him a lesson. He was then sent to Siberia for four years hard labor.

His father was murdered by his surfs.

I think you have to understand how fucked up their "Mother Russia" is, and how, like any highly dysfunctional family, crazy in the parent harms the child. I feel sorry for them more than anything.

You forgot Bulgakov, Zamyatin, Bunin and Mandelshtam.

Yes, the Russians have a fine history of literature, classical music, theatre.. but their country has seen an enormous brain-drain. The Russians of today are hardly the intellectual elite on the level of Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky.

Осип Эмильевич Мандельштам (1891 -1938)

Мы живем, под собою не чуя страны,

Наши речи за десять шагов не слышны,

А где хватит на полразговорца,

Там припомнят кремлевского горца.

Его толстые пальцы, как черви, жирны,

И слова, как пудовые гири, верны,

Тараканьи смеются глазища

И сияют его голенища.

Some of the modern Russian greats: Lukyanenko, Akunin, Ulitskaya, Marinina, Shishkin

Too bad. It seems as if the Russians killed off their thinkers and innovators, and they are left with nationalist trash. Not too unlike the U.S. sadly.

Then who has been hacking about every American politician?

Oh now, OP, look what you have gone and done. You've upset the Russian trolls.

r12 I detest the selfishness and scheming of the Kiwis.

Thank goodness we don't have a huge homeless population or the Appalachian mountains.

I'll take an American homeless person over any functioning Russian psychopath.

What part of the word "Einsatzgruppen" don't you understand?

Go start a thread about them, R33. This thread is about these vile Russian cunts.

I'll take an American homeless person over any functioning Russian psychopath.

Isn't that article you posted from "Rense.com" an extreme right-wind nutcase site? I can understand when you get desperate to make a point, but stooping so low is genuinely pathetic.

Gogol was Ukrainian, not Russian.

Had the biggest crush on a guy from Dagestan in Russia. He was gorgeous, brilliant, and incredibly kind. He also faced a lot of bigotry at university in Moscow (he studied math at the MIT of Russia) because he was "dark" (barely dark by American standards -- he looked Greek and was gloriously hairy), and had faced so much shit/threats of violence he rode the subway using a knife. He had a really low opinion of his countrymen and was very happy he'd made it to a PhD program in the United States.

Here, a more impartial source.

The problem with war is both sides commit atrocities. The Dresden bombing was fairly horrible, but how many Jews, gays, Christians, and handicapped persons did Germany euthanize again? Clearly one side outweighs the other in terms of outrage upon mankind.

They are miserable because their food fucking sucks.

Here, an even more impartial source:

BABI YAR

By Yevgeni Yevtushenko

No monument stands over Babi Yar.

A steep cliff only, like the rudest headstone.

I am afraid.

Today, I am as old

As the entire Jewish race itself.

There is a monument at Babi Yar. It's been there since at least the seventies as I saw it in 1977.

Russian was invaded and occupied by Tatars for more than 500 years, in what amounted to tyranny. The resulting influence and interbreeding affected their national affect, making them seem an amalgam of European and Asiatic heritage.

Remember also that they a loss of more than 20 million people during WWII, when they alone fought the Nazis, in a barbaric struggle on both sides, pushing them back by inches, while the U.S. was barely touched.

My mother always used to say that the basic aspect of Russians was suffering, that even their music has undertones of it. It's as if "The Song of the Volga Boatmen" is their national anthem. They keep enduring centuries of oppression, but still continue.

I doubt our fellow entitled U.S. citizens could survive as well. I've always thought that my compatriots here, so big with their flags and showy tattoos, would end up collaborating at the first threat.

Probably. Yevtushenko wrote the poem in 1961.

Re: rense.com

You know, places like rense.com and Alex jones'site wouldn't be what they are today if the govt didn't cover up terrorist attacks and shut down real people who were witnesses. I only heard TWA Flight 800 explode and crash, but lots of people out here saw it. On the news that first 24 hours, a radar company at Republic Airport reported the plane was hit by an object (which they reported as being "a small plane") and an Air National Guardsman who had been in a AF plane at the time and witnessed the explosion was interviewed, along with many other witnesses. They saw something glowing red go up and hit the plane. Within 24 hours, the Air National Guardsman disappeared from tv, as did the radar report. Within a week, the FBI and the NTSB removed interviews from online and shut down any talk from witnesses, calling them mistaken, or deluded or liars.

That resulted in a lot of people doing online searches and finding rense.com

There was also a terror attack atop the Empire State Building where a Palestinian man opened fire, killing one, injuring six and killing himself. Within 24 hours it was declared a murder suicide of a mentally ill man who had business problems,not a terror attack (I shit you not).

Then there was the miraculous discovery of a passport on 9/11 that told us exactly who the ringleader of the terrorist cell was.

I'm not in favor of looney ramblings, but when you have a govt that is obviously covering up the truth or deliberately planting ridiculous stories or "evidence" at terror attack sites, then don't be surprised when people embrace rense.com or looney Alex Jones. They think they're getting the truth only because the govt wouldn't give them the truth. Then the govt becomes their enemy.

I sorta knew already you were an illiterate nutcase.

well, you all should learn to love them ASAP, since they're basically our masters now.

classy

[43] Your mother is a wise woman. Yes, suffering is their most prominent characteristic. That is why their literature has universal appeal. They know it, explore it and depict it better than anyone else.

I'll add that in addition to defending themselves against the Nazis, they had to defend themselves against Napoleon and the French (see War and Peace).

[quote] I sorta knew already you were an illiterate nutcase.

Who is illiterate?

The Golden Horde did not last any 500 years. And the cruelty of the steppes was nothing compared to the cruelty of serfdom.

And they were never fighting alone in WWII as Britain did in 1940-41.

[quote]His father was murdered by his surfs.

He had it coming. He banned their Beach Boys music.

Sergey Baklykov always seemed fun.

I assume that was autocorrect.

That was to r53.

Russians are good and bad just like any other group. The irony of anyone here trashing and stereotyping them is hysterical. America is filled with trashy, hateful cretins too. Maybe in the past those of you who live in upscale liberal bubbles could pretend like that wasn't the case, but the ugly truth has been exposed now. A nation of deplorables. But keep demonizing the regular Russian people because they obviously must ALL just love Putin and oligarchy, right? Just like everyone in the US just LOVES Trump and the rest of his criminal cabal?

Poverty. Abject poverty.

What do you want from people who eat raw onions like apples?

59 replies and I, Datalounge icon, not mentioned once?

You bitches slipping.

R57 There is no liberal bubble. That's as stupid as generalizing Russians or Russian culture.

When government is corrupt, the people suffer. Russia has beautiful places, architecture, literature, art, music, ballet and an interesting history and culture.

Most Russians I've met are smart and educated. No matter where you go, you will find good and bad people. But don't mind me, please continue your rant now.

West Virginia without the charm.

Racist, violent people with a sour attitude and sense of entitlement.

Fuck them and their "history of suffering.". They are not the only people in the world to have suffered... and yet other people manage to be less cunty.

Let's not forget that they are homophobes. Look at their anti-gay laws they have passed.

Just as well they were "savage" or the Nazis would have won. Google the Siege of Stanlingrad too. The post WW2 era was a complete betrayal of the people who had fought against the Nazis, with revolting repression by Stalin and others. The current administration is a bunch of thugs and gangsters. If Russia was being led by someone like Gorbachev, I would be all for closer US and Russian relations. But the only relationship Putin wants with the US is that of ventriloquist and dummy.

I had an in-law, an elderly Latvian woman who died a few years ago at the age of 90. She had been in a Nazi work camp, but before the Nazis invaded, the Russians had occupied Latvia. She said the Russians were much worse, and most non-Jewish Latvians viewed the Nazi invaders as liberators.

You've got to be really awful to be worse than Nazi invaders.

Gorbachev was part of the nomenklatura. No different than the current Russian leaders.

R66, my godfather, from Western Ukraine, said there was no difference. He eventually ended up a slave labourer in Germany. He didn't return after the war, not knowing if his family was dead or alive.

The Baltic countries (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia) really hate Russians. Like HATE HATE.

My Soviet born husband spent time there in the 1970's. He said authorities and Russians sent to Russify the region were horrid to the locals.

Gee I always thought they held hands and sang "Kumbaya".

Yeah but you'd think the situation would be different 3 decades after the war, and 2 decades after Stalin's death.

Russians are a garbage people who are racist, sexist and ugly and don't understand why people despise them. They are also like cockroaches in that you can drop an a-bomb on their heads and they don't (won't/refuse to) die. They get raped 4000 times, drink gallons of vodka, eat one potato, entire systems of government come and go, they get sent to a prison on an ice floe, and they JUST WON'T DIE. They care about nothing but clothes and gilded furniture and they are dead inside.

bump

I'm Russian, but I 'm not racist and homophobe and whoever you'd say. Seriously. Ppl, why are you think that you know something about us and our life?

Please to be handing over Traveler's Cheques!

Vladimir Witzotsky, the essence of the Russian soul

Replace "Russians" with Hillbots, there is no more wretcheder, stupider, horrider fuckers on the planet. Grease Fire. Die. Hillbots.

oh there aren't Russian trolls on DataLounge, right R78?

I love that the Russian trolls couldn't help but take the bait on this thread!

I have a co-worker who was born in Russia and adopted by an American military family. He didn't grow up in Russia but he is a total asshole. It must be in the blood.

I have a co-worker who was born in American and adopted by a Russian military family. He didn't grow up in America but he is a total asshole. It must be in the blood.

I know Americans who have to do business and work in Russia. The men who work there remarked that the men treat women terribly, and are drunk on the job but the women hold the economy together (I guess they don't drink as much on the job if at all). They saw women being beaten by their husbands and everyone thought this was normal.

I talked to an American woman engineer that works in Russian oil fields / rigs. She said that the men are chivalrous though drunks, and the women are very concerned with getting a man before they get old. Like 25. It all boils down to that basically.

She did say that Russians don't take their jobs too seriously, and care more about family, togetherness and parties. They marvel at Americans. Their sentiment is "your job [government] cant love you back."

...and vodka is cheaper than water

R83

Can we talk about whorish, hard, nasty, competitive, unethical, and primate-like the women are?

That is, the ones who make it to America.

But what would we do without their salad dressing?

I have stories r85. We laugh at the brazen, naked greed in the Russian women we meet. Totally shameless. It's not all or most Russian women I'm sure, but the scrappiest ones make it out west I take it.

The greediest, most awful contest-the-will survivalist types in my family take their cues from the Russian influence. There is a subset of Russian women that are in-your-face worse than any American stereotype and it's a joke in my family. DL was up in arms over a thread discussing Russians a while back because it as "racist".

Oh god. Hillary figured out how to start threads.

All Golden Ages are past. Just look at the world's, but particularly Europe's (including Western Russia) art, architecture, literature, music, poetry, culture.

Now we live in an Age of Iron Pyrite, abounding with vulgarians, knaves, liars, swindlers, thugs, and fools, and ruled by the same.

Do they still manufacture their own bootleg vodka? That could explain the neurotoxicity and the blindness with all the methanol in it (I think pandemic loss of sight was also one of the reasons why the prohibition laws were repealed in the US). There really must be some genes linked to addiction that would explain why the Russians have such a hard time with booze and drugs like Krokodil or Pervitine (methamphetamine) whereas the neighboring Scandinavians have such a low rate of addiction.

Maybe some genetic trait from tens of thousands of years ago, from the Bering Strait crossings. I. e., perhaps ancient Russians shared a gene with those who became our Native Americans, also extraordinarily susceptible to alcoholism.

Russia is basically Alabama with more tundras.

In 1986, the Soviet government, appalled at the extent of alcoholism in the U.S.S.R., sent representatives to AA meetings in New York, to learn how to organize and conduct meetings. The population had become depressed and dependent on alcohol, with no possibility of economic upward mobility. The challenge was that few were willing to take the risk to go to meetings, afraid the NKVD would observe and penalize them, not without justification. The attempt seems to have had only minimal success, especially since the advent of Putin, who is back at suppressing AA.

No one has asked, but you are going to get it anyway.

This is the recipe for Russian Borscht soup. Look at the freaking ingredients. Wouldn't you be a shit-head if you had to live on this stuff?

Everywhere you turn that you see white heterosexual gentiles, they're usually viciously prejudiced mercenary lowlifes. Russia is a key example of that.

The last two artistic geniuses were Russian; Stravinsky and Balanchine(yes I know Georgian but completely identified as Russian.)

There hasn't been a one since Balanchine died in the 80s.

And because the world has changed so much due to technology there will never be an artistic genius again no matter what.

And please no Hamilton jokes. It would be nauseating.

Alabama could use a few more tundras r92.

Even before the Crimean War I thought Russia and the Russians to be the scourge of humanity.

Yes, they have always been savages, OP.

R92, yup.

"If you want more examples, visit the Fairfax area of Los Angeles."

If you want still more examples, visit Northeast Philadelphia and the suburbs abutting NE Philadelphia city limits, i.e. Bensalem and Southampton Twps.

These people are nasty, rude, and arrogant and very, very proud of it.

I"m thinking about the condition of the man's underpants in OP's photo.

I need a drink now.

How dare you, OP? Mother Russia has given us Dima, which makes up for the rest of their bullshit.

Good chess players.

Are they maybe part Neanderthal?

I like these Russians

R90 -" whereas the neighboring Scandinavians have such a low rate of addiction." The Scandinavians are some of the biggest boozers in the world.

They had some sexy tennis players, including the divinely deranged Marat Safin.

bump

Those are Ukrainians R106

I lived in Bensalem in the 80s, when did Russians start filing in there? I don't remember any when I lived there.

r20 "Uh, you just insulted Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Turgenev, Pushkin, and Nabakov some of the greatest writers ever (esp the first)."

The american south has also produced some of the world's greatest, it has also been for centuries a shit hole of poverty, ignorance, bigotry, lost causes and hypocrisy

The men can be hot though

The government is not serious about eliminating alcoholism because vodka sales are its biggest source of revenue. Plus it cuts down on health costs when people die young.

In the past it was their mainstay

A couple of years ago, there was a legitimate news item about Russia maybe thinking about requiring airline pilots to be sober and not pound vodka in the cockpit. they weren't sure though.

A friend of mine told me that this gif, in a nutshell, explains Russia today.

Maybe I missed it, but I'm surprised no one has linked the Only in Russia twitter. Prepare to go down the rabbit hole.

People always talk about hating the elites and one-percenters, but they are the leisure crowd that funds cultural advancements through the arts and sciences. The wealthy are also more prone to travel, picking up cultural highlights and bringing them back to their home country. Once aware of the upper class' trends the middle class strives to emulate. Russia kicked out their elite after murdering the Tzar. The World Wars, Cold War, and Communism, severely delayed their social progression over the past 100 years.

The internet and social media broke down the rigidity of the social progression I mentioned, but the idea remains the same as we idolize celebrities, royalty, and the billionaires. Remove them from our society and what would DL have to discuss or fight over?

In short: Remove the upper class and watch society turn to shit.

Sean Cody's Phillip and Liev were rather yummy

In short: Remove the upper class and watch society turn to shit.

Better yet, elect them to the Presidency and watch society REALLY turn to shit. Nice theory you have - too bad it's meaningless. The 1% are really useless leaches and do nothing but consume.

It's been touched on but so many, many Russian adoptions have been complete disasters. Remember that family that sent the kid back to Russia with essentially a note saying they couldn't cope. It's not an isolated feeling. If it's FAS or the lack of nurturing in the orphanages, it's a bad situation for parents who wanted a white baby.

There are threads on creepy stories. This is one of the creepiest about a Russian adoption that reads like a Hollywood horror script.

Keep i mind that a lot of the Russian adoptions gone bad occurred to Christian fundie parents whose bible verse approach to life is not adequate to cope with a damaged child.

R119, they killed the nobility and then later, their thinkers. The ones who left did so in their own.

Adoptions of Russian children have not been the problem in Western Europe that they have been in the US. I sometimes wonder if the parents would have qualified for adoption domestically.

R12, FU, our cheerfulness isn't fake. It's what happens when people mix in for a few hundred years. It's referred to as superior hybrid. That's something to be cheerful about. Not generations of only serfs and peasants.

R81, same thing with those adopted Korean people!

91, correct.

The story at r123 is written like fiction. No way would a father write about his murdered daughter like that.

I visited Moscow in 2012 and found the Russians no different to any other bunch of human beings. There were some people who were helpful, curious and interested and others who wouldn't give you the time of day. It's the same wherever you are on the planet - human beings, at the core, are all the same despite surface differences of culture or religion.

Not for many black people that visit r130 or openly gay people. That country treats anyone that isn't lily white and heterosexual like shit. Glad you had a pleasant experience.

R7- Sorry, but Saint Petersburg is not truly beautiful. I lived there. It's a Potemkin village. Step off of Nevsky and Fontanka and Ligovsky, etc. and you'll some astoundingly horrifying shit. That is Saint Petersburg. Walk through one of the yards behind any of the Soviet era apartment buildings that were supposed to be leveled at least 30 years ago. You'll see things that belong in a horror movie.

I know a really cool Russian woman, and I like a lot of the music and literature...but they've also got their problems out there.

I like their gymnasts and some of their pairs skaters.. that's about the extent of my love for that country.

Of course there are cool interesting people in any country r133. It's more about how different cultures support a specific kind of unthinking person.

Tell me about it R135!

This video puts the magnitude of russias loss in wwii in perspective.

Maybe it's the food. It's worse than what the Brits serve up.

Russia is no worse than North Carolina.

I'd never seen celery stalks that were so old they flopped around when you picked them up until I ate in a Russian restaurant.

Scratch a Russian and you'll find a peasant.

You've got to be kidding.

While we have had some very good writers from the south putting them in the same league as the great writers of Russia is a bad joke.

I assume you haven't read a word of Lermontov, Gogol or Pushkin.

R64, the US only JUST made gay marriage legal nationally. My god Americans are stupid.

In terms of prose, Nabakov was the greatest author ever, IMO.

Russian men

Vasiliy Stepanov is their Jon-Eric Hexum

Benita Buttrellsky

They all suffer from severe alcoholism, radiation poisoning and extremely bad manners.

Don't ever, ever adopt from Russia or the Ukraine.

Just Ukraine. No article required.

I know women who have adopted from Ukraine. No issues.

The potential issue in adoptions in both countries is fetal alcohol syndrome.

FAS and also major attachment disorders, which is rampant in both countries and very difficult, if not impossible to treat. Well meaning people are not informed or they think that "love" will be enough to help a child with attachment disorder only to find out how difficult the condition is once it's too late. And some adoption agencies downplay its seriousness.

When they speak it sounds like someone trying to clear their sinuses or hock up a loogie. Awful sounding language.

R151, in reading about these problem adoptions, every last parent believed the cliche that "love will conquer all". All now bemoan how naive they were.

Russian trolls on the net have been pushing the propaganda line for years that it was the soviets who won WWII. The British were only like gnats to the Germans and the US was like "party, party, party all the time" in Europe during WWII. It was the Russians who fought like heroes! It was Russians who destroyed the German armies! Look at the stupid Britishers who fucked up Dunkirk! Pfft. Russians would have fought to the death, not allowed themselves to be picked up by fishermen.

And bombing the cities of Europe to loosen the German grip? That was nothing like the bloody hend-to-hend combat of brave Russian citizens who kill Germans with bare hends! Without Russia, England would speak German today!

Being naïve does not exonerate you from your emotional and financial responsibilities to these children.

It would be like a birth parent refusing to take responsibility for a child with severe handicaps saying I didn't sign up for this!

R155, easy statements from one who has never gone through it, nor known anyone who's gone through it.

Of course not, R155. No one is saying they have no responsibility towards their children, adopted or not. People do need to be aware of the problems that often come along with adopting children from countries such as Russia and Ukraine though. And all the love and attention and money in the world will not help a child with severe attachment disorders, especially when combined with FAS.

Of course I haven't gone through it.

It is very clear what I'm saying.

If you adopt a child just like if you have a child your responsibility is to that child.

There is no saying but I didn't know!

What exactly is it you are not understanding?

These children are destroying their lives?

Birth parents have children that are destroying their lives. Do they give them up to foster care and say I don't want this?

There are no guarantees in anybody having children. Why are people so stupid?

Children are not pets!

Adoption agencies, international, domestic and foreign, that cover up or downplay the seriousness of a child's issues also need to be held accountable. There are tons of unscrupulous agencies out there that outright lie about the conditions of the children they are in charge of, R158. They are the primary cause of adoption breakdown.

In terms of prose, Nabakov was the greatest author ever, IMO.

At least he could spell his own name correctly.

And people who adopt don't know this?

When they adopt do they just go about it willy nilly having no idea of the history of corruption and lying in the adoption 'industry?'

This is not a new recent thing. Horrifying things have been going on for a long time. People who go into this so naïve and then claim ignorance are as contemptible as are the agencies.

If Russian twinks in porn fucked and had the same enthusiasm as American twinks, they'd be the hottest men on the planet. To me, at least.

I say this myself as a predatory twink.

Stalin was a twink once.

"And people who adopt don't know this?"

american's especially fundies, can be incredibly stupid and easily manipulated

In college knew some White Russians in their 80s who had fled the Revolution with their parents when they were themselves relatively young. They were high priest class (Orthodox priests can marry and over time a pseudo-caste developed) but not nobility. Also others around them same age, not really upper class. They were all sophisticated, kind, charming people. Reactionary to a man and woman. They were not like the ones who lived under the Soviet system which destroyed people completely, at least spiritually and psychologically.

I can't believe this. There have been 165 posts on this thread, and no one has yet mentioned They Dyatlov Pass Incident? Perhaps we should start a separate thread about it.

R165 my great, great grandfather was a Russian Orthodox deacon which I'm told means something different (seen as high social status, but not sure) than in the Protestant system. I have his photos and letters and have talked to people who knew him. He was a kind, well educated man. This was before the churches became broadly corrupt by government accepting bribes - or being killed during, I think, the Bolshevik Revolution. The church clergy were part of the educated class. From what I've read, there wasn't as much of a tradition of organized corruption within the pre-revolution R.O. church compared to say, politics or the Catholic or Protestant churches. I think for generations the R.O. church attracted nebbish types, rather than the power-hungry.

But, I'm sure someone here is an expert and will correct me...

I love the title of this thread. ❤️️❤️️

Fuck you, R149!

Russian history starts when Eastern Slavs and Finno-Ugric peoples settle down and establish a state and open relations with the Byzantines and adopt Christianity.

And then things got worse.

Genghis came and in less than three years, the Mongols destroyed the young state of Rus', killing over half it's people.

And then things got worse.

The Mongol Empire collapsed, leaving a power void in Asia. Russia reestablished itself as the Grand Duchy, and then the Tsardom.

And then things got worse.

In the age of Empire, Russia, with no warm water ports, could not expand across the seas, and was blocked by powerful Germany/HRE/Austria in the West, so they expanded East. As the empire grew, it also grew more isolated. They fell behind, economically and socially. Feudalism in the form of lords and serfs existed in Russia until 1861, but when it was abolished, it only made the lower classes even poorer. In 1906 a constitution was written, but the Aristocracy rejected it.

And then things got worse.

World War 1 began.

And then things got worse.

Revolution! The Tsars were kicked out in March of 1917, and were replaced by the Russian Republic.

And then things got worse.

Revolution! The Russian Republic was kicked out by the Bolsheviks in the Red October, establishing the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, led by Vladmir Lenin. They made peace with the Germans and Austrians, and consolidated power for the next several years, forming the USSR.

And then things got worse

Lenin died, and the Communist Party was fractured into two,, led by Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky. Stalin came out on top, killed Trotsky and exiled his followers. He then began a long reign of terror. Millions of people were killed by his order.

And then things got worse.

Hitler time! Overall, the war costed 30 million soviet deaths.

And then things got worse.

The war was expensive, and took an extreme toll on the Soviet economy and it's population. But, they managed to hang on, steal nuclear technology from the United States, and then develop it themselves. The space race happened.

And then things got worse.

For very complicated reasons, not limited to overspending on nuclear and space technology and military, the Soviet Union declined, and suffered widespread economic collapse and public outrage, especially when Gorbachev instituted his "glasnost" policy, which revealed decades of repression and deception. A coup threw Gorbachev out of power, but the coup government itself only lasted three days, leaving a new power vacuum. The government of the various Soviet Republics took over administrative control from the old central Soviet government. Yeltsin, the president of Russia, reorganized the country, and tried to rescue the economy in every way he could, including privatization of as many industries as possible as fast as possible.

And then things got worse.

Yeltsin's privatization wasn't well planned and was much too fast. It opened the door for criminal mafias and greedy corporations to seize economic power, and soon Russia effectively had an Oligarchic Aristocracy again, just like in the 19th century. The country wasn't able to get out of it's depression before the 1998 financial crisis, which decimated the economy again, and forced Yeltsin to resign.

And then things got worse.

Vladmir Putin. Ex-KGB officer, often reminisces about the glory of the Soviet era. He won a landslide victory in every election, took control of the Parliament, but pretended to uphold the constitution by letting his head of staff win the election after his second term, because the constitution says presidents cannot serve more than two consecutive terms, but as soon as Medvedev's first term ended, Putin won another landslide victory. All the while, political opponents of Putin disappear, or die in unexpected, tragic accidents.

And then things got worse.

Putin invaded Georgia, and then Ukraine, paving the way for a new Russian Empire, just as unequal and authoritarian as any other.

And that's Russian history for you.

That was actually a pretty good synopsis. You did forget to mention the invention of the piroghi.

And Anna Netrebko's rise to opera superstardom.

Ah man, a full blown schizo. Again.

I like the part where the Mongols built a dance floor on top of the Russians and danced around until they were crushed to death.

You forgot to mention each time they had to eat their zoo animals, R170.

Nasty people.

What are Russian men like in bed?

All non-Jewish non-gay whites should have been systematically eliminated as punishment for starting the American Civil War and two consecutive World Wars, starting with the Krauts and Wops and continuing with (and especially) the Russkies. The London Blitz occurred during the Nazi-Soviet pact so they are partly to blame for that. Any nationality who allied with Hitler for any reason deserves nothing less than genocide. And ever since they claimed credit for all the work the Americans and British did in fighting the fucking Krauts, they've done nothing but stab us in the back at every turn.

They're scum. Complete and total scum with no redeeming values whatsoever. And after they helped undermine a free election, I root for their genocide.

Reagan was a coward for not having the Manson family all executed in the most brutal manner the laws of physics would allow, and he was an even bigger coward for not wiping out those vile, vicious, subhuman, worthless Russkie trash.

Peasant stock ...look where they comefrom. Look what they allowed to happen pre and post 1918 Revolution...to themselves.

Stalin's purges, mass deportations and starvations... their OWN people ...and their neighbors.

Utter poverty and alcoholism blended with genetics and fetal alcohol syndrome.

cheap flights out on Aeroflot/ Air Canada lol

At least Russians will always have their cheap vodka...

Russians are foul, disgusting people

But then it is worth asking, even though Russia has a reputation for big homophobia why do then some of then engage in gay-oriented stuff like this?

What is the mental gymnastic they do to justify this?

R170, your account is backed up by DNA tests and anthropological findings.

Because of the jaw dropping disparity between the rich tsar and nobility classes and the working serf classes. When the Bolshevik Revolution came it gave the proles more power. When the Revolution died Russia found itself with a new power structure based on the new power elite built during the 20th century.

Were one to visit Russia in the 19th century one would have rubbed shoulders with their upper crust. Now you only meet the New Vulgarians.

That's why Trump our ubervulgarian in residence relates well to them today. Of course being short fingered he kneels before the hung Russians.

You know, I've never met a Russian that I didn't like. I know a fair few Russian guys who came over with the fall of Communism and Yeltsin's fall from grace and they're all highly educated and intelligent guys. Dodgy as fuck cuisine, mind you.

The nicer ones probably get the heck outta there. Nice being relative, mind you.

cheap vodka breath

Savages.

Their savagery/dirtiness turns me on. I'd NEVER got involved with one past a one-night stand, though.

bump

OP, all the cool people emigrated outtat there. Leaving the inbreds, tards, criminally insane behind.

Russians want to stomp out homosexuality because they are obsessed with breeding. They need to breed in huge numbers to wipe out other countries.

Bolshevism.

Socialism.

Communism.

Totalitarianism.

Collectivism.

Left wing bullshit run amok.

Read The Gulag Archipelago.

It's free online.

In a country with political inbalanace men are controlled by manipulaitng their conception of masculinity. As much as Russian men want to look tough and impenetrable they are being controlled like puppets through fear and insecurity in what is considered masculine. So, they want to meet the whole arbitrary criteria for fear of being the object of aggression and social exclusion.

Whenever a Russian man attacks a gay man he's making evident his own insecurities and fears ragarding his own identity and the fear of being perceived as not enough.

If you genocided the Russians, no one would mind (except Trump and probably the Serbs).

They smell like shit, too.

I've never met one, OP so I wouldn't know. Have you?

The highest rated of alcoholism, xenophobia, homophobia and religious intolerance in all of Europe. One of the gogo boys who danced at a bar I used to work at had a Russian girlfriend and she was a major cunt... constantly bashing America and Americans every chance she got. He brought her over to a house party another friend of mine was hosting. Something was on the news about crime, and she just started laying into Americans and how minorities get away with murder and how she wanted to go back to Russia. The boyfriend finally grabbed her and dragged her outside. After seval minutes of Slavic shouting, be brought her back inside. She was crying. She grabbed her pot and left...he followed her, as she was his ride. But she was supremely miserable. And she's not the first Russian I've met who was like that. They are deplorables with bad body odor. We should deport them all.

For the most part they are crocked but I did meet one very sweet guy, I think his Family were from Siberia.

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

Don't all of those Russian adoptees end up becoming violent psychopaths?

[quote] Russians want to stomp out homosexuality because they are obsessed with breeding. They need to breed in huge numbers to wipe out other countries.

They aren't even breeding enough to sustain their own population.

Where there's an abrahamic religion there is rampant homophobia.

Doesn't the NT say love your neighbour as yourself? Of course, when it comes to homosexual people they always make the exception.

but not Svetlana, woman in the lower left of this picture for you newbies.

Aren't Polish people equally homophobic too and narcissistically proud of being a Christian country?

Russians are more disgusting

Successive famines, some with political causes, meant that the most sociopathic and psychopathic survived. Hoarders, thieves, backstabbers, killers. Sociopathy and psychopathy are largely genetic; they passed on their genes.

Also, they don't have a sense of "fair play." It's just not part of their culture. It's never been part of their culture. Their most popular children's tales are about feckless scammers getting one over on their betters and/or the naive; that's the model hero in their culture.

"... The other thing about the “Russian mind-set” is that it goes back to pre-Soviet times, too. There’s a Russian saying, born of a history full of hard rulers and stupid laws spinning in distant corners of a very big and hard-to-regulate space: “The severity of the law is mitigated by its lack of enforcement.” So whereas someone of the “American mind-set” expects to be caught for breaking the law, someone of the “Russian mind-set” doesn’t. That’s a gross oversimplification, but it gets you close to the cultural context."

‘Squash him!’ Video of gruesome bear-killing in Russia goes viral — and could be a crime

Didn't Germany almost conquer Russia at one point?

Their homophobia is due to religious and political enforcement. Brainwashing, very similar to islamic brainwashing.

And how ironic it is that so many Russian women keep searching for men outside Russia. It happened to a friend of mine who met a Russian girl who made him fall in love with her. My friend was even willing to bring her to my country to marry her. But later he understood Russian women are after money and a better life men can provide to them.

I heart r170!

OP is such a fucking asshole for saying such a generalized statement... just a few notables to add to the list: Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Fabergé, Nijinsky, Pavlova, Serov, Mussorgsky, Horowitz, Gilels, Valery Gergiev, and the list goes on... The importance of Russian culture in the world of art, music, dance and literature, not to mention science, cannot be overstated.

So why does "Ukraine" sound so wrong in English, without "the" in front of it? Shouldn't it at least be Ukrainia, like Georgia and Albania? What kind of a name is Ukraine? What makes them so special, that they can just decree not to be an -ia country?

Interestingly, many Russian men broadcast on gay sites such as Flirt4Free.

All for you, ((( R178 )))

r217 Yeah, they're looking for stupid American men to bring them to this country and marry them.

Thank you, R218. That was harrowing reading.

Everything slightly decent about Russia left or was killed by 1919. Only trash since then.

Let's see, R215. All but one of the people you listed are long gone. And what's happening in Russia now can be understood by looking at their stories.

Mussorgsky doesn't count. He died before the revolution

Serov was a fine painter, but his only real innovation was adapting European Impressionism for the Soviet palate. Which was certainly a feat considering how many artists and writers were killed or imprisoned in the 1930s.

Nijinsky (born in Ukraine, Polish parents) was gay. Would have been persecuted today. He split for Europe early on and died in London.

Pavlova only existed because of the Imperialist ballet schools. She split for Europe before the revolution and died there.

The Faberge company was taken over by the state after the revolution and the family immediately split to the US. Their main clients (the Romanovs) were killed.

Stravinsky was already in Europe during the revolution. He didn't return to Russia until the 60s and those were brief visits. He died in NYC.

Tchaikovsky died before the revolution. Russians still deny that he was gay. Today, he'd be beaten, abused, or have to seek asylum and his music would be ignored.

Prokofiev lived in absolute fear. The director of his first opera, for example, was tortured and shot by the Soviet police before the opera even opened. The opening night was probably terrifying for Prokofiev and the remaining company, but we can only guess since the man did not leave any sort of written account. All of his work had to be approved by the state.

Horowitz was Jewish, one of the most hated demographics in Russia today. He left Russia in the 20s and didn't visit Russia until Perestroika (that's in the 80s/early 90s icydk) for his famous Moscow concert that was only accessible to the elites who had driven out people like him.

Poor old Gilels was a child prodigy. As is often the case with child prodigies, he was a pet. In his case, he was Stalin's pet. Stalin said that Hitler had Goebbels and he had Gilels. Gilels had to de-Jew his first name and the KGB accompanied him on his tours abroad.

Rachmaninov split to the US immediately after the revolution and never returned to Russia.

And Valery Gergiev, the only contemporary on your list, is a Putinist piece of shit. He conflates homosexuality with pedophilia and supports the imprisonment of subversive artists. Just the sort of Russian shit head the OP was asking about.

It's like Cambodia. Everyone civilized left long ago, or was murdered.

Putin has an obsession with pedophilia.

If it's that bad why don't the rest of the world just nuke Russia? Just be done with them.

Everybody wants someone else to do it, R225.

Authorities in countries like Russia know how to control men and they do so by making them insecure about their masculinity. The exact same thing religious authorities of the Abrahamic kind do to men. Basically, they make heterosexual men enter the game of having to prove heterosexuality and masculinity all the time under the arbitrary description those authorities provide.

If heterosexual men were more intelligent and didn't fall for these mind tricks they would be giving less power to insane people such as Putin.

The political propaganda, the religious/superstitious poorly-educated people, the need for black/white thinking and an authoritarian leader who promises to take care of them and who blames the "wrong kind" of people for their problems - remind you of anyone?

R75, that's Datalounge for you. People making generalizing statements about other countries, religions, races, and cultures. But dare say anything like that about gays in general, you are worse than Satan.

Nijinsky died in Paris and is buried there.

The last artistic genius was Balanchine.

He was a boy in Imperial Russia from which he got his artistic sense and left shortly after the revolution.

R3 Stalin wasn't Russian he was Georgian.

[quote]You're a bigot OP. A xenophobe. Saying "Russians!" like this is no different then someone saying "Mexicans!". It's offensive.

Posts like this are proof that we have Russian trolls here.

Josh seems to not like them very much

That is an idiotic tweet r234.

As the first person responded to Barro, the Russians is the group primarily responsible for defeating Nazi Germany (Americans like to ignore that). That is an obvious historical achievement right there.

They also beat the world in the space, with the exception of landing a man on the moon the Russians won every aspect of the space race (another thing we Americans like to ignore). First satellite. first man to travel into space.

Sooooo....they put a monkey in space and yet you can't get your plumbing fixed there unless you bribe twelve people. Yay Tchaikovsky but all their men are drinking themselves to death and keeling over at age 62 because the whole country is a depressing shithole filled with ignorant rapists. Russia sucks. Russia's always sucked.

[quote]I lived in Bensalem in the 80s, when did Russians start filing in there? I don't remember any when I lived there.

There aren't many Russian in Bensalem. They are in NE Philadelphia (Bustleton /Somerton), Southampton, and the Huntingdon Valley. Indians live in Bensalem.

[quote]Also, they don't have a sense of "fair play." It's just not part of their culture. It's never been part of their culture. Their most popular children's tales are about feckless scammers getting one over on their betters and/or the naive; that's the model hero in their culture.

HELL YES! This has been my experience with them. I have given every Russian I have known a fair chance....and they always try to screw you over!

R238, "fair play" is also lacking in mainland China. It'll take generations of international exposure for it to become normal. See, e.g., the adoption of queues at McDonald's in East Asia - as countries become more international and developed, there's less line cutting and quarreling (Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong).

There's hope. They just need to open up.

Oh FFS you people are idiots. Most Jewish people in the US/UK have Russian roots. I suppose they're excluded? Morons.

Somebody call the Whambulance for R240. She is feeling triggered and hurt!

Dear God, R240. We are talking about what Russia is TODAY and why. Your example proves everyone's point. Why are so many Jewish people of Russian origin living in the UK and the US? Look at the R222. Why did the vast majority of these brilliant Russians leave? They left because they had to get the hell out, that's why. The thinkers, the creatives, those who were out of step with the totalitarian leadership of the day, Jews, homosexuals, etc. were killed, imprisoned or harshly oppressed. Those who were able to leave left and rarely came back. They made new lives in Europe and the U.S. who benefited greatly from their contributions. Those who remained concealed their true selves, learned to limit their ways of expression or thinking and, thus, did not pass much on to future generations.

Innovative thinking, which is the basis of all positive social change, was never rewarded and did not become a part of Russian culture. Of course, there were those who were brilliant and innovative and stayed, using their intelligence to work the system and gain power over others. Cheating, lying, stealing, fucking over the naive and the vulnerable to accrue massive wealth, these actions were all rewarded.

After living and working in Russia for a few years, I was left with the impression that deception and evasion are Russian virtues. Their version of cleverness. All of my students openly cheated. They'd text people for answers. I began collecting their phones before class. They started bringing in their old, disabled phones to drop in my phone box, hiding their real phones. There was a massive bribery system in all of the universities that was somehow regulated. Russian students paid the least, students from ex-Sovet republics paid a bit more, and students from India, Africa, etc. paid the most. I knew of one student who was color blind who paid someone else to take her exam...a fucking surgical exam on the eye! Such a mess. To get caught cheating would be a mortifying experience for most Americans. Not so with my Russian students. There didn't seem to be a sense of shame. It was just a clever way to achieve their goals.

Russians don't cheat.

R242 from everything you said russians sound completely shameless. Scary and sad.

Thank you r222.

Baba Yaga tales are the most popular Russian fairytales, not putting something over on someone.

Russians are just really pale Chinese, which explains the alcoholism, grifting, and shitty, entitled personalities.

Not nice.

Heh:

Ross Douthat‏Verified account @DouthatNYT

@jbarro Basically, Russia is awesome.

These Russian shit-heads are dying out. They're not re-populating fast enough to keep their population growing.

Nasty Russians take a shit right next to each other.

The western world would be that way without immigration r250, Russia doesn't really have immigration.

Russians talk a lot of shit. Americans keep kicking their ass.

It must suck to be from such an ancient nation and still get your ass kicked by such a rookie country! 🙂

Well done R170!!

Plus the weather-- no wonder they all move to Miami, lol

Poor Russians. Such sad, miserable people!

Sad for Russia. Their poverty rate is soaring and only 10 of their 85 regions are financially stable. :(

[quote]Didn't Germany almost conquer Russia at one point?

If Germany conquered Russia, the outcome of WWII would have been very different. Hitler famously tried to conquer Russia and most people thought he would. He failed.

It was the defeat of the Nazi Army by the Red Army that was a crucial battles in WWII. The western front is vastly overrated in importance.

But neither country comes out looking good. The Eastern Front war was the worst in human history I'd say, definitely the deadliest.

Russia only "defeated" Germany because of their foul, freezing winters, not any particular military prowess.

Do you know how many Russians ended up as collateral damage?

The winter was definitely a huge help, particularly with the Battle of Moscow. Another big factor was Stalin simply had more people of course, they even had women fighting which the Germans couldn't believe.

But you would be wrong to say it had nothing to do with Soviet martial process. The battle of Stalingrad was one by successfully encircling the German army and cutting off their supply line for instance.

The Red Army come 1944 was an incredibly well oiled machine with some of the best and most experienced commanders. Very different than the shambled army at the beginning of hostilities. It is wrong to try to downplay that simply because of anti-Russian bias.

Russians think they're hardcore tough until they get a little taste of the Americas.

Italians kicked their asses all the way down to Brighton Beach! They know better than to try and start their shit anywhere else.

R258 / R259

Don't discount two other factors:

1. The Soviets had more soldiers-- they had a whole army in Siberia that they used to attack at Moscow

2. The NKVD (internal KGB) troops were behind the regular Soviet Army troops. If they tried to retreat, the NKVD shot at them. That's where point 1 came back into play-- sheer numbers.

Well years ago I guess a lot of years ago the common man had public lavatories where people shit next to each other without dividers. In the army as well. See the film No time For Sergeants.

Young people today can't believe even as recently as 15 to twenty years ago it was common for men both young and old to use communal showers at a gym. Expose yourself to other men? Swim nude together at Ys and men's club years before that?

Fucking perverting and so gay.

'perverted'

Putin is authoritarian, but clever. He manipulated, infiltrated, and installed a puppet government in the USA. And the Republican party is too compromised to do anything about it.

I went out with a Russian man for 3 years. While it's true that he was a shit head, and his friends were haughty and rude, he really was one of the best fucks I've ever had. Big fat uncut cock, and a nice tight arse. It was nice while it lasted, but Russians can be scary and aggressive. I won't be doing THAT again.

Religion poisons the mind.

R242 is spot on. Brutal people always on the take. I would never trust a Russian and definitely never let someone I care about be involved with one.

Was that story at R123 fiction?

Because it's really rather implausible.

Gays are not guilty of heterosexual Russians not having babies. Blame the haterosexuals; not the gays.

And Putin should solve his sexual insecurities with himself. He is his own monster.

bump

#notallRussians

In the West we have the Protestant Work Ethic. We work hard, we live better. It is a part of the Enlightenment that created America. Intellectual thinkers made it possible for regular Americans to be intellectual thinkers. We are all about self betterment.

In Russia they have the Russian Orthodox Church. There is no work ethic. There is an ethic of suffering in this world for the riches of the next world. A total con job of subservience. For Russians, the more you have, the more you have taken away. They are philosophically fucked.

This is why American Democracy has not taken root in Middle Eastern countries. NO Protestant Work Ethic. There is no ownership. Sad.

Also, in terms of ownership, the Russians have NO verb for To Possess. "I own this car" is a phrase that can only be hinted at by the Russian construction: By me there is a car. God owns everything, the Tsar owns everything, the State owns everything. They are simply BY ME. When you have NO sense of concrete ownership why bother.

Тараканьи смеются глазища...

I must correct you. America is a continent; not a country R273

Yes, they've always been like that.

Upper class women used to be locked up in terem (related to the word "harem," but Russians will try to convince you it isn't) and could never leave, not even to go to church. The tsar's sisters couldn't get married because no man was their equal. (It's now the fad to pretend Russia didn't pick up any bad habits from the Mongols).

The Russian Orthodox Church encouraged wife beating and now Putin's government and the church have reinstated domestic violence as an okey dokey form of family guidance.

R274-The Russian language also has no equivalent word for "privacy." I found this out over the weekend when I was spending time with some native Russian speakers.

The young gay ones are always on the gay sex websites looking for an American husband and obviously the green card that might come with it.

[quote]By me there is a car.

Nothing to do with god. In Welsh there is no "have" either, you say "There is a car with me."

It's probably a remnant from some indo-european language.

Russians are awful people. Sorry to sound like a yahoo, but I've yet to have a positive experience with any Russian I've met.

I once read that Russians have no tradition or custom of philanthropy. In the Gilded Age in America, the ultra wealthy essentially competed as to who could leave the most impressive legacy of philanthropy.

John D. Rockefeller was a deeply religious man and advised his children to "make as much money as fast as you can, and give it away as fast as you can." He was also a ruthless businessman, but that's beside the point.

Ergo, Russia must have a very different societal structure and be very different from the West, for this reason alone.

This is bringing back so many memories of my time working in St. Petersburg in 2004-2006.

You're right, R281. I remember trying to explain the word "volunteer" to my students. They would say, "free work? You mean free work?" And just laugh and laugh about the idea of a volunteer. An interesting thing I found out is that many pensioners who lived through the blockade received care packages from Germans. Many of them relied on these packages for survival. It was simply something that Germans did as a way to make amends for the evils of their past. Germans would also frequently sponsor a Russian child, paying for the child's education for its entire life, sending money and care packages, sometimes even hosting the child in their home or on a family vacation. One of the young Russian women who worked with me was sponsored by a German family as a child. She came from a small village in Karelia. The German family paid for all of her education growing up, medical bills, music lessons, summer language camps, then university. They had been very involved with getting her accepted to a program in London, etc. It was astonishing that most Russians knew about these situations, but there was no equivalent coming from Russian oligarchs who had made good.

That is fascinating R282.

I used to work with a bunch of Russians including Mikhail Hodorkovsky. They are all assholes. The women are vulgar and perpetually on the make. The men are grim, scowling chain smokers, hateful and would probably kill you for $5. They grew up in a society that was dog-eat-dog and that discouraged any sort of empathy for other people. One of my former colleagues, a very attractive but dumb Russian woman had moved to Western Europe, leaving behind her little kid. I asked her if she missed her kid and she told me 'no, it would have inconvenienced me to keep her with me'.

I believe our culture is about to go the way of Russia. It sure seems that way. Drug epidemics, huge accumulation of wealth at the top, an uninformed and untrusting public, the rise of authoritarian assholes. The list goes on.

Vile!

Dear Lord in Heaven!!

bump

Oh, my!

Do Russian pussies stink?

Please ask ghost of Czar Nicolas.

I worked at Pink Dot in West Hollywood in 1993. All of the drivers were either Mexican or Russian. I was one of the few non-either of those.

One day, after picking up some hot duder in the UCLA bathrooms, I came to work with a hickey on my neck. I wasn't open about my sexuality, and this hot-as-shit Russian dude gives a dirty laugh and goes "check it out" and pulls down his black polo Pink Dot shirt to reveal a hickey no doubt given by some hot girl. It was such a hot moment. Male bonding with Ivan.

Russian guys are insane, but when they're young they're all uncontained sexual energy.

anything to cheat other person, that's why the deplorables love them

It seems to be that there was a time when homosexuality or at least homoeroticism weren't such an issue for Russians.

Have a look

Interesting, r282!

We have neighbors from Kiev. The wife is a pharmacist and very into organic foods and health. She's vivacious and kind and generous. Her parents are fitness fanatics and I can only hope to be as healthy and peppy as they are. The husband is dark and silent and brooding. He reminds me of a wolf, very strong animal sexiness.

They're the exception, though. Most of the Russian immigrants in New York City are shameless grifters and you can spot them with a quickness. Even the ones born here have that special Russian fashion sense (my lovely neighbor, too, sadly).

Russia has given us top-notch art, and I love the food. But underneath that, there are layers of savagery and despair.

[quote]I once read that Russians have no tradition or custom of philanthropy.

Not true. There was great philanthropy before the Revolution. It will trickle back. At the moment it only consists of 'showy' philanthropism, like the two Faberge museums.

[quote] I remember trying to explain the word "volunteer" to my students. They would say, "free work? You mean free work?" And just laugh and laugh about the idea of a volunteer.

R282, you must have taught some ignorant students. The Soviets created "subbotnik" (means smthg similar to "Saturday"), when students and adults did free community-focused work on weekends (in the 70s-80s, it was usually one weekend a month). It was on a volunteer basis, but those not helping the communal effort were chastised as not caring about the community, so most people took active part.

Ever since Russia turned capitalist, social programs like subbotniks became less widespread, but they're still encouraged, depending on your region and school / employer. I worked for a Russian-Ukraininan-Kazakh company 5 years ago and they had subbotniks too, albeit not as regularly held - we planted trees.

America has been engaged in war for two hundred fourteen years of its two hundred forty plus year history, more than 90% of the time, yet never with Russia or China. As such, Russia and China are, in fact, allies of the United States, despite mainstream media appearances which portray them, for profit, as adversaries, as trillions of dollars in annual mutually beneficial trading proves. (Just imagine a fake wrestling match in which both sides are paid by the same party.)

Russians in Dubai have a horrible rep (tho pretty much everyone else there does, too, what with it being extremely greedy, transactional). The women are the trashiest things, at least open in their quest for someone w. money -- or someone w. more money than the person they're spreading their legs for at the moment. Their "fashion" sense seems to be based on finding the tackiest, most-revealing shit possible.

I was no fan of lots of things in the UAE, but generally agree with the thought that countries have their rules, guidelines and such, and you can pay a decent measure of attention to 'em or stay home. Lots of places in the UAE ask people to dress with a modicum of modesty; Western clothes are fine, but not so much the shorts and tops w. more ass and tits hanging out than covered. A non-trivial number of Russian women ignored those requests, walked through malls looking like cheap whores at 2 am.

I've done my share of drinking over the years, seen serious drinking in the UK, etc., but the Russian men got through alcohol at a rate that was mind-bending. And one of those completely drunk clowns crashed into my car -- a rare, top-condition high-performance sedan from Australia -- when it was parked.

[quote] in terms of ownership, the Russians have NO verb for To Possess. "I own this car" is a phrase that can only be hinted at by the Russian construction: By me there is a car.[...] When you have NO sense of concrete ownership why bother.

[quote] This is why American Democracy has not taken root in Middle Eastern countries. NO Protestant Work Ethic. There is no ownership. Sad.

R274, you’re linguistically incorrect. Russians have a normal verb for "own". "Ja vladeyu etim imushestvom" = I own / possess this property. "Ja vladelec etoy mashini" = I'm the owner of this car.

In terms of “no sense of concrete ownership”, maybe you confused the Russians (who were capitalist before and after the comparatively short Soviet period) with the historic Australian Aborigines, who according to some first accounts did not have the relatable Western concept of individual private land ownership.

Fun historical fact: The Aborigines' altruistic concept of communal land use by the entire tribe was twisted by the first colonizing Brits to cunningly argue (via a pompous official legal doctrine no less, called "Terra Nullis") that since there was *technically* no individual ‘owners’ of land in Oz (by a capitalist understanding of ‘ownership’), then Australia was *technically* 'vacant' property, and so the British Crown could rightfully become the first ever legal owner of all that ‘owner-less’ land in Oz.

So let’s be careful about dissing societies that lack a “concrete sense of ownership” (e.g. some historic first nations, modern world tribes, etc) and praising capitalist systems where people are greedily obsessed about converting everything, fairly and often unfairly, into their own ‘exclusive ownership’.

They have some of the worst personal hygiene habits of any culture I know of. Funky people who have no problem getting up in people's faces with foul stinking breath... worse than Filipino breath, which usually smells like garlic and ass. Russian halitosis is ten times worse, if that's possible...

[quote] They grew up in a society that was dog-eat-dog and that discouraged any sort of empathy for other people.

Older Russians (born in the 60s & onwards, until the dissolution of the USSR in 1992) grew up in socialism, which, for all its limitations, objectively encouraged empathy & a sense of collective responsibility & help: free universal medicine, free higher education and free modest housing for everyone.

Supporting free healthcare and free higher education for people is real, life-changing empathy. Philanthropy is good too, but it’s more limited in reach and sporadic in effect – it’s not comparable to a nation-wide Free Healthcare Law.

R281, it's true, only the church provides support

Yada yada yada, they have horrific body odor....

R300, are you Macedonian on account?

I knew a guy (daughter of a famous author) who lived in Communist Russia for a couple of years because her father's books were popular in Russia but they wouldn't export the royalties so they had to be spent in Russia. She had a fabulous time, even though it meant living in a communal apartment. She said the difficulty of life then made friendships much more intimate and intense than in the west, and there was no people more loving than Russians when they open their hearts. So!

guy=girl (typo!)

bump

Putin is perhaps bisexual trying to erase suspicions by being homophobic as in "more homophobic more heterosexual I will look to them"...

The deplorables and Russian trolls got this marked out

I thought we all agreed on ergot poisoning as the problem with Russians.

I remember I once read about a Russian man, I fail to remember if he was a polititian, a journalist or something like that who used to say he thinks Putin likes men.

When it comes to homophobia in highly homophobic countries like Russia one cannot forget to think that many of the men who victimise gay men may be trying to follow the thoughtless mass so as to be thought as one moe of the "good ones" and not raise suspicions of same-sex attraction that could turn the thoughtless mass against them and become the victim. Something like a survival mechanism...

Homophobic attacks I think are strongly related to personal fears regarding your own inclinations.

Filthy Russian Slut Is Getting Pounded in Her Mouth in the Public Place

[quote] Homophobic attacks I think are strongly related to personal fears regarding your own inclinations.

But most of the time they are committed by straight people who are homophobic. Sometimes that may be the case but fucking the opposite sex doesn't give you a get out of jail free card.

Yes, R316, it is tiresome because it is a lie. It is just another means of blaming gay people for homophobia.