Category: Russia

In all the asthmatic Western media exclamations being directed at Russia at this moment in history over Putin and the Russian presidency coming up in March. The one affair, a lot of Western journalists have excused from their articles and fail to acknowledge 99% of the time, is that the strongest and best-organized political action force in Russia to counter Putin is none the less… The Communist Party!

Yes the dreaded, evil that we must wipe off the face of the earth, you know that communist party! Yes the one that Lenin, Stalin and Brezhnev all loved with open arms, which has a continued attitude of absolutism and adverse bread-and-butter policies!

Gennady Zyuganov has run the escapade since 1993, because everybody else with an aptitude and appetite for cold hard cash left the party to accomplish a quick buck…

Yes that communist party…

So while you root for who the Western press pushes for Russian president, as you sit in your home, as a armchair politician. Just realize who you root for, because it goes against all that you have been told all your life. I know that it goes against what I was told and I lived right there with you most of my life…

So – Lets Go Communist! Lets Go! Lets Go Communist! Lets Go! Lets Go Communist! Lets Go! Give me a C! Give me a O! Give me a M! Give me a M! Give me a U! Give me a N! Give me a I! Give me a S! Give me a T! What does that spell… Communist! Lets Go Communist! Lets Go! (Catchy cheer isn’t it?)

Hmm…

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

PS: I think that it would be interesting (maybe?) to see the communist get in power in Russia again! As Sveta would say, “That would be just right!” Sveta votes communist by the way…

Sveta and I are getting ready as soon as the weather breaks to take a trip to the village. I am going to live in the village this year for about two to three months. Boza will be with me and Sveta will be able to spend about a month there…

It is time to rebuild the worn out parts on the village home and our Volga car. In the village I will have the space and time to do that…

So I posted one of my favorite pictures of the village as it is seen through the grass across the lake. This year I want to do some fishing and eat fresh fish part of the time in the village… 🙂

Yes the village is as beautiful as the photo shows…

Kyle and Sveta
Windows to Russia!

Map shows Kalmykia!

Hello,

On one of our trips, (the one that I lost all the pictures) we had the opportunity to go to Russia’s republic of Kalmykia which is the only region in Europe where Buddhism is the dominant religion. Temples were destroyed there during the Soviet era and Buddhism went into decline. But in a new age of tolerance, the steppe region is enjoying a religious renaissance. There are now 67 Buddhist temples in Kalmykia!

The Republic of Kalmykia (Russian: Респу́блика Калмы́кия; Kalmyk: Хальмг Таңһч) is a federal subject of the Russian Federation (a republic). The direct romanization of the republic’s Russian name is Respublika Kalmykiya, and that of the Kalmyk name is Xal’mg Tanghch. It is remarkable for being the only state in Europe where the dominant religion is Buddhism. It has also become famous because its current government has made it the chess center of the world. (Link)
One of the things that we remember about the area was the wild tulips. We had hundreds of pictures of fields of red and yellow tulips blowing in the wind. We drove for miles and miles and never got tired of seeing millions of wild tulips. We stopped and walked in the fields and it was truly fantastic. Sveta and I had a magical trip in those tulip fields. It is what fairy tales are made of…

Kalmykia was a wonderful part of the world and the people were so nice. We are looking forward to going back one day.

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.

This story by Leonid Savin, political scientist, Strategic Culture Foundation expert, was published in International Affairs magazine.

The EU oil embargo recently slapped on Iran and the threats voiced by the US and other Western countries to come up with further sanctions against the country led watchers to conclude that an armed conflict between Iran and the West finally became imminent.

The first potential scenario in the context is that the current standoff would eventually escalate into a war. The US forces in the Gulf area currently number 40,000, plus 90,000 are deployed in Afghanistan, just east of Iran, and several thousands of support troops are deployed in various Asian countries. That adds up to a considerable military potential which may still fall short of what it takes to keep a lid on everything if armed hostilities break out. For example, Colin H. Kahl argues in a recent paper in Foreign Affairs that, even though “there is no doubt that Washington will win in the narrow operational sense” (1), the US would have to take a vast array of pertinent problems into account.

At the moment, maintaining the status quo is not in the US interests, holds Stratfor, a US-based global intelligence agency: “If al Assad survives and if the situation in Iraq proceeds as it has been proceeding, then Iran is creating a reality that will define the region. The United States does not have a broad and effective coalition, and certainly not one that would rally in the event of war. It has only Israel …” (2) If the conflict with Iran takes the shape of a protracted bombing campaign and comes as a prologue to the occupation of the country, the US will need to strengthen its positions in adjacent regions, meaning that Washington will be trying to draw the Caucasian republics (Georgia, Azerbaijan) and those of Central Asia into the orbit of its policy and thus tightening the “Anaconda loop” around Russia.

An alternative scenario also deserves attention. The EU sanctions would surely hurt many of the European economies – notably, Greece, Italy, and Spain – by a ricochet. In fact, Spanish diplomacy chief José Manuel García-Margallo Y Marfil bluntly described the sanctions decision as a sacrifice (3). As for Iran, the oil blockade can cause its annual budget to contract by $15-20b, which generally should not be critical but, as the country’s parliamentary elections and the 2013 presidential poll are drawing closer and the West actively props up its domestic opposition, outbreaks of unrest in Iran would quite possibly ensue. Tehran has already made it clear it would make a serious effort to find buyers for its oil export elsewhere.

China and India, Iran’s respective number one and number three clients, brushed off the idea of the US-led sanctions momentarily. Japan pledged support for Washington over the matter but did not post any specific plans to reduce the volumes of oil it imports from Iran. Japan, by the way, was badly hit in 1973 when Wall Street provoked an oil crisis and the US guarantees turned hollow. Consequently, Tokyo can be expected to approach Washington’s sanction suggestions with utmost caution and to ask the US for unequivocal guarantees that the White House will be unable to provide. Right now the US is courting South Korea with the aim of having it cut off the import of oil from Iran.

The opposition mounted to the plans underlying the military scenario by China, Russia, and India seems to hold the promise of an alliance of countries seeking to tame the US hegemony and raging unilateralism. Stratfor analysts have a point saying that time is not on the US side, considering that the BRICs countries have some opportunities to influence the situation in the potential conflict zone by launching joint anti-terrorism and anti-piracy maneuvers in the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf etc.

Inducing the regime change in Iran, which is Washington’s end goal, still takes a pretext. The US has long been eying various factions in Iran in the hope to capitalize on the country’s existing domestic rivalries parallel to the employment of tested color revolution techniques such as the support for the Green Movement or the establishment of a virtual embassy for Iran. Richard Sanders, a vocal critic of the US foreign policy, opined that, at least since the invasion of Mexico in the late XIX century, the US permanently relied on the mechanism of war pretext incidents to compile justifications for its military interventions (4). US arch-conservative Patrick J. Buchanan cited in his opinion piece titled “Did FDR Provoke Pearl Harbor?” the fairly common view that the US financial circles knowingly provoked the Pearl Harbor attack to drag the US into a war with the remote goal of ensuring the dollar empire’s global primacy (5). The lesson to be learned from the history of the Vietnam War, namely the Gulf of Tonkin incident in which USS Maddox entered Vietnam’s territorial waters and opened fire on the boats of its navy, is that the initial conflict was similarly ignited by the US intelligence community, the result being that the US Congress authorized LBJ to militarily engage Vietnam (by the way, no retribution followed in June 1967 when the Israelis attacked USS Liberty, killing 34 and wounding 172). The morally charged concepts of humanitarian interventions and war on terror had just as well been invoked to legitimize downright aggressions against Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Speaking of the current developments around the Persian Gulf, Washington’s choice of pretexts for an aggression comprises at least three options, namely 1) Iran’s nuclear dossier; 2) an engineered escalation in the Strait of Hormuz; 3) allegations that Iran supports international terrorism.

The US objective behind the pressure on Iran over its nuclear program – to make everybody in the world accept Washington’s rules of the game – has never been deeply hidden. The abundant alarmist talk is intended to deflect attention from the simple truth that building a nuclear arsenal with the help of civilian nuclear technologies is absolutely impossible, but Matthew H. Kroenig from the Council on Foreign Relations recently went so far as to warn that Iran would some day pass its nuclear technologies to Venezuela (6). The motivation must be to somehow bundle all critics of the US foreign policy.

The Strait of Hormuz which is the maritime chokepoint of the Persian Gulf is regarded as the epicenter of the coming new war. It serves as the avenue for oil supplies from Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, the Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates and is therefore being closely monitored by all likely parties to the conflict. According to the US Department of Energy, the 2011 oil transit via the Strait of Hormuz totaled 17 billion barrels, or roughly 20% of the world’s total (7). Oil prices are projected to increase by 50% if anything disquieting happens in the Strait of Hormuz (8).

Passing through the Strait of Hormuz takes navigation across the territorial waters of Iran and Oman. Iran grants as a courtesy the right to sail across its waters based on the UN Treaty on Maritime Goods Transportation.

It must be understood in connection with Washington’s recurrent statements concerning the Strait of Hormuz that in this regard the US and Iran have the same legal status as countries which penned but did not ratify the treaty, and thus the US has no moral right to references to the international law. Iran’s administration stressed recently after consultations with the national legislation that Tehran would possibly subject to a revision the regulations under which foreign vessels are admitted to the Iranian territorial waters (9).

Navies are also supposed to observe certain international laws, in particular, those defining the minimal distance to be maintained to vessels of other countries. It constantly pops up in the US media that Iranian boats come riskily close to US vessels but, as watchers note, provocateurs like the CIA-sponsored separatists from Iran’s Baluchistan could in some cases be pulling off the tricks in disguise.

Chances are that a part of the oil embargo plan is to make the West encounter oil supply problems and start constructing pipelines across Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen, Qatar, and Iraq as alternative routes reaching the shores of the Arabian, Red, and Mediterranean Seas. A few of these projects, the Hashan–Fujairah pipeline, for instance, are as of today in the process of being implemented. If that is the idea, the explanation behind Washington’s tendency to convince its allies to create a “safer” pipeline infrastructure is straightforward. Geopolitics being an inescapable reality, it does have to be taken into account, though, that the region’s countries remain locked in a variety of conflicts and, due to geographic reasons, Tehran would be a key player even if the pipelines are launched.

Since the new US military strategy implies focusing on two regions – the Greater Middle East and South East Asia – the issue of the Strait of Hormuz appears coupled to that of the Strait of Malacca which offers the shortest route for the oil supply from the Indian Ocean to China, Japan, South Korea, and the rest of South East Asia. The arrangement implicitly factors into the Asian countries’ decision-making related to Iran.

The precedent of “the war on terror” – a campaign during which the US occupied under dubious pretexts Iraq and Afghanistan at the costs of thousands of lives – must also be kept in mind. Ages ago, the White House sanctioned subversive activities against various parts of the Iranian administration, including the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution. Former CIA operative Phillip Giraldi writes that the US and Israeli agents have been active in Iran for quite some time and are responsible for the epidemic of the Stuxnet virus and the series of assassinations of Iranian nuclear physicists. The groups within Iran which aligned themselves with the country’s foes are the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, the Baluchistan-based separatist Jundallah whose leader Abdolmajid Rigi was arrested in February, 2010 by the Iranian security forces and admitted to cooperating with the CIA, and the Kurdish Free Life of Kurdistan (10).

In essence, a war against Iran – up to date a secret war – is underway. The problem the parties involved are trying to resolve is to find a way of prevailing without entering the “hot” phase of the conflict.

(Views expressed in this article reflect the author’s opinion and do not necessarily reflect those of Windows to Russia. Windows to Russiadoes not vouch for facts and quotes mentioned in the story)

1.     Colin H. Kahl. Not Time to Attack Iran. January 17, 2012.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137031/colin-h-kahl/not-time-to-attack-iran?cid=nlc-public-the_world_this_week-link6-20120120
2.    Iran, the U.S. and the Strait of Hormuz Crisis. January 17, 2012. http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/iran-us-and-strait-hormuz-crisis?utm_source=freelist f&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20120117&utm_term=gweekly&utm_content=readmore&elq=b90cfbef7b1a402ea2f1fc384080fa15
3.    La UE acuerda vetar las importaciones de petroleo de Iran. 23.01.2012 http://www.lavanguardia.com/internacional/20120123/54245752767/ue-vetar-importaciones-petroleo-iran.html
4.    Richard Sanders. How to Start a War: The American Use of War Pretext Incidents. Global Research, January 9, 2012.
5.   
6.    Recent Events in Iran and the Progress of Its Nuclear Program. January 17, 2012. http://www.cfr.org/iran/recent-events-iran-progress-its-nuclear-program/p27090?cid=nlc-public-the_world_this_week-link5-20120120
7.     http://www.eia.gov/cabs/world_oil_transit_chokepoints/full.html
8.    Michael T. Klare. Danger Waters. January 10, 2012. http://aep.typepad.com/american_empire_project/2012/01/danger-waters.html#more
9.    Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya. The Geo-Politics of the Strait of Hormuz: Could the U.S. Navy be defeated by Iran in the Persian Gulf? Global Research, January 8, 2012. www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28516
10.    Philip Giraldi. Washington’s Secret Wars. 08 December 2011.

Windows to Russia!

Hello,

I was drinking my morning cup of coffee and watching a video that Svet put on the Russian Video Blog!

A fact that I had no idea about, was that the Soviet Union made their own Champagne! I always thought that only the French had Champagne *(Champagne is a sparkling wine produced by inducing the in-bottle secondary fermentation of the wine to effect carbonation. It is produced exclusively within the Champagne region of France, from which it takes its name.)

‘Soviet Champagne’ was born 72 years ago, when Stalin signed a decree ordering production of a sparkling wine called ‘Sovetskoye Shampanskoye’. The first wineries appeared in the southern city of Rostov and later in Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod), in central Russia.

I have feeling that the French do not accept that the Soviets had Champagne any more than it is accepted that America makes a Champagne. But Russia has carried on the tradition in full force and no New Years in Russia would not be complete with out the local Champagne. (Sparkling Wine)

A little history on the Soviet Champagne: Chemist Anton Frolov-Bagreev is the man considered to be the founding father of ‘Soviet Champagne’ he devoted his entire life to perfecting his technology. It seems that he even perfected a way to allowed for fermentation of the champagne in reservoirs, rather than in bottles as before. This allowed for mass production, making champagne a drink for the masses. Frolov attained his dream of popularizing the drink after the Second World War. For several years in the Soviet Union, champagne was even sold on tap (spigot) in the food stores next to the fruit juices!

Russia has continued and will continue with Champagne production the Soviet way and every New Years multiple millions of bottles are sold of the world famous Soviet Champagne.

So next year try a Soviet Champagne at the New Year…

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.

Hello, While this is an old post of mine it still has much meaning in the world. It is a shame that we as a human race can not just have peace, happiness and calm…

I was drinking my morning cup of coffee and reading about a subject that brought back memories of an era, I hope stays gone. Thirty years ago the USSR informed the world it had successfully tested one of the deadliest weapons ever invented – a neutron bomb. The day has gone down in arms race history.

A neutron bomb is an enhanced radiation weapon (ERW); the killing mechanism is an intense burst of high-energy neutrons.

Its peculiarity as a thermonuclear weapon is that the energy emission is much slower than that of the usual thermonuclear blast.

So, the amount of energy used to create the blast wave and heat flash is much less, but the stream of neurons which destroys people and animals is many times stronger. At the same time, buildings and equipment are not affected at all.

I remember that In 1978 President Jimmy Carter halted neutron device production as concern grew over its effects on the arms race. I remember that it was another weapon that seemed to be used to scare us.

The Neutron Bomb was heavily propagandized in the USA and Russia. Both countries already had the means to destroy the world several times over with their nuclear arsenals. But the sound of a bomb that could destroy all life and leave the buildings intact made for many conversations in school and gatherings.

The image of walking the streets of a huge city devoid of life has been the basis for many sci fi books. This weapon just added to the imaginations of generations of youngsters from the USA and USSR!

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said:

“The people who are obsessed with removing regimes in the region (Middle East), they should be really thinking about the broader picture. And I’m afraid that if this vigor to change regimes persists, we are going to witness a very bad situation much, much, much broader than just Syria, Libya, Egypt or any other single country.”

Oh how true he speaks! Please Western governments, stop and think about the games you play. For you – are why the innocents are dying in the name of democracy and regime change…

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

PS: Russia is firing the warning shots and now China has joined also. Warning shots are the civilized way of doing things. It seems strange to me that the only countries with the coolest heads and most common sense are the countries that America has labeled as evil and deadly. Think people think…

I am drinking a good cup of hot chicory and have the extra heater on. I got a little bit cold.: It was about -27 below Celsius as I walked the dog and my eyes started to tear up from the cold. That is when I realized that my left eye had frozen shut. Not badly, but still the eye lashes had frozen together. Then I realized that a tear had frozen on my cheek. Now that was so cool… (No pun intended!)

By the time we had gotten back from an hour long walk. The temperature had warmed up to about -25 below zero Celsius. (Yes a proverbial heat wave.) So I checked on Yandex what is -25 C in Fahrenheit? It is around -13 F… (Which means -27 C is around -17 F)

We probably stayed out to long and by the time we got back Boza was starting to feel the cold and was trying to keep any paw paw he could off the ground. He decided that two paws on the ground was the best answer… 🙂 (Better yet in my arms would be the best!) I could not feel my face and that seemed like a good time to go in…

Walking the dog in Moscow is always an experience and since I walk the dog a lot, I get lots of experiences…

That is why I love Russia and now I am going to go make a cream of chicken noodle soup for Sveta and I, for tonight on this bitterly cold evening…

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

PS: I see old ancient Babushkas walking around in this weather like it is nothing. I realize that they have spent their whole life in these conditions. They are battle hardened people that know no other way of life. Also when the sun shines, even at -25 below zero, the mommas have their kids out in the sun playing in the parks. The kids can not get up if they fall down due to all the clothes and coats, but that is what mom is for, to pick them back up as they flounder in the snow. Then the moms pull their kids around in sleds all day and do the shopping…

That is why I love Russia…

Under the title “Why the United States does not want to elect Putin as the Russian president”  Komsomolskaya Pravda daily quoted some excerpts from a survey of a famous US political scientist and economist William Engdahl. Engdahl’s survey was published in Germany. The newspaper noted that Engdahl is convinced the US is seeking to discredit the Russian national leader, because the latter remains the major obstacle on the way for the West’s domination in the world.

“Washington clearly wants ‘finito’ with Russia’s Putin as in basta! Hillary Clinton and friends have apparently decided Russia’s prospective next president, Vladimir Putin, is a major obstacle to their plans. Few however understand why. Russia today, in tandem with China and to a significant degree Iran, form the spine, however shaky, of the only effective global axis of resistance to the world dominated by one sole superpower,” Engdahl noted.

“No mistake, Putin is not a world champion practitioner of what most consider democracy. His announcement some months back that he and current President Medvedev had agreed to switch jobs after Russia’s March 4 Presidential vote struck many Russians as power politics and backroom deal-making.

“That being said, what Washington is doing to interfere with that regime change is more than brazen and interventionist. The same Obama Administration, which just signed into law measures effectively ripping to shreds the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution for American citizens is posing as the world’s supreme judge of others’ adherence to what they define as democracy,” the political scientist remarked.

Engdahl offers to consider Putin’s recent statement that the US interferes in the elections, giving them hasty assessments. It is easy to find an official annual report (delivered in August 2011) of the Washington-based non-government organization with an innocuous name of the National Endowment for Democracy, he writes. According to the report the organization has already penetrated very deeply everywhere in Russia. The National Endowment for Democracy funds the International Press Centre in Moscow, where about 80 non-government organizations can give press conferences on each topic. The endowment also funds numerous youth organizations and seminars for future chief executives in order to help young people to engage in politics. Over 2,783,000 dollars were officially spent in 2010 for tens of similar programs in all Russian regions, the US political scientist claims.

The National Endowment for Democracy also finances the vital parts of independent sociological surveys in Russia and election observer missions make an important part of its activities in order to have an opportunity to state about election rigging. This is the National Endowment for Democracy which sponsors partially the Golos association.

“Helping youth engage in political activism is precisely what the same NED did in Egypt over the past several years in the lead up to the toppling of Mubarak. The same NED was instrumental by informed accounts in the US-backed “Colour Revolutions” in 2003-2004 in Ukraine and Georgia that brought US-backed pro-NATO surrogates to power,” Engdahl assumed.

“The salient question is why Putin at this point? We do not need to look far for the answer. Washington and especially Barack Obama’s Administration don’t give a hoot about whether Russia is democratic or not. Their concern is the obstacle to Washington’s plans for Full Spectrum Dominance of the planet that Putin’s Presidency will represent,” he speculates.

“We can also expect a more aggressive use of Russia’s energy card with pipeline diplomacy to deepen economic ties between European NATO members such as Germany, France and Italy, ultimately weakening the EU support for the aggressive NATO measures against Russia. We can expect a deepening of Russia’s turn towards Eurasia, especially with China, Iran and perhaps India to firm up the shaky spine of resistance to Washington’s New World Order plans,” Engdahl underlined.

Windows to Russia!

Russia has been the most vocal voice against a Western backed death resolution against Syria. I have said all along that China has the same feelings. Well it is official now as China has come out from the background and expressed their sentiments on the Syrian subject…

UNITED NATIONS, February 1 (Itar-Tass) — China will support Russia’s draft resolution on Syria, Permanent Representative of China to the United Nations Li Baodong said at a session of the U.N. Security Council on Syria on Tuesday. According to Li Baodong, China intends to take an active and constructive part in consultations and make efforts together with other parties towards the settlement of the situation in Syria through a political dialogue. The Xinhua news agency on Wednesday quoted him as saying China is categorically against the use of force to change the regime in Syria as this violates “the purposes and principles of the U.N. Charter and the basic norms governing the international relations”. The Chinese ambassador also backed Russia’s offer to the Syrian authorities and all opposition groups to send their representatives to Moscow for consultations without any preconditions.

So the single most important fact at the UN council meeting going on is the fact that Russia and China stand united and they both have veto power…

Of course after Hillery Killery Clinton tells everyone that: “I know that some members (UN) here are concerned that we are headed toward another Libya. That is a false analogy. Syria is a unique situation that requires its own approach, tailored to the specific circumstances on the ground.”

Okay – well we all know that what Hillary says is the word from god and we must believe! Right?

Since when would anyone believe a word that is said by a USA government official/politician, any time and anyplace in this world? Our reputation is worse than a bag of excrement left on someone’s front porch and lit on fire, as the door bell is rang, as a gag. This reputation is entirely Americas doing, by her actions when she plays, in other peoples back yards…

America reminds me of the comic strip “Peanuts” – we all have cringed, when Lucy always tells Charley Brown that she has changed and will not pull the football away as Charley Brown tries to kick it. But…

Well that comic episode sums up the US administrations word, reliability and respectability…

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

PS: Expect to see a huge increase in media rhetoric against China now that they have expressed consolidation with Russia…