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SaltyJesus posted:Huh. I've never heard of anybody losing anything first hand. It was always "a friend's cousin has an uncle who..." Yeah, the TV and satellite receiver were fried when I was around 11-12 and I remember it very clearly because I was physically present in the room. I remember seeing a blue bolt shoot out of the back of the receiver and arc up the wall, which was kind of awesome except we had to go buy a new TV. I wasn't present for the modem but it definitely stopped working after a lightning storm when it had no issues previously.
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Oct 21, 2014 23:39
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I've had two cable boxes, a modem, an XBox, a garage door opener and a radio go all from a single strike.
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Oct 21, 2014 23:42
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Just checked on Snoopes and it seems even fatalities are frequent. Turns out your nanna knew better. 
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Oct 21, 2014 23:44
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Well, Latvia, what did you go and do that for? http://newsweek24.com/world/item/872-22-10-2014-latvia-will-prohibit-the-issuance-of-a-residence-permit-to-russians-for-money quote:As reported by RIA Novosti, the amendments provide for the termination of residence permits to citizens of Russia for the purchase of real estate.
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Oct 21, 2014 23:44
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HUGE PUBES A PLUS posted:Well, Latvia, what did you go and do that for? I would be very surprised if poo poo like this doesn't become the norm. Unfortunate as it is recent history has shown that being a neighbor of Russia and having a significant russian minority is an invitation for trouble. Can't really blame them for being paranoid but this sort of thing might create resentment in the russians that live there already were there was none before.
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Oct 21, 2014 23:51
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MeLKoR posted:Just checked on Snoopes and it seems even fatalities are frequent. Turns out your nanna knew better. Was it really ever controversial that electricity can travel in wires? And I wouldn't call once a year 'frequent', you are like 500x more likely to die from your bedsheets choking you. If you are worried about your electronics most surge protectors that aren't 5 dollars will insure anything attached to them. SaltyJesus posted:Huh. I've never heard of anybody losing anything first hand. It was always "a friend's cousin has an uncle who..." Of course it can happen, it's incredibly rare but it really shouldn't be a surprise that electronics which can ruined by static electricity from your hand can get fried by a bad strike. Running around and unplugging all your poo poo is still silly because of how rare something like that is, you just can't plan for every little thing.
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Oct 22, 2014 00:15
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tsa posted:Running around and unplugging all your poo poo is still silly because of how rare something like that is, you just can't plan for every little thing. Yeah, this was my reasoning. Plus I know our apartment building had a lightning rod, I'm pretty sure my grandmother's house did too. I'll have to check tomorrow.
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Oct 22, 2014 00:21
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SaltyJesus posted:Yeah, this was my reasoning. Plus I know our apartment building had a lightning rod, I'm pretty sure my grandmother's house did too. I'll have to check tomorrow.
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Oct 22, 2014 03:23
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Ardennes posted:I guess the irony is that Fidesz actually started as an anti-communist organization/party all the way back in the late 80s, it turns down they weren't against centralized authoritarianism...just left centralized authoritarianism. Orbán did a whole 180 in every single regard of his beliefs. For every single decision they had in the last four year one can find a statement of them opposing it before 2010. And I wish I'd be exaggerating, but no: this internet tax was also something they spoke up against harshly in 2008 when a rumor of something like this (albeit orders of magnitudes less brutal) surfaced. They have recently celebrated a tire factory being built - by the same company they have literally chased away from the same city in 2007 or 2008 by organizing civil protests. They have absolutely no problem with centralization as long as they have the power. And to try to answer your question: we're often showing signs of growth but our GDP as a whole depends critically on two big car factories (Audi and Mercedes) set up here. Orbán's main goal is cutting unemployment, but since they even change the Constitution as soon as they feel like there is money in it, foreign investors are starting to avoid the country. Banks and telcos are taxed heavily, and while they pass it on to customers, the overall rhetoric is that "people shall not pay, companies should". There are enough voters who can simply shrug off having bank costs go up by 200% while cheering for Orbán for taxing banks, not making the connection at all. Big companies are evil, simple. Profit is evil (unless they get a cut). There is no legal safety for private property, anything that seems profitable can be nationalized overnight. The public service TV channels, radio stations and newspapers (and they are the ones reaching the majority, especially in the rural areas) are controlled tightly by the government (and are managed by people like the news editor-in-chief of the national news agency gaining notoriety after trying to attack an opposing EU representative by editing an interview to try to make him seem to be a pedophile). Same goes for the police, prosecution and the tax authority. People have next to no financial knowledge, and many are held hostage to foreign currency-based loans (they were rather cheap until the global crisis hit, when the Swiss frank exchange rates skyrocketed, for some doubling the monthly payments). This helped the anti-bank sentiments Orbán rode to victory well, of course. So yeah, it's bad. And the guys don't even pretend any more: the recently appointed minister of foreign affairs has just bought a house for a sum he couldn't even earn legally during his whole career. When asked, he managed to answer that half of the price was given to him by his father (a construction entrepreneur who was part of a large-scale carter busted in 2010 but was the only one miraculously emerging unscathed the same year his boy and his friends won the election). Just the money daddy has allegedly fronted is 3 times the price of a nice suburban house, by the way (while the majority of the people have day-to-day financial problems). And there is no tax investigation, nothing. If there is, they manage to do it in an afternoon and come up clean, despite being unable to explain how they managed to save 300% of their annual wages. tsa posted:If you are worried about your electronics most surge protectors that aren't 5 dollars will insure anything attached to them. We had a lightning strike fry the cable modem and the Ethernet ports of every device attached to it. Don't know how it could happen, probably getting in via the coax cable coming in.
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Oct 22, 2014 03:52
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Google Maps now shows Russian vehicles (artillery?) right on the border. https://www.google.se/maps/@47.9019669,39.8610982,779m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en
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Oct 22, 2014 04:13
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MeLKoR posted:OK, at the risk of looking like a fool I usually unplug the laptop and other expensive electronics because it has happened occasionally (or at least has been reported), for everything connected to power outlets to get fried when a home is hit by lightning. I don't know under which specific circumstances this happens or if the lightning has to hit something in particular, it doesn't happen every year but it does allegedly happen once in a while and according to the news reports the the electric company will refuse to cover these incidents with their power surge insurance because it's not their fault. Lightning fried several DSL modems of mine. I'm kinda paranoid about leaving them plugged in in bad weather. Also, one of them got fried while it was unplugged from the power socket but still plugged on the phone line. Surge protectors have been perfectly useless in my experience. I've also had a washing machine killed by a lightning surge. And countless lightbulbs too. On the other hand, never had any problem with laptop chargers. Fridges also stay plugged 24/7 through any weather and never broke. SaltyJesus posted:Are houses and apartment buildings not grounded over there? It's a pretty standard feature. Grounding is to handle mishaps in the devices. It's useless against lightning. Heck, it can even be dangerous! At my parents' house, a storm once had winds so violent that the lightning rod broke, and fell on the power line. For nearly a half hour before the anomaly was detected by the power company and current cut on the entire line, 20 kv current was passing through the earth and trying to close circuit through the path of least resistance, which happened to be every single device plugged on a grounded socket at my parents' house. That killed the oven, the TV, the washing machine, and created some impressive pyrotechnic effects guest starring some sort of ball lighting, though fortunately nothing caught fire. Cat Mattress fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Oct 22, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 04:14
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Jim DiGriz posted:Orbán and Hungary
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Oct 22, 2014 08:01
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Jim DiGriz posted:We had a lightning strike fry the cable modem and the Ethernet ports of every device attached to it. Don't know how it could happen, probably getting in via the coax cable coming in. As someone who had to replace his ceramic breakers after a heavy thunder storm once, this should not happen. Didn't your breakers jump? Hell, several times lighter thunder storms have knocked out my normal breakers. I'm pretty sure I don't even need all the extension leads with build-in breakers I bought and attached to my outlets just in case the breakers are too late some day. (Someone who needs his computer should still have them, of course.) Edit: Woops, this was for the other thread. My bad. Ukraine and Russia arrive at an arrangement about gas prices. Progress with baby steps. Libluini fucked around with this message at 09:39 on Oct 22, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 09:36
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MeLKoR posted:I would be very surprised if poo poo like this doesn't become the norm. Unfortunate as it is recent history has shown that being a neighbor of Russia and having a significant russian minority is an invitation for trouble. Can't really blame them for being paranoid but this sort of thing might create resentment in the russians that live there already were there was none before. There was plenty of resentment there before on both sides, but the Latvians have gone way out of their way to make it as bad as possible. Although the Baltic states like to present themselves as the happy face of EU and NATO expansion and democratization, it's a story that leaves out 20-30% of the population being denied voting rights, pensions, government jobs, state services, etc. There are many Russians who can see that Russia's government sucks, and don't want to be incorporated into Russia, but if/when they're treated badly enough, they'll eventually go with the lesser of two evils. The anti-EU anti-NATO forces in Russia are hugely bolstered by how the Baltic states have treated ethnic Russians and how the EU and the US have turned a totally blind eye to it. If you're an ethnic Russian in Ukraine and Ukrainian nationalists that kinda hate you are talking about joining NATO and the EU, and the only reference experiences of large settled Russian populations living in EU countries is that Russians can't vote, Russians pension is canceled, and all government documents will be in a language many of them don't speak, it's not going to be hard for Russia to get your tacit support. Russia isn't like North Korea or something: there's just enough truth in the Kremlin propaganda to keep the Russian public on-board. Since "The West" has repeatedly proven itself untrustworthy and indifferent to them, most people I know in Russia figure United Russia sucks but there's no alternative.
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Oct 22, 2014 10:25
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Ghost of Mussolini posted:What most disappoints me about the Hungarian case is how the EU is just sitting on its rear end and doing nothing as Hungary increasingly does things that are increasingly suspect, the 2011 and 2013 reforms of the constitution particularly. It strikes me as odd because as far as I can tell nobody is happy with it, but the power of the EU really does drop off once membership conditionality is no longer an option to demand change in a (potential) member state. It's extremely disappointing from here as well. Won't last long, though: a proposal was issued to the Parliament yesterday, and it looks like it's tailored specifically to Gazprom, separating gas pipeline construction and gas transportation licences. If adopted, it would allow the building of the South Stream's Hungarian part (not its utilization though - but as an article I've read on the topic a finished pipeline would put Hungary to a better negotiating position). And with this we will practically admit to taking Putin's side against the EU (despite the latter funding 9x% of everything around here), and I can't imagine there is a way to backpedal from such a step. I'm no politics expert, but I don't see how we could remain in the EU with this attitude. Libluini posted:As someone who had to replace his ceramic breakers after a heavy thunder storm once, this should not happen. Didn't your breakers jump? Hell, several times lighter thunder storms have knocked out my normal breakers. I'm pretty sure I don't even need all the extension leads with build-in breakers I bought and attached to my outlets just in case the breakers are too late some day. (Someone who needs his computer should still have them, of course.) I don't even remember, it was several years before. All I know is that both an Xbox classic and a little NAS unit had their Ethernet port wrecked, and also a switch (though luckily the PCs on that one survived).
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Oct 22, 2014 10:35
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In football, Belarus's BATE suffered their worst defeat ever against Ukraine's Shaktar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4zqjJYStMI 
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Oct 22, 2014 11:04
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HUGE PUBES A PLUS posted:Well, Latvia, what did you go and do that for? MeLKoR posted:I would be very surprised if poo poo like this doesn't become the norm. Unfortunate as it is recent history has shown that being a neighbor of Russia and having a significant russian minority is an invitation for trouble. Can't really blame them for being paranoid but this sort of thing might create resentment in the russians that live there already were there was none before. Besides that, the law has to go through Saeima in order for Changes to be made in legal code. The fact that Defence, interior and anti-corruption committee has not diswoved the proposal means only that they have asked Saeima to view it, they do not make important decisions themselves. As well as that, I wonder, what kind of proposals do you really guys expect from TB/LNNK.  fake edit: That site is poo poo. 22.07% of inhabitants of Latvia do not have rights to vote. Their Russian, or whatever, pensions are not cancelled, it is up to Russia or whatever other country. Same goes for other governmental services - why government has to provide anything to those who have done nothing to become part of it? The language they do not speak is such only because they have been witful enough to master a dime of the said language during past 23 years, an impressive feat even if we take mentally handicapped persons as a reference point. That, coincidentally, is the only thing that separates them from obtaining citizenship - just learn the loving language and you are fine (in absolute majority of cases). No one holds them, they are free to leave countries that by any laws are not successors to the Soviet Union and have not taken, partially or completely, legal obligations of Soviet Union. And yadda yadda yadda, I could write an essay or two on this topic but since I do not have my computer (yet)(  ) and I have to write  from university library the case point is that it is their problem that they want Russia while Russia wants them and just do not move there.TL;DR After the Soviet Union fell it left a lot of grown babies used to being spoon fed. fake edit: I often feel very engaged when discussing this topic so do not interpret this as opinion I hold firmly by, I need something more than 10 minutes at library for my answer to be thorough and properly worded. Edit: i spel briljant Edit2: Why Swedish spell checker capitalised word 'baby' ? cinci zoo sniper fucked around with this message at 12:14 on Oct 22, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 11:54
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Smerdyakov posted:
Only one of those is denied to them: that would be the right to vote in national elections, but I don't know any country in the world where one can do that as an immigrant. Your other claims are baseless. They get the same healthcare as the rest of us, the same kind of protection by the police and so on. Some of them even get two pensions - from both Russia and Estonia.
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Oct 22, 2014 12:04
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jonnypeh posted:Only one of those is denied to them: that would be the right to vote in national elections, but I don't know any country in the world where one can do that as an immigrant. The vast majority aren't immigrants though, just ethnic Russians who were on the other side of the fence when the SSRs broke up. To be honest, I think one of the most depressing things about this thread is how careless Latvians especially seem to be about the situation and don't really get that it gives Putin ammo. Calling people "babies" because you are treating them as second-class citizens is cold blooded. You don't have to be a fan of Putin to see it is a terrible idea. Kalstrams posted:22.07% of inhabitants of Latvia do not have rights to vote. Their Russian, or whatever, pensions are not cancelled, it is up to Russia or whatever other country. Same goes for other governmental services - why government has to provide anything to those who have done nothing to become part of it? The language they do not speak is such only because they have been witful enough to master a dime of the said language during past 23 years, an impressive feat even if we take mentally handicapped persons as a reference point. That, coincidentally, is the only thing that separates them from obtaining citizenship - just learn the loving language and you are fine (in absolute majority of cases). No one holds them, they are free to leave countries that by any laws are not successors to the Soviet Union and have not taken, partially or completely, legal obligations of Soviet Union. What would people in this thread would be saying if this was happening in Russia? Let's say there was a group of people in Russia who refused to use Russian and the Russian government applied the same rules to them, you think the rest of the world would be okay with this? Ardennes fucked around with this message at 12:16 on Oct 22, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 12:13
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Ardennes posted:The vast majority aren't immigrants though, just ethnic Russians who were on the other side of the fence when the SSRs broke up. To be honest, I think one of the most depressing things about this thread is how careless Latvians especially seem to be about the situation and don't really get that it gives Putin ammo. I wonder, Ardennes, do you think Latvians are stupid and do not realise consequences? As for immigrants - okay, if they happened on the other side of the one they wanted to be in, why do they ignore ability to cross the fence on their whim? Edit: Ardennes posted:What would people in this thread would be saying if this was happening in Russia? Let's say there was a group of people in Russia who refused to use Russian and the Russian government applied the same rules to them, you think the rest of the world would be okay with this? cinci zoo sniper fucked around with this message at 12:27 on Oct 22, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 12:24
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 Chocolate from St. Petersburg! Blue stripes is for "new territories" and red squares for "future/possible/likely territory" 
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Oct 22, 2014 12:37
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Ardennes posted:The vast majority aren't immigrants though, just ethnic Russians who were on the other side of the fence when the SSRs broke up. To be honest, I think one of the most depressing things about this thread is how careless Latvians especially seem to be about the situation and don't really get that it gives Putin ammo. Just be glad those idiots aren't treated like people in Germany refusing to learn the language, I think it's not even possible to live in Germany without either being a citizen or having been granted asylum. I think if in Germany a group of people would be refusing to integrate up to the point where they're not even trying to get sanctuary, they would just be transported forcefully back to their homecountry. Now can you imagine how Putin would react if Latvia just do this like us and started expelling its ethnic Russians? 
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Oct 22, 2014 12:50
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HUGE PUBES A PLUS posted:Well, Latvia, what did you go and do that for? Avoiding all the nationalist crap, the additional issue with the residence permits is that they consequently increase the prices of housing for local people. Smerdyakov posted:quote directly from some random Russian propaganda site How much did Putin paid you for this post?
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Oct 22, 2014 12:55
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Ardennes posted:The vast majority aren't immigrants though, just ethnic Russians who were on the other side of the fence when the SSRs broke up. To be honest, I think one of the most depressing things about this thread is how careless Latvians especially seem to be about the situation and don't really get that it gives Putin ammo. I think they are though. The ones who immigrated in the soviet era anyway. quote:What would people in this thread would be saying if this was happening in Russia? Let's say there was a group of people in Russia who refused to use Russian and the Russian government applied the same rules to them, you think the rest of the world would be okay with this? Which part of this do you imply would exactly be happening in Russia? The indigenous people of Russian Federation are not immigrants, they've lived where they live for thousands of years, not few decades. If anything they should have the right to speak in their own language and receive education in their own language - at least in their own historical territories. Especially because there are way over 100 million Russians and about 600,000 Mari; 44,000 Nenets; 1000 Selkups and I'm sure there are plenty of examples from the long list of indigenous peoples of Russia. In Estonia we have indigenous Russians who have lived here for hundreds of years (the old believers), they were citizens of Estonia before the war and they and their descendants got Estonian citizenship automatically after 1991 and I fully think they should have Estonian citizenship. But the rest are not native to Estonia. Meaning they have to pass the same language exam as any immigrant today from any part of the world.
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Oct 22, 2014 13:03
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jonnypeh posted:Which part of this do you imply would exactly be happening in Russia? Speaking of human rights, Latvia recently got it's first inclusion in UN Human Rights council if my memory serves me well. 
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Oct 22, 2014 13:09
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kalstrams posted:Well, which member state of European Union allows citizens of non-member states to buy residence permit of up to 5 years for minimal price 52,5 thousand euro? Holy poo poo, I had totally misunderstood the article. I thought they were talking about not allowing russian citizens to buy more property following the news of that oligarch buying lots of land around military bases and such, not about ending a "visas for cash" scheme. That is totally within their right and the foreigners have nothing to complain about. Getting permanent residence in a foreign country in exchange for cash is not a human right. And to answer your question, several. Portugal begun exactly the same scheme and for the last 3 or 4 years has been selling "golden visas" like hotcakes to a select clientele of russian and chinese Austerity, yo. Ardennes posted:The vast majority aren't immigrants though, just ethnic Russians who were on the other side of the fence when the SSRs broke up. MeLKoR fucked around with this message at 13:42 on Oct 22, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 13:36
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kalstrams posted:
Estonia is the only balt on the council. Regrettably it's also a meaningless metric. China and Saudi Arabia are on the council as well. Some really high aspirations you guys have going on there.
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Oct 22, 2014 13:43
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Panas posted:Estonia is the only balt on the council. Regrettably it's also a meaningless metric. China and Saudi Arabia are on the council as well. Some really high aspirations you guys have going on there. Edit: MeLKoR posted:Are there any restrictions on them becoming Latvian citizens? If not why couldn't they be bothered to become citizens of the country they have lived in the last 20 years. quote:An application for acquiring citizenship of Latvia under a naturalisation procedure may be submitted to any territorial division of the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs. Edit2: Alright, found qualitative restriction description. quote:The following persons may not be admitted to citizenship of Latvia under a naturalisation procedure: cinci zoo sniper fucked around with this message at 14:24 on Oct 22, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 14:09
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Basically there are fucktons of non-citizens (Russians) in Estonia and Latvia who have lived here since independence and don't bother to learn the language and take those exams. It's just total indifference and lol if any of you feel pity for them.
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Oct 22, 2014 14:26
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We interrupt this discrimination contest to bring you an interesting piece of Balkan cross-cultural trivia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bStwaOGxy_Q This song, Ederlezi, began as a Romani folk song related to the day Ederlezi, marking the return of Spring. It coincides with St. George's feast day. Goran Bregović, member of the Yugoslav band "Bijelo Dugme" (THE most popular musical artists in Yugoslavia, nobody else comes close) composed the song "Đurđevdan je a ja nisam s onom koju volim" to the tune of Ederlezi. It became incredibly popular very soon. (Link) The original Romani lyrics of the song became popular after Bregović's arrangement of Ederlezi was used in the film "Time of the Gypsies" (song and scene link - mildly  )Some of you might recognize it. It was the version used in the film Borat, without any permission. The authors of the film also used a song by Esma Redžepova, a famous Romani-Macedonian singer, without notifying her. As time passed, both versions of the song grew in popularity in the region. A performance of Đurđevdan launched a Hungarian singer's career. (link). Ederlezi was sung by the Albanian singer Besa Kokedhima (link) and the late Macedonian singer Toše Proeski (in both forms, link for Ederlezi), It has been translated to Kurdish, Greek, and several other languages. A boy died in a fire today, in a Roma shack settlement in the village of Donji Tovarnik. The most likely reason for the fire were faulty installations, and the most likely reason for the faulty installations was poverty. Just a reminder of what reality is like for many Roma in the 21st century. e: Fixed wrong link my dad fucked around with this message at 18:06 on Oct 22, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 16:32
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Libluini posted:Just be glad those idiots aren't treated like people in Germany refusing to learn the language, I think it's not even possible to live in Germany without either being a citizen or having been granted asylum. They aren't immigrants though, they moved when it was one country. Jonnypeh posted:I think they are though. The ones who immigrated in the soviet era anyway. It was before Latvia became independent of the USSR, most of those people were around before Latvia became sovereign or were even born there. Kalstrams posted:He means if Russia had like 20% 'insert nation here' living in the way Latvian non-citizens do and Russia treating them the way Latvia does, with implication that this would have caused massive international outrage or something along those lines. There would almost certainly would, I would in fact bet on it. It is a double standard. Charlotte Hornets posted:Basically there are fucktons of non-citizens (Russians) in Estonia and Latvia who have lived here since independence and don't bother to learn the language and take those exams. It's just total indifference and lol if any of you feel pity for them. Ultimately it doesn't really matter, because the system isn't working and you have big parts of the population there that aren't real citizens. I guess the "no pity" part of it is because they're ethnically Russian not because of their status. Seriously if the shoe was on the other foot, undoubtedly there would be hell to pay. Latvia actually does have a problem, and it doesn't sound like it is being fixed, if anything it may get worse. I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes more than less an of becomes a bigger issue with Russian relations since as I said it gives Putin some perfect ammo.
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Oct 22, 2014 17:28
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Ardennes posted:They aren't immigrants though, they moved when it was one country. Latvia and Estonia were independent before soviet occupation though, and we certainly do not approve of USSR's colonization efforts during the occupation. I do think the system is working: pass the language exam -> become citizen. That's their choice whether they choose to take it or not. The courses are free, the exams are free. Graduating vocational or high school counts as passing such an exam. And then they're richer by the whole one privilege of getting to vote in national elections! One downside would be that with their new found status of being citizens of EU they will be needing a visa to visit Russia. And those do not come cheap. So perhaps some of them are quite happy with their status and Russia gets to tell everywhere what horrible apartheid fascists we are. One more reason that I would oppose sudden handouts of Estonian passports would be that they would bring the Centre party a landslide victory in national elections and we can not have that. They're the biggest crooks by a large margin. That was not really an issue in 1990s when the laws were made though.
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Oct 22, 2014 20:08
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What kind of a magazine is Rossijskaja Gazeta? Kremiln mouthpiece, obviously, but is it a newspaper or yellow press or what?
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Oct 22, 2014 20:10
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Ardennes posted:They aren't immigrants though, they moved when it was one country. A bloo bloo bloo, let's shed buckets of tears for the eastern European equivalent of pieds-noirs.
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Oct 22, 2014 20:10
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Valiantman posted:What kind of a magazine is Rossijskaja Gazeta? Kremiln mouthpiece, obviously, but is it a newspaper or yellow press or what? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rossiyskaya_Gazeta quote:Rossiyskaya Gazeta (Russian: Российская газета, lit. Russian Gazette) is a Russian government daily newspaper of record which publishes the official decrees, statements and documents of state bodies. This includes the promulgation of newly approved laws, Presidential decrees, and Government orders.
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Oct 22, 2014 20:15
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Charlotte Hornets posted:Basically there are fucktons of non-citizens (Russians) in Estonia and Latvia who have lived here since independence and don't bother to learn the language and take those exams. It's just total indifference and lol if any of you feel pity for them. A silly anectote about that. A relative of mine emigrated to the US and managed to live about 10 years in New York without speaking a single word of english just by living in a more russian part of town. I guess its a matter of convenience for the russian speakers if all their families/friends speak russian theres no real need to learn anything else. Plus I'm guessing school lessons are seen as "forcing" people to learn estonian/latvian etc.
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Oct 22, 2014 20:28
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D'oh, Wikipedia of course. Thanks. And based on that... well, nothing new from our eastern neighbour. After all, we've had to hear that Finnish officials seize children from their mothers based on (Russian) nationality just to make money and/or to Finlandize them. The reason I asked was a front page news item they had and which a Finnish tabloid reported. See, we had a high-profile murder case here very recently. A woman was found murdered and dumped into sea and they've now practically solved the case. The murderer was her neighbour, who also happened to be a prominent(?) figure in the current government-leading party's youth organization. With the kind assistance of our local Kremlin-paid expert of everything (in this case he was presented as a human rights activist) and his goons, they have revealed the shocking truth of the motives of the murder to the Russian populace: Rossijskaja Gazeta posted:A Russian Woman Murdered By A Finnish Nationalist Because Of The Return Of Crimea To Russia Along with the headline there was of course an image of the flag of Finland, an anonymous interview of an acquintance of the murderer and stuff like that. It should go without saying that the Finnish police representative firmly called bullshit on the entire story. BUT OF COURSE THEY WOULD. (I'm referencing this, the original article apparently here.)
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Oct 22, 2014 20:33
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Franks Happy Place posted:A bloo bloo bloo, let's shed buckets of tears for the eastern European equivalent of pieds-noirs. Basically you are blaming a population of people of the actions of a government that no longer exists. Soviet populations including ethnic Russians were moved around all over the place during the post-war period and there isn't much evidence that on a personal level these people wanted to colonize anything. It goes back to conflating the actions of a government with the ethnicity of people, which is a poor choice to make. jonnypeh posted:Latvia and Estonia were independent before soviet occupation though, and we certainly do not approve of USSR's colonization efforts during the occupation. The problem is a fair time had pasted and after people moved there or were moved there, they were a people without a home even if they were ethnically Russian. If the system worked then almost the entire ethnic Russian population would be citizens at this point and it would be a non-issue, and quite honesty the population should have been grandfathered in back in the 1990s. Ultimately, it the reasoning behind keeping a two class population is probably political at some level, and if anything I imagine there is a real fear of a ethnic Russian aligned coalition of parties gaining control. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Oct 22, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 20:34
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Franks Happy Place posted:A bloo bloo bloo, let's shed buckets of tears for the eastern European equivalent of pieds-noirs. To be fair usually the sort of people that become colonists are largely uninterested in politics at large, belong to the lower strata and were simply emigrating looking for a better life. And whatever their sins might have been their children shouldn't get to carry that opprobrium. The problem isn't how they got there, the problem is that jus sanguinis is the de facto standard for citizenship everywhere that was not a colony so naturally so when the USSR broke up people got the nationality of their place of origin. In face of this it was up to the now-russian citizens to take the steps to adopt the citizenship of the country were they lived in. That in more than 20 years they couldn't be bothered to do so even when all conditions were given to them tells me that they prefer the current status quo and aren't willing to exchange their Russian passports for the right to vote in a Baltic country.
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Oct 22, 2014 20:40
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RocketSurgeon posted:A silly anectote about that. A relative of mine emigrated to the US and managed to live about 10 years in New York without speaking a single word of english just by living in a more russian part of town. I guess its a matter of convenience for the russian speakers if all their families/friends speak russian theres no real need to learn anything else. Plus I'm guessing school lessons are seen as "forcing" people to learn estonian/latvian etc. While I can imagine living in a foreign country several years without participating in its culture, not even bothering to learn its official language blows my mind. How someone can be a part of the society when they have no means of communicating with its most dominant part? And the argument about forced school lessons reminds me creationists claiming that teaching evolution in school is atheist indoctrination.
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Oct 22, 2014 20:40
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