როგორ გააღვიძეს ფინელებმა მძინარე კარელია

დღეს 70-წლისთავია იმ დღიდან, რაც კბილებამდე შეიარაღებულმა მტარვალმა ფინელებმა მძინარე კარელია გააღვიძეს და გენოციდი მოუწყვეს... ჰოდა, ყველა თავისი მეზობელი თუ არცთუ მთლად მეზობელი ხალხების  საუკეთესო მეგობარ წითელ არმიას სხვა რა დარჩენოდა, თუ არა - ჩარეულიყო, რათა ეს დანაშაული შეეჩერებინა.

მით უმეტეს, რომ მოლოტოვ-რიბენტროპის პაქტით ფინეთი სსრკ-ს დაუმტკიცდა გავლენის სფეროდ. მაგრამ ფინელებმა ეს არ დააფასეს და გაწითლებული, მაგრამ მაინც მეგობარი რუსეთის იმპერიის გავლენის სფეროში ყოფნა არ მოისურვეს.

მეტიც, 1939 წლის 30 ნოემბერს საბჭოთა მესაზღვრეებზე შეტევა განახორციელეს და წითელი არმიაც იძულებული გახდა, კონტრ-შეტევით ეპასუხა... მართალია, ისტორიული მასალები ადასტურებენ, რომ "ფინელების შეტევა", სინამდვილეში, საბჭოთა უშიშროების მიერ იყო დადგმული (ამ სპექტაკლის რეჟისორი, ნკვდ-ს კომისარი გოგლიძე წითელი დროშის ორდენითაც დააჯილდოვეს), მაგრამ ფინეთის ტერიტორიაზე სამშვიდობო მისიით შესულ რუსულ ტანკებს რომ პურ-მარილის ნაცვლად, "მოლოტოვის კოქტეილებით" შეხვდნენ, ეგეც გოგლიძის მოგონილი ხომ არ იყო?
არა რა... სად აქვთ ამ ფინელებს ბიძაშვილობის, მამიდაშვილობის ან ქალიშვილობის ინსტიტუტი...
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‘When the Russians invaded, on a trumped-up charge’

Finnish forces gallantly repulsed the Red Goliath but numbers prevailed in the end

by Michael Tillotson

Times, November 28, 2009

The Soviet Union’s attack on Finland 70 years ago on November 30, 1939, appeared as just another abuse of politico-military power. Unknown to the nervously watching democracies, a secret protocol to the non-aggression pact signed by Hitler and Stalin in August 1939 had put Finland and the other Baltic states at Moscow’s disposal. Stalin planned to absorb them all into his communist pale.

Finland, formerly a grand duchy of Tsarist Russia, held the key to the defence of Leningrad. While the non- aggression pact had fatally lulled Stalin into believing that Hitler would not attack the Soviet Union, despite many later indications to the contrary, he was personally sensitive to the city’s security. On the Gulf of Finland’s southern shore, Estonia accepted a pact of “mutual assistance” with Russia in October 1939. Finland was determined to maintain a foreign policy of strict neutrality.

Although Helsinki had assured Moscow that Finland would not make its territory available to any foreign army, Stalin doubted the Finns’ ability to resist the Wehrmacht. The Finnish border ran only 20 miles from Leningrad and less than 50 from the strategic Leningrad-Murmansk railway.

Soviet diplomacy during 1937 and 1938 and intensive negotiations between Helsinki and Moscow in the autumn of 1939 had failed to persuade the Finns to shift their stance. To have accepted Stalin’s demands for Soviet military bases on her southern shore and islands in the gulf would have entangled Finland inextricably in the Soviet defence structure, critically compromising her policy of neutrality.
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Bulgaria Rethinks Pro-Russian Energy Policy

Long one of Russia's most reliable energy customers, Bulgaria is now reconsidering its dependence in favor of diversifying suppliers and investors

By Boryana Dzhambazova

Business Week, November 26, 2009

Bulgaria's energy minister recently likened his country's energy sector to the way English football used to be played – "with lots of energy, lots of running around the field, and comparatively little efficiency in achieving its goals."

It's been that way for a long time. Critics say that under the previous Socialist-led government, the industry's development was shaped more by the country's close bonds with Russia than by the needs of the national economy.

Finance Minister Simeon Dyankov recently said that until now Bulgaria's energy landscape has been dominated by the "anything Russia wants" principle.

Until, that is, a new government, installed after July elections moved recently to freeze the country's participation in three major projects dear to Moscow: a new nuclear plant in Belene, the South Stream gas corridor, and the Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline.
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How the West Lost Turkey

Is the West's increasingly loveless marriage with Turkey finally headed toward acrimonious divorce?

By Nick Danforth

Foreign Policy,  November, 25, 2009

Lately, some on the right in Washington have fretted that Turkey's religiously oriented Justice and Development Party, the AKP, will distance the country from its Western allies, eroding secularism as it seeks tighter bonds within the Middle East. After all, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has pushed some very sensitive Western buttons: He has dismissed concerns over Iran's nuclear program, for instance, and canceled a military exercise with Israel, holding one with Syria instead.

These moves leave plenty to worry about -- including the possibility that the United States will make things worse by worrying about all the wrong things. But Erdogan's decisions do not augur the rise of an Islamist foreign policy in Turkey. The more troubling reality is that they are the inevitable outcome of long-brewing domestic trends. In limiting cooperation with Israel and improving relations with neighbors like Iran and Syria, Erdogan is playing to Turkish leftists and rightists, secularists and Islamists. He's pandering to voters who already dislike the United States and Israel while cleverly, if cynically, pursuing Turkey's national interests. A good politician from any other party would do the same.
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Dubai: Minor upset in playground of the rich – or first domino of new crash?

After a traumatic year, markets were breathing a sigh of relief. Then the emirate's bubble burst, raising fears of a new meltdown

Heather Stewart and Ian Black, Middle East editor

Guardian, November 26, 2009

While Iceland's transformation from fishing nation to financial powerhouse – and back – became a potent symbol of the banking boom and bust of the past few years, the Middle Eastern emirate of Dubai was where the global property bubble was taken to its glitziest extreme.

Without the oil reserves of many of their neighbours, Dubai's rulers hatched a hubristic plan to turn their city-state in the sand into a glamorous playground for the rich, enthusiastically bankrolled by western investors.

Now, with the state-owned builder of many of Dubai's most extravagant projects struggling to repay its debts, the world's financial markets have been forced to wake up to the idea that they may have declared an end to the turmoil of the credit crunch too soon.
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Will the World Go Shopping?

The wobbly holiday retail outlook in North America and Europe.

By Nouriel Roubini,

Forbes, November 26, 2009

Roughly one year ago, around the Thanksgiving festivities, the National Bureau of Economic Research announced that the U.S. recession started in December 2007. One year later, though the U.S. economy is in recovery mode, retailers are approaching the holiday season--which accounts for slightly less than one- fifth of yearly U.S. retail sales--with some concern.

A sharp collapse in U.S. consumer spending since mid-2008 led to a particularly dismal 2008 holiday retail season. As per U.S. Census Bureau estimates, core retail sales (which exclude autos, gasoline and building supplies) fell by 1.1% year on year during November and December 2008, compared to an average 4.6% year-on-year increase in holiday season sales over the past decade. Total retail sales suffered a larger collapse, falling 9.5% year on year. After collapsing in 2008, retail sales showed signs of stabilizing over the summer of 2009. While auto sales have fluctuated sharply during recent months due to the government's "cash for clunkers" initiative, core retail sales have risen for three consecutive months as of October 2009, creeping up at a pace of about 0.5% month on month. Entering the 2009 holiday season, the recent uptick in core sales offers hope for better than anticipated holiday retail sales.
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Фашистские тенденции в политическом истеблишменте России

Андреас Умланд

Грузия Online, 24 ноября 2009

Взлет Международного «Евразийского движения»

За последние годы различные формы национализма стали неотъемлемой частью повседневной политической и общественной жизни России. Так, с конца последнего десятилетия, все более агрессивная расистская субкультура заразила часть российской молодежи и стала темой целого ряда исследований российских и международных обозревателей. Деятельность новых праворадикальных организаций, таких, как Движение против нелегальной иммиграции (ДПНИ), сегодня освещается местной и иностранной прессой, комментируется учеными и журналистами. Аналогичные тенденции в российской интеллектуальной среде, напротив, пользуются меньшим отечественным и международным вниманием, несмотря на то, что их последствия все более ощутимы в мышлении и действиях политических и общественных лидеров РФ. Очевидно, что сегодня не только маргинальные группы, но и российский мейнстрим характеризуется радикальным антиамериканизмом и различными другими фобиями. Тем не менее, во многих анализах этого феномена источники и каналы таких тенденций в российских элитных кругах недостаточно освещены.
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Политика России на Южном Кавказе не меняется

Русская дипломатия несет постоянную угрозу независимости Азербайджана

А.Рашидоглу

Zerkalo.az, 26 ноября, 2009

Cостоялась встреча посла России в Азербайджане Владимира Дорохина со студентами Бакинского славянского университета в рамках организуемой вузом семинарской программы "Посольский час". Как передает АПА, в мероприятии приняли участие профессорско-преподавательский состав университета во главе с ректором БСУ Кямалом Абдуллаевым, студенты различных факультетов, а также руководитель Российского информационно-культурного центра Энвер Шейхов.

Посол В.Дорохин подчеркнул, что российско-азербайджанские связи являются одной из наиболее удачных моделей построения отношений на постсоветском пространстве.

По его словам, их отличают не только взаимопонимание и диалог, но и отсутствие принципиальных расхождений в оценке позиций третьих стран. В ходе встречи дипломат ответил на многочисленные вопросы студентов, касающиеся разных аспектов сотрудничества между Россией и Азербайджаном.
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EU turns away from Ukraine

The EU's loss of patience with a turbulent Kiev suggests another victory for Russia in the struggle for the former Soviet republics

By Simon Tisdall

Guardian, 25 November 25, 2009

EU officials are casting a wary eye at Ukraine as it prepares for watershed presidential elections in January that look likely to spark a lurch back towards the Russian sphere five years after the former Soviet republic was supposedly set free by the "Orange Revolution". The cautious approach in Brussels is again raising questions about the EU's apparent lack of a strategic vision – and political courage – in its dealing with its eastern neighbours.

Fierce rivalry between President Viktor Yushchenko, who is standing for re-election, and his prime minister and principal opponent, Yulia Tymoshenko, is feeding worries about the recession-ravaged country's political and economic stability. Yushchenko's decision this month to approve a 20% increase in wages and pensions, characterised by critics as a crude pre-election bribe, led the IMF to freeze the fourth instalment of a $16.4bn bailout package. That in turn increased credit market fears of a sovereign default.
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A History of 20th-Century Russia, Warts and All

By Sophia Kishkovsky

New York Times, November 24, 2009

A new two-volume history of Russia’s turbulent 20th century is being hailed inside and outside the country as a landmark contribution to the swirling debate over Russia’s past and national identity.

Written by 45 historians led by Andrei Zubov, a professor at the institute that serves as university to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the weighty history — almost 1,000 pages per volume — was published this year by AST Publishers and is already in its second printing of 10,000 copies.

Retailing at the rough equivalent of $20 a volume and titled “History of Russia. XX Century,” the books try to rise above ideologically charged clashes over Russia’s historical memory. They are critical both of czarist and Communist Russia, and incorporate the history of Russian emigration and the Russian Orthodox Church into the big picture of a chaotic, violent century. While written from a clearly Christian perspective — one author is a Russian Orthodox priest — the history avoids overt nationalism or anti-Semitism.
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War Movie ‘Georgia’ Starring Garcia Ends Filming, Director Says

By Helena Bedwell

Bloomberg, November 24, 2009

Hollywood director Renny Harlin, who made “Die Hard 2: Die Harder,” said he finished filming a movie in Georgia about the 2008 war with Russia.

Provisionally titled “Georgia” and starring Andy Garcia as President Mikheil Saakashvili, the movie features action, drama and romance, Harlin said in a phone interview late yesterday as he prepared to leave Tbilisi, the Georgian capital. It was mainly shot on location at the Vaziani military base outside Tbilisi, which was bombed during the war.

“We have finished filming scenes in Georgia and will start editing in the States” with a view to completing the movie by May 2010, Harlin said. “Georgia” is being made for about 25 percent of the estimated $200 million cost of making the same film in the U.S., he said.

Film directors and producers are increasingly opting for the former Soviet republic as a location to shoot movies. Spanish producer Andres Vicente Gomez said Nov. 20 that he plans to make a horror film in Georgia next year starring Javier Bardem.

Harlin, who also directed “Nightmare on Elm Street 4,” said there’s private funding for the movie being made for Rexmedia, a Los Angeles-based production and distribution company. Georgia’s Gold Invest LLC handled logistics and public relations for the filmmakers in the country.
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Death to law

What Russia's 'legal nihilism' means in practice

Editorial

Washington Post, November 24, 2009

RUSSIAN PRESIDENT Dmitry Medvedev keeps giving speeches about ending the lawlessness and corruption that have overtaken his country. That would be encouraging -- except that Russians who try to act on the president's words keep turning up dead. The latest victim of what Mr. Medvedev calls "legal nihilism" is Sergei Magnitsky, a 37-year-old lawyer and father of two who was reported to have died last week in a Moscow prison, after more than a year of detention without charge.

Mr. Magnitsky was working for Hermitage Capital Management, once one of the largest foreign investors in Russia. After its high-profile American-born owner, William F. Browder, was banned from the country four years ago, a criminal group including senior police and security officials took over several of the firm's Russian holding companies and used them to steal $230 million in government funds, according to the company.
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Turkey's Radioactive Waltz With Russia Comes To An End

By Taylan Bilgic

RFE/RL, November 23, 2009

Energy-hungry Turkey's nuclear flirtation with Russia came to a painful end last week when the government, under pressure from many fronts, canceled the September 2008 tender that awarded the contract to build and operate the country's first nuclear power plant to Russia's Atomstroieksport and its domestic partners.

Turkey plans to build two nuclear power plants, one in the Black Sea Sinop region and the second in Akkuyu, near the town of Mersin, on the Mediterranean coast.

The cancellation of the outcome of last year's controversial selection for the latter site came as a shock to many, including the Justice and Development (AK) party government itself.

Atomstroieksport, a state-owned Russian company known for its involvement in building Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant, submitted the only bid to build and operate the Akkuyu plant. Five other companies -- Atomic Energy of Canada, Suez-Tractabel (France/Belgium), Unit Investment (the Netherlands), and Hattat-Hema, and Ak Enerji from Turkey -- expressed interest; but all declined to submit bids. Instead, they asked the Turkish government to extend the deadline for doing so, to give them more time to prepare.
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Security compromised

White House policies embolden our enemies

By Frank J. Gaffney Jr.

Washington Times, November 24, 2009

An unsettling question has begun to nag as Team Obama's conduct of security policy becomes ever more inconsistent with common sense - and, at least in some cases, manifestly at odds with our national interests.

Consider the following illustrative examples of such troubling behavior:

c The Obama administration has done everything possible to obscure the true nature of the jihadist attack perpetrated at Fort Hood, Texas, earlier this month. Unfortunately, it may not be merely complicating the prosecution of the purported perpetrator, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. For instance, terrorism expert Steve Emerson has warned that, by charging Maj. Hasan only with murder rather than terrorist acts, the Justice Department is denying investigators tools available to law enforcement under the counterterrorism Patriot Act.

Worse yet, by denying the role played in this attack by Maj. Hasan's adherence to the seditious, jihadist program authoritative Islam calls "Shariah," the administration can only compound the problem that has been illuminated by the investigation to date: the collective refusal of the Army, the intelligence services, the FBI and the U.S. government more generally to act against an individual with such proclivities.
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French warship Russia wants stirs debate

UPI, November 23, 2009

MOSCOW, Nov. 23 (UPI) -- A French amphibious assault ship -- of a type Russia hopes to buy -- has arrived in St. Petersburg, sparking unease among neighboring nations and the United States.

The port call signals thriving relations between Paris and Moscow, 15 months after Russia's offensive in neighboring Georgia and a with Paris to buy a Mistral-class ship.

The French helicopter carrier docked on the Neva River, about 6 miles from Russia's prized Hermitage Museum, as military officials considered the controversial purchase deal.

If clinched -- along with rights to construct several other vessels of the same class in Russia -- the deal would mark the most important transfer of military equipment to Russia by a NATO member country.

Designed to attack the shore from the sea, the Mistral class is viewed as an ideal weapon for Russia in intimidating its neighbors, most importantly Georgia.

The amphibious assault ship can carry 16 heavy or 35 light helicopters, dozens of tanks and more than 900 soldiers.
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Let's face it: Russia is dying

By Tim Collard

Daily Telegraph, November 23, 2009

The BBC reports that Mr Bill Browder, head of a company called Hermitage Capital and once the largest foreign investor in Russia, has now described that large and empty country as “essentially a criminal state”. One’s first reaction is that Mr Browder, who has had far better opportunities for observation than most of us, has taken rather a long time to realise this. But then none of us has been particularly quick off the mark in grasping what has been right in front of our noses for years. Their representatives are still polluting the G8, the Council of Europe and other supposedly civilised institutions. We still pretend politely to take Mr Vladimir Putin seriously.

But I think we can accept Mr Browder’s solidly grounded appraisal as the definitive word on Russia. On the world stage it is the equivalent of the shaven-headed and tattooed drunk who waylays you in incomprehensibly threatening terms in the centre of Wigan at two on a Saturday morning. It constitutes a permanent threat to its neighbours. Its rampant gangsterism is actually worse than totalitarianism: whereas China’s oppression of the minorities in its border areas is at least motivated by trying to preserve order, Russia prefers to allow gangster enclaves to proliferate all around its borders (Uzbekistan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, Transdnistria, arguably Kaliningrad). The Soviet Union used to be described, most aptly, as “Upper Volta with rockets”. Progress of a sort has been made, and modern Russia might best be described as Moss Side with rockets.
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The Great Geopolitical Battle Over Energy Transit Routes

By Philip H. de Leon for OilPrice.com
OpEnd News, November 20, 2009

As we all live in the present, it is very hard to fully assess the future implications of decisions supported or made by political and business leaders. An extraordinary game of geo-strategy is under way to lock in long-term agreements, notably in the energy sector. At a global level, the transit routes of future oil & gas pipelines become the object of a power struggle involving not only the suppliers and end-users but also the transit countries. Intensive courtships are under way where a ménage à trois, or more, may be the best option to prevent any country from being in a dominating position to rule a region and exercise political or economic pressure.

Let's take a practical example and look at some of the dynamics behind the Nabucco pipeline and at the different interests involved.

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Journalists Are Fleeing Russia

By Grigory Pasko

November 20, 2009

A well-known Russian journalist, head of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations  Oleg Panfilov in early November moved for permanent residency from Moscow to Tbilisi. In a conversation with journalists he explained that his decision was based on the fact that in Russia unknowns were constantly threatening him through the internet with physical lynching.
This news appeared on the internet on the 9th of November. To me this «news» was known two months ago: Oleg himself had told me about his desire to forsake Russia. In so doing no arguments in the form of threats did he name. I think that in this situation, unnamed colleagues were inaccurately treating the essence of the event.
Oleg told me that he intends to live in Georgia and to read lectures at the journalism school in the Tbilisi state university, as well as to actively cooperate on the "Caucasian telechannel"  being opened as of the new year in Tbilisi, which, presumably, will broadcast to the whole Caucasian region.
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The Modern Iron Curtain Is Made of Gas Pipelines

By Stephen Fidler

Wall Street Journal, November 20, 2009

The prospect of shivering through another January without gas for heating fills many people in Eastern Europe with understandable horror. Yet, a fight is shaping up between Russia and Ukraine that could leave them without vital Russian gas supplies.

Asked this week whether he believed Moscow would again cut off gas to Ukraine and therefore to much of Europe this winter, Andris Piebalgs, the European energy commissioner, said he thought it a "realistic probability." Some 80% of Russian gas supplies to the European Union pass through Ukraine and gas to Ukraine can't be interrupted without also stopping flows further west.

But not everyone views this prospect with the same dread as East European householders. One suspects senior executives at some major European energy companies would be secretly delighted if Russia stopped gas deliveries. The reason: they could buy the gas far cheaper on the world market than they are buying it from Russia.

In fact, this has the makings of a serious longer term challenge for OAO Gazprom, the state Russian gas monopoly that supplies 40% of the European Union's gas. The gas giant has short-term worries too. Gas demand has collapsed in Europe with the economic slowdown. Gazprom's sales to big European buyers such as E.On, BASF, Eni and GDF Suez have fallen to minimum contract levels, probably about 80% of contracted amounts, energy specialists say.
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