Look at this, too, here is the story on Moscow kicking them out, yet another aspect of the Russian Orthodox church being so involved with the government ( which some people decry).
"In 1999, the Moscow Open Society office started a major five-year project, "The Development of Education in Russia." Its goal is to "reeducate rural teachers at a cost of US $100-150 million" (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, September 19, 1998). It is also applying a program called "Tolerance" in Russian secondary schools, but its masterminds may have made a linguistic blunder. >B>According to a Russian critic of the program,
The Russian translation of this Latin word-tyerpimost-has the dual meaning of prostitution and could be confused with doma tyerpimosti, houses of ill fame . . . How come this financial manipulator tries to teach us about tolerance, us who grew up with Leo Tolstoy, one of the first philosophers of non-violence? . . . But Mr. Soros is also a horribly distorted mirror, which should make us see our own, present image, without blinking or turning away.There are times when evil can become an eye-opener, when its derisive laughter can waken us up and help regaining our strength. We should not miss this opportunity.
A first step in that direction may have been taken last November 7, when the OSI Moscow office was raided by a private security company hired by the owner of the building with whom the foundation was engaged in a protracted legal battle. Only weeks before, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the billionaire oligarch and OSI Moscow executive director who has his own NGO called the Open Russia Foundation, was arrested and charged with tax evasion, theft, forgery, and fraud. Soros denounced the arrest as an act of "persecution" that should disqualify Russia from belonging to the G-8 group of industrialized countries. "I believe that he acted within the constraints of the law. I am doing the same in the United States," said Soros, alluding to his multimillion-dollar donations toward "regime change" in Washington next November. The American press indignantly reported that the raid was directed against a philanthropic organization that had spent "more than $US 1 billion on charitable projects in Russia in the past 15 years."
Sniff, sniff. Gosh I was just so sad to read about Moscow booting Soros and his group. Probably was persecution, too. What a shame that Moscow is not a completely free society, dontcha know? :-)
