Lithuania to close Chechen separatists' website (Kavkaz is dead!)

Interfax ^ | Sep 17 2004 | Interfax

[MarMema]

VILNIUS. Sept 17 (Interfax) -

The Lithuanian Defense Council decided at its Friday session that the Kavkaz-Center website which belongs to Chechen separatists and is operated from Lithuania will be closed in the near future.

"This website has been inciting ethnic and religious hatred. That is why a decision was made at the Lithuanian Defense Council's session to recommend that its operations be stopped in the near future," Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas told journalists after the session, which was chaired by the country's President Valdas Adamkus.

[MarMema]

Well let me ask you this. Have you ever been in Russia and sat on the floor at the airport, or a step in public, such as at the Moscow Aeroflot offices? Or worse, in a dept store hallway? LOL.

[struwwelpeter]

I haven't heard about that organization, though it sounds very praiseworthy. I assisted someone with an adoption in the Ukraine, and it was a chore. Ukraine's a bit simpler than Russia - you can call a bribe a bribe and no one gets huffy. Russians, now, they take it personal, especially if the vzyatka in question isn't enough.

It's not so much about corruption, as no one is getting paid (or enough), and for that extra bit of service you're expected to give a little token of your esteem.

Here's something related, which I completely disavow.

About Viktoras Petkus... I can almost understand why he's so vehemently anti-Russian. Many in Eastern Europe have transferred their hate of the Soviets onto the Russians. I had a friend in Brno, Czech Rep, who was fluent in Russian, but he'd make me stumble along in German because he wasn't going to speak another world of it.

A lot of mercenaries in the first Chechnyan war were from the Pri-Baltic (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and they hate being called "Pri-Baltic"), there were a pair of female super-snipers from one or another of those countries, whom the Russians called the beliye kalgotki (white pantyhose?). Supposedly they worked just for the pleasure of plugging Russian officers. A friend from Donetsk, Ukraine, who served in the Russian army in Chechnya told me that he captured a Black American ex-serviceman who was working for what they called back then the "Khattabists".

Mr. Petkus deserves more than a measure of respect for his dissident work. The Soviet Union is gone, however, and there are scarier animals in the woods these days.

[MarMema]

Thanks for telling me about the negotiated access and the word for it.

[MarMema]

A lot of mercenaries in the first Chechnyan war were from the Pri-Baltic

Ah, that explains a lot to me about the personalities on the chechen lists. Thanks. Actually not personalities, but nationalities, definitely heavily along those lines.

I always wondered why that was so. Thanks.

[MarMema]

Too funny. You have only to spend time in a Russian Orthodox church to believe that Russia is a matriarchal society. Most Orthodox live in fear of the Ba-ba's and what they may do if you cross them. :-)

They say the sisterhood runs the church and the priest is lucky if they let him do the liturgy that day. Even so, later they will tell him what he did wrong. Not so far from the truth at all, really.

I never lived with a Russian family that thought I was even close to an adequate mother. Each Russian woman I lived with did not let 1/4 of a day go by without informing me what I was doing wrong in parenting my child, starting with plain old saying "no" of course.

My husband was on the street in Moscow near the Metro with our oldest daughter and had bought for her a candy bar. Which she ate and then demanded another. My husband declined, so our daughter threw herself on the ground and began screaming. At least six Russian women, strangers, immediately surrounded our daughter and began soothing her. Then they told my husband he needed to buy her the second candy bar, because of her Russian soul. He was fit to be tied.

[MarMema]

A friend from Donetsk, Ukraine, who served in the Russian army in Chechnya told me that he captured a Black American ex-serviceman who was working for what they called back then the "Khattabists".

Wow. No kidding. That is fascinating.

The Soviet Union is gone, however, and there are scarier animals in the woods these days.

So true.

Also I was going to comment on those women at passport kontrol at Sheremetyov, down in the dark dungeon there, in reference to your link. Geeze, do you think they ever smiled? Even at home? I will never forget their faces. Always the same every time I was there.

[struwwelpeter]

Yep, that's the Slavic mother. Inside every Russian woman, there's a mother. Inside Russian mothers there are two or three - that must be where the matroshka dolls come from.

You'd probably really be insulted by this.

[MarMema]

LOL, no I have this movie. Let's see, it is called A Triumph of Faith, have you seen it? A documentary of the Orthodox pilgrimage from um, some town to a river.

Anyway in the movie the Russian Baba's crawl three times around a stump or something and have a few other superstitious behaviors. In Russia, especially in rural Russia, much has been added to the faith by these women. :-)

ah, here it is.

I let our priest borrow it once. He was most stern in returning it to me. They do some odd things, but none of it is seriously considered to be "mysticism", FYI. Not even by them.

[MarMema]

Inside every Russian woman, there's a mother.

The best nurturing I have ever rec'd as an adult, however. All bad days can be soothed away by one day with a baba. And they always, always helped me with the kids at church when I was overwhelmed.

[MarMema]

ping

[struwwelpeter]

Now that looks like a good movie. I'll go make popcorn.

About your dog comment in Freepmail - strays are a big pain throughout the former Soviet bloc. Slavs just can't bear to shoot 'em, and the grannies keep feeding them so there are more and more. Nothing more pleasant on a summer evening - when it's too hot to close the windows - than twenty or thirty strays out in the courtyard putting on a kontsert for the neighborhood. Slavs can be crazy about pets.

[MarMema]

One family I lived with, in an apt where you could look out the kitchen window at night and see the light on the Kremlin, the man used to throw all his leftovers out the window for the dogs. And this was from about the 10th floor or so.

[MarMema]

Is that your website or something? It's very funny. But what happened to "sabaka"?

[struwwelpeter]

Dehks (Dex) is a sobaka ;-) but he thought he was secretary general of the UN. Pyosik (Pyos) is a the boy version.

[MarMema]

gastronom?

[struwwelpeter]

Fancy food store ;-)

Exact opposite of this:

[MarMema]

Dehks (Dex) is a sobaka

Oh now I see. Very funny. And so typically Russian.

We had a guest sent to stay with us from Russia. A nice young man. We took him out to a local Mongolian grill. You eat all you want and make your plate from the raw stuff, and give it to them and they cook it. A huge buffet of raw stuff to choose from.

He ate about three plates of food and my husband asked him if he had finished. He said yes.

So my husband put on his best Russian accent and pointed to the buffet, and said "I make ALL this food and YOU NOT EAT!"

[MarMema]

whoa. Was that in Russia, the woman with the truck?

[MarMema]

That Baba with her scarf makes me want to hug her.

[MarMema]

Kievstar? Is that a brand name of a store?