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Sevastopol's Olympic-Sized Take On Ukraine: Bikers, Ballet, And Swastikas
rferl.org ^ | August 11, 2014 | Glenn Kates

Posted on 08/12/2014 1:50:26 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe

What's a biker show without interpretive dance?

In what can perhaps be seen as a darker continuation of the generally well-reviewed Sochi Olympic opening ceremony in February, Russia's most famed biker gang provided its own take on the conflict in Ukraine.

The show, broadcast live on August 9 from annexed Crimea in front of an estimated 100,000 people and on Russian state TV, used a choreographed mix of nationalist rock, pyrotechnics, Nazi and Illuminati imagery, and interpretive dance to portray Ukraine as a state overrun by fascists.

The Sevastopol show begins with children playing merrily on a playground until they flee under the sounds of sirens and the flashing of red lights.

Enter Aleksandr Zaldostanov, the nationalist leader of Russia's "Night Wolves" biker gang and a friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who gives his interpretation of the fall of the Soviet Union.

"Enemies who hated us, killed the Soviet state, and took away its territory and its army," he says before repeating -- in an attempt at poetic cadence -- the official Russian version of the current Ukraine conflict.

"And now, the healing has begun. It is coming from Russian Sevastopol. We are celebrating our sacred victory at a time when fascism, like putrid, poisonous dough, has overfilled its Kyiv trough and begun to spread across Ukraine. Its tanks are now flattening Kramatorsk, its Grad missiles are destroying Luhansk, its APCs are pouring fire on Slovyansk, its helicopters are attacking the suburbs of Donetsk. The new battle against fascism is inevitable. Stalin's 11th strike is inevitable." (This is an apparent reference to 10 Soviet military victories in 1944.)

Darkness falls and the sound of U.S. President Barack Obama's voice echoes over the crowd: "I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story."

His voice is cut off, and then, over the next 25 minutes, this happens:

Under the towering figure of a symbol taken from the U.S. dollar bill that is commonly used by conspiracy theorists and with the voice of a Hitler speech ringing in the background, dancers in black rise from a white sheet and form a Swastika.

The men in black -- representative, apparently, of pro-Ukraine activists -- cause a map of Ukraine to bleed in the east and then set riot police on fire.

Moving fingers in the hands above appear to represent the strings being pulled by Western and American "puppeteers."

The "story" then moves to the war in the east between Kyiv and pro-Russian separatists.

Tanks flying both the Ukrainian flag and the banner of the Ukrainian ultranationalist group Right Sector roll onto the stage to ominous music and the echo of bullets. Armed with blow torches, they appear to burn the surrounding stage indiscriminately. (Although the Right Sector's leader earned less than 1 percent of the vote in Ukraine's May presidential election, the group remains a favorite boogeyman of Moscow.)

But then the Ukrainians are set alight -- repelled by forces gloriously carrying the flag of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic.

Although Crimea was annexed in March before fighting broke out in the east, the Night Wolves' version of a historical reenactment closes with Russia "reclaiming" the Ukrainian peninsula.

As men dressed as Russian sailors bang on drums, a band repeats its main refrain: "The city's come back -- Sevastopol will remain Russian."


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Russia
KEYWORDS: coldwar2

1 posted on 08/12/2014 1:50:26 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
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To: Tailgunner Joe

Communist Propaganda making a HUGE comeback in Soviet Russia I see.


2 posted on 08/12/2014 1:53:52 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: Tailgunner Joe

Jeepers. All that was missing is Ukrainian fighter jets shooting down MH17.


3 posted on 08/12/2014 1:54:40 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: Tailgunner Joe
Goering would have been proud.

This is some first class propaganda.

Say what you will about the new, murderous Russia, but the are better than anyone else in the world at psyops/Propaganda.

Experts.

They are working their own internal media with one hand, and the rest o the world media with the other.

Scarcely 1% even recognize it.

Again, credit where credit is due.

4 posted on 08/12/2014 1:55:29 PM PDT by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
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To: Tailgunner Joe

OH great Vlady hanging out with Russia version of Son of Anarchy???


5 posted on 08/12/2014 1:55:39 PM PDT by SevenofNine (We are Freepers, all your media bases belong to us ,resistance is futile)
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To: 1rudeboy

Sure that isn’t a bad remake of “Springtime for Hitler”?


6 posted on 08/12/2014 1:56:07 PM PDT by Tijeras_Slim
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To: Mariner

7 posted on 08/12/2014 2:01:23 PM PDT by USFRIENDINVICTORIA
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To: Mariner

They are definitely not subtle


8 posted on 08/12/2014 2:03:15 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: SevenofNine

9 posted on 08/12/2014 2:05:31 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
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To: Tijeras_Slim
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiryTUCtLNA

CHORUS:

Germany was having trouble
What a sad, sad story
Needed a new leader to restore
Its former glory
Where, oh, where was he?
Where could that man be?
We looked around and then we found
The man for you and me
Where, oh, where was he?
Where could that man be?
We looked around and then we found
The man for you and me!

LEAD TENOR STORMTROOPER:


And now it's...
Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Deutschland is happy and gay!
We're marching to a faster pace
Look out, here comes the master race!
Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Rhineland's a fine land once more!
Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Watch out, Europe
We're going on tour!

10 posted on 08/12/2014 2:07:28 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: Tailgunner Joe

Quite a show. I’m sure the FR KGB cheering squad ate it up.


11 posted on 08/12/2014 2:11:00 PM PDT by Dagnabitt (Amnesty is Treason. Its agents are Traitors.)
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To: Tijeras_Slim
"Interpretive dance"...

What a fag.

12 posted on 08/12/2014 2:14:13 PM PDT by eldoradude (It doesn't matter how many it takes, the lightbulb has already been stolen.)
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To: Dagnabitt

They were probably streaming it to their iPhones, live.


13 posted on 08/12/2014 2:17:52 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: Tailgunner Joe

You keep repeating that “1% of the vote” mantra, yet the Nazi’s have several battalions in the field fighting against the rebels, an actual Nazi runs the War from Kiev (Parubiy) and is directing the best support to them, and have two battalions under Parubiy’s control acting as regime enforcers in Kiev (Kiev-1,Kiev-2).


14 posted on 08/12/2014 2:25:11 PM PDT by tcrlaf (Q)
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To: tcrlaf

You very funny. Make good joke.


15 posted on 08/12/2014 2:30:07 PM PDT by ozzymandus
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To: tcrlaf

You keep repeating that “rebels” mantra, but they’re not rebels, they’re Russian terrorists.


16 posted on 08/12/2014 2:35:08 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
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To: tcrlaf

DERP DERP DERP NAZIS!


17 posted on 08/12/2014 2:42:30 PM PDT by Kozak ("It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal" Henry Kissinger)
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To: Tailgunner Joe

So in other words Vlady going be final season of Son of Anarchy


18 posted on 08/12/2014 2:44:19 PM PDT by SevenofNine (We are Freepers, all your media bases belong to us ,resistance is futile)
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To: Tailgunner Joe

More of Russian nazism...


19 posted on 08/13/2014 7:18:41 AM PDT by Grzegorz 246
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