81–90 of 285 posts
It's only mentioned briefly but a large percentage of emigres ended up in the same place, Cyprus. My wife's Russian dev team all slipped away to Cyprus. Cyprus was once very cozy with Russia and pitched itself as a vacation spot for Russian tourists. It cost them a lot to sign on to sanctions but they found a silver lining by acquiring a whole tech sector almost for free.
Did they? Or they received a ton of people who are working in US/other European countries companies and at best are spending their money there?
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> However under harsh military rule labor camps work well to produce high tech. German V2-rockets and Curta calculators prove that. Wasn't also Manhattan Project an example of this?
Yes indeed. But "Science Towns" are really short term solution.
You can vote yourself into authoritarianism, but you cannot vote yourself out. And when that authoritarian you love so much makes a major blunder, invading Europe for example, he takes everyone with him, and that's by design.
Usually you can't realistically vote the dictator out long before they invade somebody. For example Łukaszenko in Belarus made it impossible to vote him out in 90s already. Putin in early 00s. Russians and Belarusians made their mistakes back then. Now it's just a consequence of not fighting for their democracy strongly enough when it was still possible. This is the thing that kills democracy - it is taken away from…
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I wonder if there are any specific examples of Russian culture that are preserved outside Russia but lost inside Russia. Russia 30 years ago was a failed and miserable state with corresponding words choice. In the modern Russia not many actual people watch TV.
The russian old believers in Brazil is the first example that comes to mind https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17-3EGQ1aAw
I doubt that Latin American Old Believers produce, or even retain, much of these.
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Now have a think how different things would look if Russia would've been an more liberal europeanesque superpower instead of a communist kleptocracy.
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The US has been proven to meddle in democratic elections in every single continent, except Africa I think, at this point. But meddling in Africa will surely be made public at one point or another.
On the other hand, are we really comparing the leadership of Afghanistan and Iraq to Ukraine and deciding these things are the same? Last I checked, Ukraine hadn't invaded its neighbors, gassed ethnic minorities, or taken freedom from its entire female population. The US handled Afghanistan and Iraq poorly, and lied about reasons for going in, but there were actual underlying reasons. Ukraine is only being invaded be…