TURKISH INVASION

Check out my remixes at Mixcloud

2012-01-17T01:28:00.000+04:00

Remix for Space (16 January 2012) by Stakhano White on Mixcloud

We Love Russia

2011-10-18T22:28:00.000+04:00

That spirit never dies in this country...watch and get inspired :)

New Job..again?

2011-10-04T00:27:00.002+04:00

2011 is a year of changes and the status-quo changed twice for me both business and extra-business matters....and all for good!!!

You are right, as the title suggests, I have a new job now for a couple of weeks. Everything is fine but don't expect anything fresh from Russia or the other failed slavic countries that I spent so many fruitless years of the most fruitful times of my life. Why? Because I have no intention or plan to go there..at least, on business :) I will keep this blog alive by feeding your hunger by a couple of stuff from my archives or my comments on anything that would happen. But you know that nothing will change in Russia, because they have wasted their token of revolution and used it unwisely (just like the French).

So this is not a farewell..by the way, I have said three farewells in this blog so far and this will surely not be the last....

Some Consolation

2011-09-17T01:33:00.002+04:00

Really? :) that means landing on Moon doesn't count...

Men in Action

2011-09-14T11:57:00.005+04:00

No need to hide the fascination for Vladimir Putin, "the man in action". This web site sums up his adventures well, including the employment of a former Miss Russia as a personal photographer...

Another web site has documented another man of action, Kim Jong-Il. North Korean Leader looking at things :) he does it pretty well...

They keep on trying and I keep on posting...

2011-08-23T15:16:00.006+04:00

Although it is a bit old story, I recently caught up with it and yeas I enjoyed to the last bit of the story. It is about a new model of Lada (as you all know is one of my all-time industrial mass production disasters) but this time Putin gets to experience the epitome of Russian manufacturing first hand.

Putin: Dear comrade, what is the inspiration for "Granta"?

Factory Manager Comrade: Simple. We wanted to make a "automobile-non-grata" then named it as "Granta"

Putin: Cool. Does it work?

Factory Manager Comrade: Hell yeah it does...but it is 5000 euros!

Putin: Cool....but you are fired!

Ex-Factory Manager Comrade: Why?!

Putin: I want it cheaper...do I look like I give a damn if that works or not? Russian people need to keep their technical stills sharp and make their cars in workable condition. I call that "Rule of Technical Preparedness". Remind me to include that in the constitution next year, will you.

The 58-year-old prime minister has traditionally gone out of his way to plug the struggling Russian brand and with it his own patriotic credentials. He owns a military-style Lada jeep, and last summer drove a canary yellow Lada across Russia's Far East on a heavily publicised road trip.

But his latest stunt backfired badly when he got behind the wheel of a new Lada Granta and tried and for a long time failed to start the engine.

Video footage of the incident on Wednesday showed Mr Putin anxiously trying to start the brand new cherry-coloured Lada but failing to do so at least five times.

Reporters on the scene, at the Lada factory in the Russian town of Togliatti, said Mr Putin had also struggled to open the car's boot, and that at least two executives had to get involved to help him.

Wearing sunglasses and casually dressed in a shirt and a sports jacket, Mr Putin pronounced himself satisfied with the Lada Granta nonetheless, calling it "a good car".

Conceding it had been a struggle to start its engine, he blamed himself, saying he had pressed down on the accelerator too sharply because he had not known that the car was fitted with an electronic accelerator that needed to be only gently pressed.

The new car, that will cost the equivalent of less than £5,000 to buy when it is released later this year, is being touted as "the people's car" that millions of Russian motorists have been waiting for. Mr Putin has adopted a noticeably more public profile in recent weeks, fuelling speculation that he is seriously considering running for the Russian presidency next March.

(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/8507482/Vladimir-Putins-Lada-stunt-backfires.html)

Everyone knows that a Lada, though fresh from the assembly line, is never a "complete" car. My fellow invaders who have bough these machines, out of pure fiscal misery or masochism-a-la-turca, pointed out to the fact that the cost of a Lada easily gets doubled on its painful evolution from a mobile piece of crap to an automobile look-alike. It is rumored that there is an industry, on comparably same financial size of Lada factories combined, that is producing replacable parts for Lada automobiles, mostly the ones that the hapless drivers have in vision such as dashboards, clutch pedals and gear sticks. That is also an answer why "no Lada is like another"...some ultra patriotic and hopelessly drunk Russian friends compare that analogy to a handmade Ferrari but the resemblance is in words only.

Putin: Very nice ride...reminds me of my Trabant days in East Berlin

New Factory Manager Comrade: Mr.Prime Minister, I have prepared new plans to build station wagonsand sport coupes out of this model. Our Russian youth shall beam to their dachas with this delightful car and will be proud of their heritage!

Putin: Yeah! Down with western consumerism!...But you are fired!

New Ex-Factory Manager Comrade: Why?!

Putin: I hate the color

Newest Factory Manager Comrade: But sir, you chose it...

Putin: You are fired too!

New job, new post and cows

2011-07-26T23:35:00.004+04:00

Ok people, there are a lot of things changed since you last checked on this page. First of all I am not an avid traveller anymore, hopefully and not subject to increased doses of radiation, sick business ethics, mud and alcohol and, most of all, I will not be seen on the streets of any Soviet capital for a while...at least for work though. Please stop emailing me for Kazantip this year..we are getting old for this..seriously.

My new assignment lets me sit comfortably in Istanbul, breathe in morning&evening traffic exhaust, sip tasteful tea in the morning to a glittering view of the golden horn from my sleek office, manage a platoon of highly educated supermodels on high heels, command an unaccountable corporate credit card and join the cream of the nation's white collar workforce in their sleek company cars...well...some of those things obviously do not reflect the real situation but I leave that to your imagination.

My new job, which is simply working for the competitor (a global giant call center company which you may never heave heard its name but obviously got into contact to one or more of its employees around the globe and had ,hopefullyi good encounters over the phone) now daily takes me to the European side office from my crib on the Asian part of town. That is 3 hours of bumper to bumper traffic on equal terms with Moscow's Sadovoe Kaltso ride during "chas pik".

The days of wandering in the "land of the plenty" (not the US) may seem over but I still have some drafts hidden here and there and check back regularly to see what I have in store for you...anyway, You must be doing that since you are reading this post, the first one I have written in ages.

Another thing is that I applied for a US visa almost 3 months ago ato visit my sister and still waiting for the "administrative process" to be completed...do you think they do read my blog?...if they do, receiving a visa will be of comparable success and luck to Dinamo Minsk winning against Barcelona in the Champion's League Finals...

Let's get back to why you are reading this blog...stories...This one is about the cows and -isms...

No one really knows how the two-cow joke known as "Parable of the Isms" came about, but most students of Political Science 101 have likely come across some variation of the following definitions:

Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes one of them and gives it to your neighbor.

Communism: You have two cows. The government takes them both and provides you with milk.

Nazism: You have two cows. The government shoots you and takes the cows.

Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

Satire it may be, but the essential truth of the "cow jokes" is what makes them funny.

The former Soviet republics are no longer defined so much by being formerly Soviet, as by what they have become after twenty years of independence. Yet the old categories - socialist, communist, capitalist, fascist - don't easily work to describe a region where political cultures draw on everything from Rome and Byzantium to Baghdad and Beijing. Let's see how the "parable of the isms" might offer a convenient shorthand guide to the fifteen states that once made up the USSR.

Russia
You have six cows and four bulls. Two of the bulls die from alcoholism, and the remaining two form a "tandem" to take the cows' milk and sell it to Germany and China.

Ukraine
You have four of the most productive cows on the farm, two of which allow themselves to be milked by Russia, which upsets the other two so much their milk goes sour.

Georgia
You have two cows and one prize-winning bull. The bull is so distracted winning prizes that Russia runs away with both cows.

Belarus
You have one cow which you savagely beat until it produces milk. The milk dries up after your last savage beating, so now you must sell the cow to Russia.

Moldova
You have two cows and a calf, but the cows live in Italy and Russia and send milk home by Western Union. You ferment the milk into wine, and launch a frenzied campaign to join the EU. Meanwhile, the calf is stolen and sold by rustlers.

Armenia
You have four cows, but three of them live in Los Angeles and think they are horses. They send money for you to build stables.

Azerbaijan
You have one cow that produces lots of excellent milk. You sell the milk to Farmer Browne and buy cattle prods from Israel and Turkey.

Turkmenistan
You had one cow but you sold it to buy a golden statue of a cow that rotates with the sun.

Kazakhstan
You have two cows that produce vast quantities of milk. You sell the milk, buy each cow a gold-plated cow bell, and declare yourself bull for life.

Kyrgyzstan
You have two cows: one Kyrgyz and one Uzbek; they hate each other and refuse to be milked. Instead of hay, feed them tulips. Then sell one each to Russia and the United States. After six months sell them again.

Tajikistan
You have three cows: one Tajik, one Uzbek, and one Russian. You beat the Russian cow until it runs away, and use your misfortune to plead for international aid. Meanwhile Iran milks your remaining cows.

Uzbekistan
You have four cows. You let them drink all the water in the neighborhood swimming pool. Now no one can go swimming. You blame this on "corrupt and lawless elements," and volunteer to remain in power until the problem is solved.

The Baltic States

You have lost half your cows, for which you blame Russia and demand an apology. As consolation, the EU gives you a sleek Scandinavian-designed barn and NATO farmers teach you advanced milking techniques.

...and why not add Turkey?

Waiting for your additions :)

New URL?

2011-01-27T16:34:00.001+03:00

Yes I have bought a new adress for the blog...and a very imaginative one: www.theturkishinvasion.com

I will let you all know when I carry all the content (new and old) there...

Otherwise nothing has changed...new countries I visited and collected a lot of nonsense (a la turkishinvasion) for your enjoyment.

THE END OF BLOGGER/BLOGSPOT?

2010-09-10T23:57:00.002+04:00

I am designing a new page..a brand new website that does not necessarily focus on my travels and fun stuff but where I can also share my new music, mixtapes, stories and photos...and a bit more employer friendly :)

I will post the link here soon...but it will be hosted by wordpress...

Thanks for the loyal following

Stakhano White Mixtapes

2010-05-30T16:18:00.004+04:00

Some of you know that I have been producing mixtapes for a while...there are some alternative ways to reach those stuff now

1. Stakhano White Fan Page @ Facebook

Stakhano White |

2. Friendfeed Posts

More updates on my latest trip to Moscow will follow this...

What is this?

2010-03-31T21:03:00.003+04:00

Some questions about the bombing

2010-03-29T22:09:00.004+04:00

First of all it sounds quite easy for a person to wear a 2 to 4 kg of TNT on a belt and take ride through Moscow Subway, since there are no metal detectors (and no easy way to put on every single exit for a metro system of around 180 stations and up to 8 million passengers daily). So I can believe that some suicide bombers (regardless of their ambition) can easily sneak into the trains. Nobody would quite catch on a woman with a big belly on a Moscow train since most of the thin-bellied supermodels you are accustomed along with the russian image would sure prefer their husband- or lover-sponsored SUVs up above the crammed roads of Moscow. But the security is not that lax, of course. As I have written in this blog for a number of times, the passengers with a darker shade of hair (the darker your hair gets, the more crosshairs you can feel on yourself) are more prone to regular passport checks. Although comparable neatly clothed than many terrorist wanna-bees from Northern Caucasus, I was treated like one of them several times by Metro police and trust me, they are not joking (or were joking but not showing, since they let two real bombers do their job).

Some eye witness reports I have seen on the Russian web claim that the "terrorists" were wearing traditional muslim womenwear (or simply, black cloth covering all but eyes) on the train. That witness must be on some narcotics or having post traumatic stress. Dress up like an Afghan woman on Kabul bazaar and hop on the Moscow Metro; I am sure the loyal babushkas (old Russian laides) would gladly hand you over to the police on the next station, let alone the free roaming skinheads or neo-fascists (I call them the cossupt grandchildren of the generation who fought fascism). So it is almost impossible for a suicide bomber to look like a "suicide bomber from Chechnya" and walk free during a Moscow rush haour (which is the closest audition for the Armageddon). It is also not easy to brand a woman as such, since during rushhour almost every single member of the nations walking on this earth are represented in the Moscow Metro trains: From Nigerians of the African deserts to the deer hunter Yakuts of Siberia. So you cannot say that the woman with black hair is a suicide bomber; otherwise I would be a thousand times blown to pieces before.

As a result, branding the Chechens (although I have no intention to fraternize with them or whatsoever) may not be to blame. First of all, their cause is already lost one, with a stab in the back (the clans which united against the crumbling Red Army and mass decapitated untrained Russian recruits during the 90s, are now fighting a quasi-civil war between themselves and El Presidente Kadyrov is the game master) and the remnant hardline terrorists have been either one by one hunted by FSB (Russian Secret Service or KGB-renamed) in their hideouts in Turkey or the Gulf, or already presented their loyalty to the Russians in fear or gold (You may have seen them fighting fellow Georgians in the latest Ossettian War). These bombing will not , in my opinion, add some popular support to their cause (because the extremist islamic hordes are the bad guys of today). They were already losing ratings after they slaughtered children in Beslan Shootout.

I think of a deep-state bombing frenzy that would make the lazy Russians regain their Stalin-era "consciousness": Create an enemy (preferrable an internal one), polarize the nation and hide the agenda....that worked before (ask Stalin or even Putin).

Let's see what they are hiding now. Maybe the oil wells dried up or the natural gas just went natural...I would start saving some foreign currency if I was Russian.

Bombing the Metro

2010-03-29T10:01:00.002+04:00

By a strange twist of fate, while guiding my colleagues around the not-so-crowded metro last week, I had to think for a while to describe the crowd that gathers underground during the rush hour...

I think someone else was also thinking about the same things; but with more evil deeds. This morning two bombs blasted in two central (and equally crowded) metro stations (lyubyanka and Park Kultury) in Moscow. The result (although not clear yet at the time of writing) is an undeniable carnage.

My condolences...

Note: Lyubyanka metro station is near/under the notorious KGB building...that makes me wonder. And Park Kultury station boats the longest escalator ever (which makes you think you are in a coal mine in Kuzbass), so escape from the blast would be a hard job.

Russians

2010-03-18T14:28:00.004+03:00

How can I agree more with Tim Newman (of White Sun of the Desert Blog) when he says:

...And of course, I love hanging out with Russians. You’d strangle them in an instant when you have to deal with them in a bank or governmental authority or company HR department, but meeting a Russian socially is always going to be a hoot, especially once they learn you’ve lived in Russia and can speak a bit of the language...

How can you tell if you are in post-Soviet Union?

2010-03-01T11:39:00.003+03:00

Normally I post my own writings here but I just could not resist this hillarious post by Carpetblogger. "How Can I Tell If I am In Crapistan?". I prefer not use the word "Crap" for the countries that I currently make business with but (excluding Baltic States) all post-Soviet Union countries may adhere to this list. Examine the list carefully, since it may give you a hint about what you will face (if you already have not)

Do passengers applaud after the plane lands?

Do passengers jump out of their seats just after the plane touches down (before the applause, even), grab their bags from the bins and run toward the front? (There is an inverse relationship between the likelihood passengers do this and the importance of the activities those passengers are rushing off the plane to get started doing.)

Are most bags on the carousel swathed in high-tension plastic wrap or held together with packing string? (Again, there is an inverse relationship between the amount of plastic wrap used and the value of the bags' contents.)

Can you see any signs, advertisements or instructions written in Cyrillic, even though you are in a country that does not use the Cyrillic alphabet? (But! It is axiomatic that if you are in a country that uses Cyrillic, you are in Crapistan. Don't even try to argue otherwise because you are wrong.)

Are you struck by the talent of local (Chinese!) designers in the medium of Bedazzling?

Pointy shoes. On men (that's sort of a gimme -- if you can't recognize this, you probably aren't ready for Crapistan). Shiny suits, too.

Do you see more than ten people carrying rainbow-colored "Rave Girl" plastic shopping bags?

Is Nescafe marketed as a superior alternative to coffee?

Can you buy beer in sidewalk kiosks? In the morning?

Do you fear for your safety? Crapistan is not particularly violent. The biggest danger is becoming collateral damage in a bar fight over prostitutes.

Is the Duty Free shop cash-only?

Gas War Time

2010-01-26T17:57:00.005+03:00

No it is not an article about Ukrainian Elections...We have to wait until 7th February to see who will be the next ruler of the almost-failed state of Ukraine. It is for sure that someone from the Eastern Ukraine Clan will be in office, either the hard boiled, Russo-backed Yanukovich of the Donetsk clan or Blonde Pitbull Timoshenko, the Gas Princess or the woman who isn't as beautiful as her deeds. It is clear that there will not be any Orange-ish Revolution-ish talk anymore; (CIA+Soros...You failed this time) but Russia also isn't in a big brother position either. I think only the loser is determined (even before the elections began) and it is the Ukrainian people.

When I was walking (or actually hopping on 30cms of hard ice on the pavement with -17 degrees weather) in Kiev last week, I came by a FX bureau with latest rates of 8 UAH for 1 USD. Thinking that it as a mere 4,5 UAH for 1 USD made me think that there is almost a 50% devaluation in a couple of months. The upscale restaurants which denied us tables for business dinners last year are now almost empty and, although hard to believe, 3 tip-ambitious waiters tended our table enthusiastically (almost beating Turkish ones) last Friday in a steak restaurant that had only one more table whose guests only drank wine and tasted a single cheeseplate for 5. Where has the glamour of the easy slavomoney gone?

Now back to the gas war. As you all know, Russia polishes its ultimate weapon every time temperature falls below zero: the gas! This is on the headlines for years now, but no sound alternative has broken Europe free from significant dependancy on Russian energy sources. We are used to the bloodless catfight between Russia and Ukraine every year and even the Ukrainians would inevitably welcome another winter with sporadic gas cuts, Russia now hits back his nearest cousin, Belarus, with the same stick.

I have witnessed no animosity in Belarus against Russia and I believe that no uneducated eye can see the differences between any Russian town and a Belorussian one (because there are none at all). The only difference may be that Belorussians are nicer, kinder , more civilized and cuter (Hello to all my colleagues in Minsk!); but Belarus seems not very comfortable with its "the only dictatorship in Europe" position and want to make their showstand against Russia for some benefits (or hopefully some hard cash in crisp euros) from EU. I don't know what they have received from EU so far except middle aged Italians looking for cheaper paid-sex in Minsk clubs; but it seems that Belarus will be receiving some friendly advice from Uncle Putin this winter in terms of some gas cuts.

Turkish Invasion never concludes an article without a solid suggestion:

Dear Belarussians, dial any Kievan number from the directory and ask how was the last winter, because you will be facing it too. Unless Almighty Lukashenko drills a hole in the pipelines to feed the state funded central heating system....and he needs some big drills since Minsk really gets cold in winter.

Also for those who are still craving some more to read, check this article from Washington Post if you are looking for a better English and a more independent viewpoint (I know I am a Russophile).

...and here is a beautiful comment Dinc received last month (but was too busy or lazy to post)

Dear Dinc, Belarus is not the only dictatorship in Europe, Russia would not
let Belarus to surpass itself in any field so they built a political system to
get rid of BElarus adjective...and they did it. Belarus isn't the only
dictatorship in Europe. Russia also is one.

Note: Turkish Invasion supports all current (and future) governments in which Dinc has (and will have) business interests. The term dictatorship in any text in this blog applies to dictatorship of the people and has a similar meaning to democracy as we know it in West.

Happy New Year

2009-12-30T03:53:00.003+03:00

Wow...what an amazing year! Let me continue my tradition and get personal about 2009 (just like I did last year)

1. What did you do in 2009 that you had never done before?

Going to a DJ-course, discovering that I am talented in mixing. (Here comes DJ Stakhanov White)

2. Did you keep your New Year resolutions for 2009?

Yes I did..at least I tried to be a better man

3. What countries did you visit?

Germany, UK, Ukraine (and the beloved autonomous republic of Crimea), Russia, Syria and Belarus. We tried to complete the "Axis of Evil Roadshow" this year but couldn't go to North Korea and Iraq (hopefully in 2010)

4. What would you like to have in 2010 that you did not have in 2009?

Peace and a DJ mixer

5. What date from 2009 is etched on your memory?

9.2008. I started my MBA courses...it is pain in any language

6. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Staying alive, employed, healthy, well off, well fed and beloved.

7. What was your biggest failure?

Ignoring simple human factors..both at work and at private life

8. What was the best thing you bought?

My new desktop PC. Some of my IT guys claim that it is faster than most of the servers at the office.

9. What did you get really really really really excited about?

Thinking that I really like my job

10. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Outsourcing the chores at home...and at work whenever I could

11. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Making people happy, unrequited...keeping to the "Always Can Do" policy

12. Did you fall in love in 2009?

Should I get that personal? Who cares about that?...even I don't

13. What was your favorite TV program?

Lost and How I Met Your Mother...and the funny thing is that I never watched them on TV. God bless Internet...

14. What was the best book you read?

"Comrades" by Robert Service. Reading this book simultanesously with MBA course books made me think that Kottler is a militant bolshevik.

15. What was your greatest musical discovery?

LeBatman...I love french house

16. What did you want and not get?

A tattoo...and I think I will never get one (I cannot deceive my senses that much)

17. What is one thing that made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

My cumulative net salary...I think I am paying more taxes than an affluent businessman in Turkey.

18. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?

Suits...like a second skin

19. What kept you sane?

Dreams of a better future and my father's unbelievable moral support

20. What political issue stirred you the most?

I am living and working in or near the most stirred up political climates in the world. Am I clear with that answer? But I think Turkey is currently ina reprogramming phase where old players are discarded to make way for new ones. We will definitely see some shaking ground under our beliefs. Nobody seems innocent.

By the way check back what I have posted in 2008, 2007 and 2006 (and more here)about this...I think I am getting old and so does this blog.

I hope 2010 will bring the best for all of us...at least better than 2009 was.

Keep safe, sane, sober and away from Russia and any anarcho-communist tendencies...

XOXO

Turkish Invasion Team

Dinc and Unemployed East German Cosmonaut Trainees

Some things about Syria...

2009-12-06T22:38:00.007+03:00

Ok I admit. I am either so lazy to write a picturesque guide to Syria or so busy with MBA and work . Well I know you won't go to that country either so you don't need a deep down guide. As you already know The Turkish Invasion Team had a brief getaway before the rest of the Turkish pour down like spring rain to capitalize on the recent cancellation of visas between two countries and start offloading cash to chinese made ornaments sold in oriental bazaars.

The strange fact is that one can find almost every good aspect of Syria (food, scenery (most of it desert), chinese products and history) in Southeastern Turkey without adhering to Syrian Hygene and Language. Since Turks are recently behaving like a caged animal because of the visa barriers that almost every civilized nation in the galaxy is imposing, now Syria, with no visas and daily tours, seems like a hot tourist destination. I am sure that many eager tourists will be disappointed to see local sights and sounds that they loathe in their own country and even pay money for this nonsense.

Another thing is the brief moment (what I call a Turkish Hesitation) before introducing yourself to locals. In Russia and Ukraine (and Belarus) the first reaction to my nationality is a mixture of feelings of dislike (I don't blame them after what we have done after 1991), in Europe it is something like fear (mixed with a bit of disdain) but in Syria (in direct contrast with another Arabic country Egypt) the feelings were almost friendly.

It is true that the distance to the imperial capital always counts in vast empires (like Ottoman Empire) and Syria, which was no less decently governed than an Anatolian region seems to have benefited more than average because it lies as a borderland between the Arabic Realm and the Turkish lands and a first foreign post and watering hole on the way to Hadj. One can see this from the blossoming architecture and the attitude of locals to Turks. In Egypt, where there was a vain vassal state, Ottomans or their puppets ruled with iron fist (with "take all,give none" policy) whereas Syrian locals and merchants benefited from the graces of the imperial trade and culture. That may explain our rather mild conversations with the locals (including the indigenous Turks who were born in Syria but schooled in Mother Turkey).

I am already so bored about writing this country and out of ideas so let's get to the part where I had most fun. The Q&A's

Here come the questions bombarded so far to my inbox:

So is Syria a dictatorship? (by Kemal)

Yes. Since no Arab country is a full fledged democracy or a sensible place to live a sensible life, Syria doesn't break the rules. Nevertheless, the people seems to be so happy with the government that the millions of state induced photo billboards of Essad family do not suffice the citizens that they handpaint their faces on every stone wall (and some of them look more like Obama than Bashar Essad). Although Turkish Invasion supports democracy or Jedi rule, I think we must leave the Syrians be happy with the demi-god Bashar in office.

What is the best gift from Syria? (by Ekaterina)

A safe return home without the bacteria that is yet to be discovered by modern science. Syrian Hygiene, especially in the toilets, defy any scientific achievement that mankind has made during the last three centuries. If you can manage without toilets, handshakes or touching any hard surfaces, the next best gift would be the Aleppo Sweets (a stylized version of baklava)

When is the best time to go to Syria? (by H20freak) (I loved that name)

Never

Can you compare Russia with Syria? (by Jules)

An English friend once said "Russia is the Zaire of the North"...I can say that "Syria is the Zaire of Middle East" (without reference to Iraq, which is de facto an American enclave). Think of Israel; delete all Jews (Syrians would love that idea) and abolish all science and production; add dirty toilets and ta-daa you have Syria.

Can you compare Ukraine to Syria? (by Jules and John Sinclair) (My old comrade John is Ukraine's No1 fan because he thinks Ukraine is more corrupt than his inner mind)

Ukraine has better looking women and Syria does not have women. We recognized that we were not in an artificial male community when we saw some highly colourful women underwear in the local market. (I still think thet they are worn by men though.)

Can you compare Belarus to Syria? (by Jules)

Belarus cannot be compared to any country. It is Belarus (and I love it there)

Is it true that they have "pound" as a currency? (by Anonymous)

Yes but they prefer to call it "Suri". Don't worry if you have some Turkish liras crammed up somewhere in your pocket; liras rule in Aleppo. The only foreign land where Turkish lira is makes mroe value than the paper it is printed on.

Are there camels in the street? (by Ali)

Yes (really) they even butcher camels in the middle of the market so beware of the blood stains on your sneakers after a ride in the market (or Souk as they call it)

Are there livebombers in the street? (by John Sinclair)

Maybe but they prefer to stay lo-profile before their final exams in Israel.

What is the best food in Syria? (by Lelo)

Hummus. I guess this is the best food between Ankara and Addis-Ababa. No need to say that it is vegetarian. The other option is the falafel (deep fried vegetableballs)

...ask Turkish Invasion any more questions and I will be adding to this post.

Coming soon on Axis of Evil Roadshow

2009-11-07T01:17:00.008+03:00

Don't be surprised...I have been to The Arab Republic of Syria a while ago (we came from The Turkish Republic of Turkey). Hopefully not for business (fingers crossed for a North African country that I may visit soon for work) but leisure* with a couple of good friends to expolit the latest non-visa agreement between Turkey ans Syria (to remind the irony that Turkey had a Casus Belli against Syria roughly a decade ago and now we discover that we are buddies again.) I am not not a buddy to any Syrian and after my visit, I will not be in the near future (until they reach Europen Medieval levels of civilization)

The Axis of Evil Roadshow continues with Syria..invasion report coming soon...

Meet Team K.i.r.w.e

Field Commander Dinc Arslan and Saim Refig (King Refigius IV and inventor of Refi-Yoga)

Photo taken in Aleppo Citadel, Syria (somewhere near Iraq)

Turkish Invasion Blog is proud to be the web sponsor of Axis of Evil Roadshow by Dinc Arslan and Saim Refig (Team K.i.r.w.e), with the unshakeable determinism to visit all enemy (of USA) states aka Axis of Evil. Belarus and Syria already visited...next Cuba, Iran and North Korea (Iraq is delisted because it is a de facto American colony now, see the cartoon below)...and hopefully Afghanistan if the Team K.i.r.w.e loses their remaining sanity and will to live.

Da, Mi Gavarim Paruski (Yes, We Spik Russian)

2009-10-20T13:53:00.006+04:00

Ok, I gave up after some mails with boisterous comments to my Yes, We Spik English post. Of course the abuse of English is not only happening in Russia or Ukraine but I came to see that a lot of people have serious understanding problems (or maybe this is the majority of my readers' profile)

So, with this in my mind, I was wastingmy precious Sunday time in a newly opened shopping mall in Istanbul in my neighborhood (Yes, we have a shopping mall in every neighborhood in Turkey and we are still lagging somewhere in the middle between Bulgaria and Syria, both geographically and in a sense of economic provess) and I have seen this in a French supermarket...I am speechless

Welcome to carrefour, where prices are as right as we welcome you

First of all, I would expect a French store to at least write it correctly in "French". It must be Bienvenue not Bien Venu(and think, I don't speak French) and the funnier side is about the last one. It is in Russian. But why Russian? It is a well known fact that my suburban neighborhood houses an oblivious female slavic community who enjoy their trade away from the suspicious eyes of the traditionally close packed neighborhoods of Istanbul. So the French or their Turkish henchmen store manager must have thought to add a slavic welcome to their store...but they did it so French. They looked up in the dictionary for "welcome" and have written not "Welcome" but "to welcome". "приветствовать"is the verb...

I now understand that why the Parisian Spring of 68 started as a democratic revolution but ended up in a couple of months with half of Paris devastated and the workers who watched the students got beaten in the streets from their TVs got a 40% raise...the students? they got their mixed dorms after all...so French :)

Another Comparison

2009-10-07T22:17:00.002+04:00

A good friend of mine asked me about the difference between socialism and capitalism some time ago. Is it representative enough?

Turks in Ukraine, Part 4

2009-10-07T01:48:00.004+04:00

I have seen this obscure hotel-cafe in Evpatoria, Crimea (which happens to be a part of Ukraine but acts like in Russia)

Meet CAFE PRYATNAYA VSTRECHA (~Pleasant Meeting), where pure Ukrainian beauty meets hot Azerbaidjani spice with silky Turkish hospitality.

GOOD NEWS!

Although Turkish Invasion is a non-profit entity with minimal backing from the funds of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Moldova, Dinc hereby presents his first discount for his loyal readers:

The owner of Pryatnaya Vstrecha will be glad to offer you a %7 discount with a pint of beer diluted with Black Sea water and an additional +4% discount if you are a good looking woman ,or you are with one, when you tell him that you are a fan of Turkish Invasion.

...and also please don't forget to add 50 hrivnas to the bill for the pistachios we forgot to pay for last time and drink responsibly, don't insult any locals and if you do...run.

Yes, We Spik English

2009-10-07T01:17:00.005+04:00

"There is no debate that English is the global language that will serve you well in any country for any of your basic and survival needs; however things get a little messy when you end up in a country where not only the language is weird but the alphabet looks like it was created by a clown on acid" said one of my associates when he first landed in Ukraine some time ago.

For a russian speaker (with a hint of Ukrainian in it), I sometimes tend to overlook the joy of public communication in post soviet union and the agony that the non-speakers suffer. This suffering is alleviated by the "legendary" hospitality of the natives, some of whom owe this hospitability to their lack of language skills. They simply cannot reply back because they cannot understand English or they simply do not care about you (this includes the front line service personnel whose main job definition is the "care" for the customer)

But hopefully there is some awakening through the new generation who lived their pre-adolescence with a soviet passport and a pioneer badge; but had enough youth left after 1990 to reap the benefits of the newcoming capitalism. Since there are tourists and expats who have money to spend lavishly, they should deserve some care and here comes the notorious sign "Yes We Speak English" on the doors to some high street pharmacies and bootleg DVD stores. The former is a good sign for a non-russian speaking person on the urgency for a drug but the latter also works fine when you end up chatting for an hour with a ukrainian guy with a receding hairline who had his post-doctoral dissertation on French New Age Cinema but ended up selling pirate DVDs in a forgotten corner of a shady supermarket in Kiev.

But don't take this as an upheaval of the age long brutality of soviet customer service, it is just a minor breakthrough. Still don't believe me? Check out these gems I have collected...still more to come

This sign is up on The Minsk Airport walls for months, WELCOMing us to the slavic wonderland

The radiation shelter-cum-internet cafe in Kiev

No wonder this place is our favourite lunchtime hideout in Kiev...it is the only place to grab some decent food in 20 miles!

When you come to Kiev, try Cabbage Salad with "Green"...

When you blog...

2009-09-22T18:57:00.001+04:00

I don't know about Stalin but I am a bit hesitant to blog about Belarus when I am (still) in good terms with the government...

Anyway...my Minsk issue will be up this week.

Kiev Nightlife (by Popular Demand)

2009-09-19T23:25:00.001+04:00

I have received many positive and equally derogatory comments and mails after my testament against the sex tourism in Kiev and I think it is high time I paid my homage to the normal tourists and expats who have the best intentions to visit Kiev (for the churches, crumbling apartments and stinking Dnyeper beaches). This list is not, of course, a complete list of clubs because I am getting old and not a nightlife expert (anymore though), I also come to Kiev often but with a loaded business calendar (that would make Erich Koch's seem like a weekend trip) and hardly have energy to go back to my flat.

First of all, I knowingly disregard the gentlemen's clubs (or strip bars as you may call it anywhere else except Moscow and Kiev) because I am not a fan of this kind of entertainment and one can find a deep down analysis on the back of the "tourist" guides distributed democratically in the airport.

The first club of mention is Arena and it is conveniently located at the third floor of the entertainment complex of the same name. Normally an overpriced but interestingly affordable venue famous for its beers and its location in Mandarin Plaza, the very center of the city near Bessarabsky Market overlooking the newly defaced Lenin Statue on the crossing of Khreschatyk and Tarasa Schevchenko avenues. Arena is almost packed on Friday and Thursday and the packing material varies from prostitutes to the lost expats, the prices of drinks are over average and face control is said to have denied entry to many which verifies the aimless crowd wandering in the Mandarin Plaza terrace inside. It usually hosts guest DJs that you may never have heard if you don't spend your early teenhood in an industrial backyard off Arkhangelsk but the bpm is kept relatively high in direct relation with the prices.

Barsky, a chic neighbor overlooking the entrance of Arena, is a club that was hiding itself from the hordes of tourists last year but this year seems to have come to senses to steal some of the rich customers of Arena by live dancers near its entrance which is practicalyy 6 floors down. Past the face control there is a lift ride to a flavishly decorated club, which suggests that the owner of the club is either Russian or has been brainwashed somewhere deep in the Arabian desert. Another suggestion of the decoration with expensive looking gold and jewel clad furniture is also the pricing (though below Russian chic standarts) which is the highest in Kiev among its standarts. Be prepared to pay a 120 UAH for a cocktail and meet a lot of women with varying standarts of dignity and self-shame. The patrons of this club are (told to be) celebrities and debutantes so it may be a bad destination for a place to observe local entertainment. I have even witnessed a live vocal performance to a DJ set, which still denies my musical perceptive capabilities...if I have studied music theory, I would definitely find a term for this but I can sum up by saying that it was awful and equally absurd.

The Mandarin Plaza, view from Krasnaya Armeyskaya (Red Army)Street. Veterans of Red Army should still be sobbing to see this gigantic monument to capitalism rose in the center of Kiev.

Interior of Barsky

From the terrace of Barsky, watching the city sleep. I have met a bunch of "celebrities" there who welcomed and enjoyed my indifference to their celebrity-status

Patipa, a club with a weird name, is located at the other end of Khreschatyk and near the Dynamo Stadium. The proximity to the stadium should not deceive the reader because this club is a curious hybrid of all chic-wannabe clubs and a kindergarten. I personally think that a club should be personalised with its style of music so I don't usually go to clubs that host different kinds of music every other night. Patipa is a good example of such clubs which my partner-in-crime Jon would call "calenbars (short of calendar bars)". Every wednesday is a "Diskoteka 80-x" party where you can enjoy a delicate mix of soviet pop and europop of 90s (which I adore since the dark days of Moscow). The next day is a RNB party and dont go there unless you have a masters degree on slavic rap (some of my colleagues still have a curse on me for inviting them to Patipa on a Thursday night...what a mistake). Fridays and Saturdays are packed with a groovy crowd and the music choice varies from Tarkan to Tiesto.

Patipa Dancefloor...where all disco filth of Kiev accumulates

Another club is the notorious Decadence situated somewhere in the center on Shota Rustaveli Street. It is practically an expensive restaurant which surprisingly has a small dancefloor compared to its competitiors but this place has a flavour that invites almost all expats and locals with high paychecks to this place like flies to a streetlamp. I would definitely advise to networkers to dwell into this club on weekends to collect some business cards (if they can stand the drujm beating music, drunk millionaires and their equally sober golddigger girlfriends who seem like teleported from Milano Fashion Week seconds ago). Decadence is rumored to have the strictest face control policy (Check my facecontrol issue about Moscow) but any business suit or a ballroom dress would guarantee a way in and this attire would not flash in the club since everyone is dressed accordingly. The drinks are overpriced (just like Barsky) but I can say that they are also not watered down as expected.

Looks can be deceiving: This lavish restaurant becomes a decadence house where sinners are the winners

Avalon, a highly advertised multi-storied entertainment complex, houses a casino, a restaurant, a kalyan-bar (simply a floor full of cushions and a lot of hookah smoke) and two-story bar with a giant casette player decoration on the disco wall. It surprisingly gets full on even weekdays after 2 am and the crowd is a mixed one, ranging from Turkish "engineering" students (who cannot even speak Russian though they are "studying" there foır 2 years) to post office girls celebrating a birthday. The drinks are not expensive but the music is always a weird mix of soviet pop to Britney Spears.

Let's not overexaggerate the talents of DJs

Other clubs that I know of are Caribbean Club (advised to all mehikano-latino looking guys to dance salsa with local middle aged enthusiasts), Tsar Project (an obscure chic club near the Water Museum in Marijnskiy Park)and Hidrozone in the scary Hydropark area. Nobody advises to go to Hidrozone but it is still on the night club lists.

Funny?

Note: Turkish Invasion strongly suggets you eat your vegetables, get some fresh air, go to bed early and stay out of drugs, alcohol and any other misconduct thet the former two may bring in Kiev.

Putin takes a taxi

2009-08-09T02:09:00.001+04:00

Where is Dinc?

2009-08-03T09:46:00.003+04:00

You may think that I have been either shot in the back by Latvian LADA enthusiasts or boiling myself up with excess raidoactivity near Chernobyl (which will soon happen in two months time), but on the contrary I have been busy with work, travel and a week long holiday with family. I am planning to post an invasion guide to Minsk, which happened to be a page blanche for our business and some more stories from Ukraine this week; but it seems that I will also be fully booked with a trip to Kiev and the first step back to the lovely days of being a student, TOEFL exam... (FYI: I will be ,hopefully , an MBA student in Bosphorus University this year...I know, it will be painful) Why do I need a TOEFL anyway?

Is Kiev safe?

2009-07-13T11:19:00.005+04:00

Yes...

Although one of my friends somehow was attacked almost a year ago by some drunkards, I can say that Kiev is 99% safe ( I leave some error margin though...you never know what will happen in a city where people drink beer for breakfast).

The thing that made me say this is my 3 consecutive nights' walk through the city center and the path included a lot of semi-lit or total dark parks...thanks to my guide who insistingly told me that she would say "beat him; not me" to the attackers in case of a brawl.

Thank you anyway...

"It is all Turks' fault"

2009-06-03T12:26:00.004+04:00

Anna Gutsol, 24, is a Ukrainian girl who has masterminded one of the most hillarious protests in Kiev so far (the best was the Orange Revolution). As you may remember from my early post, a group of Ukrainian student girls have come to senses and displayed a vivid protest against the already decades long process of the transformation of Ukraine into a nearshore brother for Europe. Our awe to this event was doubled when some of the girls were photographed carrying banners in Turkish with "Ukraine is not a Brothel".

Now Gutsol strikes back with another headline in gazeta.ua with a more concerted attack to Turkish "sex tourists" who come to Kiev for some "cultural upgrade" (comparing Istanbul or any other Anatolian city to Kiev or Moscow would be simply cruel to the latter in an artistic,cultural or city planning way) and get a "physical relaxation" as a welcome gift.

She also added that the Turks come in groups of 40-50 (which we officially call a "morale tour for business partners") and crammed up in a post-soviet hotel and wait for a bus-load of prostitutes. The funnier thing is that those "tourists" then get drunk and wander around Khreschatyk disturbing the passing by women. I honestly think that Italians are bit more better in this street talking though..

Trip to Kiev. All Inclusive (4 Days 5 Nights) 499€..."All" inclusive?

However, let me say that it is all true...but please let's write this "tourist" thing off. Those guys are not tourists (as you all understood so far).

Let me clarify how this "morale" thing works:

Nearly all companies working with sales quotas and regional sales teams in Turkey prefer not to pay incentives in hard cash (for tax evasion) but in some travel package to a preferrably nearby and masculinely attractive place (because it is Turkey and everything must be masculine) so that it creates an urge in those medieval minded sales personnel to meet up the quotas and earn a ticket. So do not expect a trip to Acropolis or Pyramids but think of places where the guys can fly far enough from their black haired and ugly wifes or girlfriends and their over-conservative quasi-islamic routine but near enough to return back to their football and fatty food in a couple of days.

A photo worth thousand words: Practical Russian Speaking Guide for Turks on display with condoms

So Ukraine is the best fit for a "morale trip" and a bunch of guys from the far corners of Anatolia who have gallantly met their sales quotas of refrigerators are grouped and promised a valhalla where blonde and virgin angels will be waiting for them on the cotton clouds. Regarding that many are already pumped with prejudices that all Ukrainians (or Russsians as they still think the two are the same country anyway) are natıural born prostitutes who are positively keen on cheating their husbands with those "goodlooking" mediterranean hunks even though the husband is there with them on the scene. So the expectations reach a sky high as the planes fly over the Black Sea and almost every notion of Anatolian life is left behind, wedding rings concealed and the first acts of teasing starts with the stewardess and continues with the marble faced passport officer ladies (I have seen some crazy guıys nearly deported while trying to flirt with the most dangerous women on Earth -Ukrainian Passport Guard).

A typical Turkish culture tourist to Kiev

The guys pay no attention or never offered a city tour or some cannot dare to go out of the lobby (because they are threatened that the police rounds up black haired guys on the street and ask for a bribe..which is partly true anyway). The rest is obvious..they never leave the hotel and generously pay for what they have come for (even more than they would pay to a Ukrainian expat prostitute back home..even the double price). The funny thing is that the majority of them return home loaded with cheap vodka and start calling their friends' mobiles: Each and every story includes an open-minded orgy with a blonde, redhead and a brunette and a blonde in reserve and of course it is not )and never) paid for, since our guy (although looking like a rhino) has the killing looks that beamed those girls from the street (not even the club) instantly to bed. And another wave of guys start their next day with hopes of securing their seat on the next plane for the "morale trip" to Kiev, Yalta or Odessa. I pity on them...

The infamous «да нет» (yes no)

2009-06-02T11:20:00.003+04:00

Although I heard it a couple of times during meetings, I always thought of it as a casual error or a rare expression. Saying "Yes No" (at the same time) leaves a lot for imagination - think of a case when you ask your colleague whether she has correctly calculated the discount percentages and she replies "Yes No"- and you have to count on your sixth sense to guess if your counterpart agrees or disagrees to what you have just said...normally I was always wrong.

I have seen this article in Josefina's (a Swedish student in Siberia) blog and wanted to share it with you as my exclamation to end a years long curiosity. (and an ultimate undestanding that I will never speak Russian as Russians do)

Sometimes Russians may say something that sounds so strange that you cannot - even though you know the meaning of all the words in the sentence they just uttered - for the life of you understand what they mean. An example is the famous expression «да нет» [‘yes no'] which I up until a couple of days ago always thought was closer to «да» than «нет» but I was wrong. When Russians say «да нет» what they really mean is «нет». For example: «Ты пойдёшь завтра в кино?» [‘Are you going to the movies tomorrow?] «Да нет, не пойду»[No, I'm not going].

What is to come?

2009-05-18T19:20:00.002+04:00

Although my presence in post-soviet union has increased this month, it has equally decreased the amount I spare for my extra-curricular activities like blogging and I have accumulated loads of things to write here...especially about Belarus. Oh, my twitter acount also needs some "twitting"...

So I kindly beg for some patience and you can commemorate the Crimean Tatar Deportation (which happened 65 years ago today) by this article.

Another interesting fact is that I will be stepping on a non-Soviet country in years (except a short break to Berlin this year). I am not sure about any relevant collections from my trip to London this week but you never know. I meet some unique Russian-speakers everywhere...and believe me, each and everyone of them has a story to tell here.

Note: I would like to thank Valentina, Yura, George and Helen for their invaluable feedback and comments. Your interest keeps this project running for 2 years...

Eddy Huntington-U.S.S.R.

2009-05-17T02:47:00.001+04:00

Юрий Антонов-Я вспоминаю (Летящей походкой)

2009-05-17T02:15:00.001+04:00

Юбилейный концерт в Кремле, 2005 год

(Ю. Антонов - Л. Фадеев)

В январских снегах замерзают рассветы,
На белых дорогах колдует пурга,
И видится мне раскаленное лето,
И рыжее солнце на желтых стогах.

Припев:

Я вспоминаю, тебя вспоминаю,
Та радость шальная взашла, как заря.
Летящей походкой ты вышла из мая
И скрылась из глаз в пелене января.

Шесть месяцев были на небыль похожи,
Пришли ниоткуда, ушли в никуда.
Пускай мы во многом с тобою несхожи,
Но в главном мы были едины всегда.

Припев.

А, может быть, ты - перелетная птица,
И холод зимы убивает тебя.
И, хочется верить, весной возвратится
Все то, чем так коротко счастлив был я.

Victory Day!

2009-05-11T15:36:00.001+04:00

С ДНЕМ ПОБЕДЫ!

Happy Victory Day for everyone...read more in my victory day post..

Tune in for some more posts about Minsk...soon

Kiev...then and now (Part 2)

2009-04-26T18:54:00.003+04:00

After the smiling concierge of Premier Palace Hotel told me about it a year ago, I have quickly became an avid visitor to Andriivsky Vspusk (Andreevskiy Descent...or The Tourist Hill, as I call it) in Kiev. I was perfectly sure that the concierge, who could immediately start modeling on any European runway, would have preferred her share in my probable purchase of overpriced antiques in the hotel souvernir shop, she eventually gave in and told me that I could find some "rubbish" there, especially at the lower end of the hill.

Although uncomparable to Moscow's Izmaylovsky, Andriivsky offers a mediocre selection to the Soviet-relic hunters like me. From all those stalls selling worthless souvenirs and petty artwork, I can only recommend the stall manned by two brothers who can both be over-interested and marblefaced depending on their vodka consumption or mood at that time of day. They have countless soviet and german medals and other already rusting relics on their stall and I cannot say that it is cheap and don't ever bargain i,f they have their beercans on the stall.

Another good bargain can be made with an old man at the end of the hill who speacializes in old newspapers and communist journals. I am sure that nobody was interested in those yellow journals than me, since he was so happy to see me dwelling between his archives on the floor. I bought a Pravda (meaning Truth, the newspaper of the Soviet Union) and an Ogonyok (meaning Little Flame, an illustrated soviet journal abouty everything and nothing) and he gave me a lot of things as a gift, including the old photo below.

I did not hesitate to walk up the hill (equal to a day in the gym in cardiovascular means) and walked back through the Volodymirska Street to Sofiyska Ploschad where this photo was taken roughly 50 years ago. Here is what it seems like now...a bit different?

The Return of Decimetercube

2009-04-24T16:10:00.004+04:00

For cyrillophobes, it is 0,5 DM3 (L)

Is this only in Ukraine? It is the first time I see a decimetercube sign on a consumer package...it looks like a chemical equation though.

Ruble in rubbles

2009-04-17T14:05:00.003+04:00

Just a reminder..when I moved back from Moscow almost a year ago it was aroung 1$=25 Rubles. Have a nice day if you are still paid in US Dollars and if you still are paid at least the same amount (or if you still have a job as an expat there)

Hello Moldova!

2009-04-15T19:29:00.008+04:00

Once a Russian friend recalled Moldovans as "Romanians who think they are Russians" (He also has another deeply moving analogy about Greeks: "Turks who think they are Italians").

So now that the Europe's poorest country (The glorious Republic of Moldova) makes the headlines again with the revolts that ultimately sacked the parliament. Before, it was always the Transnistrians, who seceded, waged a separatist civil war and kept the Europe's only quasi-communist Russian-backed dictatorship and their never ending dispute with Moldovan mainland alive (reminds me of Georgia and Abkhazia which is also gently supported and pet by Russia).

The flag of Moldova..or the flag of Romania(see below) with an emblem

Moldova (or roughly, Bessarabia) used to be a frontier post of Ottoman Empire (The "Evil" Turks) but enjoyed a political autonomy by paying taxes and sending beautiful girls fto the Sultans (they still do the latter) until Mother Russia appeared at the gates and Moldova eventually became the doormat it needed to brush her boots before she poured down the Ottoman Balkanland to the ultimate objective of warm ports. It was annexed by Russians and stayed right through the way of attacking, retreating and reattacking armies during most of its contemporary history and met an ultimate destruction at the end of WW2.

The Coat of Arms of Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic...notice the grapes below

Then came the formation of Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR) and the soviets poured a lot of roubles in rebuilding Chisinau (Kishinew) and also a lot of Russification by changing the Moldovan alphabet into Cryllic and social engineering the population by decreasing the majority of Romanians in the MSSR, that is the very essence of the troubles of Transnistria today, where the majority of the populatian are Slavic in contrast to the rest of Moldova (which is roughly 75% Romanian). Leonid Brezhnev who used to be the party boss in MSSR then rose to be the premier of USSR and you can understand how those roubles were allocated by the way he ran USSR years later (his administration pushed USSR to bankruptcy)

The breakaway Transdnestrian region..only acknowledged by Russia and candidate for the worst shaped country ever.

The flag of Transdnestria...it is not a joke. They still use those symbols there (or don't have a TV)

Romanians are the majority in Moldova

Boring Information: There is also a Orthodox Christian Gagauz minority in Moldova (which we in Turkey claim them as Turkish brethren and can speak in a better Turkish than many Azerbaidjani can do) which may be of interest to some of my readers.

So we can say that Moldova is another confused nation just like Ukraine, where the national identity was also suppressed, many roaming armies and the eventual Soviet occupation and ultimate shift to market economies left deep marks in the nation. This caused the polarisation to the West or Russia. It means that nobody believes that a Moldovan or Ukrainian identity can save the country from the current troubles, only the helping hand of West/US or the iron grip of Russia (a longing for USSR) can. Therefore the internal politics cannot (or would not) focus on the real problems but create politics of fear and retribution about losing the country's autonomy or unity (reminds me of another country...hmmm).

"Yevropeans, save us from the evil reign of kommunists and let us in so that we can cheat the welfare system and enjoy unemployment benefits without ever working"

"Mircea, take this chair to my mum, she will love to see a new piece of furniture in years"

Damaged buildings in Moldova will be repaired using state funds designated for universities at which [some of] the protesters are students...this is so Turkish!

The latest "Twitter Revolution" in Moldova can be similar to Ukrainian Orange Revolution but actually it is not; because nobody cares about Moldovan nation than they do about the Moldovan wines in their cellars. In Ukraine it is different; Ukraine is Russia's soft belly and owns the outlets of gas, the main moneypot of Russia. So you own Ukraine and you deliver a serious blow to Russia; but if you own Moldova...you own nothing but a bunch of "Romanians who thought they were Russians, then changed their mind and wanted to be independent Moldovans and then made up their minds that they are better off being Romenians in the EU so that their girlfriends would not be forced to prostitution in Turkey"

The "Failing" State

2009-04-15T19:18:00.003+04:00

Is it really happening? Most of Ukraine must be missing Soviet years I guess (Not the ones that I meet in Kiev though)

There are even discussians in academic-economic scenes that Ukraine has to abandon her national currency (The mighty Ghghhryvna) and accept Euro (or Yevra as it is called in post-Soviet Union) instead. I am no economist and never did good in both academic and personal economy in my life, I can say that dollarisation/euroisation never works (it did not in Turkey)

...and still, the politicians are just so busy looting the already crippled economy. Reminds me of another country...hmmm

Police...

2009-04-15T12:42:00.003+04:00

I stumbled upon this photo on a web site about East Germany (I know I became a bit addicted to East German (DDR) stuff after my visit to Berlin.)

If the German title "Das Gute Buch-" is cropped, the photo below could be very similar to a daily street scene in Russia or Ukraine: Police checking documents and a shaking citizen waiting for the outcome (bribe or potential incarceration or both)...the funny thing is that is (was) in East Germany.

Totalitarian states needed (and still need) those thugs to keep the population in control...

Another photo online

2009-04-15T11:59:00.004+04:00

Take a look at my photo of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya's grave at Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow, used in this web site. (German)

Wrap-Up and a recent encounter with Ukrainian State

2009-03-26T13:59:00.004+03:00

Unfortunately the ever rising business load, painful aerospace delays and non-virtual socializing habits have deterred me from posting; but let me summarize what has happened since I have last posted something on this blog.

After almost 2 years, I have been asked for documents and eventually taken to a police station in a post-soviet country. Actually, I am frequently asked for documents because of my "Southern Caucasus" looks but this time I have forgotten to take my passport with me (which can make you eligible for summary execution inversely proportional to the amount of money in your wallet). I have been giving solid advices to travellers and fellow invaders about the importance of carrying a passport preferrably with a neat amount of money for "donation to the police force" but there is always an error in human factors (or this is what we have been taught in university).

So I have taken the liberty of this error to go out on a friday night in Kiev with my colleague for a dinner without a passport or any identity document that is acceptable in soviet standards. On our way back, a bunch of crack police toorps crammed in a semi-armored troop carrier stationed on a pavement on Kreschatyk Street (the very center of Kiev) hurled out fully armed and asked for our documents while showing a fake salute. My colleague with his more European looks, asking "What's going on here?" and a passport in his hand was not a good prey for these underpaid securty personnel but I with Southern Caucasian looks (aka Black Hair), accented Russian and no passport, was a perfect candidate. Implying that we were coming back from a dinner (on Kreschatyk) was also a clear indication that we had some spare money for a "donation". Every sensible attempt to make them understand that I had a legitimate passport with a year-long business visa and the document in question laid in our apartment just a block away was no cure for their unquenched desire for hosting me in a nearby police station to show me about the unsurpassed quality of Ukrainian security system.

Eventually, my colleague was dismissed and ran to the flat to fetch the documents but I was already tucked in the troop carrier with almost half of the Kievan police (militsiya) at 2am, driving to the station surprisingly just a block away in a familiar direction (actually making it adjacent to our apartment). I was ordered out and treated somehow like a normal citizen would be in a normal civilized country (I admit that I was not expecting a Guantanamo though). As they understood that I am not an Armenian immigrant-cum-trader that is looking for some drug-addict Ukrainian teenage girl to force to prostitution in a far away European country, one of them asked me what we have been eating and drinking that night and even tried to smell my breath to check the amount of vodka I have consumed (I didn't drink that day and if i did, vodka would not be my choice). His colleagues jokingly agreed that I had downed a half-bottle (palu-butilichki) vodka with the testing guy's facial expression when he came near my face (I guess it was rather my new Armani perfume, which also keeps Ukrainian girls away from me). The one who seemed like a sergeant or an officer was busy scribbling on a brownish dirty piece of paper (which had the same texture as an american toilet paper) was asking my name, what it meant in Turkish, my sexual orientation and how many girlfriends I have in Kiev, wrote down these essential details in his makeshift report and handed out to me to sign just as my colleague entered the station with my passport with him. I tried to read the handed report (consisting of a hieroglyphic ukrainian handwriting stating that "I have forgotten my passport at home, went out and committed a shameful crime. I am sorry deeply and will not do that again".

I signed with a fake signature and gathered the contents of my wallet which had been a funny material for the rest of the crew for some time (they enjoyed my driving licence and tried to read the latin scripts or making funny noises while trying). As we walked away to the exit, the sergeant yelled " Hey Turk, you have been dining today, drinking today. What about us? Why don't we dine and drink too?" which can be translated as "Hey filthy Turk! Give us some money so that we can but cheap vodka (industrial defreezing agent) and salo (pork fat) or I can make sure that I can devise a thousand more crimes that you have committed in the last 15 minutes of your existence". I gave a covert signal to my colleague to stay away a bit, since he was carrying a well packed 100 US dollar notes on him and moved forward to show my already well combed wallet with just 32 hryvnas (4$) in it. "This is all I have , officer" and left the money on a nearby desk without trying to look on their disappointed figures. All we needed to do was just to take 15 steps to go to our flat. If I was alone with noone to bring back my passport and just 32 hryvnas on me, I would be locked down in a flea infested cell just 15 steps out of my flat and my passport. Sometimes I am lucky indeed.

So never NEVER step out without a passport in Ukraine and Russia (or any post-soviet state)

Note: Turklish Invasion denounces any attempt to bribe the glorious and couregous servicemen of the Ukrainian and Russian security personnel. All money given by Dinc are willing and voluntary donations to make the already perfect system a perfect example for their European counterparts.

Ostalgia

2009-03-15T02:31:00.002+03:00

Although my recent trip to Berlin was shadowed by a packed business schedule and snow, I still found time to drop by DDR (East Germany) Museum to satisfy my "Ostalgia" (Nostalgy for East German way of things). Photos coming soon.

Copydude has more fun stuff about Ostalgia...

Note: Dinc, of course, bought a simple piece of cement that is labeled as a "Piece of Berlin Wall" for a couple of Euros.

Partners in Crime

2009-03-15T02:02:00.008+03:00

The Russian Prime Minister-cum-Tsar Putin has announced that Ukraine is "in a state of pre-bankruptcy" during a meeting with Russian miners from Novokuznetsk (somewhere deep in Russia where they simply do mining).

Putin: "Let's see those noncomformist, separatist, corrupt Ukrainians suffer"

He also added that Russsia will be more symphathetic to Ukraine with the delayed debts from gas and added "You cannot finish off a partner"...I think he meant "You cannot finish off an enemy...You should wait and watch him suffer"

So here is another crazy bailout idea for Ukraine that we have found during a recent business session about our ill-fated investments in the country:

Divide the country in half. (Easier said than done though)

Even the flag has two colors...

Integrate Eastern Ukraine to Russian Federation as a semi-independent republic (like Tatarstan). The Western Ukraine would be the Republic of Ruthenia with its capital Lvov (Lviv) and incorporated into European Union. The soviet heritage gas pipeline would be watched over and cared after by an international consortium of stakeholders and would not be a nuisance anymore. Everybody would be happy...

No comment

Boring Information: Although the term "Ruthenia" refers to as wider area in Central Europe where Slavs lived (and still living), it was used for a longer time than "Ukraine" by Ukrainians as a reference to their homeland.

Note: Turkish Invasion supports the unity of all countries, especially in the ones that Dinc has business interests.

Dinc suggests Anna Reid's "Borderland" for a thorough understanding of Ukraine

Twitter

2009-03-10T00:16:00.001+03:00

Does anyone follow me? :)

Ukraine...default anyone?

2009-03-09T23:33:00.002+03:00

I guess some countries are doomed for failure at the end. No matter how much enthusiasm is pumped into Ukraine and regardless of the ever growng numbers of German SUVs on Kievan alleys, Ukraine has simply lost half of what it is worth in a couple of months. This is the bitter truth...

One can blame the global economic crisis that has been ravaging from the US of A to the post-Soviet Union with a harsh scorched earth policy, but the very essence of this hard blow to the fragile Ukrainian economy lies beneath the governmental politics of Ukraine that has already become a textbook definiton of corruption by itself. The new "Orange" elite has done a good job to get rid of the soviet "old guards" from the office and chease them off to Russia where they and their generations of relatives can live off their siphoned money from Ukrainian treasury.

The battered public who really couldn't adapt to a life without state subsidized and increasingly long queued for dairy products, welcomed them as saviours and cheered when euros flowed like the river Rhein when British pilots busted the dams in 1945. The banks, most of whom had already been swallowed by "Yevropeyskiys" were lending like crazy and people with triple digit incomes would be dreaming about the last time they would polish industrial dust from their old Zaporozhets. The rest is history in the making: The orange elite were actually the last generation of entrepreneurs who would start the day with Komsomol hymns and sleep off with McDonalds commercials in their best dreams. The old allies fell into a public vendetta and politics became (one again) an arena where power games would open more doors and loads of money to steal without shame.

The effect of the economic crisis is, of course, undeniably like a major Japanese earthquake to the Ukraine, a mere shabby old brick and mortar building. The local currency, the mighty Hrivna, which was pegged to USD until May 2008 was suddenly let go and reached record highs. intantly. This inevitably damaged the export-dependent economy but the worst was to come when the prime output of Ukraine, "the steel of Donbass" was no longer the eyecandy of the construction contractors around the world. Hrivna was almost halved in a month and massive layoffs left almost a million unemployed in the Russian speaking industrial heartland of East Ukraine where a deep resentment to pro-Ukrainian policies of the capital has already been growing with a vengeance.

So today, there seems no united political will in Ukraine and not a single voice about the increasingly necessary precautions against the economic crisis. The orange elite is experiencing its lowest popularity levels but there are sporadic-to-none demonstrations in Kiev contradicting the Soros-fueled coloured revolution years ago.

Although Ukraine is recently graded as "not safe for investment" by a couple of institutions, in my opinion, it will hardly be a case where all foreign direct investment that has deep dug in the country will simply fly out. The reason is the importance of where Ukraine is situated: a vanguard (or frontier) of Europe and one of the last beeding wounds of the Mother Russia with which the West can mess with. Russia will never let go of Ukraine (at least the Eastern half) without a good fight and keeping a united, strong but controllable and seemingly anti-Russian Ukraine will be a better weapon than Nato ever was and ever will be for the West. Station nuclear missiles in Poland and Russia will be answering with double of that in Belarus; but entitle some money-laundering and brainwashed fool in Ukrainian politics and he/she will be a headache for Kremlin for consecutive nights.

As a summary, it is painfully clear that Ukraine will suffer heavy blows by the crisis and lose most of its hard earned bucks but how it will end up when the dust setlles down is still unclear since it is getting hard to read between the lines of European and American attitudes to Eastern European powergames and a direct confrontation with Russia when they are already bogged down in their own financial turmoils.

How to drink vodka

2009-02-25T14:34:00.001+03:00

I have written some aspects about the world famous Russian endurance drinking before and now Chris has a better one on his blog. Check it out...

Looking back at the posts, I have written a lot about alcohols so far...it happens when you stay in Russia for long...

Armageddon Averted

2009-02-17T10:50:00.005+03:00

As a close eyewitness to its eventful demise, the fall of Soviet Union was always a myth to me. Although showered with greasy American propaganda portraying them as victors of freedom, the truth of the dissolution which actually spun a rough 20 years was never revealed or frankly I didn't have time and resources (that time) to analyze.

Normally, I do not write book reviews because I read boring history books or articles or easily become bored when reviewing them (when I realize that these stuff are actually boring to %99 of humanity). My blog friend and a fellow METU graduate Ulas makes it better and more frequent than I do it here. My latest gem (after In Europe by Geert Mak, which sits quietly in an airport lounge beside my breakfast at the time of this writing) is Armageddon Averted by Stephen Kotkin. The full title speaks for itself: Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse: 1970-2000.

I hereby attach a review-cum-article by the author itself. Enjoy it.

How Did Russia Rebuild Itself? Sorry, But You're Wrong

By Stephen Kotkin

Which large country’s global integration over the past two decades has radically transformed the world economy and geopolitics? Which large country is a defensive dictatorship that persecutes any sign of opposition? If you answered “China” to the first question, and “Russia” to the second, you would be in lock step with the prevalent view in America. Of course, if you answered “Russia” to the first question, and “China” to the second, you would also be right. Both countries are authoritarian, and both have globalized, with far-reaching consequences. But the story of China and globalization is well told in scores of books, and has reshaped the teaching of the history of China. The story of Russia and globalization has largely escaped the attention of analysts and historians. This is a challenge I attempted to meet, at least partially, in an updated edition of Armageddon Averted: the Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000 (Oxford), which contains a new chapter covering Russia during the years 2000-2008. That’s the period when the prolonged collapse finally ended, and Russia enjoyed a spectacular revival.

Reagan Gave Gorbachev Breathing Room to Unwind the Soviet Empire

Placing contemporary Russia in global context would seem a no-brainer given that the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 is routinely put in international context. That context, however, is often Ronald Reagan centric. Too many analysts credit President Reagan with having helped bring down the evil empire (a phrase he used on rare occasion) by building up America’s military and bankrupting the Soviets (who were forced to respond in kind). This overlooks the circumstance that Soviet military spending had shot up to astronomical levels in the 1970s, before Reagan, and that in the 1980s the Soviets concluded that Reagan’s missile defenses would never work. Anyway, all the attention wrongly paid to Star Wars and the like obscures the contribution that Reagan actually made – namely, he possessed the vital political credibility as a longstanding man of the right, as well as the vision, to respond seriously to arms control overtures by Mikhail Gorbachev, thereby giving the Soviets the room to destroy their own system unintentionally. In other words, invoking “Reagan” cannot explain why Soviet reform in the late 1980s took the form of a chimerical quest for “socialism with a human face” – which proved devastating to the Soviet system, just as it had in Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring of 1968.

Why the USSR Collapsed: Ordinary Russians Wanted What Westerners Had

Whatever the misconceptions about Reagan’s role, understanding the Soviet downfall without reference to the wider world is impossible. From its inception, the Soviet Union had claimed to be an experiment in socialism, a superior alternative to capitalism, and in the interwar period, during Stalin’s violent crusade to build socialism, capitalism had seemed synonymous with world colonialism, Great Depression unemployment, and goose-stepping militarism. Against that background, the idea of a non-capitalist world—with the same modern machines but, supposedly, with social justice—held wide appeal. In the Second World War, however, fascism was defeated, and after the war the capitalist dictatorships embraced democracy. Instead of a repeat Great Depression (anticipated by Stalin and others), postwar capitalism experienced an unprecedented boom, which made being middle class a mass phenomenon. Capitalism also decolonized. Further, all leading capitalist countries embraced the “welfare state” (a term coined during the Second World War). In the event, affordable Levittown homes, ubiquitous department stores overﬂowing with inexpensive consumer goods, expanded health and retirement beneﬁts, and democratic institutions were weapons altogether different from Nazi tanks. This was the competition that induced Gorbachev’s fatal reform effort.

Post-Soviet "Reform" or Chaos?

What about post-Soviet Russia? It inherited everything that had caused the Soviet collapse, as well as the collapse itself. In the 1990s what continued to pass for “reform” was actually further breakdown, as the global economy subjected Communist legacies to a brutal re-evaluation in market terms, and surviving Soviet-era personnel and new officials continued to steal everything in sight. By 1998, Russia essentially capitulated, defaulting on its debts and drastically devaluing the ruble; even the international cheerleaders for “reform” admitted it was over.

Thereafter, though, another surprise awaited: Russia’s collapse finally stopped. A resurgence began. Many structural reforms were, belatedly, actually implemented. By the close of 2008, Russia’s GDP, which had sunk to a low of $200 billion, climbed above $1.8 trillion, making it the world’s tenth biggest economy (sixth in terms of purchasing power parity). This colossal turnabout resulted from newfound fiscal restraint and some government reforms, especially in tax policy, but also from a relentless, China-driven rise in overall global demand that, with the cheaper ruble, helped call back from the dead Russia’s vast unused capacity inherited from the Soviet era.

Russia's Growth Cannot Be Dismissed as the High Result of Oil Prices

In Spite of Global Crisis, the Russian Middle Class Continues to Grow

Ignore the chorus chanting that Russia’s decade-long growth of 7 percent per annum after 1998 was fueled by hydrocarbons alone. Russia’s boom began well before the price of oil skyrocketed. And in 2008, when the price of oil touched $147 a barrel, oil and gas made up 60 percent of the Russian government’s budget revenues and 60 percent of the country’s exports, but just 20 percent of Russian GDP. Rather, the key has been globalization and Asia’s rise.

To be sure, the bulk of Russia’s foreign trade is with the European Union, but in a globalized world everything is connected. Much of what the Soviet Union made or extracted, which tanked in the 1990s, began to go up in price and value not just because of European prosperity but because of the insatiable Chinese giant. Russian industrial plant finally started to be refurbished and restructured. And around that belated shift, something completely new formed – a huge Russian services sector, spurred by ravenous domestic demand. In most American accounts of Russia, which obsess over Vladimir Putin and flim-flam oligarchs, one has to look very hard for any mention of Russian society. But today, there are forty million Russians in the middle class – nearly forty million more than there were in 1998, and around 30 percent of the population.

Cheaper Oil and New Challenges for Russian Elites

Notwithstanding its authoritarian political system, which is nasty though far more fractious than it appears to be to outsiders, the new Russia is as open to the rest of the world as it has ever been. (Russia boasts the world’s second largest inflow of immigrants, after the United States.) Obviously, the summer-2008 bursting of the global boom has further spotlighted Russia’s myriad weaknesses, from bloated corporate-sector debt to a substandard judiciary and suffocating official corruption (Russia’s number one industry). Still, the precipitous drop in the price of crude is exactly what Russia needed. The fall to around $45 a barrel as of early 2009 – admittedly, nothing like the $10 per barrel of 1986 that bedeviled Gorbachev’s perestroika – could finally compel Russia’s ruling elites to enact the many additional structural reforms they have long promised but failed to deliver. That’s the thing about globalization: either a country can compete globally, particularly in human capital and innovation, or it is destined to be left behind.

Mr. Kotkin, a professor of history at Princeton, is the author of Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000 (paperback Oxford University Press, 2008).

Understanding Russia is hard, as we know, because this country has a special God-given ability to heal from its worst pulp state to rise up like a phoenix. Maybe that is what makes it one of the most interesting country in the world (for me though)...

PS: The contents of this blog will be enhanced as I am now also off to more civilized part of Europe including the notorious North Cyprus...which guarantees a blog load of stories...stay tuned

Hundred Years' War

2009-02-02T00:00:00.005+03:00

Just another episode of the Arab-Israeli War Series ended with almost nothing...This time, too, died a lot of innocent people (mostly Arabs, as expected) where the Hamas chieftains cheered as they mobilised the masses of half-naked children to the no man's land and fired rockets to Israeli backyards from UN hospitals or schools in Gaza, just to make them targets for the bombings to stab Israeli PR.

Here are some suggestions for the people of the Middle East from Turkish Invasion.

Arabs, for God's sake accept that there is no feasible possibility to reclaim your lost lands to Israel. Come to terms with Israelis and share the country before you lose your existing one, for good.

Israelis, find a better PR agency of smarter weapons to blast the real terrorists.

Turkey, stay out of what has not been your sphere of inluence for almost a century, before you become someone else's...and someone please put Diplomacy back into PM's "Government for Dummies" guidebook.

And here is the best summary about the level of intelligence of the enemy that Israeli's have:

Death to all Juice: Start with Apple Juice and then kill all Oranges

The Gas Post

2009-01-25T22:36:00.004+03:00

No,I didn't wait until the crisis was resolved...I knew it already that it would "somehow" be solved with Ukrainians and Russians signing an agreement to deter the gas deadlock for a year (when it gets cold in Kiev again)

So let me summarize what this is all about as short as I can.

A few decades ago Ukraine and Russia as we know today belonged to a single country, a federation that we knew (and feared) as Soviet Union. (Sorry for repeating this trivia all along since I still get email questions about if Ukraine is a region in Russia) Soviet Union critically relied on the massive supplies of oil and gas to sell abroad to patch its massive budget deficits to carry on. The major buyer was (and still is) Europe and the shortest path to lay pipes from the sources in Siberia and Central Asia was via Ukrainin Soviet Socialist Republic. Nearly all pipeline network and other technical infrastructure was built in that region of Soviet Union. Everybody was happy in Moscow that they were selling the natural gas from the fields in the forgotten realms of frozen Siberia to the European industry.

The already crumbling economy of the country couldn't be patched anymore by energy based funds because the hardline communist politics urged the decision makers to send paychecks to every communist-wannabe guerilla team of 3 or more armed barefoot militia around the world (when the soviet citizens themselves were waiting in queues for bread). The country collapsed and every soviet republic tailored its own flag and carried on to independence (Boring Information: Only Belarus' new flag is almost the same as its soviet era design (minus the hammer and sickle)).

At first, the bosses in Moscow (who were actually the same cadre but now rebranded as democratic and liberal) were sighing for relief as their Ukrainian counterparts paid their homage to them and ruled Ukraine not very different than The Chuvash Republic (a republic inside Russia). The pipeline of money to Europe was safe as long as the valves inside the Ukrainian borders were in reliable hands.

The patrons to those valves in question were to change dramatically as USA and Europe pumped hard cash to Ukraine to break it apart from the virtual union with its slavic cousins and fabricate a chronic headache maker for the up and coming Russia. Nobody wanted a Cold War Episode 2 in the West and Ukraine was the closest and easiest t0 deploy weapon they had to Russia and Ukraine had a lot of revolutionary wannabes inside for collaboration.

Here are the sides of this deal:

UKRAINE

So what does Ukraine want out of their annual showdown with Russia?

Simple...use the only logical weapon they have against the Big Bear, who discreetly want a big chunk out of Ukraine (the Eastern Ukraine) or a reliable puppet government as loyal as their soviet viceroys decades ago. Shut off the valves and the Mother Russia will go broke...

What are they expecting out of this deal?

Urging the gas-struck Europe to retaliate with a vengeance to Russia and get the most out of that catfight (in cash and political support)

Can they win?

No. If Ukraine doesn't ant to be razed for the third time between the disputes between Europeans and Russians, it must side with Russians for good (to get plenty of cheap gas, fuel and Russian tourists to Black Sea resorts)

EUROPE

What do they want out of the deal?

They want the gas flowing cheap and without Ukraine sipping their share out of it. From foundries in german steelworks to gourmet kitchens in french cafes, they need that gas...badly

What can they do to achieve that?

They can get in a serious row with Russia to force him pour in more gas to the pipeline while still acknowledging that Ukraine will be pirating or get an allied effort with Russia to build an alternative pipeline through a less disputed land which is preferably not governed by a group of people that is not even fit to govern a south american banana republic.

RUSSIA

What does Mother Russia want?

Sell its gas (even the Turkmen gas) to Europe and continue buying overpriced drinks in Moscow posh clubs.

How can they do that?

Urge Europe to create a new pipeline. Since building new things, especially a pipeline, costs a lot of hard earned Euros which Europeans are too frugal to pay, some events must force the European public opinion from sick cockroaches in Indonesian jungles to the actual reality that they don't have any gas left to heat their TV dinners to watch documentaries about cockroaches. So shut off the valve, let Ukrainians shiver a bit and then siphon the European share of the gas in the pipeline.

They are acting according this script for a couple of years and I guess the Europeans have already started laying a pipeline across the Baltic Sea (as possibly away from any Ukrainian as possible). Guess who is supervising this project: Gerhard Schröder, the ex-chancellor of Germany, the prime buyer of Russian gas.

Let's wait a bit and see the Ukrainians turn their lonely eyes to Europeans when their gas is shut off for good from the Russian side...that time Europeans will not share their endless pity with them (just like they didn't during the Holodomor)

No gas?

2009-01-09T18:09:00.003+03:00

Are you in Europe right now? Take good care of the remaining gas because you will be freezing soon...

A Turkish Invasion Special on Gas coming soon...

Happy New Year

2008-12-29T16:57:00.003+03:00

I wish you all a happy new year which would hopefully bring all you want from life, fulfill your desires and keep you healthy (and safely away from Russia). Visit Turkey for summer holidays in 2009, meet Russian co-holidaymakers and also help Turkish GDP to reach reasonable levels over human suffering.

Here is a Soviet Santa "Kosmos"...how I like this weird art.

Check what I have written about New Year and Christmas celebrations in the eastern part of the Iron Curtain. In 2007, 2006 and some more. (It seems that this blog is up and running for more than 2 years...)

Getting personal about 2008

2008-12-29T13:53:00.003+03:00

I got this splendid and equally boring idea from Michelle's blog and here it goes:

1. What did you do in 2008 that you had never done before?

Slept on a beach near the Black Sea with 24-hour trance music thumping in my ears (Update: The user called Muratlantik asked where that was...it was Kazantip Republic. Check the previous posts in this blog for more info)

2. Did you keep your New Year resolutions for 2008?

Of course no...who does?

3. What countries did you visit?

Ukraine (and the beloved autonomous republic of Crimea), Russia and Belarus

4. What would you like to have in 2009 that you did not have in 2008?

Peace

5. What date from 2008 is etched on your memory?

14.1.2008. The date that I thought that I would never set foot in post-Soviet Union again...I was wrong.

6. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Staying alive, employed, healthy, well off, well fed and beloved.

7. What was your biggest failure?

My sadistic devotion to my blackberry smartphone

8. What was the best thing you bought?

My democratically-priced Sony home theater system that has speakers with the size of a golf ball and synchronizing it with my fascistically priced Sony LCD TV.

9. What did you get really really really really excited about?

Having a cat and keeping it alive

10. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Outsourcing the chores at home...

11. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Making people happy, unrequited

12. Did you fall in love in 2008?

Should I get that personal? Who cares about that?

13. What was your favorite TV program?

Lost...and the funny thing is that I never watched it on TV. God bless Internet...

14. What was the best book you read?

"A Terrible Revenge" by De Zayas. A complete understanding of WW2 and human history is never complete without it.

15. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Legowelt..."The kids want thechno0o!" and Parov Stelar

16. What did you want and not get?

A factory deactivated Avtomat Kalashnikova - 47 assault rifle (1970 revised issue) or a Dragunov sniper rifle...(just for decorative purposes)...or a huge URALMASH tattoo on my back...joking

17. What is one thing that made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

My cumulative salary...

18. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?

Keep it clean and neat.

19. What kept you sane?

My controlled insanity

20. What political issue stirred you the most?

I am living and working in or near the most stirred up political climates in the world. Am I clear with that answer?

Updates on Russian Automotive Industry

2008-12-20T01:00:00.004+03:00

It seems that I have been away from the most thriving Russian industry after beer, the Automotive. Now the Volga has a new look (good news for middle aged Georgian taxi cab drivers..if any left after the latest war) and Russians now has a racing car to call their own.

GAZ (Gorky Automobile Factory) may lose its G (because the city "Gorky" has retrieved its historic name of Nizhny Novgorod after the dissolution of Soviet Union and the inevitable demise of Maxim Gorky) but still touches the G-spot of eccentric Russian car enthusiasts by another line of Volga car. This time the tradition of shameless industrial espionage continues with a touch of "partnerships" with the once-evil capitalists and the Russians are still exploited with obsolete American designs.

"Comrade Putin, this is the space ship bumper design that we have been working for the last 13 years"
"Space race is no fun...Find an old American car and fit this bumper. Market it as our own car. "
"You are a genious..."
"Tell me about it"

The glorious GAZ-Chrysler partnership is proud to introduce the new Volga, Siber. Notice how similar to the old Chrysler Sebring? Because it is the "same" car...just with a decade difference

Volga Siber 2008...

...and Chrysler Sebring 2001. Any difference?

One can produce a racing car and even can win trophies with it; but branding is an art for itself. I am not a professional in this field but personally think that the name Marussia would not be the name of the supercar that I would fit into my garage one day Maybe the rappers on the American West Coast may like the way it is spelled: "Get yer hendz off Ma Russia, b*tch!"

At least someone in Russia knows the true order of the tri-colors.

Looks like a Bugatti Veyron...but at least not a carbon copy as Voga Siber

Miss World is..

2008-12-17T22:21:00.000+03:00

...this year not from South America but from Russia. Ksenia Vladimirovna Sukhinova is crowned Miss World 2008.

She was born August 26, 1987 and this makes her maybe one of the last Miss Russia's who were born in USSR. I agree that ths is a very unnecessary fact and hereby present Ksenia's photos.

She is 1.78m tall, a natural blonde and is a real West Siberian from the city of Nizhnevartovsk (where a lot of the Russian oil comes from)

Ksenia in her typical Russian "bending" pose

envy me...

Ksenia celebrating her "victory" on Red Square with a very strange flag. For those of you who has never seen a decent Russian flag, here it is:

...so you can make the same old "blonde jokes" again

Random Photos from Russia

2008-12-17T21:59:00.000+03:00

I was cleaning up for some storage space and found some old photos, probably done with my old samsung cell phone. Previously unpublished...

A dead fly "between" two pressure safety glasses in a Tupolev jet. (It should be a vacuum there)

Somewhere in Russia...on the road between Moscow and Ivanovo

A tyical Russian bus. Do not use any Russian bus for distances more then 35 meters. I spent a total of 20 hours in such buses and still in one piece.

My home in Mayakovskaya. Photo taken moments after I signed the contract (which would guarantee a yearly lodging in a small palace in some countries). I should find a photo of its later state to show you how I have excelled in IKEA hacking and turning this 25 m2 "room" into a decent home.

The only colourful sight in Russian skies (after burning soviet passenger jets). Photo taken on the way back from Ozgur and Anna's house.

More to come soon...

Afghanistan Remembered

2008-12-12T16:40:00.000+03:00

29 years ago on 12th December 1979, Soviet Union entered Afghanistan to mark the final (and still continuing with different actors) battle of Cold War which claimed more than 20.000 Soviet servicemen and countless Afgan mujahideen and civilian deaths, created a total ground-zero country.

Check what I have written before about this war...and also Dmitri Venaev's blog. Also the book and/or the movie Kite Runner is strongly advised.

The last Red Army personnel in Afghanistan in 1989, Sobachkin the Hero Dog, celebrating the 70th Anniversary of the Red Army

"Take the heroes as example to yourselves " banner for the people in Kandahar

Memorial for fallen heroes

The commanders

The Red Army in full parade (with Lenin watching from the back)

Kabul, the glorious capital city of the People's Communist Revolution...

...and here are the revolutionaries

Photos from www.soldat.ru

Admiral Strikes Back

2008-12-12T12:53:00.002+03:00

Like Hollywood, Russian movie industry has recently adopted to the strategy to capitalize on "a blockbuster for a season" strategy. Before were The Watch (Dozor) Trilogy (with the third part still missing) about vampires and larger-than-life figures dwelling in mud soaked streets of Moscow to save the Earth and the 9th Company (Devyata Rata) about the ill fated company in Soviet-Afghan War and now it is another flick that guarantees full theaters, The Admiral, is the latest "Big Russian Movie" and also features one of the most controversial characters in Russian/Soviet history.

If asked a mere two decades ago, Admiral Kolchak (or Aleksandr Vasiliyevich Kolchak) was the public enemy no:1 to nearly all soviet citizens since he was the supreme commander of the White Forces which were battling hard against the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War (1917-1923). Much hated as Hitler, he is now depicted as a man of honor, man of love and a cunning statesman who was deceived by French and Czechs to lose a winning war against the "evil" Bolsheviks in the movie "Admiral".

Supreme Ruler Kolchak, in his glory days

The movie starts with a shower of CGI graphics of a dog-fight between a Russian and a German war ships in the Baltic Sea in World War 1. Kolchak (a captain of a mine laying shipPogranichnik then) encounters a fleet of German battleships during a mine laying mission in the mists of Baltics falls outnumbered and outgunned and decides to save its ship and crew by trespassing the very mines he laid a scene before. He saves the day by trapping the battleship, destroying it and securing a promotion to Vice-Admiral, a career path that would make every navy man jealous. He, a young sodier married with a kid boy, not only show provess in the battlefield but also in the ball room romances where he lays his eyes on the beautiful wife of a fellow officer, Anna Timireva, destroying both marriages with deadly consequences to follow.

Konstantine Khabensky, the actor of Russian Blockbusters, portrays Kolchak

Marriages and champagne glasses are not the only things shattered through that period where the Russian Revolution takes place. The Tsar who himself promoted him as the commander of Black Sea Fleet (where he was planning an invasion to Istanbul that would fail beacuse of the revolution) abdicates and the army falls into a bloody revolt where officers are slaughtered just for being "officers". The film shows the revolutionaries as savage brutes in direct contradiction to the soviet films where the same men were patriotic communists that saved the country from a doomed end.

Kolchak, now an admiral without a fleet, sends his family to Paris where his wife, Sofia, ekes out a living by sewing and he still keeps an intimate distance relationship with Anna through mail while he is abroad trying to get support. He returns to Russia and leads a band of troops to oppose the Red Army in the vast steppes of Siberia to a battle of death. He is supported by British, American and French governments and even comes to a deadlock against the communists to think of a march to Moscow.

As events roll, Kolchak loses against the endless Red hordes and starts a retreating journey back to Irkutsk (East Siberia) through the Transsiberian railway and hopes to join with the White infantry still loose in Siberia. Anna joins the cause by leaving his husband (the naval officer/friend of Kolchak and now a devoted communist) and she works as a nurse and an accomplice to Kolchak. Although she keeps a distance to him, she later joins the relative luxury and warmth of the commanding wagon and the later scenes are a bit like leeched from a boring Shakepearean act of love making.

Kolchak, before he was shot by the communists

The White Troops make a deadly breakout to Irkutsk on foot (The Siberian Ice March) but fail to keep up with Kolchak and the Czech troops (commanded by a French General) entrusted by Kolchak to guard the railway and keep it open to Irkutsk defect from their cause by the promise of the Tsar's Gold* and hand over Kolchak to the Red Army. They are imprisoned and anxiously await for the doomed White Army for a rescue. Eventually, the evil reds execute Kolchak and push his corpse into a cross-shaped ice opening in the nearby river (logical beause it must have been hard to dig a hole in frozen ground).

Anna is later seen in a scene in the Mosfilm (the Communist Hollywood) studio where the ball room scene is reenacted in a movie where Kolchak would be the arch nemessis.
The film is supported by the Ministry of Culture of Russia and portrays a flood of Russian tri-color flags, priests and a loving figure of a dictator who has lived a not so enviable afterlife in the Soviet Union. He was ,after all, a great leader and a dictator that would rally an army and a lot of supporters against an equally authocratic and cruel regime and has been a prey in the history that is written by the victors. If the Whites had won, we could have seen his statues everywhere (just like Lenin)...vae victis.

There is also a scene in the film where he flirts with Anna and this dialogue takes place:

Kolchak: And why did your grandmother call you a Shelkova cossack?
Anna: Because I am a Shelkova woman.Our Cossacks married Turkish women.
Kolchak: I have Turkish blood too.
Anna: So, let's drink to the Turks!
Kolchak: With pleasure.

I didn't know that Kolchak had Turkish blood...but we have our own Kolchak's

Harun and Esref Kolchak, singer and actor

Maybe they are related...

*Boring Information: The Czech Legion is rumored to have shared the Tsar's Gold Treausure with the Communists as their reward for Kolchak and brought back with them to the newly formed country of Czechoslovakia. You can still see their "bank" Legiobanka in Prague. Check the building closely and you can find the wall art about the heroic deeds of the Legion.

My Word Cloud

2008-12-12T11:25:00.001+03:00

Here is a recent word cloud of this blog. It seems that I am a bit obsessed with my name since it appears larger than Russia or Moscow.

You can get your own word cloud from this site and play with your ego. It is fun.

Stars of the Homophobic Nation

2008-12-03T22:28:00.001+03:00

Last month I have nearly collapsed on a horde of shiny black leather suitcases (definitely designer series and so numerous to pack half of Ukraine's nuclear arsenal) in the lobby of Premier Palace Hotel in Kiev (which is the very heart of unnecessary poshness in the capital of a non-posh country...and God save my company who can happily afford our stay there). At first I thought that half of the sheiks of Arabia has landed for a snap sex tour in the already aged strip alleys of the city but instantly cathed the unforgettable sight of a flamboyantly dressed woman (!) with short-cut platinum hair and sunglasses as big as a DnepropetrovskSteel torch welder.

Enter Boris Moiseev

First of all she is not a woman but turned out to be a famous Russian singer/dancer/art-object, Boris Moiseev, and he was wearing the huge sunglasses in the middle of the dim lit lobby at night and continuously firing orders to his henchmen, one of whom has already lost a lot weight trying to tame his little fashion dog. I was just about to avoid this lobby fun but inevitably entered the so-called star's private space (with radius of a kilometer) and shied away under his direct gaze as if he pitied on my shameful existence...funny. None of my non-slavic friends found that sight interesting but the Ukrainians were amazed that I have come so close to "a living legend". I was definitely "the man" of that night.

I have no prejudice against people's choices and somehow admire the creativity and sense of style of "these" people. It is also strange that they somehow manage to thrive in even the most homophobic communities like Russia and even in Turkey.

Take Sergei Zverev for example. Of course much less gifted than Moiseev but existing in every minute of MTV Russia and other similar garbage stations with his video clips praising Alla pugacheva and his latest hair studio (which was just steps from my house in Moscow...so I had to see his larger than life poster everytime i went out of Mayakovskaya station...not a pleasant sight after a hard day's work). He is rumored to have more plastic surgeries than the Jackson family itself and the result is undescribable...

Singer, Artist, Celebrity, Hair Designer, Model and winner of many fake gay medals

This is his latest distopian look...V for Victoria Beckham

Moiseev and Zverev in a rare moment

The latest addition...John McCain looking like Moiseev after Obama won the elections

Bus Stops

2008-11-28T19:24:00.001+03:00

The first thing a fellow traveller would notice after leaving Kiev Boryspil (or Boris' Pole as some Polish-British "biznes"men prefer to call it) Airport (after the unimaginably beautiful and equaslly deadly customs officers) are the odd bus stops on the highway to downtown Kiev. Actually they are not really strange to me since I have seen many of those political un-artworks throughout Russia (but unfortunately missed to take photos of them). They are one of the surviving relics of the once glorious state that had lost its mind in inscribing the emblems of the state and its ideology in every piece of structure including facades, roofs, walls and of course bus stops, where fellow comrades would spend their waiting time in a politically correct manner

Now it seems that a German photographer has already done it...check it out.

...and more in here.

More Lada fun...

2008-11-28T19:16:00.000+03:00

Even Lada needs a crash test dummy...

Holodomor

2008-11-25T13:15:00.001+03:00

...or maybe you would like to know more.

Yugo..or You Go

2008-11-25T12:54:00.000+03:00

Interesting...I am now sitting in a cafe in Ankara where I have come with my team for some daily business trip, I have noticed a Yugo on the street...

Introducing the same old commie sh*t

For those who do not share my enthusiasm for machines of communism, Yugo is the signature car produced in Yugoslavia (not the one that exist today as the loose federation of Serbia and Krajina) but the big and glorious one that ceased to exist almost 15 years ago with a ot of bloodshed). The difference with other ones is that Yugoslavia was not a part of Soviet dominated pole of the world bu the non-aligned coalition, so although it was a socialist state, it could market its products (including Yugo's) in Western markets and earn substantial revenues to keep the living standards much higher than its communist cousins in the Eastern Europe.

Yugo is no better than Lada but seems to have a soul of its own. Someday a working Yugo will be an addition to my soviet car fleet...

Pimp my You-Go

..ah and I have to remind you that last weekend it was the memorial day for Holodomor. Check back what I have written about one of the worst man-made disaster in the history. No wonder why the city was decorated with many banners that inscribed "Ukraine Remembers...and THE WORLD KNOWS"

...do you really know?

Where is Dinc?

2008-11-24T15:46:00.000+03:00

I have been away from all forms of social life lately since we were bogged down with a schedule as tight as Ukraine's budget. A lot of business offers, new projects, launch events and parties...etc

All through these weeks of non existent cyber activity, I have been a part of ping-pong schedule between Kiev and Istanbul and gathered a lot of soviet memorabilia, weight and experience. Even the girls at the reception in the Opera Hotel (to which I have been upgraded from the shabby daily flats which are heartbreaking central in downtown but smell of many numerous fellow travellers who have came to Kiev for some easy sex (but ended up paying twice for what they could easily get back at home) ) ask me if i would prefer to leave some stuff back in the room because I end up packing and unpacking every single week. I must have been looking really shabby after all.

As a designated traveller, I have excelled to squeeze a lot of clothing and stuff to a luggage that could fit on board (and here I praise my mother once again for lending me her beloved Samsonite microtraveller that is the best match for post-soviet luggage handling system - which is basically semi-drunk tadjik workers tossing the luggage to the nearest mobile carrying object).

Practice makes perfect: remembering the times when I had to think for hours about what to pack, I still laugh at the time when I have packed everything to smallest detail (from extra lenses to shoe polish) but forgot my suit just before an important networking event. As you all know, I had to buy a soviet suit (made from %76 industrial nylon and %23 unidentified radioactive material) and drag my friend all along the Kreschatyk in search for a tailor to fit the one-size-fits-all suit to acceptable posture.

By the way, I am considering a getaway to Moscow for the new year...Hey Chris! what is new?

Also check out the website (although in Turkish) of Ethem Eldem, whom I have met last week in the launch of our new operations center in Kiev. It seems that he has been travelling a lot...

The Plan Paline

2008-10-30T11:06:00.000+03:00

I have no interest whatsoever in American Elections because I believe that the master plan of US and A will not (and cannot) change with the change in the master of the oval office. The ones who believe that Obama (if he can manage to get elected and stay alive) can rapidly wrap up the distorted American foreign policy and take the invasion forces back home form the dustbowl of Iraq, are terribly mistaken. The MIC (Military Industrial Complex as Eisenhower warned before he stepped down) will not allow it...anyway it is not the point.

The gem of the elections was indisputably Sarah Palin and she keeps on getting airtime on all networks with her style and unlimited lack of knowledge. Some guys got a cool comic of her about her latest clash with Russia...enjoy

Democracy is...

2008-10-30T10:59:00.000+03:00

This is what the guys at sevastopol.su think...By the way, .su is the Soviet Union web domain (wish I had one)...Sevastopol is the disputed home of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and a predominantly Russian city in the middle of the Crimean Republic in the Ukrainian Republic (sounds odd to me). We unfortunately missed to visit the city on our Invasion Crimea 2008 tour with Mr. Saim Refig this summer but promised to drop by next year before Kazantip 2009.

Democracy is the taming of idiots

The ban on blogger.com

2008-10-30T10:43:00.000+03:00

Turkey has become a weird country, even more interestingly stupid than it was before to ban the whole portal rather than the specific website (why do they ban websites anyway?). So blogger was banned for a while and I, too lazy to setup an OpenDNS to bypass this idiotic act of censorship, couldn't post for a while...new posts coming soon..

By the way, today is my birthday...hurray!...

From Russia with Hate

2008-10-16T17:03:00.000+04:00

I have been meeting a lot of new people lately and they are asking why on Earth I moved back from Moscow to Istanbul (As you all know that I am now an Istanbul-based invader and Istanbul is in Turkey...comprende amerikano?)

It is a really hard question to answer...although the main driver was money and the quality of life, both of which are unquestionably higher here in Istanbul due to less smud (semi radioactive snow + sticky mud that covers everything that touches the Moscow streets for months), less stress and less vodka.

About stress, I have seldom mentioned the evident rise of Neo-Nazism in Russia (maybe because I have been receiving enough hate-filled emails then (because I posted enough posts about Lada to infuriate the Podmoskovye Pimps (the guys who use broken down Ladas for mobile brothels around the freeways of Moscow) and didn't ever want to be stabbbed in my smud-filled yard...I know that my corpse would freeze and be hidden under the frozen smud to be discovered next spring and be trashed without any humanly hesitation as an unfortunate tadjik worker who had downed a 2 liter-bottle of Tolstyak beer for dinner and lost his way home).

Here is a documentary about the rise of Neo-Nazism in Russia...let their uncanny hate devour those pathetic beings...by the way, the guys whose insignia (swastika) you are wearing were killing your ancestors, not far away maybe 60 years ago. Your grandfathers are proud of you.

Ze Russians are back...now with money

2008-10-08T14:21:00.001+04:00

The tiny ice-clad island of Iceland hit the news again with their tragic and unprecedented claim for a near economic downfall. The rescue didn't come from US or EU, their NATO big brothers, but Russia in the form of a $5.4 billion bailout credit, which is roughly a third of Iceland's GDP.

The handshake that shook the world

Russians are not foreigners in Reykjavik which hosted the historical summit between then-US president Reagan and USSR general secretary Gorbachev about the reductions in the respective nuclear arsenals. Although the summit ended in failure at the very end but was a highlight event through the second half of 80s and led to the dissolution of Soviet Union.

Gorbachev: We will come and buy out this island in 20 years.

Reagan: Yeah right...

So the sick and curious mind of Turkish Invasion thinks that it can be a reprisal attack by the oil-rich post-Soviet ruling elite to buy out Iceland (or at least a part of it) just like Adolf Hitler did to force the French to sign armistice in the same railcar in which they themselves forced the Germans 20 years ago.

The new Russian banyas will be built on Icelandic geysers

By the way, Iceland is a NATO country and Russia by giving a bailout would have the right to ask for a strong naval base on the top of Atlantic...which is actually the sole reason for the membership of Iceland to NATO after all...

Has Putin won?

2008-10-03T15:01:00.001+04:00

The photo below was not taken in a provincial Russian city but in Grozny.

Grozny in 2008

Of course Grozny is a provincial city deep south in the Caucasus region of Russian federation but just a decade ago it was the most destroyed city on Earth, where the Russian Army had to pour everything they had in their arsenal to devour the Chechen insurgency (and everyone else that was fateless to be in the city at that time). Below is what it meant to be in Grozny in the end of 1990s.

Grozny in 1995

The troubles of Chechen people and Russians (or Soviets) makes a history of itself. Starting from the southward expansion of Russian Empire, the mountain tribes, mainly Muslim, of Caucasia fought for freedom and waited for every single chance to wage war against the Christian and Godless infidels from the frozen steppes who have named the city as Grozny (Gruesome). One of those chances arose when the Nazis rumbled on to the Baku oilfields in 1941-2 and visibly weakened the war machine of Soviet Union. Many Chechens took it as an advantage for independence, knowing that the Nazis had no vendetta against the muslim tribesmen living on top of mountains and many joined the Waffen-SS against Red Army.

After Stalingrad, the tide of war turned against the Germans and their local collaborators in the occupied territories in USSR, which brought a terrible fate upon the latter as Red Army reclaimed those territories. Stalin, the boss of mayhem and a person definitely without a sense of pity, ordered the entire populations which are suspected of collaboration. As with Chechens, many other nationalities in the former occupied territories were exiled overnight on cattle trains to the vast emptiness of Central Asia. Many died on the way and very few survived to return and find out that their lands were already occupied with Russians.

Mixed with a pre-installed hunger for independence and fueled with religion, the Chechens, with many fighters who are already entitled to high positions in Red Army because of their highly acclaimed fighting spirit, revolted against the already crumbling central authority in Moscow in 1990s. The reply from the once-mighty government was weak and the new Russian Army was humiliated by a bunch of heavily armed and indoctrinated militiamen. I even remember a video that was sent to me in my first internship in 2000 (it was the dawn of the internet as we know now and watching a video on a PC was a novelty) and it was about a bunch of Chechen guerrillas decapitating (with gruesome details) a young Russian conscript.

The First Chechen War was a defeat for the new Russian federation with a number of republics carefully watching the results of the street fighting in Grozny. This defeat was also one of the reasons why Putin with harsh nationalistic campaigns was easily handed over the job in Kremlin because the public was in fear of sporadic terrorist attacks even in the center of Moscow. Eventually Putin found an excuse (ordered secret agents to plant bombs in a Moscow apartment and blamed Chechen terrorists for the attack) and unleashed the Army unto Grozny where the separatist rebels had already founded an Islamic Republic of their own. The city of Grozny, with a lot of Russian civilians living it it, was leveled and the rebels ran to the hills to fight back another time. The fight for that insurgency continued for years until Russians realised the weak point of the mountain tribes (that also counts for many semi-civilized nations around that region) that the best possible way to fight a determined rebel is not to attack with tanks and artillery but to buy out (or bribe) his kinsmen and eventually start a controlled civil war in which the fractions of the enemy would devour themselves to a standstill. That is exactly what happened in Chechnya. The easy oil money funded the already pro-Putin Kadyrov clan who have realised that fighting the might bear would just be the total annihilation of Chechnya and they have effectively ended all other armed resistance of other clans. After his father's assassination, Ramzan Kadyrov is now not a warlord in defiance of Russia but but a president of a republic in Russian Federation and in close ties with Putin.

El Presidente Ramzan Kadyrov in one of his public dances. The ones who don't applause will be shot on the spot.

El Presidente Kadyrov and Vladimir Putin, his boss in Moscow

Members of the Viva Kadyrov Fan Club

Members of the Viva Kadyrov Fan Club (the back of the t-shirts say "Ramzan, We are with you")

Now Grozny is being extensively rebuilt and the life is becoming normal in the once ground zero of Chechen War. The highlight of this campaign is the concrete replica of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul built in Grozny to be the biggest mosque in Europe. It is rumored that Turkish funding and workmanship is being used...

The plan of the Grozny Mosque

Viva Kadyrov Fan Club meeting in front of the construction site

Youıng Kadyrov-wannabes in parade in front of the construction

How corrupt are You?

2008-09-25T14:32:00.000+04:00

Transparency International published its long awaited list of corruption. As expected, my beloved motherland (not Russia...Turkey) with its heavy islamic facelift has come to 58th position in 2008 (It was 64th in 2007). Islam preaches (as with every decent belief system) a severely anti-corruption teaching and even though the rise of corruption dossiers as high as the Mount Ararat, the current government still holds strong with their massive supoort of the proletariat (more than 70% of Turkey)...anyway this blog is not a good place for opposition.

Although the country that I live in seems good in ratings, the countries that I work in/with are clinging strong to the bottom of the list with the expected league of failed states. Ukraine is 134th and Russia is 147th and the quasi-communist state of Belarus is 151th in the list. I think I have told you how hard my job is...

Let's talk about business

Not long ago, I was told that a leading automotive brand from germany (all German brands are leading but this one is the absolute leader of all) had to wait for 7 years to get his flagship store opened in Kiev because they wanted every single paperwork to be clean and bribe-free...This ain't Frankfurt guys! They may be driving the latest luxury cars but they still work as if they are in USSR. Just give the sulking rubber-stamp guy what he wants to get his Dacha fixed...

Socially Important Shop

2008-09-23T23:49:00.000+04:00

I am used to those kind of nieghborhood shops that are sensibly named as just Produkty (Grocery), Moloko (Milk) or Myaso (Meat) but this one seems so odd...even superficial to me. What can be in a Sotsialno-Znachimiy Magazin (Socially Important Shop)? An enigma by itself...

Turks in Ukraine (Part 3)

2008-09-22T17:41:00.000+04:00

I think this boy is not Turkish but he wears a Turkish flag styled t-shirt in Khreschatky Park in Kiev; which many of the Turks would find it shameful enough to wear on Kievan streets.

The head beneath the couple belongs to our project manager in Kiev

Tracing Turkish history in Crimea

2008-09-18T16:00:00.003+04:00

We have been taught in history lessons during our boring schooling years that once the Ottoman Empire ruled over all known seas (Mediterranean and Black Sea) and had dominions far far away such as those in Crimea (now part of Ukraine).

Sultan Mehmed II (The Conqueror of Constantinople) also ruled over Evpatoria and probably enjoyed the girls brought from the notorious local slave bazaar to the harem

This year, my traditional summer post-Soviet Union journeys took me to the town of Evpatoria in western Crimea, where me and my comrade Saim Refig (ex-supermodel, the inventor of Refi-Yoga and a fellow invader in Moscow) had unique opportunity to experience the real soviet holidaymaking and check what our ancestors have left in this forgotten corner of Black Sea.

The high-times of Evpatoria seaside..beautiful weather and hazardous sea

As it stood out that nothing much has been left by centuries of warfare (there was a big battle in Evpatoria during Crimean War between Turkish and Russian Imperial troops, where Turkish prevailed and losing to the inferior Ottomans led to the tsar's early death)

Evpatoria (Kezlev (in local Tatar language) or Gözleve (in Turkish)) is now a peaceful seaside resort town with an unbeliavably pleasant weather and dirty (semi-radioactive) sea water. We were said that a lot of Tatar/Ottoman heritage remains in the town but we could only see the synagogue(Karaimskie Kenassy) of Karaim people (Jewish Turks) which was an impressive piece of architecture.

The Karaimskie Kenassy...the Kenassa (Karaim Synagogue) has the same Aramaic root with Beit Knesset (Synagogue in Hebrew)

The town has a typical Slavic nightlife that is based on endurance drinking of vodka/beer and then a greasy shawarma as a desert. The ones looking for a better entertainment do not waste time in local clubs playing 90's Russian Pop but gathers in a neighboring village of Popovka for the legendary Techno festival of Kazantip (Republic Z) for a month of free love and nonstop dance.

Luxury Taxis in Moscow

2008-09-18T16:00:00.002+04:00

My comrade-in-crime Chris 2Zero has been busy these days testing the limits of decadence in Moscow. His latest find was a Porsche Cayenne taxi with which he and Donald weren't so impressed. Now he was called up for a test ride with a Maybach taxi. Check out his blog. (By the way, a new Maybach costs around $ 450,000...really)

Care for a ride?

Luxury in Labelfucker style

A great German car...but why in this colour?

Chris tells that an hour ride in this taxi (which would take you a couple of meters in downtown traffic during rush hour) costs 9000 Roubles (~$ 367) and added a quick list of what you can afford in Moscow with that sum:

1 round trip ticket from Moscow to Berlin (or Germany)
A round of golf at Le Meridiеn Moscow Country Club
A dinner for two at Cafe Pushkin (The most expensive café in Moscow)
A whore at Nightflight ( A Swedish-owned nightclub infamous with expensive prostitution inside)
3 cheap whores found on the Internet
5 dead cheap whores found around MKAD (Freeway around Moscow)
18 Vodka Red Bulls at MOCT (A pathos night club)
36 Vodka Red Bulls at Solyanka (Our favourite party location)
9-10 cocktails at the O2 Lounge / Ritz Carlton
45 average trips through the city on a fucked up gypsy Lada cab.
30 average trips in a normal cab
473 rides on the metro (or more, if you buy bulk)
a 1 week 4 star vacation in Turkey

No Comment

2008-09-18T16:00:00.001+04:00

Russian Girl Talk

2008-09-15T17:34:00.000+04:00

Is that really what we really need to know about Russian Girl Talk? I advise a more civilised aproach to romance in post-Soviet Union.

Ronald for UN General Secretary!

2008-09-12T12:16:00.000+04:00

We already know about the Big Mac index (which I have been using to show the propective expats that Moscow is expensive as hell) and now here is another thing from our beloved unhealthy-artery clogging food chain, McDonald's.

Meet the next United Nations General Secretary

It's known as the McDonald's theory of war, but has nothing to do with hand-to-hand combat for McMuffin (explanation for my readers in Muslim countries, it is just pig meat hamburger with semi-fried oily bread. No country with a McDonald's outlet, the theory contends, has ever gone to war with another...and now since every country has one, the eternal peace has ultimately landed on Earth!

Ronald McDonald during Russian-Georgian peace talks in Tverskaya McDonalds

The logic is thus: countries with middle classes large enough to sustain a McDonald's have reached a level of prosperity and global integration that makes warmongering risky and unpalatable to its people.

To ensure heart disease, obesity and diabetes all over the world (and peace, of course)

The Russia-Georgia conflict has finally blown this theory out of the water. Thomas Friedman, who invented the theory in 1996, said people in McDonald's countries "don't like to fight wars. They like to wait in line for burgers."

A typical Russian McDonald's

The Georgian conflict shows it's quite possible to do both.

Note for McDonald's lawyers: Turkish Invasion is not against McDonald's and actually adores the taste of Whopper. Dinc occasionally eats there and his mother doesn't know about it...

BelCuFaM 2010

2008-09-11T12:50:00.000+04:00

Using the same metro station (Mayakovskaya) for 2 years made me a special fan of the artwork beautifully hidden in the niches. Every one of 34 ceiling mosaics in those niches made by Alexander Deyneka had a theme of 24-hours in Soviet Union, so even if you are 33 meters below the Moscow traffic, snow, spit and mud, you could enjoy the bright soviet future above.

One of them (seen below) was depicting the zenith of soviet agriculture featuring a soviet collective farm woman driving a weird machine through the great wheat fields.

No need to say more about the devastation and the millions of lives lost for "the collectivization" of agriculture in 1920 and 1930s; and here is the result of the decades of soviet agricultural know-how combined with the "russian way" of doing business:

The Belarussian Cucumber Farming Machine, BelCuFaM 2010...coming soon to a cucumber field near you

More photos @ English Russia

They will not surrender?

2008-09-04T17:39:00.000+04:00

What is left in Georgia to surrender? Maybe the Borjomi bottling plants...the only Georgian export so far. (except Stalin)

How far is Istanbul?

2008-09-04T15:19:00.001+04:00

Normally, you can see that kind of signposts in the poles, but we were not surprised to see such a thing in the middle of a soviet beach in Yevpatoria in Crimea, since everybody regrets coming to such kind of an industrial garbage hole and start looking for a way back home...the sign post shows how far one has to go.

990 kilometers to go for Istanbul from Yevpatoria

Update: The signs in Latin:

Moscow (Russia) 1600km
Smolensk (Russia) 1200km
Yalta (Crimea, Ukraine) 160 km
Istanbul (Turkey) 990km
Lvov (Ukraine) 1300km
New York (USA) 12000km
Hafia (Israel) 1300km
Bahchisaray (Crimea, Ukraine) 70km

A new find

2008-09-03T12:38:00.001+04:00

Check out that super blog, very similar to mine and also prepared by a fellow METU graduate

The reason for all wars

2008-09-02T16:50:00.002+04:00

I have been sunbathing and adding some more healthy days to my life in Crimea for a while and a question arose when I was watching the semi-radiocative and green sea waters of Evpatoriya.

Why do the ever-glorious, ever-intelligent and ever-diplomatic European countries (and therefore their union, the EU) has succumbed to this irritating position against Russia? Didn't they know that being so dependent on anyone by anything so precious would eventually lead to this shame?

I have asked several locals in Ukraine and witnessed a debate on radio (strange to hear Turkish people discussing the fate of European energy policy instead of some gay-looking overweight people singing detuned over bellydance rhythms.)

The answer is simple:

Severely beaten by the oil crisis in 1970's and the start of 1980's, the European countries, sadly dependent on energy from their factories to their groundheated golf courses, were on the lookout for an alternative, cheaper and a more reliable energy source which is not dominated by a bunch of desert nomads, found an eager seller, Soviet Union.

USSR, through the end of the stagnation area, was also hit hard by the fluctuations in the oil prices because it needed the oil-driven hard cash to supply its over-ineffective and crumbling planned economy. It enjoyed the 70's oil crisis as the price of oil skyrocketed (they simply built more missiles with that income and left the citizens without toilet papers) but was unexpectedly beaten by the 1981 oil glut where the world was practically soaked in oil as the production exceeded the demand. That caused the oil dependent soviet economy to near collapse and urged the soviet central economic planners to look for an alternative import with a similar energy and monetary value, the natural gas. The supply was plenty in the remote and forezn lands of Siberia and godforsaken deserts in the south and the demand was high. As the country had its nuclear arsenal and countless armor to replenish, repair and build through the cold war arms race, the soviet policy was to sell that gas as fast and trouble free as possible and get the hard european cash. The europeans were also smiling as they built numerous pipelines to furnish their factories and celebrate their diminishing dependency on oil.

So the rest is history and so is the USSR, but why still so dependant on Russia where most of that gas lies under the post-soviet dictatorship puppy states like Kazakhstan or other -stan's?

So simple. Nearly all the pipelines that carry the gas from the USSR were built from their sources in Siberia and central Asia through the Slavic borderlands (Russia, Belarus and Ukraine) to their hungry buyers in Europe, mainly because of the geography two big obstacles lay between, Black Sea and Caspian Sea. So dissolve the Soviet Union, paint new flags, elect new dictators but the gas must go through the existing pipeline system, which dramatically lays in Russia and gives him a say (a biiiig big say) over where it goes, how much he buys it and at what price he sells it. A very good deal indeed...

At first, everybody was happy as oligarchs scavenged the Russian energy sector in line with Yeltsin and Russians had pretty much more to worry about than a world domination by armaments or energy since they were plain hungry. As the dust settled and more nationalist and firebrand politicians handed over in Kremlin, they were already notified that the future wars wouldn't be fought with ballistic missiles but with something lighter than air, the gas which let the Mercedes factory in Stuttgart work or heat homes in Champs Elysees. They quickly bullied the semi-dictators in the neighboring -stan countries and secured "the source" and slowly raised the price and check the nonexistent reaction in European countries. As energy price, the main input into cost, increases so does the selling price and keeping competitive in the global market means that you cannot increase the selling price to infinity. One has to keep the prices somehow stable and inevitably go lower on margin. Lower margin means lower revenue, lower revenue leads to lower pay (or eventually layoffs) and these all causes public unrest. See what the policy of resting half of the energy upon Russians leads to...

As I have mentioned before, Europeans are the masters of diplomacy and they always (maybe until now) win at the end. First they tried to control "the source" by intimidating the dictators of -stan's but they failed since most of them are ex-KGB brutes and kept their post-soviet allegiances to Russia (maybe not to wake up dead the next day). So they tried the other thing they are best at, the technology, and hurry their companies to make partnerships with cash hungry oligarchs and dig deep into the Russian energy sector. The problem is the oligarchs are not only cash but also power hungry, leading them into bloody political battles against the government and eventually losing their companies, money and lives into mass nationalisations of energy sector. The western companies, bluffing with their global power, were ever confident that they wouldn't be disturbed through this extravaganza but they watched their CEO's expelled one by one.

There stood another chance for the idle diplomats: If the source does not obey, why not deal with "the tip" of the pipe? Enter Ukraine as the poor, shamelessly corrupt and decaying state which surprisingly houses the most of the pipeline highways from Russia to their eventual destination. The fire of unrest in Ukraine wasn't also hard to relight. The country is a battlefield endlessly for centuries and was left as a bomb in waiting after the collapse of USSR, with hardly the half of the nation yearning to be back in Russia, the big brother. As Ukraine showed slight interests of another role apart from a good puppy of Russia, Russians showed them the stick by closing the gas tap and leaving millions freezing in winter (as Ukraine is also as dependant on gas as Europe) The juicy bone for that puppy was "democracy" and a promise to be a part of the EU, away from the crushing grasps of the Russian masters. They bought it, painted their flags and made revolutions...but eventually they froze a couple of winters more and pay double of what they were paying on gas before the revolution. Here is "democracy" for you...

Losing "the source" and "the tip" may sound like a crushing defeat but there is no defeat in diplomacy (as soldiers die but diplomats prosper) Why not make a by-pass (although a bit costly to build) around the existing pipe? Buying directly from the source is always cheaper than a middle-man (Am I that good in economics?) and this time they had laid their eyes on Caspian fields, the new Arabia as they call it. The Baku-Ceyhan pipeline that would suck the fields dry from Azerbaijan to Turkish Mediterranean ports would need a steady and calm investing background and the Caucasus was the last place to seek those two with a thousand mountain nations cutting each other's throats for fun. So create allies and stick the existing allies together to create a passageway. The "already" ally is Turkey who is waiting for his minuscule share of the pipeline flow and the created ally is Georgia, an already failed state with numerous de-facto breakaway regions (surprisingly yearning to be a part of Russia) and half of its population living abroad to send money to families. So they also painted their flags, made demonstrations and elected a de-facto American spy as their president. Eventually they also froze in the winter as Russians doubled the price of gas, banned their imports and sent fellow Georgians in Moscow by cargo planes. But this time this was the time when the knife hit the bone so the Europeans and their grand master, US, supported the Georgians by public outcries and a visible facelift of the mediocre Georgian army. All this, of course, had nothing to do with the glorious nation of Georgia (who would be left to rot if they were a bit far away from the energy highways as the western powers did in Bosnia a decade ago) bu it was to secure the pipeline. As Russians toyed with Georgians not to fall into this trap, the Georgian president unleashed an uncontrolled and tragically unplanned fury against the breakaway regions who were dug in with their Russian comrades behind their back. The rest is also history, Georgians got slapped, got their Caucasian asses kicked and lost those regions forever. It is vae victis...the winner takes it all. Russia now directly threatens the by-pass energy line and also makes the Caucasus instable, severely disrupting the plans for an additional pipeline (dubbed Nabucco). I think I made it clear why the EU (or even US) cannot make any sanctions against Russia now...they are "still" bound to their bellies...shame.

The Georgian response to Russian Looting

2008-08-21T13:28:00.001+04:00

Although there is an acting ceasefire between Russia and Georgia and a Russian promise (!) to leave the recentşy invaded Georgian soil, there are numerous reports about Russian and their crack sidekicks, South Ossettian militia, involved in intense looting in Georgian towns and villages where even toilet seats have been taken. So some Georgians with a sense of humor are continuing a protest near the Russian embassy in Tbilisi. They are bringing the items that are rumored to be looted to the walls of the embassy as a "gratious gift from Georgian people"

"For the Russian Army, from Georgian Nation"

Turkish Cobra's in Georgia

2008-08-20T14:08:00.001+04:00

Russia has been blaming a number of countries for helping the rearmament and restructuring of the Georgian Army (which they have beaten in 3 days) for a couple of years and Turkey, although unknown to many Turkish that they have a flourishing weapons industry (to the limits that the american strategic allies permit), has seemingly supplied with the Cobra armoured vehicles.

It is actually a badly reshaped Humwee by Turkish taste

In my recent post about the Chechen dominated Vostok Brigade's involvement in the South Ossettian war, I have used a photo in which a bunch of Russian tanks rolled by a ruines Georgian armoured vehicle. An anonymous reader* has commented that that vehicle was indeed one of the Cobra vehicles supplied by Turkey.

The Georgian Cobras parade the Tbilisi streets before they got hammered by Russian tanks

It seems that they had a severe beating by the Russian tanks...It is mentioned in wikipedia that 15 Cobra's have been delivered to Georgia for a sum of 3 million $, so the wreckage in the photo in that post is around 200,000$ worth...

*Update: The anonymous reader has been found to be a good friend, Hazim, who has been an avid contributor to this blog by his valuable feedback and suggestions.

Bad Bear

2008-08-15T14:12:00.000+04:00

Vostok in War

2008-08-14T17:38:00.001+04:00

This photo was taken in South Ossetia. It is now known that The Russian Special Forces Brigade dubbed "Vostok" has joined the war. The Russian tank on the right has a graffiti "Chechnya" on the back, focusing on the ethnic composition of the brigade. The soldiers also inscribed "Yamadaevtsy" near the tanks, meaning that they belong to the unit once commanded by the Chechen war-hero Dzhabrail Yamadaev who defected to Russians on the Second Chechen War and led the pro-Russian forces against the separatist Chechens.

Note: Dzabrail Yamadaev was awarded as Hero of the Russian federation by Putin after his assassination.

David vs Goliath

2008-08-14T16:25:00.001+04:00

Many of my readers are bombarding me comments about the (still ongoing) South Ossetian War and wonder what I think about the war that ravaged the poor georgian boys in american marine uniforms (with a post stamp sized georgian flag embroidered on their shoulders).

Georgians in American uniforms...but these are not from Atlanta,GA

First of all, we all knew that something like this was destined to happen some time. Even after Putin’s sovietique outburst in Munich in 2007, the curtain call for the dissident post-Soviet republics (especially the ones with colour coded and Soros funded rave-olutions) was almost due. Putin, backed with tremendous income from ever rising price of energy (of which Russia is enjoying a critical percentage) and increasing military spending (that replaced rusting Cold War era Sukhoi jets and clumsy APCs of Afghan War issue).

The point that Putin underlined in that speech was the impossibility and insensibility of a monopolar World in which USA (the monopole itself) would singlehandedly shape the economic and political shape through its willing. He added that “Unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions have not resolved any problems. Moreover, they have caused new human tragedies and created new centres of tension. Judge for yourselves: wars as well as local and regional conflicts have not diminished...and no less people perish in these conflicts – even more are dying than before. Significantly more, significantly more!”. So it is perfectly clear that Russia doesn’t want any more trans-atlantic bullying in its homeground and is ready to retaliate...even by force when and where necessary.

Saakashvili and EU flag...

A photo from the good old days of the alliance

Given Russia’s (including Soviet Union’s) inscalability of response to any domestic or near domestic disturbances (every time they interfere a country they leave ashes and corpses behind. For example: East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary...etc) and over sensitivity over its international reputation, any leader of a neighboring country with a smallest hint of sense and international relations would back down or try to find a moderate approach to this “ravaging Bear” (aka Finlandization). And now enter Saakashvili, hero of Georgian “Rose Revolution” and a staunch ally of EU and US (even to display their flags during the televised speeches with local flags although Georgia is not a member of either –and never will be) started to show the world and especially the troublemaking and separatistbacking evil Russians that the world is on their side and they have spent enough Soros money on buying the tanks (that would otherwise feed that half of the population that is now living under poverty lines of Zimbabwe)and armaments that the US has long disposed as scrap. But poking the bear with a stick that a virtual ally has given you is not what it seems to be from the marbleclad offices in Tblisi.

Saakashvili testing the new Georgian firepower

So what is South Ossetia and what does this conflict arise from? Simple...Georgia has not been a place that you would want to live in your retirement for almost 20 years (roughly all the time they have been “independent” from Soviet Union) because the government forces has been constantly fighting, pillaging and massacring the ethnic people and de-facto regions within the country and always beaten by those ethnic militiamen and driven back with the local Georgian deads they could carry from those lands. Georgia (Sakartvelo in Georgian, so do not think it is your Coke flavoured Georgia State) is a country in West Caucasia and has been a gateway to the Caucasus Region with its rich farmlands and an accumulated christian orthodox culture. Those two has made it a simple battleground between Turkey (Ottomans then), Russians and other thousand mountain tribes living in that region. It has prospered well but was foolish enough to ask for Russian Empire’s help against Persian threat which at the end made it a Russian province and eventually a Soviet Republic. This small and industrially insignificiant republic not only supplied the soviet dinner tables with Borjomi soda and wines but also many top-brass communist leaders such as Stalin, Beria and Odzhonikidze.

A typical Caucasian landscape: Mountains and Russian troops

As with all Caucasian republics, Georgia also has a very deep diversity of nations living inside its borders and some has been granted autonomy (= made an Autonomous Soviet Republic) just a couple of years before the dissolution of Soviet Union, maybe then just to ease the ethnic tensions. As the flame of independence set in Georgia in 1990, like all other republics, it claimed the existing interior soviet borders as its own international ones and ultimately erasing the existing autonomous borders and aggreements that would give some extra rights to big ethnic groups like Ossets, Abhazs and Adjars. This erupted into a full-fledged civil war that would last for more than a decade with sporadic battles (most of which the Georgians lost since the separatists were better armed by and even fought with their Russian comrades –including the then-Russian conscripted Chechen roughriders that would later insurge against Russia under Shamil Basayev) Then nobody except Russia cared for that ill-fated country because it was a country that was led by a bunch of ex-Soviet and ex-KGB mofioso and impoverished to Tadjikistan levels.

The locals suffer as their Khruschovka houses are hit by missiles

Another Georgian military tradition: Leaving destroyed tanks for souvenirs

The civil war ended with all sides acknowledging the de-facto autonomity of the ethnic groups and relative peace resided (because nobody has enough will and firepower) until a bloodless-coup led by a young, handsome (!) and English speaking lawyer, Saakashvili, stormed the parliament building and declared a new dawn in Georgian history. Now the US president would be the guest of honour in the birthplace of Stalin and the EU flags would be state sponsored decoration for the Tblisi avenues. The reason was so simple: The World (meaning= World minus Russia) was becoming increasingly dependent on energy and it was disastrous to be dependent on a semi-predictable dictatorship of soviet style (aka Russia) for the sole ingredient of modernity: petrol and gas to power the pistons of capitalism alive. So alternative routes were to be designed and Caucasia, the strip of mountaneous land between Caspian Sea (the aquous conjugate of Arabia) and the Free World, would be the new transit ground for the energy that is not Russian dominated. Sadly, Nearly all of Caucasia is Russia itself or Russian dominated (Armenia needs Russia for its neverending crusade against Armenian populated Nagorno-Karabagh region in Azerbaijan and Azerbaijan needs Russia to protect this land from Armenia, ironically) and only Georgia with its relatively foreign dependent leadership would present a good passageway. So was the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline was created to safely transfer the Baku oil by BP through Georgian plains to Turkey, right under the nosetip of Russia. I wouldn’t believe that Russia was too happy with this.

So what would “Realpolitik” do in such case? Look for a soft belly? Right. Georgia is a soft belly itself with a lot of ethnic de-facto republics which keep Russia as a caring savior and Russia doesn’t need to look further for a reason to salve threats to the BTC line that is passing just some kilometers away from the Osset lands. Nearly half of the Osset nation lives in Russia (ingeniously dubbed North Ossetia) and it is so easy to claim that the Southern brothers would yearn to live with their Northern cousins under the tri-color banner of the glorious federated nation of Russia. So I would stay away from the Southern Ossets if I wanted to stay away from Russia.

For a couple of years, Georgia has been pumped by a lot of Soros money and funding (a lot of which ended in the corrupt politiicans pockets) and the military spending was flashing for an upcoming conflict. The conflict came with a friebrand Saakashvili, stating that the unity of Georgia was at stake (because the Ossets have joined their Abhaz brothers to already declare independence in accordance to the Kosovo model but kindly rejected by the two-faced politic reality of the UN...another fact that infuriated Russia) and stormed their capital Tshinvali.

Nobody expected a quick victory (except Saakashvili himself) and Russia sent its crack troops already stationed on the border in case (which have been infiltrating and seldom arrested while spying in Gerogian territory). As their military tradition the Georgians fought, pillaged and killed some local pensioners and then had a hard beating by the furious local militiamen and Russian troops to fly back to Georgia itself. The funny thing is that the Georgians played the heroic defenders of the Motherland as the ravaged troops (in American uniforms) ran amock the streets like wounded Viet-Cong. The Bear was poked and it hit back with a vengeance.

"Wipe them out...all of them"

This is the story of the war so far as it seems today. As a summary, Saakashvili, backed with a bunch of blank promises by the West, wanted to end the insurgency and separation inside Georgia with a quick blitzkrieg against the illprepared Osset militiamen and thought that Russia would back down against Western diplomatic and economic pressure and keep its might behing the Kazbet mountains. Just the opposite, his army beaten, main cities bombared and the promises broken, Saakashvili now faces rising opposition inside Georgia as the death toll increases. Let’s see if the “playing the not guilty” will work...

Where do you come from?

2008-07-31T16:45:00.002+04:00

Those who have been to Russia when it was RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic...simply Soviet Russia) and cared (or allowed) to take a ride outside of Moscow, or the avid readers of Soviet History (like me) are usually amazed with a lot of name changes in cities and towns.

It was obvious that Russians are a bit short handed on naming their settlements, even starting from the Imperial era when most of the towns were named after the tsar and tsarinas (take Alexandria, Aleksandrovsk, Aleksandrovskaya, Petrovsk, Petrozavodsk...etc for example). It is natural that the bolsheviks coming to power through many bloodshed and artificial hatred against everything the former regime represented would hate to have towns named after their enemies(Think of G.W.Bush having White House in Saddamville). So they have changed swiftly and at the same time honoured the leaders and fallen heroes of the revolution. This trend was of course not one sided, the name of a dishonoured leader (like Stalin, who after his death was denounced by his lifetime pal and sidekick Khruschev) would not be fit enough to be represented in a town's name and those towns had their names changed back.(Stalingrad, Stalinogorsk, Stalinsk in Russia and more imaginatively in other USSR and Warshaw Pact lands as Stalinstadt (East Germany), Sztalinvaros (Hungary), Stalinabad (Tadjikistan) or simply Stalin (Bulgaria).) More in here) So in a lifetime one Russian could be from Tsarytsin, Stalingrad or from Volgograd at the same time.

"Welcome to Ulyanovsk, the birthplace of Lenin"

As the USSR and eventually the Warshaw pact dissolved, many of those renamed cities voted back to their old names and usually the ones they had before the revolution.

Here is a list of well known cities. (The rest of this list is here)

* Königsberg → Kaliningrad (The once proud capital of East Prussia, the hotbed of German nationalism and now bearing the name of a prominent bolshevik leader)
* Naberezhnye Chelny → Brezhnev → Naberezhnye Chelny (a town in Tatarstan)
* Nizhny Novgorod → Gorky → Nizhny Novgorod (named after Maksim Gorky, the all-star socialist writer)
* Perm → Molotov → Perm (named after the famed soviet foreign minister V.Molotov...also the godfather of Molotov Cocktail)
* Saint Petersburg (1703) → Petrograd (1914) → Leningrad (1924) → Saint Petersburg (Sankt-Peterburg) (1991)
* Simbirsk → Ulyanovsk (the birthpalce of V.I.Lenin, whose actual surname is Ulyanov)
* Stavropol → Togliatti (a factory city named after Italian communist leater P.Togliatti)
* Stavropol → Voroshilovsk → Stavropol
* Tsaritsyn → Stalingrad → Volgograd
* Tsarskoye Selo → Detskoye Selo → Pushkin (removing "Tsar" from the name was enough for some time)
* Tver → Kalinin → Tver (a famous Russian city and the ultimate end of Tverskaya direction)
* Yekaterinburg → Sverdlovsk → Yekaterinburg (named after (Ye)Katerina and then a bolshevik leader)

And let's have some fun. What if Turkey was a part of USSR (and it could well possibly be if it took part in WW2 in the wrong side) and became a Turkish Soviet Socialist Republic (TUSSR)? Istanbul would be Stalinsehir, Ankara be Ankaraysk and Izmir simply be Izmirsk?...Let's be make some more fantasy: What if Ataturk and his friends led the country to a communist path? Ankara would be Atatursk and Istanbul be Kemalsk?...just funny

What Ukraine isn't...

2008-07-30T16:54:00.000+04:00

Today there was a very touching protest in Maydan (the very center of Kiev) where members of FEMEN (student girls organisation) gathered to display their anger against the widespread image of Ukraine as a brothel-state and bridebasket of Europe. As we already know that in these times when Russia has become a net-importer of prostitution (turning swiftly from its top place in net-exporter status), Ukraine has the lead in the worldwide trafficking of women. Almost all slavic prostitutes in Turkey are now Ukrainian (not a personal info) and there are frequent tours from Turkey to Ukrainain Black Sea cities by various organisation dubbed as "Morale Tours" or "Dealership Tours" but actually they are nothing but guided sex tours to brothels or various shabby nightclubs. (The good thing is that the clients do not have to lie when they report to their wives that they are on a "business trip")

Here are some photos from today's protest. Note that there is one sign in Turkish(!)...that may give you an idea about the dominant nationality of their clients...

SEX NE TOBAP (Sex isn't trade)..and with such outfits the girls justify their cause

UKRAINE GENEL EV DEGIL (In Turkish: Ukraine isn't a brothel)...it is much more than that

The protest ended with the traditional Ukrainian "Bite the Dollar" ceremony

Nuclear Nightmares

2008-07-29T16:28:00.000+04:00

No, this post is not about the G.W.Bush's nightmares but a beautifully shot but equally heartbreaking set of photos from various nuclear hotspots in Post-soviet Union. Click here for a ride through one of the man-made human miseries

Miss Russia 2008

2008-07-28T16:13:00.000+04:00

Some posts have become a tradition on this blog and Miss Russia is one of them. This year the second most anticipated contest in Russia (the first one is the Most Radioactive Cities contest), Miss Russia 2008 (or National Beauty Contest as they call it) was held in the city of Petrozavodsk in The Karelian Republic (a mostly forested land through the border to Finland). Boring Information: The name Petrozavodsk comes from Petrovsky Zavod (something like Peter's Factory) in reference to the iron foundries founded by Peter the Great to supply the new Baltic fleet with cannons. The city evolved upon those factories and became a prominent settlement in the North.

So here are the winners...

The winners of the National Beauty Contest

Introducing Miss Russia 2008...Sofiya Larina from Siberia...you must be joking

Ekaterina Kopylova, the 1st Runner Up from Tver (Mid-Russia)

Janna Vlasyevskaya, The 2nd Runner Up from Kemerovo (deep down Siberia)

Anna Vishnevskaya, The 3rd Runner Up from St.Petersburg

For more photos and nudity go to Lenta website.

Constantinople or Moscow?

2008-07-25T11:28:00.002+04:00

Almost 1020 years ago a story (though amusingly described in the annals) has changed the course of history for the region known today as Ukraine and Russia. Of course it is not the invention of Vodka but the Christianisation of Slavs.

Vladimir, the ruler of Kievan Rus (a medieval slavic state) sent emissaries to the neighboring states to search and examine the monotheistic religions. His emissaries came from the Muslim dominated lands of Volga with news that the Muslims don't drink and refrain from pork, which must have deeply depressed Vladimir since "Drinking was a way of life" then (as now). The ones that met Jews also thought that their God has left them for good since Jerusalem was conquered by Muslims then. In contrast, the emissaries rerturning from Constantinople, the grand capital of Byzantine Empire, was awestruck by the level of civilization and, most of all, the Hagia Sophia in which they simply lost their sense of reality (think of some pagans foresters from the semi-frozen lands of the North coming to Constantinople - the New York of Middle Ages- and visiting Hagia Sophia - the Empire State-).

Boring Information: It is also rumored that the Byzantine Empire, surrounded by hordes of barbarian tribes, was at risk of an invasion and asked Slavs to relieve them. Vladimir, sensing that an alliance with the Byzantines would increase his status to the tribal chieftain to the court of the emperors agreed to send some troops and then accepted the religion of his new super ally. The slavs were then joined the faith oh their rulers on knifepoint...until 1917s when the rulers butchered the same nation to leave this same faith.

The Baptism of Vladimir

Eventually, Vladimir was baptised and so did the Kievans with a rush to the Dnepr river roughly 1020 years ago. (It is just for public safety and well being that they don't recreate this historic event now by bathing in Dnepr which would cause a lot of casualties.)

Mass baptism in Dnepr...the river still carries their sins

The interesting fact is that this year Bartholomew of Constantinople (Patrik Bartolomeos as we know him around here in Istanbul) was invited by the Church of Ukraine as a guest of honor. As the head of Greek Orthodox Church and a self-proclaimed ecumenical patriarch (meaning that the Pope of all orthodox christians and critically severing the Turkish-Greek orthodox status quo in a way that Turkey does not want to host an independent Patriarch State ,like Vatican, in its borders) his visit was a hot topic for some time, since The Church of Moscow, the big brother of all slavic (and soon all othodox) churches, was expecting to be treated as the sole holy VIP guest of the festivities. Although Bartholomew claimed that he will be definitely visiting in his web site, there is a big (needlessly say, pro-Russian) protest against it. Many Russians think that it is a counterstrike by Ukrainian politics and this time a real hit in the soft belly by using the religion as the battleground.

Contrasting Ukraine: "Ukraine greets Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew" and don't forget to buy the next edition of XXL magazine for more nudity

Rumors say that Putin even sent some high ranking politicians to R.T.Erdogan,the prime minister of Turkey, to put some pressure on Patriarchate to cancel the visit and not to increase the tensions focused around the festivities.

Update: It seems that the pressure hasn't worked. Bartholomew is in Kiev. (Link)

Most Expensive....Again?

2008-07-25T10:59:00.000+04:00

I guess Moscow will not play for the second spot for a couple of years to come on Forbes' Most Expensive Cities List.

Moscow Doesn't Believe in your tears...stay in your own country!!

Russia Blog has a wonderful article about this:

Moscow today has no shortage of talented professionals from the regions who will work for less than foreigners, without the hassles of employers obtaining permits from the Federal Migration Service, which, just like last year, temporarily suspended issuing work visas this summer.

...which means that you either have to secure a contract with a multinational company or your local company's main office or do not ever think about coming to Moscow at all..

Kyev, which in many respects resembles Moscow three or four years ago, is starting to compete for expats in the coveted high-level financial services and distribution/retail management categories. Is Almaty turning into the next boomtown? Stay tuned.

...well I guess Kiev will be a hotspot for the expats for some time but its days will be soon over...

You can read the rest of the article here.

A Big Break

2008-07-24T12:45:00.002+04:00

There has been an involuntary break in the posting because I have been a victim of an organised crime wave whose evil aim is to reach local domination in laptop theft. So all my files (including the texts that I have prewritten for this blog) are gone...for good.

Anyway, the life goes on as I have been given a new one by my beloved company...

Here is what we have missed throughout that time on this blog:

1. Victor Yuschenko, the beast of the Beauty&Beast of Ukraine (and the beauty is Yulia Timoshenko as you have predicted already) is rumored to have not been poisoned by the Evil Russians but was ill after a heavy dinner (maybe with some radioactive fish from Dnepr river). The interesting fact is that the president fell ill after an alleged dinner with high ranking intelligence officers (seems like a lamb dining with the wolves) where high concentrations of dioxin (whose main producer is Mother Russia) was "found" in his food which disfigured his face and eventually gave a lot of press material on the eve of the orange revolution in which he was running against a pro-Russian candidate. Playing the hero who has survived an assasination attempt by the local henchmen of the evil Russians, he quickly secured many warm places in ukrainian hearts and was elected the president. His dining friends disappeared from the country immediately, only to be found in the last place to look, Russia! An eternal land of care and smiling faces, Mother Russia embraced those guys and they became Russian citizens, making it impossible to extradicate to Ukraine for the charges of adding some chemicals to food, which has long become a national Russian sport (and perfected in the polonium flavoured tea that crippled a dissident KGB spy, Litvinov). The same people who has vanished and live carefree lives in Russia are now accusing Yuschenko for fabricating this event for his political ambitions.

Next time try our polonium cakes, they are really tasty

From zero to hero...here comes the Beast

The beauty and the beast

Think about some people of Turkish origin, having risen to top spots in Greek intelligence (highly impossible but would be a great thing though), having a lunch with Karamanlis (the prime minister) to add some poison to his mousakka and ouzo to make him resemble an orc (which he does actually). Then escaping to Turkey to have Turkish passports and claiming that he was ill because the Greeks never ever knew how to make a musakka , a Turkish version of the same food based on eggplant and tomato. What would happen??

2. The US plan to deploy a missile shield against a terrorist threat (imagine a terrorist organisation that would launch multiple intercontinental missiles against the USA...I think the Bush administration is way over their daily dose of imagination) has been wildly received by the Magic Duo of Russia (Putin and Medvedev) and the Russian pipelines that stretched to Czech Republic (one of the key locations of the missile shield) ran dry immediately. Russians announced that it was just a "technical failure" and they could deploy long range bombers in Cuba. The last time they wanted to send some weapons to this stinking caribbean island pushed the world to the brink of nuclear war and now with Russian leaders as unpredictable as Kruschov and their American counterparts as unlikely beloved as Kennedy, it seems a showdown of the rise of the New Red Army backed with petrodollars will be much more deadlier.

Here is the deal (Click to enlarge)

Ok...now think about what we, Turkish, would do in case of such an event. I think some thousand unemployed people would gather up under the sizzling sun near the Czech Embassy and break some Czech beer bottles to call for a wideout ban on Czech imports (as far as I know we have none), set some Czech flags on fire (none of those protesters would ever know the shape and colours of the Czech flag so probably an Israeli flag would be burned after all) and then continue their lives using the other imported goods that they have been deliriously burning and smashing in protest of some other thing before.