Some questions about the bombing

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.

Gas War Time

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.

Another Comparison

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

Partners in Crime

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

Armageddon Averted

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

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

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?

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...

Admiral Strikes Back

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.

The Plan Paline

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...

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

Has Putin won?

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

Ronald for UN General Secretary!

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...

The reason for all wars

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.

Bad Bear

Vostok in War

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

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...

What Ukraine isn't...

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