We are living in the changing world. 32 years ago when I studied at one business school in Michigan I researched the changing economy of the USSR. The country was still communistic, but was also changing and opening to many western businesses such as McDonalds. One of my information sources was the chairman of the first McDonalds in Moscow. He was located at the hotel Minsk. It was the beginning of 1990. Now today we know that McDonalds is shutting down its restaurants in Russia due to the war in Ukraine. Are the times going back to how it was in the beginning of the 1990s? Maybe to some extent. Free and independent media has been discontinued effectively in Russia, so back to the USSR.
heard today or yesterday, U.S. will come down if China give money to Russia.
geez. the issues of war.
I would never want my check, or subsidy cut.
totally innocent people, Russians, from the beginning of time.
Many people are calling to the mental health hotlines because they have many uncertainties about the current state of the world. People are afraid of possible new wars. People are stressed and so they try to find some help.
The world is so complex. 23 years ago I lived in Atlanta, the USA. I had my trip to southern France, Andorra and Barcelona, Spain in March 1999. I purchased my smiling skull during this trip and this skull is still with me as it was when I lived in my auto in Miami and elsewhere in the USA from 2000 to 2002. In 1999 they discussed how to help Russia to recover from its weak and recessionary economy and how they could counter Russian oligarch at the time so that they would not harm any attempts to enable this recovery process. There was a war in Kosova which started during my European trip. Eventually Vladimir Putin came to power in August 1999 and was even positively commented by the US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright who said that it did not matter that Vladimir Putin had been a KGB agent. This was the time when the economical recovery started in Russia. Now 23 years after western powers are trying to destroy the economy of Russia using their sanctions as tools in this attempt after the war in Ukraine began on Feb 24th 2022. How did it all turn upside down and former friends became current enemies - the world is just so complex and nobody knows what happens in the future.
I am not fascinated with Russia. I just write what I have seen and experienced. The economy of Russia is important as was the economy of the USSR for us. In the 1980s I studied in the border city Lappeenranta and I made two trips to the USSR, in March 1987 to Moscow and March 1989 to Leningrad. We have the long history of living with Russians. We gained our independency from Imperial Russia in 1917, 104 years ago.
Well I am admittedly biased. I joined the US military in 1987 when Ronald Reagan was President. We were building a 500 ship Navy and in the midst of a Cold War with Russia and trying to prevent the spread of communism. We were trained and equipped to fight a war with the USSR every day.
I couldn’t have been happier when they collapsed and we could focus on other things. We quit worrying about Russia so much but this latest act of aggression against a sovereign country concerns me.
I would have thought China who is still a communist country would have invaded Taiwan before Russia did something like this. They were finally off my radar but this is alarming.
In 1989 in the throws of the Cold War we had a sailor fall overboard from our ship and our helicopter was broken. This was in the Persian Gulf. The Russians were the first ones up in the air looking for him. He was never found and lost at sea but that impressed me.
I will get off my soapbox now. I hope for peace soon.
you should see the clip, video, of Reagan, speech at his alma mater, cold war when it suddenly became Russia.
it’s jovial, and everyone in attendance,
even Gorbachov there said,
Russians typically dont trust the United States.
Reagan and everyone laughed.
weird fu-ck-ing sh-it.
and we were talking about ballistic missles!
’ Russia’s richest businessman has warned the Kremlin against confiscating assets of companies that have fled in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, saying such a step would set the country back more than 100 years.’ CNN
In 1917, 104 years ago, there was a communist revolution in Russia. Back to the USSR.
I think the whole left vs right/east vs west geopolitical thing is a distraction from what those powerful countries are really after which hasn’t changed at all. You have your nationalist demagoguery but at the core it’s about resources and territorial integrity/control and the distribution of exploits into the pockets of the ones holding power.
The authoritarian Bolsheviks that won the Russian Civil War stamped out dissenting leftist groups within the country to consolidate their dominion over the Tsardom it replaced.
Humans are humans though and that includes the heroic acts of selflessness as well as the heinous atrocities they can commit.
