Putin sent to Russia by God

[hoosiernorm]

http://news.yahoo.com/putin-sent-russia ... 04988.html

.Vladimir Putin was sent to Russia by God to help it deal with its troubles in the early post-Soviet era, the Kremlin's top political adviser was quoted as saying on Friday.

"To be honest, I think of Putin as a person who was sent to Russia by fate and the Almighty at a difficult hour," Interfax quoted first deputy administration chief Vladislav Surkov as telling Chechen television.

Surkov serves in the administration of President Dmitry Medvedev. But he has worked there since just before Putin first entered the Kremlin for a two-year term as president in 2000 and is widely seen as one of his closest allies.

Putin now serves as prime minister and neither he nor Medvedev have said which of them will run in presidential elections scheduled for March.

But Putin has remained the country's most popular politician and has been forced to deal with at times peculiar signs of appreciations from his fans and political supporters.

The Russian media in May reported that a small female sect believes Putin is the reincarnation of Paul the Apostle.

Putin has been made the hero of pop songs and brands of vodka and even a Moscow night club party.

.

[Ibrahim]

Yeah, Russia is not any kind of democracy. Still, Bush 2 looked into Putin's soul and informed us he's a good man, so I'm not worried.

I'm also not worried because I'm not a pro-democracy Russian journalist. They tend to die unexpectedly.

[total issues]

One hears countless times on this forum that the rise of the West and democracy is founded on Christianity. You might wish to consider the history of Holy Russia when making that statement (not to mention all those God-fearing American slaveowners).

Well, after an atheist interregnum Mother Russia is back in her comfort zone, with the Tsar anointed by God, surrounded by his nobles, and the serfs knowing their place. That liberal democracy thing was always a passing phase, a few months in 1917 and the early 90s. Poor little westernising Medvedev, no chance if he steps out of line (indeed with a limited life expectancy).

The only country in the world where life expectancy is lower than in the 1950s.

[Hocketing Dad]

As of December last year, Russia's richest (some $19 bn.) was officially Vladimir Lisin.
In 2008, speculation was that Putin was anxious that any successor not threaten his secret holdings, estimated as high as $40 bn.

It seems too outlandish, doesn't it? I suppose there was discussion of it here in 2007-08, but the following wikileak content is dated last December.

Wikileaked, excerpts:

Vladimir Putin has secret assets hidden abroad, leaked US cables from the former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice allege. Citing opposition sources, Rice said Putin refused to install a strong successor when he stepped down as president in 2008 because he was afraid he could become the target of "law enforcement investigations".

... One political analyst, Stanislav Belkovksy, estimated at the time Putin was worth at least $40bn (£25bn). Putin ignored the story for several months, but eventually described reports that he had amassed a fortune through undisclosed links with business people as "just rubbish, picked out of someone's nose and smeared on bits of paper".

... At this point Putin, who had already served two terms as president, was carefully weighing who to endorse as his successor. The obvious frontrunner appeared to be Sergei Ivanov, a charismatic, multilingual former KGB intelligence officer and deputy prime minister with experience of the west.
The opposition leader, however, told Rice's office that Putin was "nervously seeking to secure his future immunity from potential law enforcement investigations into his alleged illicit proceeds", and needed to find someone more pliable, the cable noted. "He commented that Putin was afraid of Ivanov, deeply distrustful, and that he needed a weaker figure to succeed him instead.
"He argued that Putin understands that under the system he has created there is no real rule of law and that at any time anyone can be arrested or businesses destroyed."
The opposition leader's predictions were spot on. Putin spurned Ivanov and picked the weaker Dmitry Medvedev, who duly became Russia's president in May 2008, and now, according to further leaked US cables, plays "Robin to Putin's Batman".

http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gnm/op/sdx ... &cat=world

More leaks on the secret fortune angle:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-emba ... nts/179661

[Hocketing Dad]

If you search for 'Belkovsky' on this forum, a 2007 thread will turn up

"Putin picks Medvedev..."

Entertain yourself via hindsight!

Points to Alph!




----
PS.
And if you do a broader search, finding Belkovsky's recent remarks July 1st. - then perhaps there is some other, existing thread?

[Ibrahim]

One hears countless times on this forum that the rise of the West and democracy is founded on Christianity. You might wish to consider the history of Holy Russia when making that statement.

I think this was explained away by Western Europeans in the 15th century or so. Russians are too "Asiatic," they tend towards "Oriental despotism" and their version of Christianity is really "superstition."

Perhaps the inspiration for the term "True Scotsman fallacy," but who knows.

[Hockey Dad]

Do you suppose Vladimir Putin may decide to take the helm,

if his flunky Torbjorn Tornquist reaches the America's Cup finals?

[Hocketing Dad]

^^^

If it is the case, that Putin owns around 75% of Gunvor, of which Tornqvist is CEO,

then Putin would at least have been informed and given his approval, before Tornqvist's conspicuous extravagance?

Anyway, TT likely has enough money of his own, but this is a most high profile project, which he would ensure that his partners were comfortable with?

[Hockey Dad]

^^^

Russian ascendancy plans, in the event of Obama's second term...


Vladimir Putin defeats Larry Ellison for the America's Cup.


lol


PS. Nail in the coffin, so to speak?

[Hocketing Dad]

Putin the He-man

August 5, 2011 11:51 A.M.
By David Pryce-Jones

At this time of year Vladimir Putin likes to play the he-man. Usually he has himself photographed, stripped to the waist to show off his pectorals. Sometimes he poses as a sportsman with his rifle — at least he appears to be generally in a wood. Now he has been at a summer camp engaged in arm-wrestling with abashed teenagers, and bending something that looked like metal or reinforced plastic as though he were thestrong man in a circus act.

As if this wasn’t preposterous enough, he had a comment to make on the debt-ceiling crisis in Washington. America, he said, is “acting as a parasite.” In the KGB-Stalinist vocabulary of abuse, “parasite” is a much-loved term, applicable to capitalists, Jews, dissidents, and those generally opposed to Communism. The term encapsulates a lifetime’s indoctrination. Just imagine Cadet Putin learning how to think in the compulsory Marxist-Leninist mode and passing the lesson on now he is the Kremlin boss.

A well-known psychological development is to accuse others of the misdeeds you yourself are committing. According to reports, Putin enjoys something like eight palaces, one on the Black Sea built to his specification for housing art collections that he has somehow acquired, and a fortune in the order of forty billion dollars. Which of the classic Soviet labels fits him better, proletarian or parasite?

----

There's another reference to 40 Billion Dollars!

I find that very hard to believe...

So perhaps that means, it must be true?



lol

[Hockey Dad]

...

Do you know, this thread had fallen back to page 3... !!!


Please excuse us, Saint Vladimir!

We have much catching up to do.

If there were some werewolves in epaulettes to help us, we'd be more attentive.

[Hocketing Dad]

...



Since when were you worried by werewolves in any sort of attire?

Here's the famous Putin denunciation of any ties to Gunvor, buried deep in a cosy chat with some literary asskissers.




Putin: In response to the first part of your question, I can say that I've known Mr Timchenko for some time now, since my service in St Petersburg. In those days, he worked for a Kirishi oil refinery, Kirishinefteorgsintez. When the privatisation campaign was launched in the early 1990s, his team, which was involved in oil exports, broke away from the rest of the company in order to start a private business of their own. This new enterprise has gradually been developed.

Timchenko is no stranger to the business; he's been involved in it since the very beginning of the privatisation campaign. Let me assure you that, contrary to allegations in the press, they set up and developed the company all on their own, without any involvement on my part.


And isn't it wonderful to enjoy the dividends?

[monster_gardener]

Does anyone think that Obama or Bush 2, etc........... was sent to America by G_d..............

At least for our temporal happiness.........

Maybe to reprove/punish US...................

[Alexis]

Here is what his countrymen were saying as Putin stepped in as Russia's leader after the great Russian crisis of the 1990s:

Buoyed by a flood of letters declaring him another Moses, a modern Joshua, and begging him to assume near dictatorial powers
(...)
as a savior sent by God.
(His) mission: to rescue the nation

People saying such stupid things only can happen in Russia!

[Ubu Hex]

Here is what his countrymen were saying as Putin stepped in as Russia's leader after the great Russian crisis of the 1990s:

Buoyed by a flood of letters declaring him another Moses, a modern Joshua, and begging him to assume near dictatorial powers
(...)
as a savior sent by God.
(His) mission: to rescue the nation

People saying such stupid things only can happen in Russia!

Will the Russians next demand a return of the Mongol Yoke?

[Alexis]

Will the Russians next demand a return of the Mongol Yoke?

Which Russians? The Russians who wrote the letters in the link I provided two posts ago?

I'm told that those Russians are presently suffering under the Yoke of a Tsar named Obamov... himself the follow-up to a Tsar named Bushski...

Only in Russia, I tell ya!

[Hocketing Dad]

^^^

Your link to Roosevelt-admirers still falls short of the mark, Alexis.



There's a nice story in the current Der Spiegel about some fringe elements in the cult of Putin, did you see it? The 'mother superior' praying to Saint Vladimir every day has a criminal record of fraud, herself.

lol


- - - -

An article in the New York Times today, giving some idea of the continued disillusionment on the part of sensible Russians, and the unending brain drain that results:

MOSCOW — “Time to shove off” is the name of a Web site for people who are fed up with life in Russia, and it is becoming a catchphrase for those dismayed by the newly announced plans of Vladimir V. Putin to keep a grip on power for perhaps two more terms as president.
...

“There will be a dark and depressive mood in society,” Mr. Gudkov said. “The situation is uncertain, there is a growth of anxiety, a feeling of stagnation and degradation.”

- - - -


Here's a good interview today, with Luke Harding, the first western journalist to get kicked out of the country since Gorbachev's days:

Expelled Moscow correspondent claims Russia is mafia state.


And what small world it has become - see the scurrilous rumor that pops up yet again (in bold) !



LUKE HARDING: Well it's a kind of a KGB state now actually. The Russian government won't thank me for saying that. But if you look at the kind of people who are the top echelons of Russian power, a lot of them are Putin's friends, a lot of them are former KGB operatives from military intelligence, from foreign intelligence and so one. And obviously Putin feels comfortable with these kind of people.

And they share a similar kind of world view, which is essentially xenophobic, it's reflexively anti-Western, and the big project, I mean if Putin does have a big project, the project is to get back the sort of prestige and the international clout that the Soviet Union once enjoyed.

I mean what he really wants to be is to be taken seriously as a sort of, for Russia to be taken seriously as an international player and for people to be a little bit scared of Russia as well.

MARK COLVIN: It's difficult to know what's going on because, on the one hand, you say that he wants Russia to be great again, and I suppose that's a sort of ideological goal, but on the other hand, you say that it's really just about money, that it's a cleptocracy?

LUKE HARDING: It's more of a, I mean the more important project of course is to get rich. I mean the ideology is definitely there but the primary goal, I think, for Putin and his team is to make money and to, essentially, to hang onto that money and to off-shore that money. And so the Russian…

MARK COLVIN: How much money?

LUKE HARDING: Well we're talking billions and billions of dollars. The problem is, as a reporter in Moscow, it's extremely hard to get to the bottom of this. I mean you would need a thousand years and an army of lawyers and you'd need people to leak. But I mean, there have been some leaks, and about three or four years ago one source I spoke to said, I think rather convincingly, that Putin was worth about $40 billion. So in other words …

MARK COLVIN: That's billion …?

LUKE HARDING: … one of them …

MARK COLVIN: … not …

LUKE HARDING: … one of the richest ..

MARK COLVIN: … billion not million?

LUKE HARDING: … men here. That's billion $40 billion. In other words, one of the richest people in the world.

I mean, bear in mind that this is an extremely corrupt state. It's the world's largest exporter of oil and gas, so there are enormous revenues. But, where do they go? (Laughs). I mean if you wander around any city outside, you know, if you wander around the Russian countryside it's clearly not going there, or look at the infrastructure. A fantastic amount is being stolen via intermediary companies, via off-shore schemes, via sophisticated financial mechanisms.

And the evidence of that you can see in the streets of London. I mean, just walk around West London or Chelsea or Belgravia, very many of these properties are Russian owned; or Biarritz or New York or Spain.

So there's this, some people under Putin have become extremely rich, I mean really wildly rich. Far richer than you possibly imagine really. And far richer than in Soviet times when, if you were at the top of the Kremlin, you could expect a big, swish Zil limousine and maybe a holiday in Bulgaria and a nice dacha or cottage somewhere.

MARK COLVIN: The $40 billion figure came from guy called Stanislav Belkovski and he's published it pretty widely, it's interesting that he's never really been sued or it's never been properly denied has it, by the Kremlin, by Putin?

LUKE HARDING: Well that's an interesting question. I published this story with some trepidation about a year after I arrived in Moscow. I wasn't, I mean I was careful of the way I wrote the story, I wasn't saying definitely Putin is worth $40 billion. I was saying that there were leaks coming from the top of the Kremlin pointing to his secret assets abroard. And this was part of a wider power struggle between different Kremlin factions.

Now, what was interesting was that last year, before I got expelled from Russia, I spent a lot of time going through the WikiLeaks cables, these are secret US diplomatic communiqués that were never meant for public consumption. And what really quite kind of confirming in a way was the fact that the US diplomats, the US ambassador in Moscow, privately makes reference on many occasions to Putin's alleged assets abroad.

This isn't just about venality, I mean it's important to understand Russian politics because there's one, I think quite credible, school of thought which says that, actually, Putin is rather tired, he would like to retire, he would like to go and relax on Sochi on Russia's Black Sea coast, that he doesn't want to be Russia's leader anymore.

But the logic of his system, this corrupt system, is the only way he can guarantee that he and his friends hang on to all of their money, is by carrying on in power. Because the second he steps off the throne he faces the real prospect that there will be law enforcement prosecutions against him and that he could end up in gaol.

----

Here's the blurb in the Guardian for Harding's book: Mafia State is our Book of the Month for October

[Hocketing Dad]

...

A couple of excerpts from An article on the subject in The Economist, earlier this month:

The Mood Of Russia: Time To Shove Off

In 2000 a group of young Russians, just back from their studies in America, started the website WelcomeHome. Ru. “Life in Russia is becoming more normal. It is possible to live here, make a career and bring up children. Many of those who had left have come home. We are among them,” the site read. It was a typical reaction by young Russian professionals to the growth, opportunities and promise of stability from Vladimir Putin, the new president. Soon, after years of capital flight, money started to flow back into Russia.

Twelve years later, as Mr Putin appears to be preparing to retake his presidential office for another 12 years, the mood is starkly different. WelcomeHome.ru is dead. Instead, a new popular blog has sprung up on a Russian social network. It is called “Pora valit”, which means roughly “Time to shove off”. Its few thousand users exchange stories about how best to leave Russia. The blog’s title sums up perfectly the mood among Russia’s urban and educated class.

... A recent opinion poll by the Levada Centre shows that 22% of Russia’s adult population would like to leave the country for good. This is a more than threefold increase from four years ago, when only 7% were considering it. It is the highest figure since the collapse of the Soviet Union, when only 18% said they wanted to get out. Those who are eager to leave are not the poor and desperate. On the contrary, most are entrepreneurs and students.

... These figures do not necessarily indicate a brain drain. Mr Gudkov, who has been measuring Russia’s emigration over the past 20 years, says the number of people who will actually leave is probably small. Among the young and well-off, only 6% have filed for a visa, are negotiating a contract or have applied to study abroad. (Though, given Russia’s unfavourable economic and social trends, it can ill afford to lose even a small number of its best educated young people.) What these figures really show is a startling level of frustration with the state of the country. “This is a cardiogram of Russian society,” says Mr Gudkov. If so, things are going badly.

- - - -

An item from the Time to Shove Off website, which looks interesting, even without the cyrillic!

Careful and sophisticated measurements, no doubt, have the USA placed after Greece and Brazil...


Rank Country 2011 Country RepTrak™ Score

1 Canada 74.8
2 Sweden 74.7
3 Australia 74.3
4 Switzerland 74.2
5 New Zealand 73.1
6 Norway 73.1
7 Denmark 71.9
8 Finland 70.5
9 Austria 69.4
10 Netherlands 68.7
11 Germany 68.3
12 Japan 67.2
13 Belgium 65.6
14 Italy 64.6
15 UK 64.2
16 Spain 63.7
17 Ireland 63.6
18 France 62.1
19 Portugal 58.1
20 Singapore 58.0
21 Greece 55.8
22 Brazil 54.6
23 USA 52.9
24 Argentina 52.0
25 Taiwan 51.3
26 Poland 50.9
27 India 50.3
28 Peru 50.2
29 UAE 50.0
30 Thailand 49.9
31 Chile 49.7
32 Puerto Rico 47.4
33 South Africa 46.7
34 South Korea 46.6
35 Mexico 46.0
36 Turkey 46.0
37 Egypt 45.9
38 Venezuela 45.4
39 Bolivia 42.4
40 Ukraine 42.2
41 Israel 41.9
42 Haiti 41.8
43 China 40.7
44 Saudi Arabia 38.8
45 Russia 38.6
46 Colombia 37.1
47 Nigeria 30.9
48 Pakistan 27.2
49 Iran 22.7
50 Iraq 21.8

The RepTrak™ model not only measures the health of a company's reputation across stakeholders, countries and industries, but also examines which of 7 key driver dimensions most influences the company's reputation – as well as the level of support stakeholders provide companies.

[Joao Paulo]

http://news.yahoo.com/putin-sent-russia-god-kremlin-aide-160704988.html

.Vladimir Putin was sent to Russia by God to help it deal with its troubles in the early post-Soviet era, the Kremlin's top political adviser was quoted as saying on Friday.

"To be honest, I think of Putin as a person who was sent to Russia by fate and the Almighty at a difficult hour," Interfax quoted first deputy administration chief Vladislav Surkov as telling Chechen television.

Surkov serves in the administration of President Dmitry Medvedev. But he has worked there since just before Putin first entered the Kremlin for a two-year term as president in 2000 and is widely seen as one of his closest allies.

Putin now serves as prime minister and neither he nor Medvedev have said which of them will run in presidential elections scheduled for March.

But Putin has remained the country's most popular politician and has been forced to deal with at times peculiar signs of appreciations from his fans and political supporters.

The Russian media in May reported that a small female sect believes Putin is the reincarnation of Paul the Apostle.

Putin has been made the hero of pop songs and brands of vodka and even a Moscow night club party.

.

Well he is going back to the Kremlin in 2012 as the president of Russia.
Should he run for the presidency of the USA?
I´m waiting for another Spengler essay.

[Hockey Dad]

Vladimir Putin hosts 59th birthday bash for himself

Vladimir Putin turned 59 on Friday holding a party for himself at one of his luxurious Moscow residences with his old friends Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

... Mr Putin's supporters were out in force on Friday. A group of young girls calling themselves 'Putin's Army' released a video of themselves baking him a birthday cake in a state of semi-undress, while another group of fans calling themselves 'Putin's kitchen' distributed free food in central Moscow.
The activists said they wanted to give passers-by the chance to taste Mr Putin's favourite dishes such as fish soup. Meanwhile, Nashi or 'One of Us,' the Kremlin's youth movement, released a video of thousands of activists lighting candles for him in the shape of the numeral 59 and singing their congratulations. Nashi activists in Moscow had briefly clashed with opposition supporters during the filming of the video near the Kremlin on Thursday night.
In one of the more bizarre tributes, 25,000 copies of a children's colouring book featuring Mr Putin and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev as children went on sale. The book portrayed both men as hard working chums who played badminton and rode tricycles together, while a young Mr Putin was shown loving porridge and apples. Pro-Putin youth activists in Moscow were kept busy handing out 15,000 stickers featuring a smiling Mr Putin on Friday, while the blogosphere was blanketed with pro and anti-Putin Tweets. ...

- - - -

With my apologies, for not being able to find any photos of Berlusconi consorting with Putin's Army...