Juvenalia: Writing by a younger, less sophisticated me. Read on, but remember that this belongs to the old world. 🥚
NatsBest Shortlist 2017: Lizok’s Better-Late-Than-Never Edition (Lizok’s Bookshelf)
The National Bestseller Award announced a seven-book shortlist on April 14—oh, the shame that I’m this late! This is a wonderful and rare case where I’m interested in nearly all the books on a shortlist. Here’s the list, including the number of points awarded by the “big” jury, plus links to jury members’ reviews, which are easier to find than ever on the new NatsBest site. They are a fantastic resource. NatsBest secretary Vadim Levental’s comments about the list are here. The winner will be announced on June 3.
When science brought Americans and Russians together (Bulletin of Atomic Scientists)
The first Russian explosive device to land on US soil wasn’t delivered by a Russian missile, as Americans feared might happen throughout the Cold War. It was delivered by FedEx.
Electrical separation (Irrussianality)
On Monday, the Lugansk Electricity Union, which provides electricity in Lugansk province in Ukraine, announced that it would no longer supply rebel-held areas of the province with power. According to the Union’s director, Vladimir Gritsai, this follows the receipt of instructions from Ukraine’s Fuel and Energy Minister Igor Nasalik.
The decision is just the latest step in the Ukrainian government’s efforts to blockade the rebel Donetsk and Lugansk Peoples’ Republics (DPR & LPR).
Russian Beyond Russia (Eurasianet)
Language is harmfully intertwined with politics these days in Eurasia. The swirling debates are raising questions about the boundaries of Russianness.
Мавзолей Ленина – есть ли решение? (VTsIOM)
За последние шесть лет доля россиян, требующих немедленно вынести тело Ленина из Мавзолея на Красной площади, упала с 43% до 32%.
The Challenge of Getting Russia Right (YaleGlobal Online)
With Russia, the West must avoid the pitfalls of underestimating a rival’s capabilities and then overreacting.
Chechnya: Russia’s Black Hole, Putin’s Achilles Heel, Part 1 (Gordon M. Hahn)
Ramzan Kadyrov’s regime in Russia’s republic of Chechnya is by far the worst manifestation of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s soft authoritarian regime. Kadyrov’s regime breaches the porous wall between soft and everyday authoritarianism and then some. The tendency in Chechnya is towards totalitarianism. But the quasi-totalitarian and violent Kadyrov regime is as much a manifestation of the North Caucasus’s violent culture as of Putin’s Russia. Like a black hole, Chechnya effects the space around it. Its renegade despot poses a grave threat to the stability of the Russian Federation and potentially to the survival of Putin and his regime.
…And immediately several red flags went up in this reader’s mind.
A crack in the carapace/J.T. says:
It’s difficult to find insightful or even semi-insightful articles for Russia Roundups these days – even the voices of my go-to moderate analysts are melding together or sliding toward the sensational. I’m sick of this Russia-hysteria. I’m sick of faulty reporting. I’m sick of the bellicosity; the recklessness; the conspiracy theories passing as ‘analysis’. I just want this s****y Tom Clancy fever dream to end.
Y-you know what? I’m going to grab my pen and sketchpad, and do some nature drawing outside – insects, flowers, maybe Byron the Border collie. I need to switch my mind to something else before I get a coronary…
Russia Reviewed 
Re: Gordon Hahn’s descent into madness.
In the excerpt you quoted, J.T., the word “regime” is used five times.
I had excellent, superb professional, who “trained” me and others in the final school year, right before the entry exams into the Higher Places of Education of our choosing. He made us write – constantly! – a “сочинение” (really hard to translate – “an essay” or “report” is not enough to describe it) on a chosen topic pertaining to the Russian literature every week. In school the standard practice is to have said “sochineniya” written, yes – but more like, once per month.
He had strict standards on “dos” and “don’t”, on how to write a work properly. Being grammatically right was a given, naturally, but he also worked on our stylistics. Works should be rather lengthy (minimum of 7 pages of a standard issue linear тетрадь), but, at the same time, not too lengthy. Quotes must be used sparingly, thus avoiding “overquoting”. Never use archaic words, or the terms whose meaning you don’t know. The paragraphs must be neither too short or too lengthy. Things, which you, kinda, should know by now, if you were studying at school.
What was rather new, uncomfortable and, at times, humiliating for all of us, his students, was the new requirement – to avoid using the same word more than 3 times on one page. While checking and reviewing our works, he’d circle with his red ink pen all our over used words – so that we could see how eyesore it looks. To combat this habit is harder than you think – try to follow it, avoiding the overuse on one small page such common words like “это” (this/that), or various common pronouns and adverbs, or even the name of a certain character!
Only training can help overcome this. Which just shows me one thing – Mr. Hahn, apparently, didn’t receive it. I don’t know about the standards of education in the West – we are told, constantly, that they are
RaciallySuperior to Russian ones. And yet we have an article by a noted member of academia, who, to become one, should have, in theory, educate oneself in several fields of social studies, who writes works that would make me, when I was 17 years old, snicker and “boo!” such a lamer. You simply don’t write like that. No one should. Just because something is grammatically correct doesn’t mean that your overall “mark” won’t be lover due to atrocious stylistics and being unreadable.So I have only one suggestion for Mr. Hahn – find yourself a corrector. Or educate yourself.
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[this comment has been removed]
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Cutoff point for /b? “Every week”?
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I screwed up when ended “strong” not with “/strong” but with “/em” after every week.
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Done.
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Also, I’m surprised you didn’t comment on either the Hahn article’s contents or the contents of my second set of lecture notes. Just not worth approaching? I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that.
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“Also, I’m surprised you didn’t comment on either the Hahn article’s contents or the contents of my second set of lecture notes. Just not worth approaching? I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that.”
J.T., I was of opinion that there is already too much of me here and that some respite might be requited, so that not to traumatize all those people (and increasing number, judging by the number of followers steadily going up) who read you 🙂
As for the contents – I have really nothing to say. Journalism conducted by pulling facts out of your ἀφεδρών was a fact of life and not an exception is a matter of history and reality. In our country we have such famous and well-known figure as Andrey Konstantivov , journalist and fiction (mysteries, criminal dramas) writer, whose works were adapted to the screen and got a real cult-following in Russia. Besides that he wrote lot of non-fiction about the work of a journalist and basic standards of how you should run a story, how you have a moral duty to stick to the facts and never resort to the spin due to ideological bias or promised money. But even such a person is unheeded, because money and favourable spins are more enticing. The thing is – it’s kinda interesting to watch those who do that wriggling like eels on a hot pan, tying themselves into the knots trying to justify themselves.
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As for Chechnya and Kadyrov – there is nothing to talk about, because last year the exact same rhetoric with nearly identical spin of a slightly different collection of facts had been done by basically everyone who is someone in the “Russia Watching” world (most notoriously – by Mark Galeotti, self-styled “expert” on the Criminal Russia) and they pronounced that the Downfall of Kadyrov is Imminent, that Putin Is Tired Of Kadyrov and things like that, They also voiced their hopes (masked as “predictions based on unnamed source close to the Kremlin” (c)) that come the September elections of 2016 and We Will See.
Naturally – absolutely nothing changed. No-thing. But the hype works, Now, people are absolutely sure that there was, indeed, anti-gay pogrom in Chechnya, or that “gay concentration camps” are real. Because Chechnya is the part of the word about which people (in the West) has no knowledge available and for them it’s a territory marked with “Here By Dragons” forever. In ages past it was (certifiably “true” and widely believed) reports about the people with dogs heads, griffins and arimaspians fighting each other, and giant ants collecting gold. Now it’s “any crappy thing must be true when it happens in Russia/Chechnya” mindset. You need no proof – because the religious belief is already here.
AS for the “Chechen gay repressions” scandal its rediculously easy to explain. It’s all about power and money. As you probably know, the more fringe the movement, the more fanatical and cutthroat in its inner dynamic it becomes. The professional “LGBT rights defenders” sphere of Russia (and the whole non-systemic opposition to boot) is an example of that. Here we have Nokolai Alexeyev, as self-styled “head honcho” of the LGBT rights movement in Russia, by the virtue of being thoroughly handshakble. I mean – he said this:
” ‘Just three or four persons on the visa ban list of the EU, USA, UK and several other countries will dissuade other Russian politicians to follow this path.
‘This is the only thing which can effectively work.
‘Pressure your governments to put the authors of those laws on the black lists for the entrance visas. They will suffer and others will think twice. Nothing else will work!’”
That was in 2013 over “gay propaganda ban” law. As the history showed us, sanctions worked wonders on Russian “Regime” – I mean, Crimea was handed back to the Ukraine, right? NO?! Oh, what a zrada!
Anyway, Alexeyev is bona fide handshakable, educated urbanite gay activitst and darling of the West, when they need a go-to person for an interview and an oppinion on those dastardly Russians oppressing the hell out of dem gays. And he, unsuprisingly, thinks of himself as the chief “representative” of Russian gays, whether they want it or not. And being a representative of them he must be a chief grant receiver from various Western organizations, constantly concerned about the state of rights in Russia. Like the State Department of the US.
But in reality he faces a stiff opposition from various regional gay rights organizations, who want their own cut of the grants pie, and resent being ordered around by Alexeyev. One such uber-handshakable organization is based in St,Pete and is headed by a cross-eyed (no, really – he is cross-eyed) gay activist Krechetkov, who is thoroughly lacking Alexeyev plump charisma and chutzpah, and who failed to “deliver” when invited to debate with batshit insane St. Pete’s native legislator Vitaly Milonov, thanks to who anti-gay propaganda legislation outgrew from the local initiative to the federal matter. His organization attempted to become “handshakable than though” vis-à-vis Alexayev’s “gayrussia.ru” by officially welcoming anti-Russian sanctions put by the West. Yeah, they did that in 2014.
Another center of opposition to Alexeyev within his own is Yelena Kostyuchenko, LGBT activist and a journalist of Novaya Gazeta, who herself earned a lot of political capital in 2013 (in fact – she made a name for herself back then), but who became slipping into obscurity because her theme of interest was simply ignored by the people with power and money. She had to resort to the most simplistic on-line fraud several times, in fact, when she would publish on her FB page a tearful story that some anonymous “activist” is pressured by the authorties and that “we” need to collect money pronto, here’s my Yandex-wallet, send monies plox – and then on the next week publish in the very same FB account of hers the report that she “finally” affored heself to close the mortgage, or pay up a credit on a stove by exact sum of money collected for the mythical suffering activist.
So, the characters are known, the stage is set – let the drama begin!
Seeing as his power was slipping and the whole issue of the foreign grants (and varous oppos can’t fund themselves in Russia by their own efforts and/or by contribution of their members) Alexeyev decided to prove that he is still relevant and that HE (not someone else) is the Arch-Gay of All Rus. So he and his “gayrussia.ru” site began forcing the theme of mass appliance for protests/marches in the North Caucasus region – which would be thoroughly handshaked and approved by Muscovite community… from a safe distance. It was February 2017, the protest actions were planned on March. Naturally, no one got the permits if they even tried to follow this clearly provocative suggestion. This tactic was first tried and tested last year in October-November, when the same initiative was applied to Siberian cities with the equally disappointing results – sans one. Nikolai Alexeyev’s name re-appeared in the press and his site got a spike in attendancy. After all – the simulation of productive activity as opposed to productive activity is a time honoured Russian tradition!
It should have ended there – but Alexeyev didn’t count on dastardly “backstab” from his fellows, very concerned with his “usurpation” and the potential drying up of the foreign grants with Trump becoming the Leader of the Free World ™.
Act I. Day of Fools
An article published on April 1st by the thoroughly handshakable “Novaya Gazeta”, which, when mentioned by the
RaciallySuperior Western press is always accompanied by such epithets as “Last of Independent Media in Russia” (c), and, thereforeHonorary White“respected source” (c), started this whole “gay pogrom in Chechnya” story. Note the subtitle: “How the ambitions of one well-known LGBT activist awoke in Chechnya a terrible ancient custom”. Not subtle. At all.In this article we are told (and asked to believe) that constantly nearly broke “Novaya Gazeta”, that has no (NO) presence or field offices beyond their shabby building in Moscow, that is derided and made a laughing stock by their staunch liberastia in reporting and spin, SOMEHOW managed to accumulate a collection of “insiders” in Chechnya’s administration (and special services!) and from among the locals – despite the fact that after, ah, “certain events” ™ they are physically avoiding Chechnya like an “imp avoids priests incense” (Russian saying – look it up!). We are not provided with names, facts or anything – we are told. If you are self-described handshakable liberal, then your holy duty is to believe.
And here comes the “meaty” part of the article. The essence, surrounded by usual unsupported diatribes:
“The information about the intentions of the GayRussia.ru project activists (the project manager is the well-known Moscow LGBT activist Nikolai Alekseev) to hold gay prides in the Caucasus regions got into the media. In the entire Caucasus, this news caused massive protests, where speakers demonstrated a high level of aggression. In social networks there were made videos of varying degrees of creativity with calls for the murder of people with untraditional sexual orientation.
Nikolay Alekseev told Novaya Gazeta that by applying for parades in various regions of Russia he is fighting for his constitutional rights, for freedom of assembly and for repealing the law on the prohibition of gay propaganda. “We no longer hold uncoordinated gay pride parades,” he told Novaya Gazeta. – We used to do it, now we do not. We seek from the state the coordination of our actions and providing security for their participants. But every time we submit an application, we, of course, are preparing for a gay parade in case our application is agreed upon.”
On the clarifying questions of Novaya Gazeta, why 300 people appear in the application and how many local LGBT activists planned to go to gay parades in Nalchik, Cherkessk, Maikop or at least in Stavropol, Alekseev was not ably to say anything concrete. He explained that if the action was agreed and security was secured, Moscow and St. Petersburg activists were ready to come to the Caucasus and participate in gay pride parades.
At the same time, neither Alekseev nor his lawyers came to Nalchik either for giving notice or for a preliminary hearing on the suit about refusing to hold a gay parade in this Caucasian city. Alekseev noted that this is due not only to the workload, but also to considerations of personal safety. After it became known about the application for the gay pride in Nalchik and other cities of the North Caucasus Federal District, he received “a huge number of threats via all possible types of media.”
Alekseev, in addition to activism, is known for his numerous lawsuits brought to the courts in various regions of the country: he refuses every refusal to coordinate the action in Russian courts, and then goes to the European Court of Human Rights.
At the moment, the ECHR has communicated two more similar complaints, compensation for which, according to the coordinator of the “Gender Program” of the Bell Foundation Irina Kosterina, can amount to 100,000 euros.
In addition, according to Alekseev, he is now preparing the third, “unprecedented in scale” wave of complaints, which, apparently, include the cases of refusals in the Caucasian cities. According to Alekseev, “trials in recognition of refusals to conduct gay parades as illegal, are currently held in 95 cities, we covered with the appeal for just one incomplete year 78 of the 89 regions of Russia.” Alekseev confirmed that complaints on all regions will be sent to the ECHR, but it was difficult to name the requested amount of compensation for legal costs and for non-pecuniary damage.
When asked by Novaya Gazeta whether he knew that his statements about the intention to hold gay parades in the Caucasus provoked the persecution of local LGBT representatives, and in Chechnya led to mass arrests and killings, Alekseev replied that the correspondent of Novaya Gazeta “Speculates with unverified information, operates with unfounded facts, and personally he knows nothing about such persecution and the consequences of his actions. “
One can understand why Alekseev, a fighter for the rights of LGBT people, still does not have those “proven facts”. The fact is that, as if shaking up the patriarchal Caucasus, he did not provide his supporters with at least a minimal cover, at least some channels for retreat.
Absolutely not knowing and not understanding the local specifics, he apparently simply did not take into account what consequences for people can be from just one notification of intention, which no one was planning to implement. The problem is that in the Caucasus the word is still taken seriously.”
Alexeyev’s racket via ECHR is, actually, coming to the end and he, soon, will be forced to rely more heavily on foreign grants. First Russia laid out basis for banning gay parades with anti-propaganda law. Then, after sanctions and all that jazz, Russia finally passed a law, which allows our country to ignore ECHR or any other international judicial body’s ruling when they contravene the existing legislation and constitution. For Alexeyev, who earned up money for his “business trips” and local actionism via suing Russia since 2006 this is death knell – and a case for celebration for all his competitiors. By “pure coincidence” Yelena Kostyuchenko, a slightly faded Icon of LGBT-activists, ravenous for a come-back, works in shy and living-not-by-a-lies durnalist outlet… “Novaya Gazeta”. “Coincidence? I don’t think so!” (c)
Alexeyev reacted very, very badly to NG’s insinuations – and decided to sue them. And even published a FB post about it – in English!
Suit asks for not just apology and the official refutation of slanderous claims, but also for 1 million rubles of monetary compensation for moral damage. Oh, Alexeyev! Ever in search of new gesheft! 🙂
Act II. Sheep of fools
Claims of one, even thoroughly handshakable paper were, obviously, not enough for those who planned to capitalize on this event – so they rolled out heavy artillery, the indominatable and ABSOLUTELY UNBIASED (wink-wink, nudge-nudge) Human Rights Watch. On the pages of Soros-funded Open Democracy outlet, “Tanya” (Why not Tatiana? She is not a lil’ girl anymore) Lokshina, a thoroughly handshakable head of HRW Russian Program, got herself an op-ed, where she stated:
“The information published by Novaya Gazeta is consistent with the reports Human Rights Watch recently received from numerous trusted sources, including sources on the ground. The number of sources and the consistency of the stories leaves us with no doubt that these devastating developments have indeed occurred. LGBT Network in Russia opened a special hotline to provide emergency support to those who find themselves in immediate danger.
In light of brutal repression in Chechnya, we cannot reveal our sources for fear of compromising their security. The fear of devastating reprisal is so intense that we cannot even provide detail on specific cases as the victims could suffer even more as a result of the exposure.
[…]
These days, very few people in Chechnya dare speak to human rights monitors or journalists even anonymously because the climate of fear is overwhelming and people have been largely intimidated into silence. Filing an official complaint against local security officials is extremely dangerous, as retaliation by local authorities is practically inevitable.”
Tl;dr – “YOU MUST BELIVE US!” and “Only idiots ask for proof”.
Of course, they since then failed to provide even a spec of evidence, which would support their claim – and they never ceased to demand from the “Regime” in Moscow to do something about the alleged things they speculate about. No, the mere fact that it was the Saintly, Mother Theresa-like (pun intended) organization like HRW, which said “Trust us guys – we say this is true and because WE say it must be true” a mere speculation and claim got the official, internationally recognized anointment of handshakability.
These people, I remind you, routinely decry Russian’s “lack of Rule Of Law”, yet what they are suggesting is for Putin to violate the existing procedures and acting all czar-like “do something” avoiding the accepted procedures. These people have no trouble accepting “Russian Authoritarian Regime” – they are totally okay with it, as was symbolized by arch-liberal Yulia Latynina early gushing over Putin, whom she considered to be the last line of defense against the plebeians and people from North Caucasus and Central Asia. These People With Good Faces have trouble when said authoritarian tendencies are used in what they does not approve – but, in essence, they have no trouble with such a system.
And HRW and their principles? Why were they shy and modest when the people were burned alive in Odessa 3 years ago? Why are they routinely silent on what the Ukraine is turning into? Or how about the treatment of Russophonic official non-citizens in the Baltic countries? Surely, they are totally lacking any bias, amirite?
Act III. Idiocracy
Annoited in turn by the “revelation” of HRW Russian director Lokshina (who since then became immensely popular in all handshakable press, and became a semi-regular in The Moscow Time), others tapped into this wellspring, that could justify any outlandish lie. So we got this from the NYT, and outlet that has always been in neck-to-neck competition with the “Washington Post” (aka “Pravda on Potomac”) to earn the title of the most biased Russophobic Rag. UCG claims that NYT is winning, I disagree with him, pointing out just about any article by Anne Applebaum, that WaPo is still ahead in this race. We don’t argue about rabid Russophobia of the two – this is an axiom.
There are no polite words to describe my reaction to this article. Yeah, I had a hearty laugh, but, FUCK, what a ludicrous piece of shit this article is! Pardon my language, but while reading I’ve experienced a continuous case of, ah, well… phallomorphing, to mask Russian profanity in a science-like speak. It was something beyond reason…
First of all – names. We are not even told that these are assumed names to cover the real identity of the sources. Journalistic standars require speaking out such a caveat – but what are journalistic standards for the NYT, a sensationalist rag, which, last year, earned some hypish street cred from Russian bashers for “reporting”, that “Yarovaya package” laws are banning missionary activity all out through Russia (note: no, they don’t).
But then this paragraph made me scream. And I live in a building with very thin walls – what would my neighbors think of me. It says:
“The authorities briefly detained another young man, who identified himself as Nohcho, after a friend informed on him during an interrogation. “I don’t blame him,” Nohcho said of the friend. “We are not heroes. We’re just gay guys. They starve you. They shock you.””
You know, there are certain things that are known to basically every Russian. Like, the very informational “atmosphere” is charged with it, it’s what the people are saying routinely so it ought to rub into you one way or another. Due to a lot of things, Russians became familiar with Chechens, their customs and other stuff – the vast majority of Russians. “Nohcho” (Нохчо) is the self-describing name of the Chechens. They consider and call themselves “нохчи”, not the “Chechens”, in their native language, just like the Germans call themselves “Deutsch”, or the Hungarians call themselves “Magyar”. But it’s a standard practice to use the self-used name for the people in other languages for offending them, as a thinly masked ethnic slur. Thus would be calling in English the Poles “Polacks”, or to call the Russians “Russki”. The same thing applies to the Chechens, when their name for themselves became, in Russian language, a generic ethnic slur for ALL North Caucasus people (among other things).
And Chechens know that. Thanks to the I-Net virtually no one can escape this. To call yourself “Nohcho” in order to preserve anonymity is an exercise in self-hating and/or stupid. Or just something made up. But for intended auditory of NYT, which is, as usual, is ignorant of things out there, this is okay. Not only they won’t think this naming conventions to be fake and un-Chechen – they’d consider Nohcho to be a 100% name and yet another confirmation that everything the article claims to be true IS true. Hell, they probably think that “goonie goo goo” is a real word in Spanish as well!
The article, presenting “accounts” of the supposed victims also runs against the general narrative maintained by Novaya Gazeta and HRW. For them it was absolutely necessary to maintain that Bloody Kadyrovite Regime, acting with total impunity and, possible, accord of slightly less bloody Putinite Regime, is murdering teh ghays in concentration camps. Instead, the author claims that these are “honour killings” perpetrated by the relatives, and, no, there are no specially designed “concentration camps” (NG found already 6 of them… or so it claims).
Wait – but doesn’t it mean that you, Mr. Kramer, are calling all those shy and handshakable people running “Kadyrov totally did it” a bunch of liars? Now, our shy and conscientious intelligent must be totally perplexed – who is the agent of Kremlin here? NG’s shills, who dare to accuse an Icon of LGBT protest Alexeyev? Nikolai Alexeyev, who decided to sell out to Kremlin and now wants to ruin brave durnalists of “Novaya Gazeta”? Or one certain Andrew E. Krame from the NYT, who dares to question handshakable versions of the events with his “reports”, basically pulled out of his podex? And if you think that NYT can’t write a Kremlenite story – then you are not aware of Petro Poroshenko’s accusation of NYT of conducting a hybrid warfare for Russia (which was furiously handshaked by VOA journalist). What?! If you go full conspiratorial, then all possibilities must be viewed! And its only by the virtue of conspiracy theory thinking that the mere idea of “Chechen gays pogrom” got a traction in the Western Society.
Now, back to the article. What does it have and what does it lack? It lacks any single mentioning of Nikolai Alexeyev by name. And it’s true to the most of foreign language articles about this “event”. It is as if he, overnight, became… uhandshakable [le gasp]! Horror, horror… These bodes nothing good for such old-fashioned and, apparently, unwilling to adapt, person such as Alexeyev and his gang.
But what is present in the article? This:
“Fearing for his life, Maksim turned to a gay rights group, the Russian LGBT Network, based in St. Petersburg, which has established an emergency, round-the-clock volunteer group to help gay men escape the region.
[…]
“Gays in Chechnya and the North Caucasus are in lethal danger,” Igor Kochetkov, director of the Russian LGBT Network, said in a telephone interview. “People whose partners are detained have every reason to believe they will be arrested. It is very hard not to name the names under torture.””
It is also pure coincidence, that cross-eyed Kochetkov is Alexeyev’s long time opponent.
Finale. Gesheft has no smell
“LGBT organizations of Scandinavian countries and the Federal Republic of Germany are collecting funds for the evacuation of gays from Chechnya. In Finland and Germany, the process is just beginning, in Sweden they collected almost 170 000 euros.
The Finnish non-profit organization Seta, which protects the rights of sexual and gender minorities, has begun raising funds to help the people of Chechnya, who are being harassed because of their sexual orientation. This was announced on Saturday, April 15, by the Finnish state broadcaster Yle.
“The Russian organizations began evacuating the Chechen gays, the situation is so serious that they have no other option, they are trying to pay for all travel, accommodation and food expenses of these people.” We asked if we could help them, for example, by raising funds. Answered in the affirmative, “said Secretary General of Seta Kerttu Tarjamo.
In Sweden, the collection of funds to help Chechen gays began immediately after the first publication in Novaya Gazeta, according to the largest Scandinavian LGBT edition of QX. The evacuation of gay men from Chechnya in Sweden collected 1600,000 kroons, which is almost 170 thousand euros. LGBT organizations demand that Chechen gays be granted asylum in Sweden and other EU countries.”
Nearly 200 000 Euros… And that was half a month ago… Now, with Germany joining into this there might be already… The amount of funds to ste!..
Ah… Let’s just ask ourselves some questions. Like – which LGBT rights defending organizations might receive these humongous amount of money? Well, such organization must be handshakable, respected and already Doing Something (or simulating said activity). Even such banal thing as geographical factor might be of use. Germany and Scandinavian countries are situated near St. Petersburg. Could it be a real stretch to speculate, that they will decide to allocate their collected money to the “Network” organization, headed by Alexeyev’s arch-rival Kochetkov? Or, how sweet is revenge and how tasty is gesheft after all those years of being ignored in favor of more photogenic founder of gayrussia.ru!
And given a simple fact that 200K Euros would be spread over rather… small (*coughcoughnonexistantreallycough*) amount of supposedly “Chechen Gays” running for their lives, would it be such a crime, really, to funnel a part of said funds on other needs – equally important for the activity and well being of said handshakable organization and their leadership. Especially for the well-being of its leadership. Yeah. Sweeeeeeeeeeet!
The beauty of the situation – no one is going to “out” you. The Western Consensus, this unthinking morass, is set favorably already. The belief of the “facts” is fanatical. Who would dare to commit a blasphemy against the Mainstream Discourse? Who will really document that and point out the facts? Who?
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when you write ”
“small (*coughcoughnonexistantreallycough*) amount of supposedly “Chechen Gays” running for their lives” does it mean you think gays don’t exist in Chechnya ?
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Only now noticed that.
“…does it mean you think gays don’t exist in Chechnya?”
Statistically speaking – they (ethnic Chechen gays) ought to exist. Most of them, in fact, relocated to St.Pete or Moscow – as any other members of this ethnos seeking to broaden their horizon. Nothing really “chains” them to Chechnya or prevents from buying a ticket to the plane, train or bus.
What I haven’t seen yet – any irrefutable evidence, that there were indeed “mass persecution of gays” in Chechnya that would require such “charity”. Hey, why not create an “undergroud railroad” for Russian gingers as well? You know, they must be sooooo traumatized by the petty namecalling (“redheads have no soul”, “Antoshka” song, etc…) that the international community must confront Putin on this issue! [nod, nod]
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