Putin, Russia and the Russians

Putin’s Russia

Although not exactly a Russian language topic it is worthy of some attention. Putin could fit the description more of an old believer czarist than a modern democratic president.

Russian Economy

I think the Russians generally like him as his imperialistic grab for natural resources has made the Russians the Arabs of Europe, a top heavy oil rich country, which allows them the luxury of xenophobic skepticism of anything not culturally aligned with their traditional ideals. A country with oil rich magnates and the trickle down theory in place, however, unlike the Arab counties that are not doing a great job at developing industry other than oil extraction, the Russians are more industrial. Thus the wealth generated by extracting the richness of mother earth is being used for the development of a capitalist class that will be able to create a value added economy even after the oil is gone. However, intelligent and great the Arab culture is, they for some reason do not seem to be creating anything beyond cottage industries at this juncture, maybe because they have so much oil.

Russia is not a democracy

However, this being said lets face it; it is not a free democracy. Even a chess great (chess being like baseball in Russia) like Gary Kasparov is thrown in jail for peacefully opposing the government. That would be like George Clooney being jailed for saying he does not like George Bush. Russia and the Russians will in my opinion continue on this imperialist, non democratic development and expansion of their culture for at least the next twenty five years.

Russia’s Demographic problems

The one problem Russia faces is a decrease in the birth rate, so much that ethnic Russians are losing about 700,000 people a year. Putin has tried to turn this tied by promoting Russian families with financial incentives for having children and large camps and rallies for reproduction if you can believe it. They even have a conception day which is September 12th and this means couples who give birth on June 12th, a national holiday will recieve prizes as cars, refrigerators and money.

Buy a Russian citizenship

You can legally buy a Russian citizenship for about 10000 dollars and illegally for about 2000 dollars, but the latter could end you up in jail of course for 10 years.

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