The 2023 Russian Coup.

[Rimbaud]

Don't know what B2 level is, but I did get quite good at it. Not so much now, as I never go there and I'm too much of a lazy bastard to practice. In any case, many, many people at the time, as nowadays probably, were more than willing to speak to you in English.

Don't know where the rest is coming from, however, as like others on here you seem to assume that I'm claiming my opinion, gleaned from a variety of sources including personal experience, is the final word, and that all Rusians would agree with me. If people bothered to read before jumping in it would become quite clear that I'm not, but I do also have an opinion on who will be proved correct in all this.

B2 is upper intermediate level on Common European Framework, I'd say its the minimum to be able to converse meaningfully with locals and consume media in that language.

 

[RD2003]

B2 is upper intermediate level on Common European Framework, I'd say its the minimum to be able to converse meaningfully with locals and consume media in that language.

I was more the 'Do what you can with what you've haphazardly learned in between the useless pissing about that's what your life amounts to, and blag your way through the rest' level.

It's amazing how helpful just learning the cyrillic alphabet can be. I met one or two westerners who'd been there for quite some time without even having done this.

 

[tim]

Now I push people out of windows to earn an honest bob
For an FSB employee it's an interestin' job

Now it's a job that just suits me
A window slayer you would be
If you can see what I can see
When I push folk out of windows

I knew a fella, such a swell
He had a thirst, that's plain to tell
I made him drink his bath as well
I didn't push him out the window.

 

[krtek a houby]

And this is what you found out between 1988 and 1993

Windows 93

 

[kabbes]

I was more the 'Do what you can with what you've haphazardly learned in between the useless pissing about that's what your life amounts to, and blag your way through the rest' level.

It's amazing how helpful just learning the cyrillic alphabet can be. I met one or two westerners who'd been there for quite some time without even having done this.

So that’s, “no, I did not learn enough Russian 35 years ago to be able to meaningfully converse with the contemporary local population about their political opinions, nor to read about politics in the local media”, then.

 

[kabbes]

Who are the ten Russians who have fallen from a window in the UK?

Why are you concentrating on just the window part when the original point was actually:

I think I’d give unequivocal support if the alternative was novichok or falling out of a window.

 

[RD2003]

So that’s, “no, I did not learn enough Russian 35 years ago to be able to meaningfully converse with the contemporary local population about their political opinions, nor to read about politics in the local media”, then.

I had many conversations in both Russian and English on a wide range of subjects between 88-93 as well as on subsequent visits. Also with Russian and other ex-Soviets in this country, although the latter are distancing since I got the job as a Putin Bot.

 

[RD2003]

Why are you concentrating on just the window part when the original point was actually:

Because of the high number of mentions of windows on here since the invasion, as if it's actually the way most Russians die. We're still waiting for Putin to fall from a window, for instance, despite many confident urban predictions.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Because of the high number of mentions of windows on here since the invasion, as if it's actually the way most Russians die. We're still waiting for Putin to fall from a window, for instance, despite many confident urban predictions.

You acknowledged there are a lot of suspicious deaths amongst prominent Russians but then pedantically tried to make it about windows. Clearly I wasn’t going to write an exhaustive list when Novichok and windows made the point succinctly.

 

[RD2003]

You acknowledged there are a lot of suspicious deaths amongst prominent Russians but then pedantically tried to make it about windows. Clearly I wasn’t going to write an exhaustive list when Novichok and windows made the point succinctly.

Fair enough. I'm a bit bored with windows now anyway. I'll just make one last confident prediction: Putin will never be pushed from a window.

 

[keybored]

In any case, many, many people at the time, as nowadays probably, were more than willing to speak to you in English.

Spoken like a true tourist.

 

[RD2003]

Spoken like a true tourist.

I was a tourist, but one who didn't go home for a long time. It was surprisingly easy, if you had Russian contacts, in the last years of the SU/early Yeltsin Russia, for a foreigner to just disappear into the ether, which was what I felt I needed at the time. Having said that, I hated the fucking place. Along with the aftermath of a number of events at home, from which I suppose I was trying to flee, it probably finished me off as an halfway viable cunt.

 

[existentialist]

Maybe, but I thought we were talking about Russians falling from windows, seemingly the most currently fashionable western liberal cliche about Russia.

Cliches generally become cliches because there is some basis in truth. I am finding it amusing to see you attempting to normalise the inescapable body count amongst anyone who offends Putin.

 

[Smangus]

I was a tourist,

Now you sound like a haski beanov.

 

[RD2003]

Cliches generally become cliches because there is some basis in truth. I am finding it amusing to see you attempting to normalise the inescapable body count amongst anyone who offends Putin.

I'm not trying to 'normalise' anything-whatever that's supposed to mean and such as it would be possible via obscure online forum.

I am, however, fairly indifferent to it, it being not much of an ordeal to watch from afar those who stole the Russian economy, or else directly or indirectly facilitated the theft, being devoured by the sytem it resulted in, and I am similarly amused by those posters on here who purport to anguish over the fate of people they would in all other circumstances presumably regard as political enemies. Or maybe left liberals in the west have now reached the point where neo-liberal and other essentially right-wing, pro-capitalists are allies?

 

[existentialist]

I was more the 'Do what you can with what you've haphazardly learned in between the useless pissing about that's what your life amounts to, and blag your way through the rest' level.

It's amazing how helpful just learning the cyrillic alphabet can be. I met one or two westerners who'd been there for quite some time without even having done this.

It's not often that I agree with RD2003, but this is true. Once you can read the script, a lot of weird-looking words are pretty obvious in their meaning.

In fact, it's one of the reasons I elected to learn Russian at school - I liked the idea of being able to decode an apparently incomprehensible script. What I didn't realise was how much it would piss me off when people "russianise" words, usually by chucking in a couple of Я characters in (looking at you, cheap vodka makers).

 

[kabbes]

I was a tourist, but one who didn't go home for a long time.

A tourist over 30 years ago, who wants to lecture us regarding his reading of the nature of the people where he was a tourist over 30 years ago. Well, thank you for your insights.

 

[RD2003]

A tourist over 30 years ago, who wants to lecture us regarding his reading of the nature of the people where he was a tourist over 30 years ago. Well, thank you for your insights.

Not lecturing anybody, just offering a viewpoint by replying to others, and occasionally trying to initiate debate here and there, just like any other poster. Nor have I ever remotely claimed that personal experience makes me any kind of expert. I have merely commented on the impression it left me with, supplemented by the kind of ideas about Russia which are hardly uncommon-you can find them in books and everything...

I've never noticed you complaining about multitudes of posters offering opinions, sometimes stridently, up and down these boards on places they have never even been to whether several decades ago or not. (I have been back to Russia on more recent visits, and it's been interesting to see it gradually becoming the kind of place it was easy to predict even back then. The rise of a Putin-type character-somebody more typical in Russian political history than any 'democrat'-became inevitable as soon as neo-liberal 'shock therapy' got underway. The only surprise is that it didn't result in somebody much worse.)

Anyway, I can't help getting the feeling that if I was saying something you'd find more palatable, you wouldn't say anything about how long ago I was there. On the contrary-you'd be praising my insights. It's how people are, I suppose.

 

[existentialist]

A tourist over 30 years ago, who wants to lecture us regarding his reading of the nature of the people where he was a tourist over 30 years ago. Well, thank you for your insights.

I feel RD2003 protesteth too much. I suspect his Russian escapades were about something other than casual tourism, and just happening to hang about.

But meh.

 

[RD2003]

I feel RD2003 protesteth too much. I suspect his Russian escapades were about something other than casual tourism, and just happening to hang about.

But meh.

Why, do you think I had a career in the KGB?

I still have many photos of me just hanging about, mostly with the kind of young Russians you'd have placed your hopes in, and whose thinking was similar to those who protested against the Ukraine war in the early days.

 

[krtek a houby]

Not lecturing anybody, just offering a viewpoint by replying to others, and occasionally trying to initiate debate here and there, just like any other poster.

Ah, and by calling posters warmongers and describing the war as heady and joyful... that's just part of the debate and not at all stirring it up?

 

[RD2003]

Ah, and by calling posters warmongers and describing the war as heady and joyful... that's just part of the debate and not at all stirring it up?

As if those who are more sceptical about the war don't frequently get abuse on here (much more vitriolic than anything anybody gets from me) from those very same warmongers. Works both ways.

And at least I'm not always diverting the discussion into yet another round of detailing the perceived personal shortcomings of posters whose views I might disapprove of.

 

[tim]

Why, do you think I had a career in the KGB?

I still have many photos of me just hanging about, mostly with the kind of young Russians you'd have placed your hopes in, and whose thinking was similar to those who protested against the Ukraine war in the early days.

I had always assumed you were an undercover M.F.I agent

 

[RD2003]

I had always assumed you were an undercover M.F.I agent

Applied to MFI once, as a teenager. Clerical assistant. They wouldn't have me.

 

[kabbes]

Applied to MFI once, as a teenager. Clerical assistant. They wouldn't have me.

You probably shouldn’t have called them all warmongers in the interview

 

[two sheds]

He meant wardrobemongers easy mistake to make

 

[krtek a houby]

As if those who are more sceptical about the war don't frequently get abuse on here (much more vitriolic than anything anybody gets from me) from those very same warmongers. Works both ways.

And at least I'm not always diverting the discussion into yet another round of detailing the perceived personal shortcomings of posters whose views I might disapprove of.

That's you on the defensive, rather than explaining your tactics of sneering and whataboutery.

You claim you want debate, but you don't actually answer questions or back up your accusations.

Maybe a blog would be more your thing? You don't seem to like it here.

 

[kabbes]

He meant wardrobemongers easy mistake to make

I wish I’d made that joke instead

 

[RD2003]

That's you on the defensive, rather than explaining your tactics of sneering and whataboutery.

You claim you want debate, but you don't actually answer questions or back up your accusations.

Maybe a blog would be more your thing? You don't seem to like it here.

It's just you I don't answer very much. I'm not keen on the personality you put over. It makes you come across as the type who, had he been in 1930s USSR would have denounced his next-door neighbour to the NKVD.

 

[krtek a houby]

It's just you I don't answer very much. I'm not keen on the personality you put over. It makes you come across as the type who, had he been in 1930s USSR would have denounced his next-door neighbour to the NKVD.

And at least I'm not always diverting the discussion into yet another round of detailing the perceived personal shortcomings of posters whose views I might disapprove of.

Not particularly consistent.

Not particularly interesting.

You post certain content to provoke and then act all superior and coy when asked for an explanation.

Odd behaviour.