Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

Ukraine and the Russian invasion, Feb 2022 - tangentially related crap

(Wasn't sure where to post this.)

Two Russian businessmen have in two days died in "mysterious" circumstances.

9/12/22: Dmitry Zelenov, aged 50 or 51, was the former owner of one of Russian largest developers, Don-Stroi. There seem to be slightly different versions doing the rounds of what happened, but apparently he fell down stairs or over a railing in Antibes in the Côte d’Azur.

Just 2 days earlier...

7/12/2022: Grigory Kochenov, 41, was the creative director of IT company Agima. Another supposed self-defenestration. He allegedly fell from a balcony during a police search.

There's even a wikipedia page of 2022 deaths of Russian or Russia-connected tycoons.

2022 Russian businessmen mystery deaths - Wikipedia
 
TopCat said:
www.theguardian.com

Why am I learning Ukrainian? Because language is politics in the country I’ve grown to love | Charlotte Higgins

I’m not alone in wanting to show solidarity, and taking this step has become a global symbol of unity, says the Guardian’s chief culture writer Charlotte Higgins
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
Click to expand...
Good article - thanks for sharing. Nice to know there are so many people wanting to learn Ukrainian to assist refugees fleeing from war, or simply to show some solidarity to a people under attack :oldthumbsup:
 
Last edited:
strung out said:
Good article - thanks for sharing. Nice to know there are so many people wanting to learn Ukrainian to assist refugees fleeing from war, or simply to show some solidarity to a people under attack :oldthumbsup:
Click to expand...
Yep, there are literally dozens of languages that're endangered due to Russian colonialism. Had this invasion gone according to plan, Ukrainian would be about to join them. Many Ukrainians learnt to feel embarassed or inferior about speaking their own language growing up; the Russian language was seen as proper or more sophisticated. Linguicide is an important part of colonialist ambition.
 
Dystopiary said:
Yep, there are literally dozens of languages that're endangered due to Russian colonialism. Had this invasion gone according to plan, Ukrainian would be about to join them. Many Ukrainians learnt to feel embarassed or inferior about speaking their own language growing up; the Russian language was seen as proper or more sophisticated. Linguicide is an important part of colonialist ambition.
Click to expand...
No Ukrainian I ever met until quite recently was the slightest bit interested in the Ukrainian language. It was regarded as the tongue of country bumpkins.
 
strung out said:
Good article - thanks for sharing. Nice to know there are so many people wanting to learn Ukrainian to assist refugees fleeing from war, or simply to show some solidarity to a people under attack :oldthumbsup:
Click to expand...
Showing solidarity is one thing, but to assist refugees it isn't necessary, at least to anybody with some knowledge of Russian, as all Ukrainians understand Russian, the vast majority of them, in all parts of Ukraine, having grown up speaking Russian.

Russian is the more useful language in this instance, as it enables you to speak to people on both sides.
 
two sheds said:
Yes well you can talk to Dutch people in German and they'll understand you but they're going to prefer it if you talk to them in Dutch.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure how it is for native Germans and Dutch, but Mrs RD, who is English, speaks fluent German and has done for 40 years, and whenever we've been in Holland she can't understand them at all.

As far as I understand it, the Slav languages are far closer to each other than is the case most other language groups, with a high number of words in common, and similar grammatical structures. They can understand each other to a far greater extent than we can understand German, Swedish, Danish, Dutch etc, and the people of those countries each other.

Having said that, it's highly debatable how many Ukrainians would prefer to be addressed in Ukrainian. As I said, I'm unsure about the current situation, but most Ukrainians I knew between the late 1980s and recent years did not speak Ukrainian at all, and had no interest in it. Some, even as they increasingly leaned towards Ukrainian nationalism, had a slight contempt for the language, which seemed to stem from the way Ukrainians (and Russians) tend to look down on rural people. Therefore, trying to speak with them in Ukrainian as opposed to Russian would in many cases, especially people over a certain age and/or from the big cities and towns, be like addressing them in a second language. They might now prefer it out of principle, but it could, in many cases, slow things down.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

tim
The 2023 Russian Coup.
51 52 53 54 55
Replies
2K
Views
69K
_Russ_
_Russ_
Dogsauce
The Russian defenestration thread
2
Replies
51
Views
5K
maomao
maomao
platinumsage
Ukraine invasion memes and viral content
70 71 72 73 74
Replies
2K
Views
122K
The39thStep
The39thStep
kebabking
Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24
1133 1134 1135 1136 1137
Replies
34K
Views
2M
chilango
chilango
Pickman's model
Ukraine after the war
2 3
Replies
62
Views
6K
phildwyer
phildwyer
Back
Top Bottom