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Russophobia, a WMD (Weapon of Mass Deception)

6/10/2019

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We’ve become trapped in a contrived “reality” promulgated by neo-conservative warriors under cover of neo-liberal “democracy-spreading-humanitarian-interventionists” to justify an American Empire promoting itself as the indispensable “Liberal World Order”.
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https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/04/13/russophobia-wmd-weapon-mass-deception/
​Resume: Russophobia, as psycho-social-political pathology, is diagnosed as a disorder in The West since before the 1000-year-old Roman-Orthodox religious schism and most recently manifested with a vengeance in the course of the 2013-14 with Edward Snowden’s revelations of mass surveillance by the US and its covert activities leading to the Ukraine coup with Russophobia used thereafter as a weapon of mass deception to inflame this latent pathology in the public.

After more than a year since we first heard the BBC “breaking news” about the “Russians Poisoning the Skipals”, all we have are allegations, but there is still no real evidence to present before a judge and jury for a just trial, only media propaganda which has provoked even more fear and hysteria meant to distract people from the government’s bungling and high level of anxiety over Brexit by once again blaming Russia. Never-the-less, it prompted politicians to administer instant sanctions against Russia as punishment. That first day, the “evidence”, presented in the usual clipped, “authoritative” British accents, included interviews with a conservative British MP, then the former US Ambassador to Russia, Alexander Vershbow (2001-05), now with the notoriously hawkish US-based think tank, the Atlantic Council. Thus, the three of them: the BBC “journalist” and the two “experts”, colluded to transform false allegations into “facts”… fueled, as always, by their perpetual prejudice, RUSSOPHOBIA, in the course of their propaganda war to force Russia to surrender to American-led Western Domination or else: have their economy destroyed & their people suffer. Indeed, it is a threat to the whole world played to the discord of rattling nuclear swords with a chorus of vindictive Russian oligarchs, whom Putin expelled for robbing the Russian people. So, now living in London as expats, they would seem to be the more likely culprits. All the while elsewhere in London, thanks to our “special US-UK relationship”, Julian Assange has been excommunicated and imprisoned in a tiny “cell” at the Ecuador embassy for revealing embarrassing American secrets via Wikileaks.

There we have it: the poisoning of our minds by the media and politicians which are owned and controlled by the US-UK-EU 1%, who benefit from Western Hegemony. So, these deluded few are now desperately defending it from the rising powers led by Russia and China with India not far behind demanding a multi-polar, democratic world order.

My search for the roots of this particularly vicious and extremely dangerous hate campaign began in a Dartmouth College Russian Foreign Policy course, which led me to the book, “Russophobia: Anti-Russian Lobby and American Foreign Policy” by San Francisco State University Professor Andrei P. Tsygankov (2009). And there, the detoxification of my mind began as I studied his deft, well-documented deconstruction of the political propaganda disseminated “by various think tanks, congressional testimonials, activities of NGOs and the media” (preface p. XIII)

Then in Italy the following winter, I discovered the work of the Swiss journalist, Guy Mettan, in the Italian geopolitical journal, LiMes: an excerpt from his book, “Creating Russophobia: From the Great Religious Schism to Anti-Putin Hysteria” (2017). There, Mettan informs us that this psycho-social pathology in Western Civilization” goes back more than 1000 years: to the division of Christendom between the Orthodox and Roman churches. Indeed, his research into the depths of history confirms the diagnosis by our renowned American psychiatrist, Robert Jay Lifton, in his 2003 book, “Superpower Syndrome: America’s Apocalyptic Confrontation with the World”. Therein, Lifton states: “More than merely dominate, the American superpower now seeks to control history. Such cosmic ambition is accompanied by an equally vast sense of entitlement, of special dispensation to pursue its aims.” (p.3) And Mettan’s analysis of Russophobia also underscores the work of University of Chicago Professor John J. Mearsheimer, our leading international relations “realist” in his three Henry L. Stimson lectures at Yale University November 2017: “The Roots of Liberal Hegemony”, “The False Promises of Liberal Hegemony” and “The Case for Restraint”: https://macmillan.yale.edu/news/john-j-mearsheimer-liberal-ideals-and-interntional-realities with his book, “The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams, International Realities” published in 2018.

​But what about “Russian Aggression” in Ukraine & Crimea?

In the first place, it was the astute Mearsheimer, who, in the Sept-Oct 2014 Foreign Affairs, informed us “Why the Ukraine Crisis is the West’s Fault: The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin” (pp 77-89), but the American foreign policy establishment, together with ambitious politicians and the me-too media, paid no heed and continues to repeat its fabricated “facts”.
Never-the-less, Mearsheimer is backed up by Richard Sakwa, Professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent. In Sakwa’s book, “Russia Against the Rest: The Post-Cold War Crisis of World Order”, 2017, we turn to the section on “Reality Wars and American Power” on p. 217 to read: “It does indeed seem that Russia and Western elites live in totally different worlds, divided by different epistemological understandings of the nature of contemporary reality. The Ukraine crisis crystallized the profound differences between Russian and Atlanticist understandings of the breakdown and its causes.” And he continues on p. 218: “Elite and policy-maker perceptions and attitudes forged in the Cold War years sustain these legacies and frame the discussions of such crucial issues as NATO enlargement, democracy promotion in the post-Soviet area, and strategic arms talks.” Adding that these “are no longer so much legacies as self-regenerating narratives and modes of discourse that preclude a more open-ended understanding of the dynamics and concerns of Russia today.”

Karl Rove: “We’re an empire now; we create our own reality.”
​

[In 2004, journalist Ron Suskind wrote in The New York Times magazine that a top White House strategist for President George W. Bush—identified later as Karl Rove, Bush’s Deputy White House Chief of Staff—told him, “We’re an empire now, we create our own reality.”]
Thus, we’ve become trapped in a contrived “reality” promulgated by neo-conservative warriors under cover of neo-liberal “democracy-spreading-humanitarian-interventionists” to justify an American Empire promoting itself as the indispensable “Liberal World Order”. However, under that global order, as Sakwa points out on p. 219: “If a foreign power is considered to have violated ‘international order’, then it can be overthrown” as a rationale for American “regime change” anywhere around the world: whether to control the supply of copper in Chile or oil in Iran. And, with its eye on Russia’s vast oil, gas and other natural resources, America claims the right to threaten Russia by ringing it with weapons which we would not abide were the Russians to place missiles in Mexico…as the Soviets did in Cuba to defend it after our “Bay of Pigs” invasion that brought humanity to the brink of nuclear war. Thus, Russia was defending itself in Ukraine against further NATO expansion while Crimean citizens, by majority vote in a democratic referendum, chose to rejoin Russia as they had been one country ever since Catherine the Great…except for an interval in the ’50s when Crimea was” gifted” to Ukraine while they were all members of the Soviet Union.

“Ditching Solzhenitsyn, Defender of Russia”

And not to forget that in 1974, after being expelled from the Soviet Union, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn and his family fled first to Zurich then to Vermont in 1976 and lived on a farm near Cavendish, where he continued to write and publish his work. Meanwhile, Mettan, as a journalist covering events related to Russia, became quite distressed over “the widespread prejudices, cartloads of clichés and systematic anti-Russian biases of most western media.” And he went on to say that “the more I traveled, discussed and read, the wider I perceived, the more the gap of incomprehension and ignorance between Western Europe and Russia became evident.

“That was why, during the 1990s, I was shocked by the way the West treated Solzhenitsyn. For decades, we had published, celebrated, and acclaimed the great writer as bearing the torch of anti-Soviet dissidence. We had praised Solzhenitsyn to the skies as long as he criticized his native country, communist Russia. But as soon as he emigrated, realizing that he preferred to isolate himself in his Vermont retreat to work rather than attending anticommunist conferences, western media and academics began to distance themselves from the great writer.

“The idol no longer matched the image they had built and was becoming a hindrance to their academic and journalistic career plans. And once Solzhenitsyn had left the United States to go back to Russia and defend his humiliated, demoralized motherland that was being sold at auction, raising his voice against the Russian ‘Westernizers’ and pluralist liberals who denied the interests of Russia to better revel in the troughs of capitalism, he became a marked man, an outdated, senile writer, even though he himself had not changed in the least, denouncing with the same vigor the defects of market totalitarianism as those of communist totalitarianism.
“He was booed, despised, his name was dragged through the mud for his choices, often by the very people who had praised his first fights. Despite that, against all odds, against the most powerful powers that were trying to dissuade him, Solzhenitsyn defended his one and only cause, that of Russia. He was not forgiven for having turned his pen against that West that had welcomed him and felt it was owed eternal gratitude. A dissident today, a dissident wherever truth compelled, such was his motto. This deserves to be remembered.” Mettan, pp. 15-16 in “Creating Russophobia”.

Russophobia: akin to Racism

From another perspective: Mettan’s chapter on “German Russophobia” set me thinking that this “Western Supremacy” political-cultural pathology known as Russophobia is like the racism which I knew growing up in totally segregated Oklahoma. Until in high school, I became so perplexed and appalled by the curtain of hate and “justifications” in which we were smothered: the Negro schools on the other side of town? and why were there separate waiting rooms, drinking fountains & restrooms in bus and train stations?…that I began poking holes in the curtain to see what was outside…and found a book in the library: “South of Freedom” by Carl Rowan, an African-American Minneapolis Star Tribune journalist, describing his journey from South to North. So, thanks to what I learned from Rowan, I began to tear the whole damned curtain down…at least in my mind.

Whom the Gods would destroy, they first drive mad?

So, here’s a Swiss journalist punching a hole in this wall of Russophobic Western Supremacy… and through that gaping hole, we are reminded that the Russians are Europe’s neighbors who sacrificed more than 26 million of their own lives to save Europe, America and Russia from the Nazis. These are not poor “niggers” from the Eurasian ghetto we’ve been trying to club into submission as second-class citizens of “The Liberal World Order” dominated by US; they’re nuclear-armed and no longer willing to sit at a separate, inferior table with no vote and no voice over who makes the rules…nor are China, India and Brazil. And last year, while the wave of Russophobic hysteria over alleged “Russian poisoning” was rolling out of the UK and engulfing the Western world in the latest siege of mass madness…with only Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the British Labor party, having the courage to stand up in Parliament on the Ides of March and demand Evidence! only to be pilloried by the mindless politicians and media…led by the once esteemed BBC. And the week following the August 7, 2018 Trump-Putin Helsinki summit, will surely go down in psychiatric circles as another case of mass media-political delusions led by cheer-leader-in-chief, Rachel Maddow of MSNBC.

Meanwhile, not to forget that it was Hearst newspaper propaganda that whipped the American public into a war frenzy to support our first step in empire-building: our 1898 intervention in Cuba’s war for independence from the Spanish Empire which had dominated all of Latin America for 500 years. As the former NYTimes journalist/bureau chief in Istanbul, Berlin & Central America, Stephen Kinzer reminds us in his latest book “The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire”, Twain, Booker T. Washington and even Andrew Carnegie leading a handful of other anti-imperialists…were not able to prevail against Roosevelt with his Rough Riders and the Hearst newspapers’ war propaganda.

Regime Change Comes Home

Never-the-less, after a very long run of American “regime change” abroad leaving a bloody trail of destruction, dictatorships and chaos from Iran in 1953, when we joined with the British to overthrow the democratically-elected President Mohammad Mossadegh to maintain the Brit-US control of its oil…on through Guatemala, Vietnam and Chile…to name a few of our interventions…we were back for a second round with “coalitions of the willing” or not? in the Middle East where our regime-change machine managed to plow its way through Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya…before breaking down in Syria. Until now it’s been brought home again, renovated and renamed “RussiaGate” for another attempt at removing a President for trying to mend US relations with Russia. Though even after more than a year of Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s investigations accompanied by such cinematic support as the movie, “Felt”, another “Watergate” re-run. Did anyone else notice the resemblance between “Felt” and Mueller? And despite the media’s commemoration of its 44-year-old “moment of courage” with the movie “The Post” to promote Trump’s ouster, our democratically-elected President, as of this writing, remains in power. However, in this rush to “regime change”, didn’t the our “ruling elite” read Jane Mayer’s “The Danger of President Pence” in the 10/23/17 New Yorker? At least the 70s’ “ruling class” was smart enough to remove an unqualified Vice President Spiro (who?) Agnew…before “regime changing” Nixon and replacing him with the more or less benign Gerald Ford.

A Florentine Epiphany

But back to last January in Florence, Italy, when I was hiking in the hills beyond the Piazzale Michelangelo, with its spectacular view of that Renaissance city and its centerpiece, the Duomo, I came across the Villa Galileo, which had been his last home after his trial as a “heretic”, during which to save himself from torture and execution, he was forced to deny his helio-centric vision and henceforth lived under “villa arrest”, from 1631 until his natural death in 1642. While pondering his fate, I continued walking along the gently rising, ever-narrowing road between ancient stone walls overlooking villas and olive groves until I reached the peak, where I felt as if I were standing on top of the world as I contemplated both the Arno and Ema river valleys far below and where I swear I heard Galileo declare: “The world does not turn on an American axis!”

The 21st Century Inquisition

So how is it that we now have contemporary Inquisitors persecuting so many truth tellers…such as Edward Snowden, our electronic age “Solzhenitsyn?” in Russian exile; Chelsea Manning, imprisoned some 7 years for revealing US brutality in Iraq; Julian Assange confined to his Ecuadorian Embassy exile in London since August 2012; Katharine Gun, a whistleblower attempting to stop the Iraq invasion, who faced 2 years of British imprisonment before her case was dropped; James Risen, former New York Times journalist who was persecuted by our “justice” system for revealing our government’s surveillance of US! 

Any Good Sense Left?

So, do we the people have enough good sense & independent thinking left to follow the advice of Henry David Thoreau?

“Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe, through Paris and London, through New York and Boston and Concord, through church and state, through poetry and philosophy and religion, till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality.” - “Walden” 1854

If not, the Doctor prescribes Shock Therapy:

For a week, a month, or however long it takes to cleanse and open the mind, one must adhere to strict abstinence from Mainstream Media propaganda, junk news, pseudo analysis, fake photos, TV & videos including absolutely NO phony “for, by & of the people” NPR, PBS, BBC or other Government-funded Neo or LibCon Imperial tranquilizer.

© Jean Ranc | 2019

Originally published: 
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/04/13/russophobia-wmd-weapon-mass-deception/

​All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News

www.RAGA.org​
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Putin Q&A 2018 (English version) - RT Moscow

6/20/2018

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Vladimir Putin's Holds Direct Line Q&A Session

​"Yes, every country has its own interests, but they should not be advanced via egotistical political methods," Putin said, adding that many of Russia’s partners are beginning to realize this.

"We need to sit at the negotiating table and not just contemplate but actually develop contemporary, up-to-date mechanisms of international and European security," he said.


Read more: https://sputniknews.com/russia/201806071065184890-putin-direct-line-hightlights

​All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News

www.RAGA.org​
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White Helmets are Terrorists!

4/17/2018

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EXCLUSIVE: The REAL Syria Civil Defence Exposes Fake 'White Helmets' as Terrorist-Linked Imposters - 21st Century Wire

This is one of the most important articles you can read at this time. The entire Western world has been told that there was a chemical attack in Douma, Syria, and the story came from a group of "rescuers"  called the White Helmets, which were founded by a shadowy ex UK intel officer and are funded by the UK, UN, USAID and others. The West is threatening to go to war over this unsubstantiated report. We have never been closer to nuclear annihilation.

The NYT wrote in breaking the "chemical attack" story that it got the report from the White Helmets "and others," meaning it was ONLY from the White Helmets because it did not name the "others."

I read this site and had sent out a link to it to all or most of you but then the site went down. It comes and goes, so I decided to copy it in case it goes down again.

The Western world is conjuring up a war based SOLELY on the "chemical attack" story by the White Helmets, which is a total fake. In fact, Vanessa Beeley, the author of this remarkable piece of investigative journalism, is in Douma right now and has tweeted that there is NO trace of any such attack anywhere in town! The Russian investigators has said the same thing. Of course, no Western msm are there because they claim it is too dangerous. Yet the whole area has been purged of militants and is safe enough for anyone. If I had an extra $5000 I would not hesitate to go now and send back a report.

We are being deceived big time! And Trump has said that, on the basis of this report, he will attack Syria. He has sent almost the entire US Navy to the Mediterranean for that purpose. We were fooled once by Bush in exactly this way, and to the credit of Western citizens, they are not swallowing this story whole the way they swallowed the wmd story that destroyed Iraq and started the rapid descent into bankruptcy of the US, from which there is no way out.

If you still have any suspicion that Assad "gassed his own people," read the whole article pasted below (or try the link, which may work) and you will be disabused. The whole Assad story in the West is a hoax and this is just the latest installment.

- Don Hank

EXCLUSIVE: The REAL Syria Civil Defence Exposes Fake 'White Helmets' as Terrorist-Linked Imposters - 21st Century Wire


​​All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News

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What Russians think about Strikes in Syria - by Stephen Beet

4/17/2018

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Dear Friends,

In all my time in Russia - these past fifteen years - I have never known the peoples of this country so united in condemnation of the West.   The present situation in Salisbury, coupled with the fake gas attack in Syria, have outraged even the most vocal critics of the government and completely united them behind Vladimir Vladimirovich.

I come into contact with many people here in Novosibirsk, and even the Georgian diaspora (which was usually equally divided) are laughing at the idiocy of Trump, May and Johnson.

There is a very strong feeling here that Russia should take very decisive action if further provoked.  At present the feeling is for a just and respectable reaction to any strikes in Syria.

More soon...

Your man on the ground in Novosibirsk.

- Stephen Beet


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All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News

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UNITED STATES & RUSSIA MUST BE FRIENDS & ALLIES!

4/11/2018

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"If the United States and the Russian Federation were to join forces and become strong military allies, as well as close economic partners, the people of our two great nations would be so rich, strong and safe - your head will spin!" - Dmitry Tamoikin | CEO of ESDC

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All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News

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ARTHUR NOBLE and ALEXANDER YAKOVENKO on THERESA MAY's "Highly Likely"

3/28/2018

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Dear RAGA,

I have also written a letter (see text below) to the Russian Ambassador in London. I have deleted any personal names and addresses for security reasons.

I think we should give Trump and May a piece of their own medicine and start a rumour that it is "highly likely", without any evidence, that they are responsible for the tragedy in Kamerova, and then we should peddle this as "truth" and get 'allies' to retaliate against them! I wonder how they would react to that! This is exactly the way they are treating Russia, and much of the naive and ignorant world at large is believing their lies.

The anti-Russian BBC expressed regret today that Vladimir Putin had been re-elected because he had called for a "high turnout" of voters. Instead of acknowledging the high turnout as democratic, the lying BBC blamed it for his electoral success, obviously hoping that the turnout would have been lower and given the President a smaller victory. Such is the evil BBC's concept of "democracy"!

Sincerely,
Arthur Noble

His Excellency YAKOVENKO Alexander Vladimirovich
Russian Ambassador to the United Kingdom
6/7, Kensington Palace Gardens
LONDON
W8 4QP
​

Your Excellency
I am writing to apologize for the disgraceful, undiplomatic and totally unacceptable behaviour of our Prime Minister Mrs Theresa May and her Government who have blamed your country wrongly and in advance for the poisoning of Sergei Skripal without any evidence whatsoever.

I am a great admirer of Russia and in particular of President Putin. I have written numerous articles praising and defending your country in [publication named] and have visited Russia both during the USSR and during the Russian Federation. I also intend to visit Moscow again in the near future and I trust that this matter will not in any way make my obtaining of a visa or affect my welcome.

A good friend of mine and of Russia, [name withheld], who like me is a British citizen, lives and works in Novosibirsk for six months of the year, and he has kept me up to date on the subject of the Skripal incident. He loves Russia and is also a great admirer of President Putin. The UK Government’s behaviour is scandalous and intolerable and causes me, as a British citizen, the greatest embarrassment and anger.
​

Please note what I have written in condemnation of Mrs May and her Government in the attached article which is due to be published in [publication named] and which I will also send to several other news outlets. I beg to remain, Alexander Vladimirovich,

Yours respectfully
Arthur NOBLE

​All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News

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Vladimir Putin’s annual address to Federal Assembly | FULL VIDEO | ENGLISH VERSION | 2018

3/2/2018

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"Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the country's parliament, speaking about Russia's success in the defense sector, relations with the US and NATO, social and economic development of the country, as well as Moscow's plans concerning the technological advance in big data, AI and cryptocurrency."

https://sputniknews.com/russia/201803011062103713-putin-address-federal-assembly/​

​All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News

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How learning Russian changed my life: 5 stories told by foreigners

2/12/2018

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From reading Tolstoy in the original to finding a job, romantic love and new friends: Here are the stories of foreigners who thought they were merely learning grammar rules, but instead discovered an entire new world.

Article originally published on Russia Insider
by Alexandra Guzeva

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William Brumfield 
U.S.Professor of Slavic Studies, historian of Russian architecture, expert photographer
“I began formal study of Russian at Johns Hopkins University, which in the early 1960s had a miniscule program staffed by one untenured lecturer. The very small Russian classes allowed me to enter the language of the great literature that I had begun to read in high school. Eugene Onegin was my primary textbook.

No special methodology in those days! If not for my instructor in Russian, I’d not have entered the world of Russian Studies. Perhaps my life would have taken a more ‘normal’ course, but Russian architecture would have lost one of its most active proponents.

There was another teacher who inspired my study of Russia and its architecture. Nina Volodina, a specialist in teaching Russian to foreigners, was passionately interested in the history of Moscow and arranged tours of historic districts during our free time. This was during my first trip to Russia in the summer of 1970.

Often I was the only one, but still she conducted the tour and gave me lists of historic buildings. Although most were closed churches, we were still able to appreciate the beauty of the architecture. At that time I bought my first camera and began taking pictures. When I came home and developed the photos, I was amazed with the result.

I had no idea that this interest would lead to dozens of books and an enormous photographic collection, yet the main thing was the spark of interest.”
​
Discover remote Russian northern churches and Russian architecture with William Brumfield and Russia Beyond special project>>>

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Ajay Kamalakaran
Writer, India
“I started learning Russian at the Russian Cultural Center in Mumbai, India. My first Russian friend, who I met in Mumbai, invited me to her grandparents’ home in Voronezh. This was a great opportunity to get a firsthand glimpse into Russian family life and see if my language skills were up to the mark. I had enrolled at the Sakhalin State University a few months earlier.

“I was totally overwhelmed by the warmth and wholesomeness of my Russian grandparents. As soon as we entered the apartment, dedushka hugged and kissed me the same way he did his own granddaughters. He then asked me about my hometown before putting a pin on Mumbai on his world map. This was an honor he reserved only for his family members.

“Learning Russian basically opened up a completely new world to me. Some of my closest friends don’t speak English or any other foreign languages. Russian was a great gateway for me into the society of the country, and helped me see and experience a lot more than a non-Russian speaker could ever dream of. This extended beyond Russia and into former Soviet republics. It’s easy for me to walk around cities like Odessa in Ukraine and completely be at peace since I can speak Russian.

Another great advantage of learning Russian was the ability to read the works of Chekhov, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy in the original. And then there’s the opportunity to check out the latest books published in Russia even if they aren’t translated.”

Ajay is the author of Globetrotting for Love and Other Stories from Sakhalin Island. Read our review on it.

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John Varoli
Journalist, U.S.
“I fell in love with Russia and the Russian language when I took a course, ‘Introduction to Russia,’ at my high school, the International School of Brussels. It was 1985, still a tense time in the Cold War, so only the most stalwart, independent thinkers signed up for this course; (by signing up for the course you could easily be suspected as treasonously sympathetic to Russia!)

However, the Russian we learned in textbooks had nothing in common with real-life Russian. When I finally moved to Russia in June 1992, I made it my goal to learn the real Russian, and this I did by renting rooms (16 different places in Moscow in 3 years!) with friends and families who didn't speak English, even twice living in a kommunalka.

Also, as is well-known, you can only truly understand a nation by knowing their language; so much is lost in translation. But for Russians I find this even more relevant than say for Czechs, French or Italians; (languages that I've also studied and speak). In addition, consider the fact that relatively few Russians speak English; you really need to know Russian if you want to understand the country. Armed with knowledge of the language I learned much about the Russian mentality and worldview, which is quite different from ours.

For example, take the notions of freedom and taboos. Intellectually, Russians are very free,and are willing and able to discuss any topic. In America, however, we have many taboos (they differ from region to region), and we tend to ridicule and shame people who think differently. I rarely saw that in my 20 years in Russia. Yes, Russians can certainly disagree with you, but they will hear you out, and respect your opinion.

For me, this Russian intellectual integrity, this desire to search for truth and to try to understand life, had a huge impact on me as a journalist and writer. You rarely find this in America, where our powerful and omnipresent mass media tends to dictate what topics can be discussed and how they should be discussed.

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​Kaname Okano
PhD student, Japan
​“I started learning Russian when I was 18 and enrolled in university, where I studied at Russian language and literature department. I chose Russian as my specialization because I was keen on the language, Cyrillic alphabet, literature and culture of our ‘mysterious’ northern neighbors.

Russian language opened a whole new world for me – the world of the Slavic languages. The more I discovered the Russians, the more I was interested in their nation. When I finished my Masters in Japan, this interest lead me to enroll in a PhD program in the Serbian city of Novi Sad, where I now study Serbian, Bulgarian, Ruthenian and other Slavic languages.

Without the Russian language I wouldn’t realize what I really like and what I want to do in the future. In a couple of months I will start teaching Russian in the Japanese university where I used to study, and I really hope that my students will love Russian and other Slavic languages as much I do and even more.”

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Lara McCoy
Journalist, U.S.
​“It all started when my mom named me after the main heroine in Boris Pasternak’s novel, Doctor Zhivago.

My relationship with the Russian language has always been a little tortured. I fell in love with Russia through the study of Russian history, and I struggled to learn the language.

On my first two trips to Russia, I couldn't say anything at all. I'm not naturally gifted with languages, and I found it very hard. When I first moved to Moscow, even though I had studied Russian for two years at that point, I had no idea how to communicate. During my first three months in Moscow, I just listened to how people spoke, how they gave directions and ordered at the store.

Even now, after more than nine years in Russia, my language skills are limited. I can understand things pretty well, but I don't have any nuance in my speech and make many grammatical mistakes.

My proudest moment communicating in Russian was getting the manager of Sedmoi Continent [food store] to refund my money after the cashier overcharged me for a muffin. That's my level of Russian now - good enough to argue with a store clerk.

My kids, who grew up in Russia, are completely bilingual and find my speaking really embarrassing. I remember one day trying to ask a question to the principal at my daughter's school, and her saying "Katya, find out what your mother wants and tell me later. I don't have time to figure out what she's saying!” So for now learning Russian is a challenge to understand my own kids better, and to be involved in their lives and connect with friends more.

Do you want to change your life too? Here are 8 steps to learn Russian like a pro.

All statements in this report are opinions of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

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Mike Maloney Shows Why Russia Fears War With USA

1/16/2018

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All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News

www.RAGA.org​
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Memorial Day RAGA newsletter Antidote 34: President Putin speaks at Resurrection Church to condemn Soviet persecution, Russian Navy man in a Union cemetery, Pat Buchanan defends President Trump Fwd: [unac] UNAC Conference, NATO, Ukraine and more

5/29/2017

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Dear friends of the Russia & America Good Will Association (www.raga.org) and antiwar colleagues!

​
For Memorial Day on May 29, 2017, I got a shorter than usual newsletter. Our Russian friends must know that Memorial Day is a federal holiday in the USA for remembering those who died while serving in the US armed forces. Observed on the last Monday of May, Memorial Day is to remember those who died while serving, while Veterans Day honors all U.S. military veterans.

As a member of Veterans for Peace (VFP), I think that the best way to honor those fallen in the service to their country is to conduct such foreign policy that minimizes and, hopefully, reduced to nil, human sacrifices on both sides. We should strive to achieve our national security by not threatening, humiliating and bombing our opponents but by pacifying them with our readiness for a negotiated compromise. It is my duty to forward the BELOW announcements of various peace promoting events.

In my book, Russia Beyond Communism: A Chronicle of National Rebirth (https://www.amazon.com/Russia-Beyond-Communism-Chronicle-Contemporary/dp/0813383617), written and published BEFORE the collapse of the USSR, I predicted that the best future was to abandon Communist ideology and return instead to the traditional roots of Russian culture, including Russian Orthodox Christianity. In fact, my book was dedicated to the 1000th anniversary of Russia's baptism in the year of 988. Since the August 1991 coup, Russia has been indeed returning, gradually and tentatively, to its traditional Christian roots. If before 1991 Soviet soldiers were forbidden to wear crucifix or any other religious symbol, now Russian generals, politicians, and Vladimir Putin like to stress that Russia's basic ethical value system is close to that the US and European Union.

On May 25, President Putin gave a Speech at a ceremony consecrating the Church of the Resurrection of Christ and the New Martyrs.  Symbolically the Church is near the Lubyanka Square with its Lubyanka Building notorious for Soviet secret police persecution of all believers as well as dissidents.  That's what he said:

This ceremony consecrating the new church at the Sretensky Monastery is an important and significant event not only for Orthodox believers, but for our society as a whole. This is because this church is dedicated to the Resurrection of Christ, and to the new martyrs, in other words, to the memory of those who suffered during the years of anti-religious persecution and who died during this time of repression. At the same time, it embodies the spirit of reconciliation.

It is deeply symbolic that this new church is opening on the year, which marks the 100th anniversary of the February and October revolutions (of 1917) that were the departure point for many of the serious trials our country had gone through during the twentieth century.


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