Thing is, we fly (or at least used to fly) the Boeing 707 "Looking Glass" aircraft. They have several call signs but they are the same kind of planes.... Command and Control and the President or a representative (read: replacement) was on it at all times. They could land and pick up the Boss anywhere.
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Well, Putin has symbolically made his choice clear, with the first May Day parade in Red Square since Soviet Union times;
Russia stages first Red Square May Day parade since Soviet days
By Nigel Stephenson 6 hours ago
.View gallery
.
By Nigel Stephenson
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia staged a huge May Day parade on Moscow's Red Square for the first time since the Soviet era on Thursday, with workers holding banners proclaiming support for President Vladimir Putin after the seizure of territory from neighboring Ukraine. Thousands of trade unionists marched with Russian flags and flags of Putin's ruling United Russia party onto the giant square beneath the Kremlin walls, past the red granite mausoleum of Soviet state founder Vladimir Lenin. Many banners displayed traditional slogans for the annual workers' holiday, like: "Peace, Labour, May". But others were more directly political, alluding to the crisis in neighboring former Soviet republic Ukraine, where Russian troops seized and annexed the Crimea peninsula in March, precipitating the biggest confrontation with the West since the Cold War.
"I am proud of my country," read one. "Putin is right," said another.
Unlike Kremlin leaders in Soviet times, Putin did not personally preside at the parade from atop the mausoleum. But he carried out another Soviet-era tradition by awarding "Hero of Labour" medals to five workers at a ceremony in the Kremlin. He revived the Stalin-era award a year ago.
Putin has described the breakup of the Soviet Union as a tragedy and overturned decades of post-Cold War diplomacy in March by declaring Russia's right to intervene in former Soviet countries to protect Russian speakers.
Laws have been changed to make it easier for Russia to annex territory from other former Soviet states and for inhabitants of other parts of the old Soviet Union to get Russian citizenship.
Since the annexation of Crimea, pro-Moscow gunmen have seized territory in eastern Ukraine and Putin has massed tens of thousands of troops on the frontier. He denies he is planning an invasion but proclaims the right to launch one if necessary to defend Russian speakers. May Day, always an important date in the Soviet calendar and still a major holiday for Russians, has been marked by rallies in other parts of Moscow since the Soviet Union collapsed at the end of 1991, but until now parades were kept off Red Square. View gallery People walk through Red Square with flags and banners during a rally in Moscow May 1, 2014. REUTERS/ …
PATRIOTIC UPLIFT
Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin told Rossiya 24 TV from Red Square that more than 100,000 people had marched through it.
"This is not by chance, because there is a patriotic uplift and a good mood in the country," he said.
Russian television also showed footage of a May Day parade in Crimea's capital Simferopol, with Russian flags and banners reading "Crimea is Russia. Welcome home."
"We are sure that the current patriotic uplift in Crimea will spill over into the whole Russian Federation," Interfax news agency quoted Crimea's pro-Moscow leader Sergei Aksyonov as telling journalists.
Russia seized the peninsula last month after a pro-Russian Ukrainian president was toppled in February. The United States and European Union accuse Moscow of directing the uprising in south-eastern parts of Ukraine and have imposed sanctions on Russian individuals and companies.
The sanctions, while not hitting Russia's industry directly, have hurt the economy by scaring investors into pulling out capital. The International Monetary Fund cut its outlook for Russian 2014 economic growth this to just 0.2 percent on Wednesday and said Russia was already "experiencing recession".
But at home, the intervention in Ukraine has been enormously popular. One opinion poll on Wednesday showed 82 percent support for Putin, his highest rating since 2010.
"Western sanctions won't affect us. Crimea was historically part of Russia, and it's only right that we've become whole again," said Tatyana Ivanova, a worker at Moscow Housebuilding Factory No. 1 celebrating May Day with four colleagues.
But not all Muscovites were so impressed.
"Today isn't a particularly special holiday, it's just a nice spring day, and people are happy to have an opportunity to celebrate," said historian Kirill Strakhov, 31, speaking on another square near Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre.
"The authorities are trying to drum up support by encouraging patriotic feelings. They ignore the fact that there are many difficult economic and geopolitical problems associated with the unification of Crimea."
Putin has also revived the Soviet-era practice of staging massive displays of military firepower on Red Square to mark May 9, the allied victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two, one of the most important days in the Soviet and Russian calendars.
Central Moscow streets have been partially closed in recent days as tanks and mobile rocket launchers rehearse for that parade next week.
(Additional reporting by Alexei Anishchuk, Alexander Winning and Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Peter Graff) Related video:
Last edited by Avvakum; May 1st, 2014 at 18:56.
"God's an old hand at miracles, he brings us from nonexistence to life. And surely he will resurrect all human flesh on the last day in the twinkling of an eye. But who can comprehend this? For God is this: he creates the new and renews the old. Glory be to him in all things!" Archpriest Avvakum
Lol, i'm just glad somebody was thinking the same thing, that i'm not paranoid and losing my mind.
I knew that you'd be interested in this for sure, and I wanted to be sure you all saw it.
You were right. I didn't want it to be so, but the facts are the facts. Real Russians don't reinstitute Soviet-Era Bolshevik Bullshit.
Last edited by Avvakum; May 1st, 2014 at 19:11.
"God's an old hand at miracles, he brings us from nonexistence to life. And surely he will resurrect all human flesh on the last day in the twinkling of an eye. But who can comprehend this? For God is this: he creates the new and renews the old. Glory be to him in all things!" Archpriest Avvakum
I dunno about "real Russians". I guess you're referring to the normal "citizens" who like us in America, just wanna be left the hell alone.
Yes, the ordinary normal people who want to live as part of a organic whole with authentic Russian values and morality, culture and spirituality, in union with their ancestors prior to the rupture of 1917, if not earlier....
As JR Nyquist related when asking a defector about any Generals or others who might overturn the System, he replied to mr. Nyquist that they were all; "crazy persons, not normal".
"God's an old hand at miracles, he brings us from nonexistence to life. And surely he will resurrect all human flesh on the last day in the twinkling of an eye. But who can comprehend this? For God is this: he creates the new and renews the old. Glory be to him in all things!" Archpriest Avvakum
Is the Kremlin rallying Russians for a new 'USSR-lite'?
At Victory Day military parades in Moscow and newly annexed Crimea, Putin gave further hints of a new Russian doctrine that combines Soviet nostalgia with ethnic Russian themes
By Fred Weir 7 hours ago
Reuters Videos
Putin brings patriotism to Crimea for Victory Day
Victory Day, Russia's annual homage to the 27 million Soviet citizens who died in the colossal struggle to defeat Nazi Germany, has always been more than a day of remembrance.
Both Soviet and Russian leaders have sought to enhance their own legitimacy by bathing in the reflected light of that triumph, and blatantly used the annual parade of tanks, troops, and intercontinental missiles to advertise continuing military prowess.
But there were some fresh notes this year that suggest the Kremlin may be recasting Soviet nostalgia and a sense of Russian superiority into a new doctrine: one that would gather ethnic Russians and other former Soviet "compatriots" into a new Moscow-dominated empire that will once again challenge the West.
This idea, combined a renewed taste for military expansionism that was test-driven in Crimea, may spell more trouble in future. RECOMMENDED: Sochi, Soviets, and tsars: How much do you know about Russia?
"This new Russian nationalism is being blended mostly out of Soviet revivalism, and the feelings of nostalgia for the times when the USSR was an empire that ruled big parts of the world," says Nikolai Svanidze, a famous Russian TV personality in the same vein as Bill Moyers. "The taking of Crimea is perceived, and presented, as a step toward the restoration of the USSR. Even if it's a kind of USSR-lite, it's being used to stir public moods, and it's dangerous."
RECALLING PAST GLORY View gallery A police station is ablaze in Mariupol, eastern Ukraine, Friday May 9, 2014. Fighting between govern …
President Vladimir Putin made no direct reference to Ukraine or Russia's annexation of Crimea in his brief Red Square address today, nor was there any sign of the former USSR's communist ideology. But the subtext was all about the ongoing virtues of patriotism, national determination, and the need to stand up to external threats. Then he sent a more explicit message by flying to Crimea, where he was greeted by rapturous crowds and presided over a massive display of Russian naval and aviation might.
In his speech after signing the treaty to join Crimea with Russia, Mr. Putin spoke evocatively of Russia's humiliation at being treated like a vanquished country after the cold war ended, and of his anger at how the West exploited Russia's weakness to expand NATO eastward into former Soviet territory. The final straw, he said, was US and European encouragement of a street revolt in Kiev that brought a pro-Western government to power that did not represent the interests of millions of Russians and compatriots in Ukraine's east.
"Russia found itself in a position it could not retreat from. If you compress a spring all the way to its limit, it will snap back hard," Putin said.
That kind of talk clearly works with Russia's public. Putin's popularity ratings have soared since the Ukraine crisis began, especially after the annexation of Crimea. A late April survey by the independent Levada Center found a near-record 82 percent of Russians approved of Putin's job performance.
Russian media commentators have consistently claimed that the pro-Western interim government in Kiev is dominated by fascists, making the clear suggestion that Moscow's pushback against the new Ukrainian regime is in some way a continuation of the Soviet Union's war against Nazi Germany. The same thought seemed to lurk between the lines of Putin's Victory Day speech as well.
"Here and there militant nationalism is again raising its head, the same kind that brought on the appearance of Nazi ideology," Putin told a Kremlin meeting earlier this week. View gallery A former Soviet Union army veteran prepares a Soviet army flag as a symbol of victory, in front of t …
TURNING RACIAL?
But experts say it's Putin's emphasis on defending the interests of ethnic Russians living in Ukraine – and potentially other former Soviet lands – that's changing the political conversation in Russia.
In the ex-USSR, the term "Soviet citizen" was employed to obscure ethnic and national differences, in keeping with the "internationalist" stance of Communist authorities. Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin invented the term "Rusyanin," meaning a citizen of Russia, to avoid using the word "Russky" which applies to ethnic Russians.
But, as the crisis in Ukraine grew, official rhetoric has talked more about defending ethnic Russians, now trapped in foreign countries as a result of the Soviet breakup – and threatened with discrimination or worse from non-Russian authorities.
"Official nationalism hasn't changed, but in the mass media it's becoming more about race. When they speak of nationality now, they mean ethnicity," says Alexander Verhkovsky, director of the independent Sova Center in Moscow, which tracks extremist movements.
That could hold future implications for several former Soviet republics, such as Kazakhstan and Moldova as well as Ukraine, where substantial pockets of Russians live.
"What has really changed is the idea of expansionism has appeared in our authorities' discourse. Never before was it said that Russia has a mission to restore some parts of the lost empire. Now we've actually done that, in Crimea," says Mr. Verkhovsky.
But he adds that the changes are tactical, and that he doesn't believe Putin is trying to create a full-fledged neo-Soviet ideology.
Nikolai Petrov, a professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, agrees. "An ideology needs to be oriented toward the future. But what we're seeing is many incoherent elements, mostly celebrations of historical triumphs and appeals for people to work together as they did in the war. But restoring the glorious past is hardly a plan," he says. RECOMMENDED: Sochi, Soviets, and tsars: How much do you know about Russia?
"God's an old hand at miracles, he brings us from nonexistence to life. And surely he will resurrect all human flesh on the last day in the twinkling of an eye. But who can comprehend this? For God is this: he creates the new and renews the old. Glory be to him in all things!" Archpriest Avvakum
Is the Kremlin rallying Russians for a new 'USSR-lite'?
At Victory Day military parades in Moscow and newly annexed Crimea, Putin gave further hints of a new Russian doctrine that combines Soviet nostalgia with ethnic Russian themes
By Fred Weir 7 hours ago
Reuters Videos
Putin brings patriotism to Crimea for Victory Day
Victory Day, Russia's annual homage to the 27 million Soviet citizens who died in the colossal struggle to defeat Nazi Germany, has always been more than a day of remembrance.
Both Soviet and Russian leaders have sought to enhance their own legitimacy by bathing in the reflected light of that triumph, and blatantly used the annual parade of tanks, troops, and intercontinental missiles to advertise continuing military prowess.
But there were some fresh notes this year that suggest the Kremlin may be recasting Soviet nostalgia and a sense of Russian superiority into a new doctrine: one that would gather ethnic Russians and other former Soviet "compatriots" into a new Moscow-dominated empire that will once again challenge the West.
This idea, combined a renewed taste for military expansionism that was test-driven in Crimea, may spell more trouble in future. RECOMMENDED: Sochi, Soviets, and tsars: How much do you know about Russia?
"This new Russian nationalism is being blended mostly out of Soviet revivalism, and the feelings of nostalgia for the times when the USSR was an empire that ruled big parts of the world," says Nikolai Svanidze, a famous Russian TV personality in the same vein as Bill Moyers. "The taking of Crimea is perceived, and presented, as a step toward the restoration of the USSR. Even if it's a kind of USSR-lite, it's being used to stir public moods, and it's dangerous."
RECALLING PAST GLORY View gallery A police station is ablaze in Mariupol, eastern Ukraine, Friday May 9, 2014. Fighting between govern …
President Vladimir Putin made no direct reference to Ukraine or Russia's annexation of Crimea in his brief Red Square address today, nor was there any sign of the former USSR's communist ideology. But the subtext was all about the ongoing virtues of patriotism, national determination, and the need to stand up to external threats. Then he sent a more explicit message by flying to Crimea, where he was greeted by rapturous crowds and presided over a massive display of Russian naval and aviation might.
In his speech after signing the treaty to join Crimea with Russia, Mr. Putin spoke evocatively of Russia's humiliation at being treated like a vanquished country after the cold war ended, and of his anger at how the West exploited Russia's weakness to expand NATO eastward into former Soviet territory. The final straw, he said, was US and European encouragement of a street revolt in Kiev that brought a pro-Western government to power that did not represent the interests of millions of Russians and compatriots in Ukraine's east.
"Russia found itself in a position it could not retreat from. If you compress a spring all the way to its limit, it will snap back hard," Putin said.
That kind of talk clearly works with Russia's public. Putin's popularity ratings have soared since the Ukraine crisis began, especially after the annexation of Crimea. A late April survey by the independent Levada Center found a near-record 82 percent of Russians approved of Putin's job performance.
Russian media commentators have consistently claimed that the pro-Western interim government in Kiev is dominated by fascists, making the clear suggestion that Moscow's pushback against the new Ukrainian regime is in some way a continuation of the Soviet Union's war against Nazi Germany. The same thought seemed to lurk between the lines of Putin's Victory Day speech as well.
"Here and there militant nationalism is again raising its head, the same kind that brought on the appearance of Nazi ideology," Putin told a Kremlin meeting earlier this week. View gallery A former Soviet Union army veteran prepares a Soviet army flag as a symbol of victory, in front of t …
TURNING RACIAL?
But experts say it's Putin's emphasis on defending the interests of ethnic Russians living in Ukraine – and potentially other former Soviet lands – that's changing the political conversation in Russia.
In the ex-USSR, the term "Soviet citizen" was employed to obscure ethnic and national differences, in keeping with the "internationalist" stance of Communist authorities. Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin invented the term "Rusyanin," meaning a citizen of Russia, to avoid using the word "Russky" which applies to ethnic Russians.
But, as the crisis in Ukraine grew, official rhetoric has talked more about defending ethnic Russians, now trapped in foreign countries as a result of the Soviet breakup – and threatened with discrimination or worse from non-Russian authorities.
"Official nationalism hasn't changed, but in the mass media it's becoming more about race. When they speak of nationality now, they mean ethnicity," says Alexander Verhkovsky, director of the independent Sova Center in Moscow, which tracks extremist movements.
That could hold future implications for several former Soviet republics, such as Kazakhstan and Moldova as well as Ukraine, where substantial pockets of Russians live.
"What has really changed is the idea of expansionism has appeared in our authorities' discourse. Never before was it said that Russia has a mission to restore some parts of the lost empire. Now we've actually done that, in Crimea," says Mr. Verkhovsky.
But he adds that the changes are tactical, and that he doesn't believe Putin is trying to create a full-fledged neo-Soviet ideology.
Nikolai Petrov, a professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, agrees. "An ideology needs to be oriented toward the future. But what we're seeing is many incoherent elements, mostly celebrations of historical triumphs and appeals for people to work together as they did in the war. But restoring the glorious past is hardly a plan," he says. RECOMMENDED: Sochi, Soviets, and tsars: How much do you know about Russia?
Sure about that, Nikolai?
"God's an old hand at miracles, he brings us from nonexistence to life. And surely he will resurrect all human flesh on the last day in the twinkling of an eye. But who can comprehend this? For God is this: he creates the new and renews the old. Glory be to him in all things!" Archpriest Avvakum
RUSSIA, Belarus and Kazakhstan signed a treaty yesterday formally creating the Eurasian Economic Union, as President Vladimir Putin pushes forward with his goal of reintegrating the economies of the former Soviet Union and creating a counterbalance to the EU.
The signing of the treaty, years in the making, is part of a continuing effort by Mr Putin to create an independent economic force led by Russia.
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Russian companies are preparing to switch contracts to renminbi and other Asian currencies amid fears that western sanctions may freeze them out of the US dollar market, according to two top bankers.
“Over the last few weeks there has been a significant interest in the market from large Russian corporations to start using various products in renminbi and other Asian currencies and to set up accounts in Asian locations,” Pavel Teplukhin, head of Deutsche Bank in Russia, told the Financial Times.
The Soviet Union used to command respect on the international stage. It stood toe to toe with the United States. It wielded its influence in the far corners of the globe. Oksana Chernysheva, a first-year journalism student at the International University in Moscow, shares the view of her President, Vladimir Putin: the collapse of the Soviet Union was a disaster.
“We used to be huge and strong, and then it collapsed,” she said. But what for the 61-year-old Mr Putin amounts to an acute sense of lost glory is for Ms Chernysheva, 18, an opinion based almost entirely on wistful tales handed down by nostalgic parents. She was born five years after the Soviet Union fell apart.
Mr Putin’s moves this year to annex Crimea and to support pro-Russian movements in Ukraine appear to have resonated with a younger generation that has no memory of the Soviet Union but yearns for its power.
According to the Levada Centre, an independent polling organisation in Moscow, the President’s high approval rating among young people tops even his numbers among an older generation that remembers the empire and views Crimea and Ukraine as essentially Russian.
People 18 to 24 years old – the youngest group among 1,600 people surveyed in late May – backed Mr Putin more than any other age bracket, at 86 per cent, said Karina Pipiya, a spokeswoman for the centre.
The image of a vast military power that commanded global respect is particularly appealing to Ms Chernysheva. “I believe that the world should be afraid of us,” she said, sipping a hot chocolate in a café near her university. “To be afraid means to respect.”
On campuses, anti-Putin students and faculty members are outnumbered, but they also face being harassed for their opposition views.
“It’s so easy to go to jail in Russia,” said Chernysheva’s friend Anton Kusakin, 20, who worked for opposition leader Alexei Navalny last year. Putin’s annexation of Crimea “spoiled everything”, he said.
The image of a vast military power that commanded global respect is particularly appealing to Ms Chernysheva. “I believe that the world should be afraid of us,” she said, sipping a hot chocolate in a café near her university. “To be afraid means to respect.”
Bullshit.
Respect is EARNED, not caused by FEAR.
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
She's coming from a long history of nations wanting to invade, conquer, and destroy Russia utterly. She reasons with some justification that an enemy bent on Russia's destruction would only be deterred by the threat of that other Nation's destruction. Problem is for folks like Ms. Chernysheva, the Enemy they face trying to destroy Russia is an Enemy within. 'Eurasia' isn't Russia, and China isn't Russia's real friend, she should know better, but Obama and Putin between them have manuvered her and a good deal of the Russian populace into believing otherwise.
"God's an old hand at miracles, he brings us from nonexistence to life. And surely he will resurrect all human flesh on the last day in the twinkling of an eye. But who can comprehend this? For God is this: he creates the new and renews the old. Glory be to him in all things!" Archpriest Avvakum
We shall see. As it is, Russians are blind if they don't see the threat of being swamped by the Chinese and the hordes of Central Asian and North Caucasus Moslems coming into traditionally Russian territory to live.
The Chechen Warlord Kadyrov said recently; "Allah bless Putin" for all Putin has done for the Moslems, and Kadyrov loyally has send his Chechens into the Ukraine to fight in order to make his own 'Eurasian Union' dream come true....
"God's an old hand at miracles, he brings us from nonexistence to life. And surely he will resurrect all human flesh on the last day in the twinkling of an eye. But who can comprehend this? For God is this: he creates the new and renews the old. Glory be to him in all things!" Archpriest Avvakum
In early June, the Dutch organization Human Rights Initiative for the Former U.S.S.R. published its most recent list of political prisoners in Russia. The publication does not usually get much attention. But this time the list was sensational for the number of people currently persecuted for their political or religious beliefs or participation in civil acts. The current number: 92.
This is almost twice as many than in the previous list published in winter, even after some of last year's political prisoners were freed under amnesty. More than a half of the people listed — 57 people — are still under investigation or awaiting the decision of the appellate court, that is, they were caught up in a completely new wave of political repression.
Many are charged with crimes that reflect very recent political events, including the fall of Yanukovych's regime in Ukraine, Russia's annexation of Crimea, and even the upcoming Moscow City Duma elections.
Alexander Byvshev, a teacher in Orlov, for instance, was charged with "inciting hatred or enmity, as well as abasing human dignity," for publishing online a poem he wrote in support of Kiev's pro-Europe revolution.
Crimea has been part of the Russian Federation for less than three months, but Moscow's Lefortovo Prison has already received four Crimeans, including the prominent Ukrainian documentary film director and international film festival laureate, Oleg Sentsov. According to the Federal Security Service's press release, the defendants planned to set off a series of explosions and fires.
The press release states that two defendants have admitted their guilt, but there are serious doubts about Sentsov's role. His lawyer, Dmitry Dinze, has already sent a petition to the Investigative Committee asserting that Sentsov was tortured while under the Federal Security Service's control in Simferopol.
"A plastic bag was put over his head and he was suffocated until he lost consciousness, and he was threatened with rape and murder," Dinze wrote.
The list of political prisoners is growing rapidly. Human Rights Initiative's list was out of date within days of publication. On June 11, Konstantin Yankauskas, a Moscow city deputy and well-known oppositional activist, was put under house arrest. He and two other opposition activists, Vladimir Ashurkov and Nikolai Lyaskin, were charged with fraud. They are accused of stealing part of the funds donated to Alexei Navalny's election campaign for mayor of Moscow last year.
This is a strange accusation. All the expenses for Navalny's election campaign were published in detailed reports and controlled by the Electoral Commission. No charges were leveled by either Navalny or donors against the financial managers. It is also strange that the law enforcement agencies brought these charges almost a year after the campaign was over.
But one fact makes it all clear. Both Lyaskin and Yankauskas planned to run for seats in the Moscow City Duma in September. Yankauskas was in fact cited as the opposition activist most likely to be elected deputy.
In Russia's post-Stalinist communist era, political stability was achieved by a combination of propaganda, censorship, severe legal repressions against active dissidents and "softer" repressions against those who supported them. Today the Kremlin is following the exact same path it trod in 1980 — a path that led to, in President Vladimir Putin's words "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century."
So why has no one learned anything from history?
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
This is interesting. Telling women what they can wear and shouldn't wear now?
Proposal to 'ban high heels' causes stir in Russia
19 hours ago
.View photo
Russian young women wait for the start of a high heel race on July 8, 2006, in Moscow (AFP Photo/Denis Sinyakov)
Moscow (AFP) - Russian women may soon undergo a dramatic makeover if a Kremlin-friendly lawmaker has his way and pushes through a ban on a fashion item they perhaps cherish the most: high heels.
Oleg Mikheyev, a lawmaker with pro-Kremlin A Just Russia party, says vertiginous heels as well as trainers, ballet flats and men's loafers are bad for people's health and it's time to do something about it.
Mikheyev has sent a proposal to the Customs Union which also includes ex-Soviet Belarus and Kazakhstan, suggesting that the Moscow-led group introduce official standards stipulating the height of heels.
"Footwear should have heels that are two to four centimetres high, five centimetres high at the most," said the proposal, a copy of which was sent to AFP.
"The harmful effects of wearing extremely high heels and flat shoes have now been recognised by experts of the entire world," said the five-page proposal. "It's necessary to change this trend."
Russian women are known for preferring beauty over comfort, often seen negotiating icy pavements in winter and sandy beaches in summer in sky-high heels.
Speaking to AFP, Mikheyev said he was simply looking to raise awareness rather than ban heels outright.
He said his proposal was a sign that he cared about Russian women and wanted to protect them against any deformities, flat feet and other afflictions.
"They are young, they simply don't think about these things," Mikheyev said, adding that some 40 percent of Russians suffered from flat feet.
The danger of angering Russian ladies is not lost on the deputy.
"My female colleagues have not spoken to me for half a day now," he quipped.
But his proposal had already caused a storm of controversy in Russia and some women said if high heels are banned, they would start to wear them on purpose.
Muscovite Maria Larionova, 31, said she saw Mikheyev's proposal as "an infringement on my freedom and personal space."
"I love high heels, they are chic."
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
MINISTER OF DEFENCE RF Sergei Shoigu reported to Vladimir Putin's surprise CHECK readiness CVO
Sergei Shoigu
Our airborne forces for the first time now, after many years, to the great distance - almost 3,500 kilometers - transferred the entire division with its ordnance. Plus: It was moved and an amphibious-assault brigade - General Shoigu reported to the Head of State
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu briefed the head of state Vladimir Putin on the results of the sudden check combat readiness of units of the Central Military District, which lasted from 21 to 27 June.
"Vladimir Vladimirovich, this was already the eighth sudden check, and the results are getting better and better. Naturally, we start from the fact that we continually improve the training of your units. This time we are - to your order - suddenly her feet two armies of the Central Military District "- said Shoigu.
According to him, the check included more than 65,000 military officers and 177 aircraft, 56 helicopters and 5.5oo armored vehicles and trucks.
"Our airborne forces for the first time now, after many years, to the great distance - almost 3,500 kilometers - transferred the entire division with its ordnance. Plus: It was moved and an amphibious-assault brigade. Their members are provided maneuvers performed on three polygons. Objections that last year we had a system of air-assault forces are essentially eliminated "- presented Shoigu.
He stressed that the check was used for testing "system of the whole division."
"The check is underlined Russia's defense minister, was included complete division. It turned out we were able to use the Army to put this number in order of battle at a distance of more than three thousand kilometers. "
The peculiarity of this test was the fact that the heavy transport plane An-124-100 "Ruslan" moved two sets of transport and combat helicopters Mi-24 with the Novosibirsk Aviation base at the airport jekaterinburški "Koljcovo".
A Russian military expert on the occasion of the checks already uttered:
"The scale of what has been done is very serious. The armed forces under the leadership of Šojguovim performed great exercises and maneuvers. Everyone understands why are performed. Our friend America saves us the orange revolution to overthrow President Putin and his puppet system established in Moscow. That's why all this is being done with the armed forces properly. Airborne forces - as seen - great doing their part of the job, and anyone who lunged at Russia - will work with them. "
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
They've been pushing alot of anti-ethnic Russian multicultural propaganda out there too, lately, especially African immigration with expected results and mixing with the global thug/rap phenomenon;
And in the streets of the big cities, this is becoming a more common sight;
Not a racist, but a people, really all peoples, are being deprived of all biological and cultural diversity in favor of a one-world monorace of serfs.
"God's an old hand at miracles, he brings us from nonexistence to life. And surely he will resurrect all human flesh on the last day in the twinkling of an eye. But who can comprehend this? For God is this: he creates the new and renews the old. Glory be to him in all things!" Archpriest Avvakum
Re: The Rise of the Second Soviet Empire
By Nigel Stephenson 6 hours ago
Originally Posted by American Patriot
By Fred Weir 7 hours ago
©AFPRussia's President Vladimir Putin (R) shakes hands with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping
19 hours ago
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks