Author Archives: RomanInUkraine

Mourning in Ukraine

Today I saw

– a grown man sobbing on a bench saying “he’s gone” while woman consoled “don’t be such a pessimist. We don’t know yet.”

– Today I saw 2of2 a village-looking boy in the metro w tears in his eyes getting in some hipsters face yelling why he doesn’t join military.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Harvard Speech

I greatly admire him, though this speech hints at Russia’s coming barbarity:

1. Pursuit of truth

…truth eludes us if we do not concentrate our attention totally on it’s pursuit. But even while it eludes us, the illusion of knowing it still lingers and leads to many misunderstandings. Also, truth seldom is pleasant; it is almost invariably bitter.

2. West vs East

A fact which cannot be disputed is the weakening of human beings in the West while in the East they are becoming firmer and stronger — 60 years for our people and 30 years for the people of Eastern Europe. During that time we have been through a spiritual training far in advance of Western experience. Life’s complexity and mortal weight have produced stronger, deeper, and more interesting characters than those generally [produced] by standardized Western well-being.

3. Consumer culture

After the suffering of many years of violence and oppression, the human soul longs for things higher, warmer, and purer than those offered by today’s mass living habits, introduced by the revolting invasion of publicity, by TV stupor, and by intolerable music.

4. Fake societal stability

The center of your democracy and of your culture is left without electric power for a few hours only, and all of a sudden crowds of American citizens start looting and creating havoc. The smooth surface film must be very thin, then, the social system quite unstable and unhealthy.

5. Technology as savior

All the glorified technological achievements of Progress, including the conquest of outer space, do not redeem the 20th century’s moral poverty which no one could imagine even as late as in the 19th Century.

6. Spiritual emptiness

We have placed too much hope in political and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life. In the East, it is destroyed by the dealings and machinations of the ruling party. In the West, commercial interests suffocate it. This is the real crisis. The split in the world is less terrible — The split in the world is less terrible than the similarity of the disease plaguing its main sections.

7. Purpose of life

If humanism were right in declaring that man is born only to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently must be of a more spiritual nature. It cannot be unrestrained enjoyment of everyday life. It cannot be the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then cheerfully get the most of them. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one’s life journey may become an experience of moral growth, so that one may leave life a better human being than one started it.

http://www.rooshv.com/7-highlights-from-aleksandr-solzhenitsyns-harvard-speech

Ex-terrorist leader Girkin: “Referendum in Crimea was a farce”

http://euromaidanpress.com/2015/01/24/ex-terrorist-leader-referendum-in-crimea-was-a-farce/

[–]UkraineNataliKr[S] 18 points 11 hours ago

The guy on the right Nikolay (N) starts by saying:

N – So, why did it work in Crimea? There were three components – the people of Crimea were unanimous and took to the streets, law enforcement was fully supportive and most important, there were lawful, legitimate authorities who stood on the side of the people. And it was only the fact that these three things were there that Russia showed poltiical will (at this point Girkin starts grinning, almost ready to laugh) and little green men appeared there on the streets.

Girkin (G): Nikolay, when were you in Ukraine?

N – on the 16th during the referendum.

G – Well, I was in Crimea since the 21st of February. And you know, what you are telling me is complete hogwash. What law enforcement that took the people’s side are you talking about? Berkut wer the only ones who took the side of the people, the people, I stress, not the authorities. The rest of the law enforcement, the Interior Ministry was under the control of Kiev and executed the orders of Kiev. I saw that with my on eyes.

Yeah, they executed them without really wanting to, maybe sabotaged it a bit, and in some cases pretended to be ill and so on but they continued to execute kiev’s orders and did not execture orders from the new authorities. Furthermore, I did not see, unfortunately, any support on the part of local authorities in Simferopol where I was – I didn’t see any. There wasn’t any, the local deputies were gathered together by the resistance (oposlchentsy) to force them into the session halls to vote. Yes, I was one of the commanders of those opolchentsy, I saw it all from the inside with my own eyes.

So, two of your compenents have nothing to do with it. As they had been subordinate to Kiev, they contineud to be subordinate, also with little enthusiasm, and some sabotage, they had a lot of concerns, I personally was in negotiations with the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet. I started them. And moreover, the majority of units remained loyal to kiev and left the territory of Crimea.

N – But still, the Crimean parliament got together and voted and Aksyonov became prime minister. and the same thing happened in Sevastopol. Question: if you helped get those decisions made both in Crimea and Sevastopol, why didn’t you do the same in the Donbas? Why didn’t the Donetsk or Lugansk regional councils get together and vote for their own representative, a legitimate one, voting in full by all the deputies? How come that didn’t happen?

G – Because on the outskirts or Simfereopol and in Sevastopol itself, there were not, or rather there were, Russian troops and there was hope that they would be supportive. Believe me, if there had been armoured personnel carriers in Lugansk and Donetsk with marines – Russians – the same thing would have happened.

Moreover, and I stress this, the same thing would have happened in Kharkiv, Nikolayev, Odessa and everywhere. The only thing that you mentioend that was missing, but that was there in Crimea, was the presence of Russian troops supporting the people’s authority. If there had been that support in other regions, there would have been the same, bloodless, resounding victory like in Crimea.