I've read some interesting articles in the St. Petersburg Times lately. I'll post a link to two of them so everyone can read them if they want. They are really interesting. The St. Petersburg Times is printed in english twice a week and the articles are written by mainly russian journalists, so its an interesting perspective. The first article is titled "Museum Shows Georgian War Trophies." They have items on display such as captured Georgian rifles, uniforms, and photos of dead Georgian soldiers in the streets and victories Russian tanks. I think this is pretty repulsive. First of all I don't think there should even be such a thing a "war trophies." The article quoted a Russian who was visiting the exhibit with his son saying, “I wanted to show my son this... He has to see how strong and powerful the Russian army is. It was not the aggressor but it still won.” Most Americans probably don't know that Georgia actually launched the 1st offensive, even though the Russians were gathered on the border clearly prepared for an encounter with the Georgians. Not to mention when the conflict did occur, the Russians pushed much farther into Georgian territory beyond South Ossetia. The article made me think about what Americans would say if we had a museum displaying war trophies from Iraq. I'm sure some responses would be much like this Russian's response, but I think the majority would be outraged by it. Not sure though, what would your response be to
such a museum in America?Here is the link:
http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=27101
The second article talks about the large number of abortions in Russia, the statistics are shocking. I know abortion was a problem in Russia, but I didn't really know the extent of the problem. If you didn't already know, Russia has a major demographic problem, the number of Russians is decreasing year by year. Theoretically if this was to continue there would eventually be no more Russians. It's a big problem for Russia. So much that Russia declared this year the year of the family. Last week fire inspection authorities raided two buildings that were going to host a gay and lesbian film festival in St. Petersburg and declared them unsafe, resulting in the festival not taking place. I believe that is partly related to the whole year of the family concept. Certainly gays and lesbians don't fit in with the whole family concept. Anyway, you should read the article, it is well worth it. And I'd love to hear some comments.
Here is the link:
http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=27240
You'll probably just have to copy and paste the link into your browser....mom just ask missy or kim how to that!
2 comments:
1 in 70 children live in an orphanage, children's home or boarding school, that fact is disturbing. The fact that abortions are free is just as disturbing, no wonder some many girls have them. Are condoms that hard to come by over there? It states in that article that Russian's have traditionally "risk taking" attitudes..very interesting stuff.
I'm a "make love not war" kinda girl so to read that a country is exploiting the tragedy of war makes me sick. However, I know that Russia is probably not the only country that does this.
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