☭ Russia Round-Up # 1 ☭

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

As I mentioned in my 2015 post, I will be incorporating more “think pieces” into Russian Dressing for the year. While my affinity for Russian culture is hugely visual/artistic/spiritual, I am also interested in the practical facts about Russia. In my new “Russia Roundup” series, I’ll feature links about Russian culture/history/politics that I find of interest. Today I primarily focus on Russian politics as of late:

This week:

One of the most frustrating things as an American Russophile or merely as a person interested in what is going on in Russia, is the extremely biased discrepancies between Russian- and US-reported news. In addition to some faulty translations, the Russian and American media alike manipulate the news against the other. I am fortunate enough to understand enough Russian where I can spot the bias, but for most Americans who don't speak Russian/who tend to be antagonistic to Russia (which is probably not their own bias, but merely America's "objective" post- Cold War mindset) they'll never get the full story. The same goes for Russians-most Russians don't speak English, and those who have learned it sometimes don't learn it properly (if taught in Russia, where proper English teachers are rarer than you might guess). America and Russia are obviously two historically huge geopolitical superpowers, and given our history, Americans have never had much of a reason (with the exception of World War II) to embrace Russia...Russians on the other hand were cut off from the US for so long during the USSR that the "shock therapy" of democratization/capitalization in the 90s forced them unto the globalized yet US-centric world. By no means do I condone Putin's actions, but as an American citizen who loves Russia, it's very clear why we don't seem to understand Russians, Russia as a country, and of course, Putin. 

Check out RBTH, The Moscow Times, Russia Direct, and RT to keep up with Russian news/culture/etc from pretty unbiased and with excellent English translations. 

For an easy-to-ready and grammatically correct English-written account of Putinist propaganda, check out Sputnik

xo  SFB

2 comments:

  1. Hi! First of all, I want to thank you for the kind comments you left on my blog the other day. It means so much to me! Secondly, I loved reading your "My (Communist Manifesto" section. I truly resonate with your feelings on capitalism. It also makes me happy to know there are more of us out there than I tend to think. Thanks for sharing that.

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    1. Of course! I am just happy I came across your blog! :) And thank you-I am so happy to have started a blog, but I wrote that as my first post to remind myself that a blog may provide economic opportunities OUT of creativity (to generalize a lot of what I see on the blogosphere these days), but it's really the (commun)ity that cements the creativity/exchanges/freedom that I want to get out of blogging. I'm not entirely against the idea of "brand"/brand voice/etc (you know, like a theme/a "voice"/consistency/etc), but we're all so much more complex than the type of one-dimensionality brands/businesses expect-it's like they expect us to be less human. Thanks for your comment as well-it made my day! :)

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