Yah it was fucking thick too.

Back in college in the early 2000's they talked in starry language how organized criminals were "going legit" and how great this would be for Russia to get Westernized. This was in the same breath after they did case studies how Russian mobsters would hire literal divisions of mercenaries to literally storm their competitors offices and take possession of their properties at literal gunpoint. Kind of defined hostile takeover doesn't it? I mean shit was spread thick too, talked about organized criminals, since they were used to doing business dealings, where just "natural" business partners for western investors because they "understood capitalisms."

Nah reality is they were the only ones with no morals and no Russian-patriotism and were happy to let Westerners rape mother Russia a long as they got rich. The actual former ruling class wouldn't deal with the western Globalists because they understood what was happening. It was bad, really bad with Westerners buying up Russian assets like oil or mineral mines and just exporting like crazy. Needless to say former "true comrades" didn't like this in the least. They saw that all was happening was the Westerners were getting rich off mother Russia's bouncy and not making Russian lives any better. If anything they were getting horribly worse.

Even Putin himself talked about going hungry and sleeping with a loaded gun next to his bed and needing it at the time, and he was always a government insider. Remember from 1990 to 2010 the Russian population declined by about 7%. I'm to understand it was even worse in the former Warsaw Pact. There is a reason they are still skewed about 43%/57 male to female in Russia. Its a well known fact in extreme hardships men die faster than women, and humans will respond to extreme hardship by birthing more female babies because more women keeps the populations up, for obvious reasons. Something about how the hormones shift in response to constant malnourishment. That and...well...men always die first, generally first to starve to death, almost always the first to be killed in violence which there was NO shortage of in the time period. In fact nearly all your crazy "normal day in Russia" dash cam and other footage is from this era. If its some grainy old footage, its 100% from this era. If of course circulated as being "just how Russia is" as part of current propaganda when the reality is Russia is...still rough, but a MUCH better off than it was in 2002. Sure there are lots of really rough areas still but these are small rural towns, which are always kind of "edge of survival" anywhere, even in the USA.

One that stuck out was a paper mill in the ass end of Siberia. Formerly communist-state owned, the locals bought it out in perestroika and it was the employment anchor for the local community. Well an Oligarch in Moscow wanted to add this business to his collection so tried over and over to buy it. Finally having enough he sent mercs to shoot the management so he could just take it. (They were literal gangsters in suits remember.) Local citizens and police fought a literal battle to fend off the mercenaries so they could keep ownership of their mill and save their town from this ruthless gangster turned Oligarch. And this was just treated like a quaint little fact by my business class where we studied the case. Like I said, the shit was spread thick regarding them.

These are the people Putin made kneel and literally swear to him when he became president. Yeltsin, simply lacked the skills of a life long KGB agent like Putin, and actually drank himself to death, presumably from the stress of being a Russian-Patriot who could little more than watch his country get utterly ravished. Putin also seized all the assents of "troublesome" globalists like Soros and exhaled them from Russia, and Soros in particular under threat of arrest. Putin similarly raided and closed Soros's "charities" like the Open Society Foundation where it had facilities in Russia. Not to say Soros has zero influence in Russia, but is much much less. There are already a not small number of bitter Western Globalist financiers who are furious with Putin and can't badmouth him enough.

Oh and final history fact I saw in some off-the-MSM documentary. Regan didn't "Break" the soviet Union as is so famously claimed by boomers. What happened is that Soviet hardliners furious at Gorbachev Glasnost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasnost and other pro-cooperation policies with Reagan attempted to kill Gorbachev in a coup, which he escaped by leaving early for a meeting. They wanted to kill him, and not just roll back Glasnost, but to strike the west first and start WW3.

Realizing they would eventually kill him, and it would lead to nuclear war, Gorbachev a few days later passed resolution that formally disbanded the Soviet Union and shuttered its government. His goal was to make sure the hardliners had nothing and couldn't have it. This of course lead to political chaos and eventually the people in the streets taking on anybody who tried to maintain control. Yeltsin, organized the "revolution, and ended up rising to power in the aftermath and was the first president of the new Russian Federation that was formed out of the Russian part of the USSR, while all the other member states are abruptly independent. They tried to carry on, but met mixed success, most of them becoming Republics, and even NATO members. The shortest lived of course was East Germany that tried to double down on the heavy iron fist in response tot he USSR's dissolution, and found itself facing a revolt in months. That of course lead to the famous ripping down of the Berlin wall and the reunification of Germany.

Of course most of those now independent member states would go on to be preyed upon ruthlessly by none other than George Soros and his "Color Revolutions" he helped organize and finance using activists to stir violence in the streets that would lead to forced regime change, in the decades of 1990-2010. He bounced through Eastern Europe putting in pro-globalist governments and using them for cheap labor. Its how he made his fortune.

Fun fact people there report mixed bags, with it not being uncommon for people to report they struggled/starved far less and the wealth gaps were far less under communism than they are now. Of course they are quick to remind you under communism the wrong conversation topic could easily lead to your arrest, so there was that. Especially in Eastern Europe, I'm to understand the local governors were very, very paranoid and petty as hell compared to the big wigs in Moscow, who were ironically MUCH more lax with the Russians when it came to sending people to gulags for talking shit about the party over drinks in a bar for example.

Yah it was fucking thick too.

Back in college in the early 2000's they talked in starry language how organized criminals were "going legit" and how great this would be for Russia to get Westernized. This was in the same breath after they did case studies how Russian mobsters would hire literal divisions of mercenaries to literally storm their competitors offices and take possession of their properties at literal gunpoint. Kind of defined hostile takeover doesn't it? I mean shit was spread thick too, talked about organized criminals, since they were used to doing business dealings, where just "natural" business partners for western investors because they "understood capitalisms."

Nah reality is they were the only ones with no morals and no Russian-patriotism and were happy to let Westerners rape mother Russia a long as they got rich. The actual former ruling class wouldn't deal with the western Globalists because they understood what was happening. It was bad, really bad with Westerners buying up Russian assets like oil or mineral mines and just exporting like crazy. Needless to say former "true comrades" didn't like this in the least. They saw that all was happening was the Westerners were getting rich off mother Russia's bouncy and not making Russian lives any better. If anything they were getting horribly worse.

Even Putin himself talked about going hungry and sleeping with a loaded gun next to his bed and needing it at the time, and he was always a government insider. Remember from 1990 to 2010 the Russian population declined by about 7%. I'm to understand it was even worse in the former Warsaw Pact. There is a reason they are still skewed about 43%/57 male to female in Russia. Its a well known fact in extreme hardships men die faster than women, and humans will respond to extreme hardship by birthing more female babies because more women keeps the populations up, for obvious reasons. Something about how the hormones shift in response to constant malnourishment. That and...well...men always die first, generally first to starve to death, almost always the first to be killed in violence which there was NO shortage of in the time period. In fact nearly all your crazy "normal day in Russia" dash cam and other footage is from this era. If its some grainy old footage, its 100% from this era. If of course circulated as being "just how Russia is" as part of current propaganda when the reality is Russia is...still rough, but a MUCH better off than it was in 2002. Sure there are lots of really rough areas still but these are small rural towns, which are always kind of "edge of survival" anywhere, even in the USA.

One that stuck out was a paper mill in the ass end of Siberia. Formerly communist-state owned, the locals bought it out in perestroika and it was the employment anchor for the local community. Well an Oligarch in Moscow wanted to add this business to his collection so tried over and over to buy it. Finally having enough he sent mercs to shoot the management so he could just take it. (They were literal gangsters in suits.) Locial citizens and police fought a literal battle to fend off the mercenaries so they could keep ownership of their mill and save their town from this ruthless ganster cum Oligarch. And this was just treated like a quiant little fact by my business class where we studied the case.

These are the people Putin made kneel and literally swear to him when he became president. Yeltsin, simply lacked the skills of a life long KGB agent like Putin, and actually drank himself to death, presumably from the stress of being a Russian-Patriot who could little more than watch his country get utterly ravished. Putin also seized all the assents of "troublesome" globalists like Soros and exhaled them from Russia, and Soros in particular under threat of arrest. Putin similarly raided and closed Soros's "charities" like the Open Society Foundation where it had facilities in Russia. Not to say Soros has zero influence in Russia, but is much much less. There are already a not small number of bitter Western Globalist financiers who are furious with Putin and can't badmouth him enough.

Oh and final history fact I saw in some off-the-MSM documentary. Regan didn't "Break" the soviet Union as is so famously claimed by boomers. What happened is that Soviet hardliners furious at Gorbachev Glasnost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasnost and other pro-cooperation policies with Reagan attempted to kill Gorbachev in a coup, which he escaped by leaving early for a meeting. They wanted to kill him, and not just roll back Glasnost, but to strike the west first and start WW3.

Realizing they would eventually kill him, and it would lead to nuclear war, Gorbachev a few days later passed resolution that formally disbanded the Soviet Union and shuttered its government. His goal was to make sure the hardliners had nothing and couldn't have it. This of course lead to political chaos and eventually the people in the streets taking on anybody who tried to maintain control. Yeltsin, organized the "revolution, and ended up rising to power in the aftermath and was the first president of the new Russian Federation that was formed out of the Russian part of the USSR, while all the other member states are abruptly independent. They tried to carry on, but met mixed success, most of them becoming Republics, and even NATO members. The shortest lived of course was East Germany that tried to double down on the heavy iron fist in response tot he USSR's dissolution, and found itself facing a revolt in months. That of course lead to the famous ripping down of the Berlin wall and the reunification of Germany.

Of course most of those now independent member states would go on to be preyed upon ruthlessly by none other than George Soros and his "Color Revolutions" he helped organize and finance using activists to stir violence in the streets that would lead to forced regime change, in the decades of 1990-2010. He bounced through Eastern Europe putting in pro-globalist governments and using them for cheap labor. Its how he made his fortune.

Fun fact people there report mixed bags, with it not being uncommon for people to report they struggled/starved far less and the wealth gaps were far less under communism than they are now. Of course they are quick to remind you under communism the wrong conversation topic could easily lead to your arrest, so there was that. Especially in Eastern Europe, I'm to understand the local governors were very, very paranoid and petty as hell compared to the big wigs in Moscow, who were ironically MUCH more lax with the Russians when it came to sending people to gulags for talking shit about the party over drinks in a bar for example.

Yah it was fucking thick too.

Back in college in the early 2000's they talked in starry language how organized criminals were "going legit" and how great this would be for Russia to get Westernized. This was in the same breath after they did case studies how Russian mobsters would hire literal divisions of mercenaries to literally storm their competitors offices and take possession of their properties at literal gunpoint. Kind of defined hostile takeover doesn't it? I mean shit was spread thick too, talked about organized criminals, since they were used to doing business dealings, where just "natural" business partners for western investors because they "understood capitalisms."

Nah reality is they were the only ones with no morals and no Russian-patriotism and were happy to let Westerners rape mother Russia a long as they got rich. The actual former ruling class wouldn't deal with the west because they understood what was happening. Remember from 1990 to 2010 about 30% of the Russian population died. I'm to understand it was even worse in the former Warsaw Pact. Even Putin himself talked about going hungry and sleeping with a loaded gun next to his bed and needing it at the time, and he was always a government insider. There is a reason they are still skewed about 43%/57 male to female in Russia. Its a well known fact in extreme hardships men die faster than women, and humans will respond to extreme hardship by birthing more female babies because more women keeps the populations up, for obvious reasons. Something about how the hormones shift in response to constant malnourishment. That and...well...men always die first, generally first to starve to death, almost always the first to be killed in violence.

One that stuck out was a paper mill in the ass end of Siberia. Formerly communist-state owned, the locals bought it out in perestroika and it was the employment anchor for the local community. Well an Oligarch in Moscow wanted to add this business to his collection so tried over and over to buy it. Finally having enough he sent mercs to shoot the management so he could just take it. (They were literal gangsters in suits.) Locial citizens and police fought a literal battle to fend off the mercenaries so they could keep ownership of their mill and save their town from this ruthless ganster cum Oligarch. And this was just treated like a quiant little fact by my business class where we studied the case.

These are the people Putin made kneel and literally swear to him when he became president. Yeltsin, simply lacked the skills of a life long KGB agent like Putin, and actually drank himself to death, presumably from the stress of being a Russian-Patriot who could little more than watch his country get utterly ravished. Putin also seized all the assents of "troublesome" globalists like Soros and exhaled them from Russia, and Soros in particular under threat of arrest. Putin similarly raided and closed Soros's "charities" like the Open Society Foundation where it had facilities in Russia. Not to say Soros has zero influence in Russia, but is much much less. There are already a not small number of bitter Western Globalist financiers who are furious with Putin and can't badmouth him enough.

Oh and final history fact I saw in some off-the-MSM documentary. Regan didn't "Break" the soviet Union as is so famously claimed by boomers. What happened is that Soviet hardliners furious at Gorbachev Glasnost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasnost and other pro-cooperation policies with Reagan attempted to kill Gorbachev in a coup, which he escaped by leaving early for a meeting. They wanted to kill him, and not just roll back Glasnost, but to strike the west first and start WW3.

Realizing they would eventually kill him, and it would lead to nuclear war, Gorbachev a few days later passed resolution that formally disbanded the Soviet Union and shuttered its government. His goal was to make sure the hardliners had nothing and couldn't have it. This of course lead to political chaos and eventually the people in the streets taking on anybody who tried to maintain control. Yeltsin, organized the "revolution, and ended up rising to power in the aftermath and was the first president of the new Russian Federation that was formed out of the Russian part of the USSR, while all the other member states are abruptly independent. They tried to carry on, but met mixed success, most of them becoming Republics, and even NATO members. The shortest lived of course was East Germany that tried to double down on the heavy iron fist in response tot he USSR's dissolution, and found itself facing a revolt in months. That of course lead to the famous ripping down of the Berlin wall and the reunification of Germany.

Of course most of those now independent member states would go on to be preyed upon ruthlessly by none other than George Soros and his "Color Revolutions" he helped organize and finance using activists to stir violence in the streets that would lead to forced regime change, in the decades of 1990-2010. He bounced through Eastern Europe putting in pro-globalist governments and using them for cheap labor. Its how he made his fortune.

Fun fact people there report mixed bags, with it not being uncommon for people to report they struggled/starved far less and the wealth gaps were far less under communism than they are now. Of course they are quick to remind you under communism the wrong conversation topic could easily lead to your arrest, so there was that. Especially in Eastern Europe, I'm to understand the local governors were very, very paranoid and petty as hell compared to the big wigs in Moscow, who were ironically MUCH more lax with the Russians when it came to sending people to gulags for talking shit about the party over drinks in a bar for example.