What's good (and bad ) about Russia?

[Jerry_Atrick]

Fellas - I know this is about Russia, but somehow a discussion about the Aussie anthem worked its way into the thread and a lot don't like it it appears.. And the sentiment is that most people only know the first verse.. which meansit is more or lress derided by the public.

 

Well, the favourite unofficial anthem, on that basis would seem to be on the same boat - hated by most because they don't bluddy well know the words to the whole song.. Your 'onnah - I rest my case:

 

 

Of course, there aren't too many Aussies who hate the song, but the silence in the second verse is deafening...

 

 

[Bruce]

Malcolm Fraser, Liberal PM at the time, wanted Waltzing Matilda and I agreed with him. Ampol, a fuel company of the day, proposed some new words which I didn't like, but they did and spent money advertising their version which at least kept the tune.

 

Gosh, I would be proud to have as my anthem a real song about a suicidal sheep-thief instead of the jingoistic rubbish that is normal.

 

But it was put to a democratic vote and that is why we have the existing anthem, which I reckon is terribly unscientific and an exhortation to overpopulate.

 

 

[Bruce]

" with golden soil and wealth for toil" is nonsense. Australia has the poorest soils in the world.

 

 

[nomadpete]

"Golden soil" might be a rather poor description of our plentiful red desert sand, which covers about 80% of the continent.

 

And "wealth for toil" could describe our mining industry. Although I doubt that much real wealth from mining filters down to the toiling workers.

 

 

[Bruce]

A young farmer who won a study tour to the Ukraine said how over there they had 1 metre of topsoil and 1 metre of rainfall. Here we have 100mm of topsoil and grow wheat with 300mm of rainfall. And our topsoil is, on average, 5 cycles of soil to sedimentary rock to soil etc. No wonder the soil needs phosphorous , and Australia imports 80,000 tonnes a year of the stuff despite mining some ourselves. "golden soil...bullsh#t

 

 

[Yenn]

"Usefull idiot" Who does that bring to mind? Just about any pro USA national leader. For example Saddam Hussein, John Howard, all the British PMs.

 

I hadn't ever thought to find out the full text of our National Anthem. Now I am just glad that it doesn't get sung in full. We are Australian would be far better and in fact the ABC is using it in their self promoting advertising. Waltzing Matilda is still the most accepted Australian song. Go overseas and when the locals find out you are Australian they will hum the tune.

 

 

[spacesailor]

"But it was put to a democratic vote and that is why we have the existing anthem,"

 

But Waltzing Matilda was not on the list, as someone else had copy-righted it.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[willedoo]

Tourism is doing well in Saint Petersburg, with 7.2 million tourists visiting last year.

 

This year, Saint Petersburg has been named the world’s leading cultural city destination for the third consecutive year, in the WTA World Travel Awards. In 2015, the WTA panel awarded the northern city the title of Europe’s leading destination. Earlier this year, the city won the title of Europe’s best cruise destination.

 

 

[willedoo]

This post is a comparison between the Russian Federation and Australia in modern times. Life in the Russian cities and major urban centres is in contrast to the lives of those in regional areas, without a doubt.

 

This is a clip of a concert last year, and if you can suffer through it, you'll see the camera at times pan around the crowd and up into the wings. It's a crowd of thousands comparable to any major concerts in Sydney or Melbourne. Most Russians living in regional areas could probably never afford to travel to Moscow to see a concert like this, just like many Australians living in towns like Cunnamulla or Thargomindah would never get the opportunity to attend a major concert in Sydney or Melbourne. There are also many people living in Moscow who could never afford a ticket to a concert like this, but as a comparison, in all our major cities, we have homeless people living on the streets, and some who rummage through rubbish bins for food.

 

 

[Bruce]

The story about how aborigines became officially people in Australia has to do with the invasion of Hungary by Russia about 1954.

 

All of America's allies took turns at denouncing the Russians in the UN. But the Russians were ready for Australia, and they compared, in detail, the aborigines with anything similar in the soviet union. Remember that in Australia, aborigine were not citizens.

 

It was so effective, it bluntened the whole attack on Russia. Australia was in shame.

 

 

[willedoo]

One thing for sure, RF President Putin is a skilled poker player in the political sense. He's heavily into making pointed gestures to send a message, and is at least the equal of his American rivals in that regard.

 

There's been rumblings for a while now about possible US intervention in Venezuela, and Maduro is at least smart enough to realize that his only hope for survival is with America's rivals, China and Russia. Last week Maduro visited Putin in Moscow seeking help. Russia is looking at a 6 billion investment in mining and energy in Venezuela and has agreed to re-schedule Venezuela's existing 6 billion dollar debt to Moscow. Turkish President Erdogan has also visited Venezuela last week and the two nations agreed to unspecified agreements in gold mining and energy production.

 

So yesterday, two Tu-160 strategic bombers along with other Russian aircraft and personnel landed in Venezuela in a basic 'we've got your back' type of exercise. It will get a few eyebrows twitching in Washington and the Pentagon. Sending strategic nuclear bombers to Venezuela on a good will tour is no small message. It looks like Vladimir is sending the message to the Americans to leave Venezuela alone.

 

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced the deployment late on Monday.

 

“The Russian and Venezuelan people should see this for what it is: two corrupt governments squandering public funds, and squelching liberty and freedom while their people suffer,” he said on Twitter.

 

That quote reminds me of another well known nation.

 

Russian Tu-160 strategic bombers land in Venezuela after 10,000km transatlantic flight (VIDEO)

 

 

[willedoo]

Here's another interesting story with an aviation interest. I can't vouch for any accuracy, but it's interesting reading all the same. It harks back to the WW2 days when Soviet pilots were ramming the Germans.

 

'Supersonic Ramming': How Soviet MiG-21 Thwarted CIA-Iranian Op 45 Years Ago

 

 

[willedoo]

It was announced Friday that the Crimean border fence has been completed. I'm not sure how the exact border was determined, but I'd guess it's based on the original Russian Soviet Socialist Republic border. Looks like a wind farm on the Ukrainian side of the fence.

 

 

[facthunter]

Putin must be BAD if Toney wants to $#!rtfront him. He (Vlad) must have been really worried too as he had a great big warship out off the coast at the G20, G7or whatever In Brisbane.. I'm really glad we have people who can take it to Putin. I'm so proud my heart beats like its going to explode. Re National Anthems. Most of them are laughable and barely fit for home consumption.

 

Perhaps the Ruskies don't smile much as they have bad teeth (The older ones) but they would give you their last crumbs from what I've seen. I met one chain smoking guy on an Antonov Giant Freighter at Avalon in the early 90's and he invited myself and a mate up into the cockpit where we sat and fiddled with familiar looking stuff but with NO word of English to see anywhere. There's no Russian in the cockpits of plane s I flew either. It's another world that gets somewhat bullied and rarely accommodated making Putins appearance of being a strong leader seem more necessary, and probably keeping him in power. He knows how to play it., being KGB trained. Nev

 

 

[willedoo]

Nev, we've got a Polish LiM (MiG-15) 2 seater at the museum and it's a bit tricky. Half the gauges are in Russian and the other half Polish. It wouldn't be too hard for the Polish pilots to learn the Russian words though. Just the gauge names, altitude, pressure etc., the usual stuff. It's the Polish I have trouble with, I can read the Russian ones ok, but the metrics can be confusing.The older artificial horizon gauges were unusual, blue on the bottom and brown on top. Not very intuitive.

 

 

[facthunter]

Yes they use metric altitudes. One of the few countries that do. 1,000 meters is a fair distance. If you use less distances for separation you are using weird figures. I don't know how the Flight level allocation fits in. Nev

 

 

[willedoo]

I have trouble when reading Russian articles that use metric altitudes, always trying to convert it mentally. With imperial and metric, I'm all over the place.

 

I think of surface distance in kilometres, building measurements in metres and millimetres (not cm), depth in feet, area in acres, pressure in psi, volume in litres; it can get a bit confused.

 

edit:

 

When it comes to altitude and oxygen requirements, no two publications ever give the same height exactly. Russian manuals are a bit out from Western ones as they tend to round off to the nearest 1,000 metres which is quite a bit of leeway.

 

 

[willedoo]

This is an interesting video of some of Russia's military gear. Runs for 12 minutes and quite a lot of it is missile launches. Watching all the different sequences of boosters going off reminds me of cracker night when we were kids.

 

It's better to watch in theatre mode on youtube.

 

 

[spacesailor]

"The older artificial horizon gauges were unusual, blue on the bottom and brown on top. Not very intuitive."

 

A lot like Aussie electrical wiring," Brown is not Earth, Sky-blue is not High, Green no longer Neutral.

 

Might as well be Russian.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[Marty_d]

Green no longer Neutral.Might as well be Russian.

 

spacesailor

Green was never Neutral. Green was Earth, now Green & Yellow is Earth.

 

Neutral was Black before and is now Blue, Active was Red and is now Brown.

 

 

[willedoo]

spacey, it's a different system in Russia. They just use a small buttplug to earth their leads:

 

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[Yenn]

Is that Scomo on Donalds back?

 

 

[spacesailor]

ScoMo IS watching The Ducks back.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[willedoo]

In recent times there's been a few complaints from the Americans about unprofessional and dangerous intercepts of their recon aircraft by Russian fighter jets. I'd agree some of them have been in that category and unnecessarily aggressive. It wasn't always like that back in the days of the Cold War, and tended to be a bit more gentlemanly.

 

There are anecdotes of professional, cordial relations between the opposing flight crews in those days. Most often, the same crews were on regular duty and got to know each other and communicated with hand signals. The period referred to is the 60's, 70's and 80's when relations had improved after the earlier so called secret war that saw several B-29 spy planes shot down over Soviet airspace.

 

These photos recently came to light and show an F-4 Phantom interceptor doing a barrel roll over the top of a Tu-95 Bear bomber. The story goes that the Soviet crew requested it via hand signals.

 

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[willedoo]

This is a bunch of ice swimmers having a new year dip at Lake Baikal. Today is Christmas in the orthodox world, but most people in Russia start the holiday celebrations on new years day.