As some readers have rightly pointed out, there are few photographs from Odessa in this blog to date.
In an effort to change that there is a new category on the right of your screen, aptly entitled “Photographs of Odessa – Irisha Onischuk”
Irisha is a student in Odessa who has a love for photography, and it seems to me a good eye for it as well, and so hopefully as time progresses this category will fill up with wonderful photographs of Odessa taken by Irisha.
So when my ruminations are irritating you, take a few minutes every now and then to peruse her photographs and then realise that Odessa and Ukraine, regarless of how badly it is run, is really a rather beautiful place regardless.
In case you are wondering why the entries have been sporadic – I’m moving to my place by the sea in the rather exotically named Arcadia, here in Odessa.
Assuming the sciatica remains reasonably content, I expect normal service will resume on Monday. Tuesday at the latest.
OK – This has nothing to do with Ukraine – yet – but legal precedents have a habit of seeping across international borders if they suit the establishment in other nations that have similar issues and can see similar solutions.
For many, many months I have been following the Leveson Inquiry via the website and the live podcast supplied by the Guardian On-line here in Ukraine. It is an inquiry set up by the British Prime Minister in the wake of the News of the World phone hacking issue but has a broader remit to look at all matters journalistic, from ethics (or the lack of them), paparazzi, invasion of privacy (and thus hits the difficult issue of Article 8 verses Article 10 of the European Human Rights Act), press regulation etc.
It has, to be fair, been extremely interesting and has brought about statements from people such as Lord Puttnam that “Leveson has uncovered a Banana Republic. Corrupt press, corrupt police, corrupt politicians.” It all sounds very Ukrainian, despite the fact he is talking about the UK.
Amongst the issues that could affect each and every one of us, aside from the clashes between a right to a private life and the right of freedom of speech within the European Human Rights Act, another major issue which affects us all, has been the Internet.
Within the Internet issue the subject of bloggers has been raised several times. Now some journalists blog (or tweet or both). However many bloggers are not journalists. Many have no journalistic training, are only vaguely aware of what may or may not be libelous or defamation, have no concept of where the line between “public interest” and “interesting to the public” falls, and may be completely oblivious to any national or international laws relating to electronic communications etc.
In short, most bloggers are the writers, editors and moderators over any comments they allow to be published under any entry they write. They are entirely responsible for anything that is publicly available on their websites but without any real accountability as long as they remain within the rules of the hosting server – which could be anywhere on the planet.
Under whose laws does a blog fall if the author is of nation A, the entry is written in nation B, but the website in hosted in nation C and yet the reader is in nation D? (Which is the case with most of my websites and international readers.)
As more and more people turn off from the main stream media and get their news from blogs, twitter, Facebook, VK, Futubra etc., is there a greater responsibility for the more popular blogs and bloggers? Why should they have more responsibility than unpopular blogs or the same responsibilities as journalists?
Is there a responsibility for the international blog directories? At the moment, if you look at Technocrati, one of the biggest international blog directories in existence, you will find my very own Odessatalk is categorised as a world leading blogging authority on Ukrainian politics. Very humbling, however in making that claim as a directory, do they have any responsibility to their users for directing them to me?
Fortunately I am very careful about libel and defamation. I am very considered in what comments, and their content, I allow to be shown that are made by my readers. If I am told something interesting by somebody important who would prefer to remain anonymous, then I invoke the Chatham House Rule (as I would being a Chatham House Member) to protect their identity but allow for their comments to enter debate and discussion on the blog.
As I rank so highly amongst the millions of blogs at blog directories such as Technocrati, I have a moral and ethical duty to those who will find me via such a directory and read my site when trying to discover matters Ukrainian, to do so in language free from academic jargon, management speak and associated gobbledygook whilst trying to impart my thoughts on any issue Ukrainian (or regional) I may decide to write about. Above all however, I think I must be honest and remain impartial unless I otherwise state a certain position.
For somebody who’s interest lays with policy rather than political party or political personality, it is fairly easy to remain impartial, as a good, bad, or indifferent policy can come from any source.
But -
That is not true of all blogs or bloggers and rightly so. Some blogs are written to convey a certain party or social line quite deliberately. Some of those bloggers who write these blogs are well connected within certain parties or social groups and are paid by them to promote a certain slant on issues to meet their paymasters bias. Some NGOs and many think-tanks are no different, so why should blogging be exempt?
Many of these blogs are extremely popular because of the access they have to influential people and thus become a quasi official PR/media outlet for the paymasters. Again quite rightly for that is what they were set up to do. The issue then becomes just how close to journalism is this type of blogging?
This is the issue now being wrestled with by Lord Justice Leveson over in the UK, for it is he that must make recommendations on the future of the media to parliament and it is the media representatives and witnesses that are continually highlighting the fact that a great many extremely popular websites and blogs are not so very far removed from (if at all) traditional journalism.
The UK media is attempting to smudge the line between traditional media and copy with certain areas of the blogosphere and state any regulations recommended for the media will have to be made for bloggers as well given that some blogs are just as influential as any printed newspaper.
Just where and how Lord Justice Leveson can or will draw the line on this remains to be seen. It also remains to be seen just what will seep across national borders when it comes to other nations following the UK lead when conclusions are eventually reached.
Hmmm
Do I consider myself a journalist? – No.
Do I consider myself an authoritative commentator? That depends upon what specifically I am writing about on any particular day.
Do enough people read what I write for me to take some care over legal issues? – Yes (and thank you all for reading).
Am I a dedicated blogger? Hmmm – I write daily about Ukraine but I am not paid to do so, it was simply a new hobby that became a habit some years ago.
Should I be subjected to any decision reached by Lord Justice Leveson or a Ukrainian counterpart in the years to come? – I don’t think so.
Apologise for not having written anything yesterday and only this brief statement today, but to plagerise Ezekiel 25:17. The path to the Internet in Ukraine is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men and poor coverage. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness and repairs my Internet at 2115 on a Saturday night. For he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children and technically challenged bloggers. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brother or stop him reading my daily ruminations.
News of the formal surrender of Germany arrived in Moscow in the early morning of May 9, 1945. Thus Victory in Europe Day is celebrated by Ukraine, Russia and elsewhere in the Former Soviet Union today, while everyone in the west celebrates it on May 8.
World War II came at the cost of nearly 28 million people of the Soviet Union – more than the entire current population of the State of Texas. It is difficult to put this into perspective in today’s world. Single battles between Russia and Germany took more lives than the entire US Civil War. A mere hour in some of these battles exceed the cumulative casualties the whole “Coalition of the Willing” suffered in a decade in Iraq. And of course, World War II took its toll on Germany and the Axis Powers, too. A full 90+% of German casualties were sustained fighting on the Eastern Front.
Courtesy of Wikileaks
The War in the East started June 22, 1941 with Operation Barbarossa. Axis forces started the invasion with 3.9 Million Men, 600,000 vehicles and 750,000 horses. By December of 1941, lead elements of Germany’s Army Group Center even touched ground in Moscow. As with Napoleon, the severe Russian Winter – “General Winter” – and crack Siberian divisions brought in from the East, pushed the German Army Group Center back.
But let’s back up briefly, to July of 1941 and the City of Odessa. The Russian Army up to this point was hard pressed to lay claim to any sort of victory, large or small – suffering only a serious of large, stinging defeats. Odessa was a different case. Luftwaffe and Romanian air attacks started hitting the city in June, but the Siege of Odessa did not start until July of 1941. It was the focus of no less than 17 divisions (mostly Romanians supported by German Engineers (Pioneers), Artillery and Aircraft. Facing this force, the Russians had roughly four infantry and one cavalry division, with support from the Black Sea Fleet.
The Siege of Odessa lasted until October 15th when the last defenders were evacuated to Sevastopol. The Black Sea Fleet helped in the evacuation of over 300,000 civilians and soldiers. By the end of the siege, the Romanian Army suffered over 17,000 dead, over 60,000 wounded and over 11,000 missing versus Soviet losses ranging up to 60,000 during the battle, proper. The battle would not really end there – many partisans took to the massive labyrinth of tunnels under the city – the Odessa Catacombs, which remain a tourist attraction today and which require a guide.
For these actions, the City of Odessa became the First Hero City of the Soviet Union. The City of Odessa likes to say that they lasted longer than France did against Hitler.
In 1942, the renewed Summer Offensive brought the world’s attention to the City of Stalingrad. But, to the South, the Oilfields of the Caucasus were Germany’s original, true objective. Despite everything working against the Axis forces, including a Commander in Chief on Crack (okay… cocaine), the monstrous logistical challenge, the weather, and… shortages in fuel, the Wermarcht came very, very close to accomplishing its objective. They took Maikop and were within site of Grozny. Beyond that were the oilfields of Baku – the birthplace of Big Oil.
Short end of it was they were stopped. Hitler threw down his gauntlets at Stalingrad… and lost the entirety of Sixth Army. Generals Manstein and Hoth were able to salvage the situation and the battles would continue into 1943 and 1944. Then with the Western Allies landing at Normandy, the Soviets launched Operation Bagration in June of 1944 which ripped Army Group Center apart. One by one, the Axis allies fell – first Romania and Finland (technically a co-belligerent), then Bulgaria (if a passive ally), and Hungary (though many continued fighting).
The Soviet Army was the first to reach Berlin. The Battle for Berlin started on April 16, 1945. The ensuing battle involved over 1.1 million Russian soldiers. And with that… history was written by the victors. But, there’s a lot that the “Allies” have kept silent over the years. Much of what really happened invites ridicule… We will be investigating more of this as we go along.
There are a lot of lessons we can learn from World War 2 – lessons that are directly applicable today, the world over.
OK. Today we take a break from policies, politics, human rights, civil liberties etc. There is no need to, there is more than sufficient activity (or inactivity) generated within Ukraine, or externally affecting Ukraine, to write five or ten posts a day most days. I simply choose one each day.
Today though I keep a promise to Julien, the founder of Expat-blog, which is an umbrella website occupied by a large number of Expat/Immigrant blogs from around the world. In amongst this global treasure trove of Expat tips, trials and tribulations, this blog is a small part.
Anyway, Julien emailed me and asked me to draw attention to the new housing and jobs sections, which if you click on those links, should take you to those in Ukraine.
I have absolutely no idea how good, bad or indifferent the information in those sections are as I do not need housing or a job in Ukraine. I have been here far too long to need help with either. Therefore I can offer no opinion and of course cannot vouch for the integrity of any content within those sections. Any comments you may have should be directed towards Julien at Expat-blog and not me.
However, this post now keeps my promise to Julien and Expat-blog. Even if you have no interest in housing or jobs, it is still well worth poking around in the darker corners of that website simply to see if life as an Expat/immigrant in country X is how you thought it would be.
After all, if you are reading my blog, and an average of a thousand people a day do, then you’ll read just about anything. Amongst those on Expat-blog you are certain to find some that are written in a far superior fashion and manage to put together something like coherent thoughts. – That will make a nice change for you all compared to my random ruminations!
Tomorrow, back to the usual issues you expect to find here at Odessablog.
Firstly, and especially for my Ukrainian and Russian female readers, but also for any other female readers, I wish you all a very special Woman’s Day.
I hope you are pampered to within an inch of your lives and placed firmly on the pedestals your deserve if only for the day.
As many men will be repeatedly and very poorly trying to inform the women in their lives today……
…….and we are probably quite right (for once).
Now, having wished all my female readers a genuinely sincere Woman’s Day greeting, it is time I feel, to set a few perceptions straight.
Woman’s Day is not Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day or a combination of both with a smattering of birthday thrown in. It has particular relevance in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova and more.
It is the recognition of the body feminine be it your mother, wife, sister, daughter, female boss, female colleagues, female subordinates, female friends, nieces, aunts and any other female who is influential in a mans life. It is particularly relevant in this part of the world and its recent history.
Over the years I have been writing this blog there have been far too numerous to mention (literally hundreds if not thousands of unpublished) comments from western men asking where they can find a “traditional Russian or Ukrainian wife.”
Having replied out of sheer curiosity what “traditional wife” means, it would appear to have a definition which covers a large and diverse spectrum. To list a few; good cook, good mother, stay at home, not look at another man, not have male friends, pretty, high heels or jeans looks sexy enough to stop traffic, and above all, recognise the man of the house is the boss etc. – You get the idea.
After years of reading such fantasies, and that is certainly what they are when it comes to Russian and Ukrainian women, I think Woman’s Day is a suitable day to set those perceptions straight.
Firstly, the book Domostroy was written in the 16th century when describing the life and requirements of a Slavic wife and women in Slavic society. That book and those rules became null and void in Russia and Ukraine by the time the Bolsheviks restructured and re-engineered society, if not quite some time before .
Any remnant, real or imagined, that may have lingered disappeared when 25 million USSR Slavs died in WWII, the majority being male.
Just who do you traditional wife hunters think rebuilt the USSR when a high percentage of the male population was dead? Who laid miles and miles of rail track by hand, who worked the fields, who drove trucks, who worked in the factories, who, when all is said and done, did almost everything and every job, when so much of the male population was dead for the next generation or two?
Next, most Russian and Ukrainian women are very well educated indeed. They are probably at least as well educated if not better educated than you are.
The vast majority of Russian and Ukrainian school teachers, doctors and similar professions are female. They work, they work hard and they work shifts. They do not sit at home and pop out children at your demand and insulate themselves from friends be they male or female whether you like it or not.
Whilst there may not be genuine equality when it comes to pay and other areas in life, Russian and Ukrainian woman have enjoyed emancipation for a very long time. Now they are emancipated and well educated.
They are also free to travel and have access to unregulated television and the Internet. They are fully aware of just how green (or not) the grass is on the other side of the fence.
You will not impress them but waving wads of cash about or owning your own company, being a CEO or having your own small aircraft. They will happily spend your money and let you take them shopping but that, unless they actually like you, is all you will get.
A traditional Russian or Ukrainian woman comes from a family where babushka rules the roost. It is a matriarchy and not, contrary to western belief, a patriarchy when it comes to domestic life. When I say domestic life that also includes when she (or you, or both) are going out, where, why and to do what, or see whom.
If your perception of a “traditional Russian/Ukrainian wife” is to stay at home, look drop dead gorgeous but only for you, spit out children on demand, wash, cook, clean, bake bread, be happy to sit at home all day, go to church on Sunday, have you choose her friends for her and say who she can and cannot be friends with, then it is a perception that is more than 500 years out of date, if that reality ever truly existed at all.
Trust me when I say there aren’t that many 500 year old women left knocking about in Russia and Ukraine that will meet those “traditional values”.
In over a decade of living permanently in Moscow and latterly Odessa I have never met a Russian or Ukrainian woman that fits the “traditional wife” mythology of the western male.
Woman’s Day in the former USSR and Warsaw Pact nations is particularly revered for a reason and that reason is that they (and not men) literally built the nations that exist today. That did not happen by them staying home and darning socks longingly looking out of the window for a time-warped zealot returning home.
I hope this entry manages to register with some male readers who incessantly ask for help finding some western myth propagated by marriage agencies with the sole purpose of taking your money in search of a “traditional woman” that doesn’t exist.
Now if you want a beautiful, intelligent, practical, hard working, opinionated, determined, emancipated but feminine to her toenails wife, should you be lucky enough to find one interested in you from Russia or Ukraine, then you will be a happy man and you will be loved as you have never been loved before – as long as you don’t try to change her and have her become something she traditionally is not!
RT @coe: #UK's Channel 4 showing powerful documentary on police action against domestic human trafficking. #CoE background. http://t.co/pus…4 hours ago
