# the kremlin plays the North Pole & the Silk Road



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

not a children's fairy tale

yesterday the kremlin lodged another application for sovereignty over a vast area of the Arctic, including the North Pole, with the United Nations.

denmark also has claimed some of the same territory, says the NY times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/w...=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=article

but i always thought the north pole was situated in canada? to best of my knowledge, canada has not recently made any claims for the high Arctic or the north pole.

why is all this happening? there's oil & valuable minerals underneath the fast-melting polar ice caps, so the race to the future is on.

it's russia's 2nd attempt to get the UN to pronounce its hegemony over the arctic, says the times.

the first claim was rejected for lack of scientific evidence that russia's northern continental shelf extended so far out at sea. This time, the kremlin sent a submarine to dive beneath the polar ice cap & extract a soil sample from the bottom of the arctic ocean, underneath the pole itself. Allegedly, that soil sample is supposed to prove that the ocean floor directly beneath the north pole does indeed belong to the geology of russia's continental shelf ...

there's so much room here for fakery, though. Was that really a sub-north pole ocean floor sample, or was it something that russia just threw together? what if such a sample turns out to show the same geological & soil structures as canada's northern continental shelf? what about denmark, norway, sweden, finland & iceland? shall we all despatch fleets of digging submarines to the north pole (picture them) (i guess they would each have a Canadarm deploying a crowbar, a scoop & a snap lid tupperware container)

meanwhile, the new Silk Road economic project is steaming along the track. Its rail/gas/oil/pipeline/ferry network will span china to greece. Chinese goods will export to europe in only 15 weeks by rail, contrasted with the 35 weeks it presently takes for the same merchandise to transport by ship, says the NY times.

russia is hugely involved in the Silk Road initiative. All the stans belong to it. Couple of days ago kazakhstan thumbed its nose at washington, cut off its ties with the US of A, so sure of its future economic success under the Silk road is kazakhstan.

me i believe that these developments will affect us, or most certainly our children.


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## gibor365 (Apr 1, 2011)

> but i always thought the north pole was situated in canada?


 Yeah, and South Pole too :biggrin: 
it's closer to Russia http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/polar/northpole.htm

Soviet Union, and later Russia, constructed a number of manned drifting stations on a generally annual basis since 1937, some of which have passed over or very close to the Pole. Since 2002, the Russians have also annually established a base, Barneo, close to the Pole. This operates for a few weeks during early spring

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Pole#/media/File:Papanin_with_flag.jpg 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North...archive_186141_Nuclear_icebreaker_Arktika.jpg



> the kremlin sent a submarine to dive beneath the polar ice cap & extract a soil sample


 with Canadaian submarines and ice-breakers it's OK to explore Great lakes, but not North Pole


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## uptoolate (Oct 9, 2011)

Gibor, again just read a little bit more of the cited references...

'The nearest land is usually said to be Kaffeklubben Island, off the northern coast of Greenland about 700 km (430 mi) away, though some perhaps non-permanent gravel banks lie slightly closer. The nearest permanently inhabited place is Alert in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada, which is located 817 km (508 mi) from the Pole.'

The magnetic north pole been in Canadian territory for many years but this year it is scheduled to exit on it's way to Russian territory moving at about 50 km per year. It will be some time before it reaches Russian territory but I am sure that Mr Putin (and perhaps Gibor) will claim that this exit from Canada in favour of Russia is a prelude to large masses of people also wanting to emigrate to his great nation. 

By convention it is likely that the North Pole itself will be the terminus for borders that are projected north up from currently recognized national land borders. Due to its large land mass, spanning from roughly 19 degrees East to 169 West longitude, Russia has a legitimate claim to just over half of the Arctic basin. 

Certainly, in the not too distant future, there are going to be great changes in the Arctic as far as the level and scale of human activity goes.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

some good news for the north pole region - canada, the US, russia, norway & denmark agreed couple weeks ago to ban fishing in the warming arctic ocean.

the emerging ocean is too delicate, not enough is yet known about any fisheries that might develop, trawlers in particular would harm the arctic waters, said norwegian researchers.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/16/us-russia-arctic-idUSKCN0PQ15N20150716

almost unnoticed in the 6th paragraph of this article is a reference to joint russian exercises with western nations, such as search & rescue, that are said to continue to this day.

it's great to read that many parts of the unspoken agreement to cooperate in the arctic are surviving, in spite of the new sabre rattling going on elsewhere.


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## gibor365 (Apr 1, 2011)

> In May 1937 the world's first North Pole ice station, North Pole-1, was established by Soviet scientists by air 20 kilometres (13 mi) from the North Pole. The expedition members: oceanographer Pyotr Shirshov, meteorologist Yevgeny Fyodorov, radio operator Ernst Krenkel, and the leader Ivan Papanin[16] conducted scientific research at the station for the next nine months. By 19 February 1938, when the group was picked up by the ice breakers Taimyr and Murman, their station had drifted 2850 km to the eastern coast of Greenland.


 Nothing to do with Canada 

Is Alert is really inhabited?! "


> Alert, in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada, is the northernmost permanently inhabited place in the world, ...Its permanent population was reported as zero in the 2011 census


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## uptoolate (Oct 9, 2011)

I guess that depends on the definition of 'permanent'. Certainly there is much less need for people to live in Alert, Thule, and Cape Clear now that Russia is no longer a true superpower. Alert itself is closer to Moscow than it is to Ottawa! I think the official status is that there are always at least 50 people in the settlement and that the population gets to over a 100 during the summer months. At the end of the day things will be settled by negotiations and the by the ability of different groups to actually extract the resources that are there.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

but why would carrying out research in 1937-38 from a temporary floating ice floe be expected to give russia any preeminent right to the arctic?

when it comes to establishing rights to the high arctic by virtue of polar research history, the brits are the clear winners. In addition to countless overland expeditions to find the fabled northwest passage to the orient and/or to find the north pole, in 1875 great britain sent 2 exploration vessels dedicated to polar discovery. The ships approached along the coast of ellesmere island in what was then the neonate nation of canada.

Alert, canada's permanent meteorological & military settlement on the northern tip of ellesmere, was named after HMS Alert.

_"The British Arctic Expedition of 1875-1876, led by Sir George Strong Nares, was sent by the British Admiralty to attempt to reach the North Pole via Smith Sound. Two ships, HMS Alert and HMS Discovery (captained by Henry Frederick Stephenson), sailed from Portsmouth on 29 May 1875. Although the expedition failed to reach the North Pole, the coasts of Greenland and Ellesmere Island were extensively explored and large amounts of scientific data were collected."
_


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## LBCfan (Jan 13, 2011)

A story I like about Alert is this. I used to work with a guy who was an ex-military electrical engineer. At one point in his career he was tasked with setting up communications between Alert and the ROC. Satellite seemed to be the answer. Unfortunately, the curvature of the earth and the location of geosynchronous satellites at 22K miles above the equator meant that the satellites weren't visible to Alert. The military set up a system of Microwave towers to get the signal far enough south that they could "see" the satellites. Interesting.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

I think it will end up with the "might is right" solution in the Arctic.

The US will claim what it wants and let some crumbs fall off the table for the other countries.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

Silk Road updates:

- russia & turkey have fallen into a snit over the proposed trans turkey pipeline, so the new greek leg that was signed up in st petersburg just over a month ago might get delayed;

- kazakhstan is chuffed about its role in the developing Silk Road rail network. A container train arrived in the port city of Baku 2 days ago, causing the central asian nation to boast that europe/asia trade is going to be transformed forever;

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...to-transform-europe-asia-trade-300122270.html

- when one looks at the new Silk Road - all the way from china across the former soviet republics of central asia, through russia, the middle east, turkey, greece & the balkan states - does one envision a permanent son-of-ISIL arab caliphate smack in the middle?


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

I don't know anything about the Silk Road network.

Would there be passenger trains in the future, do you suppose ?

A 5 star passenger train travelling through Asia and Europe would be quite a vacation.


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## mrPPincer (Nov 21, 2011)

gibor said:


> with Canadaian submarines and ice-breakers it's OK to explore Great lakes, but not North Pole


There you go again gibor, slagging the abilities of our great men and women in uniform.

Our military is well-renowned throughout the world for getting the job done even with little or no resourses, but just through excellent training, ingenuity, and sheer guts.

Also, those subs, like the old sea king helicopters, are said to be very dependable for short distances.


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## gibor365 (Apr 1, 2011)

> Our military is well-renowned throughout the world for getting the job done even with little or no resourses, but just through excellent training, ingenuity, and sheer guts.


 If it's a joke, you forgot to insert


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## mrPPincer (Nov 21, 2011)

gibor said:


> If it's a joke, you forgot to insert


I know 
half-joking really


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## mrPPincer (Nov 21, 2011)

If you don't know the accomplishments of our forces in WW1 and WW11 you should maybe do a little research btw, both wars would have ended up much differently without our contribution.
The Netherlands has not forgotten. (Where the Canadians accepted the surrender of the nazis).


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## gibor365 (Apr 1, 2011)

mrPPincer said:


> I know
> half-joking really


I understood 

Seriously, looking at list of Canadian ice-breakers , no wonder why Canada is quiet about North Pole exploration.
•	CCGS Northern Light (1876–1890; sold)
•	CCGS Mikula (1916; sold to Russia)[4]
•	CCGS Saurel (1929–1967; broken up)[4]
•	CCGS N.B. McLean (1930–1979; broken up)
•	CCGS Ernest Lapointe (1939–1978; museum ship)
•	CCGS D'Iberville (1952–1983; broken up)
•	CCGS Labrador (1954–1987; broken up)
•	CCGS Alexander Henry (1959–1984; museum ship)
•	CCGS John A. Macdonald (1960–1991; broken up)
•	CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent (1969–)
•	CCGS Amundsen (1979–)
•	CCGS Des Groseilliers (1982–)
•	CCGS Terry Fox (1983–)
•	CCGS Henry Larsen (1987–)
•	CCGS Pierre Radisson (1987–)
•	CCGS John G. Diefenbaker (2020s–; proposed)

For comparrisson list of ONLY Nuclear-powered Russians icebreakers

•	Lenin (1959–1989; museum ship in Murmansk)
•	Arktika (1975–2008; decommissioned and awaiting disposal)
•	Sibir (1977–1992; decommissioned and awaiting disposal)
•	Rossiya (1985–)
•	Taymyr (1989–)
•	Vaygach (1990–)
•	Sovetskiy Soyuz (1990–)
•	Yamal (1992–)
•	50 Let Pobedy (2007–)
•	Arktika (2017– (planned); under construction)[11][12][13]
•	Sibir (2019– (planned); under construction)


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## mrPPincer (Nov 21, 2011)

Harper has shut down funding for scientists to explore the region as well (along with funding for a whole lot of other scientific operations that simply can't be replaced).


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## gibor365 (Apr 1, 2011)

mrPPincer said:


> If you don't know the accomplishments of our forces in WW1 and WW11 you should maybe do a little research btw, both wars would have ended up much differently without our contribution.


I know very well accomplishments of all countries during WW1 and WW2 .... but it's nothing to do with current North Pole exploration 




> both wars would have ended up much differently without our contribution


 don't exaggerate


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## gibor365 (Apr 1, 2011)

> Harper has shut down...


 Nothing to do with Harper when last Canadian ice-breaker was built almost 30 years ago....



> funding for scientists to explore the region


 idk , maybe those "scientists" only spent funding and did nothing


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## mrPPincer (Nov 21, 2011)

US of A only jumped into both wars 2 years late when it was obvious which side would win, in the meantime they were selling to both sides.


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## gibor365 (Apr 1, 2011)

mrPPincer said:


> US of A only jumped into both wars 2 years late when it was obvious which side would win, in the meantime they were selling to both sides.


I know it very well ! WW2 started Sept 1, 1939 and US and A "jumped" 6 June 1944 when USSR already captured half-Europe.... The only reason US and A "jumped", they were scared on future Soviet influence in Europe....

P.S. regarding Canada ... if you are a cat, don't pretend that you are a lion


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## Islenska (May 4, 2011)

Always wanted to visit the Artic, have been to Churchill, now that is a treat!

There are cruise deals visiting Greenland, Baffin Island area, very pricey.

One summer working on small bridge construction in Northern Iceland we were 300miles from the Artic Circle. Needless to say no worry getting lost in the forest but very hard to get used to all the daylight and your biological clock was stopped.

Churchill is jammed packed full of Canadian history going way back so put on your bucket list and the polar bears are not a fairytale danger!


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

sags said:


> I don't know anything about the Silk Road network.
> 
> Would there be passenger trains in the future, do you suppose ?
> 
> A 5 star passenger train travelling through Asia and Europe would be quite a vacation.




sags you're thinking of the Orient Express? glamourous train paris to istanbul, champagne w ingrid bergman? mata hari in the next wagon-lit?

the new Silk Road is an umbrella term covering efforts to create an economic powerhouse to counteract the US of A. Mostly engineered by china & russia, with the usual culprits - russia-india-china from the BRICS bank, the central asian republics, middle eastern states, turkey.

that gas pipeline deal which greek PM alexis tsipras signed with vladimir putin last month is part of the new Silk Road economic initiative. It'll carry russian gas across turkey & greece to europe.

the old Silk Road is shrouded in history, lost in poetry. Flourished something like 1000 BC to 1400 AD. A big leg hived off southward, down into africa. The 2 important kingdoms at each end, at least in the first millennium AD, were china & arabia.

along the old Silk Road voyaged traders & travellers whose pack animals were laden with gold, jewels, ivories, animal hides, spices, seeds, silks, wool, flax, tools, lamps, cooking pots & other hand-forged metal items.

do you perhaps remember marco polo from high school history? how polo set out from venice in the 13th century to travel via the Silk Road to the court of the mongol emperor of china? polo succeeded, he lived on at the great khan's court for many years, the first european to ever have contact with china.

i'm seeing references to the Silk Road economic initiative everywhere in the media these days. It's the new sino-russian axis.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Well see.........you learn something every day.

Thanks Humble..........I was thinking the Silk Road was a new railroad corridor..............LOL........


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

^^

it is a rail corridor, transporting chinese goods to europe & onwards to north america, rather than movie stars & spies

i posted some quote the other day, the source was saying how the railway Silk Road can deliver chinese product in 15 days that, right now, requires 35 days conventional shipping by sea.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Thing is, sea shipping is more energy efficient than rail, so the market might be somewhat limited to the wedge of medium value/kg products. High value goods use air freight to reduce goods in transit, low value goods will still travel by sea.


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## gibor365 (Apr 1, 2011)

> so the market might be somewhat limited to the wedge of medium value/kg products


 isn't majority of products fell in this category?!


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Majority of freight is relatively low value. If shaving 20 days off transit time saves 20/365 days of inventory, that's a savings of 0.55% of inventory carrying cost at 10% cost of capital. So train can be no more expensive than ocean freight than 0.55% times cost of goods. If a typical container holds goods worth $50,000, that works out to $300 or so. If train is $300 more per container than ocean, it's too expensive.


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## gibor365 (Apr 1, 2011)

but train is much faster, so turnover is faster and profit bigger....also many good have expiry dates


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

The faster part is worth $300/container for average value goods You can put a $ value on faster turnover, I just showed you the math.

Highly perishable goods go by plane, if at all (not much of it going from Asia to Europe). Most highly perishable goods for Europe (think vegetables, flowers) come from Africa due to the shorter distance and opposite seasons.


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## gibor365 (Apr 1, 2011)

whatever you say, but as HP said "Silk Road can deliver chinese product in 15 days that, right now, requires 35 days conventional shipping by sea." This is a lot of $ ... Really , there are not too many "Highly perishable goods" from Asia , but can be a lot of "medium perishable goods ", like canned meat, canned fish, pets food, sweets etc


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

i wouldn't say anything about costs, there are no statistics anywhere since the Silk Road trains aren't even running yet.

a three-locomotive train hauling hundreds of container flatbed railcars could haul goods from china to a port in turkey - or to a future son-of-ISIL mediterranean port in what is present day syria - for costs & speed that cannot be rivalled, is what they're saying.

another thing they're saying is that the mineral & fossil fuel wealth now buried in the 'stans - in all the himalaya foothills countries including afghanistan - will have a better chance of export. Right now there's almost no export, nobody is talking about rail-vs-sea transport costs, there's no sea available in the heart of central asia.

it's normal that a polar economic power would emerge to assert itself against the dominance of the US & the World Bank. The Silk Road is a loose umbrella term used to describe this developing sino-russian axis. 

the official name that's often seen in media reportage is Silk Road Economic Belt. This i believe must be a translation, possibly from russian or chinese, since the word "belt" is being used somewhat inaccurately in this english version.

me i'm not for or against, i just think the west should pay attention to what is actually happening rather than preach with prematurely inaccurate statistics about what "should" be happening.

one could argue that round-the-Cape sea shipping & its longtime cousins, through-the-Suez & through-Panama canal shipping, are legacies of 500 years of european imperial domination of its former colonies ...


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

I'm not opposed to the rail line. It is a part of a campaign by China to economically integrate its neighbours as a way of exerting greater influence in the region. Russia will fall into China's orbit too, undoubtedly. Maybe they will be China's Canada . Sparsely populated and resource rich northern neighbour.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

gibor said:


> whatever you say, but as HP said "Silk Road can deliver chinese product in 15 days that, right now, requires 35 days conventional shipping by sea." This is a lot of $ ... Really , there are not too many "Highly perishable goods" from Asia , but can be a lot of "medium perishable goods ", like canned meat, canned fish, pets food, sweets etc


I'm speaking as someone who has worked in supply chain, thinking about cost-effectiveness of different shipping methods. This is not an emotional decision, and companies are not like consumers buying off Amazon. They are happy to wait an additional 20 days if it means their freight costs are lower than the cost of tying up capital as inventory for the extra 20 days. In Canada, we were frequently looking at order lead times of 4 or 5 months from China.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

andrewf said:


> I'm not opposed to the rail line. It is a part of a campaign by China to economically integrate its neighbours as a way of exerting greater influence in the region. Russia will fall into China's orbit too, undoubtedly. Maybe they will be China's Canada . Sparsely populated and resource rich northern neighbour.




yes, exactly.

Silk Road initiative is a term loosely applied to all commerce moving through or along the "belt." The new gas pipeline to be built across greece - transmitting russian gas being piped via turkey to western europe - is part of the Silk Road plan.

i believe i posted above, though, that a news item couple days ago said that russian/turkish negotiations for the new pipeline have run into serious breakdowns. Turkey is asking for more capital commitment upfront than russia is willing or able to provide, something like that.

to me, a fascinating & perilous question goes: Where does a son-of-ISIL arab caliphate fit in? obviously it would seek to be on the Silk Road, a key centre if possible. This is an arab dream, to restore the glory of a civilization lost more than a thousand years ago.

the new Silk Road could certainly fail. My point is that we in the west need to look at things from other perspectives, not necessarily our own. It's a bit dumb to think that dropping bombs on parts of this enormous region is a practical longterm solution.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

The silk road plan isn't really about connecting to Europe. It's about bringing China's nearer neighbours closer to its economic orbit. Same as the infrastructure projects designed to bring closer integration with Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, even India and Pakistan.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

if that were the case why would they have adopted the famous Silk Road name, with its historic all-roads-lead-to-Rome-in-europe meaning?

after all they could've called it the mekong delta plan


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## uptoolate (Oct 9, 2011)

You'd have to ask the marketing people that question HP. It may be as simple as the name recognition and the mainly positive associations in the west as the ancient caravan routes brought great riches to many in the west. I think, as andrewf points out, that the goal may be otherwise with this endeavour. The idea of the current Russian far east falling into Chinese orbit is not at all far-fetched and almost seems inevitable. This week's Economist has an interesting 'What If...' section and this scenario along with the further break of Russia is discussed.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

i hadn't ever heard of any contemporary thinking that russia would break up ... is that what the Economist is saying? wondering if you believe that yourself?

afaik, all that i hear, is that putin's popularity with most russians has never been higher. I've only had one recent conversation with one russian friend, she & her family are very approving of putin, believe he's not properly understood in the west.

i'll look for the Economist article, unless you would be kind enough to spare a link ...


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## uptoolate (Oct 9, 2011)

I don't have a link for the article as I was reading the old style paper version. 

I doubt that Russia would break up in a major way but certainly there are small parts of it that are likely to drop out as time goes by and clearly, the far-east is likely to come under the economic domination of China. My understanding is that there are already some areas in the Russian far-east in which Chinese workers outnumber the original local population. The Economist article pointed out that any significant break up would be seen as very bad from the Western viewpoint as there would be a great deal of instability and nuclear weapons will again be in play. Also, any breakaway portion of the country will be much less likely to give them up after seeing how worthless the Budapest accord turned out to be for Ukraine. 

We were in Russia two weeks ago and there seemed to be mixed feelings about Putin. Definitely, things had improved dramatically under his tenure for the average Russian. The availability and affordability of goods has increased dramatically. It seemed like the shops and supermarkets were very well stocked in St Petersburg and environs. Still noticeable absences but overall very good. He is greatly respected for fixing these things that had clearly been broken but definitely there was an understanding that there was huge amounts of corruption and misappropriation going on. One of the great sentiments oft heard was in regards to paying taxes and that there was no way as the money would just be going to some corrupt politician or their family and friends. There was not much hope in the people that we spoke to about Russia ever becoming a great social democracy like Germany. Some just matter of factly stated that this was not in the Russian peoples' blood.


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## gibor365 (Apr 1, 2011)

> My understanding is that there are already some areas in the Russian far-east in which Chinese workers outnumber the original local population.


 you are talking about facts that were true 10-15 years ago, than Russia introduced new laws and strict enforcement to prevent big number of Chinese workers (esp. illegal ones) in Russian Far East


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