This and That

By Walter Kish

There are some weekends when finding inspiration for a topic for this column is a challenge, and this being one of them, I dug into my mailbag and came up with an assortment of somewhat odd news items that found their way to me over the Internet these past few weeks.

Perhaps the strangest was a piece about a group of young Ukrainian women in the Carpathian Mountains called “Asgarda”.  They train in an assortment of martial arts including boxing and weaponry that includes swords, scythes, the distinctive Hutsul mountain axes called “topirtsi”, as well as ninja nunchuks.  They dress in an assortment of garb that varies from traditional embroidered robes to leather getups that would do Ruslana proud.  Their spiritual role model is said to be Yulia Tymoshenko and one would presume that they are preparing for the next season of political unrest in Ukraine.  I found this particularly disturbing – Ukrainian women are dangerous enough as it is, but armed with sharp weapons and trained in the martial arts - well that is downright scary! You can find some interesting pictures on “Asgarda” at the following internet address: http://www.divinecaroline.com/article/22360/65946-tribe-ukrainian-fighting--pics-

The next story to catch my eye, hot on the heels of the recent gas crisis, is fresh trouble brewing on Ukraine’s Eastern border with Russia.  It seems that a shipment of circus camels en route from Russia’s Kalmykia region to Bulgaria is being held up by Ukrainian border authorities claiming they are a health hazard as camels are potential carriers of African swine fever.  The fact that the camels are coming from the area adjoining the Caspian Sea, which, the last time I looked, was nowhere near Africa, does not seem to bother Ukrainian border authorities.  Apparently, one of the camels has already died from being cooped up in a truck.  Discussions continue on both sides, but it seems it will be a while before they get over this hump.

Another story from Russia that gave me a few laughs came out of an interview that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin gave to European journalists at the height of the recent gas crisis.  In it, a vociferous and indignant Putin denied that Russia was responsible for shutting off the gas and laid all the blame on Ukraine’s “criminal leadership”.  He insisted that Russia was continuing to pump gas into Ukraine and that it was Ukraine that was stopping the flow to Europe.  Of course, when sanity finally returned, Putin had no trouble in ordering the gas flow (which he denied had been shut off) be turned on again.  As for Ukraine’s “criminal leadership”, I guess Putin must be smug, since there is no “criminal leadership” in Russia, as the only criminals in Russia are those that oppose his leadership, and they are all either in jail, in exile, in hiding or dead.  Perhaps he can explain why there has been an unusual rash of beatings and assassinations of journalists in Russia that were investigating corruption and criminal activities amongst the Russian leadership?

Many Russians, particularly those in authority, seem to have a distinctive if warped perspective on things.  In a recent article in Russia’s leading business magazine Expert, one finds the following interesting observation:

“Territorial expansion has dominated Russia’s view of world development. But there is no need to feel apologetic about this. We should be no less proud of the great nation that was built by our ancestors than the Swiss are of their watches, the French of their cuisine or the Italians of Renaissance art. And just as these achievements of other nations are not just a cause for pride, but a source of income, Russia’s expanses, with their countless wealth and strategic positions, are paying themselves off for us today a hundredfold …Russia has accepted everyone who wanted to become a part of it, everyone who was prepared to serve it.”

Really?  How nice of them!  They might have had the courtesy though of asking us first as to whether we wanted to become part of and to serve them.