Hey Justin,

With regard to the financial crisis, has the response been consistent with a 1T or a 4T?

As far as reaction to the election here goes... Our QA guy came up to me this morning to congratulate me on the "new [n-word] President" (AFAIK, that's the only word they have for the melanin-endowed... "black" means from the Caucasus). There's some mild hope that Obama would be slightly less of an a-hole than McCain would have been, but really, aside from the entertainment value, no one really seems to care all that much.

Election stuff has been a regular feature on the EuroNews station, but not much bigger than the once-daily fifteen seconds on the local news outlets.

----

Of course, much more significant that whoever gets to rule the USA for the next chunk of time is the economic situation. The colloquial word for what is happening here is "Crisis" -- though that appears to cover the entire field from mild recession to total collapse. In this instance, no one is particularly worried. A couple months ago, when the softening got started, people switched gears right away into belt-tightening mode (for example, we've delayed our build rate increase for now, and will be remaining at 1/day for the immediate future). Here, the primary hit has been a credit cruch -- the big one for us was when the rates banks would offer for leasing jumped to 25% annual. The fall of the Euro faster than the dollar has also had a bit of an effect (since we compete in American goods against European ones), though no one expects the dollar to do anything but plummet in the next several weeks, so the difficulty should be short-lived.
Also, people pretty much right away started adjusting their owning, holdings, and projection patterns to accomodate (or at least be ready for) the new economic picture. Since credit had very little to do with the Russian economy, except at the very margins (and with the big exception of the Moscow real estate market), there's not been the level of capital-destruction now coming to light in all the Western economies. Rather, for the most part businesses around here very quickly jumped into capital-preservation mode aтв have started looking for ways to take advantage of the overall worldwide slump. An example, most every durable-goods retailer -- particularly those sourcing from overseas -- has massively marked-down their current inventory (in many cases, even selling at a loss) in order to free up the capital tied in inventory and turn it around into snapping up the newly-repriced deals in the US, Europe, and China. For example, to take a one-time hit of 10 grand on one truck, and in doing so be able to buy two trucks at the new lower US-market price level and then sell them each for a 4-grand profit, then continue turning that money and so forth.

Other than that, construction has slowed or halted on several projects that were marginal (if even that). This is looked at almost universally as a good thing -- as one colleague put it, "when it costs you 1000rubles to have an Uzbek swing a hammer for a day, things are way out of balance". Now the prices for construction materials and labor are being pushed back down to more reasonable levels (though also for the time being, a fair number of migrant laborers are finding things to do at home, which helps counteract the trend a bit). In fact, prices for everything are coming down to more reasonable levels.
And they've even scrapped the plan for the GazProm obscenity on the right bank of the Neva across from the Smolny Cathedral. Which is indisputably a good thing. And also, there's the satisfaction in seeing the crooks who got to be billionaires looting the country under the tutelage of the West in the 90s turning into millionaires and thousandaires. I've heard people saying, what else would you expect? Stealing money and managing money are skills that don't really overlap. And right now, the market is helping expose the fools and bandits and moving their ill-gotten (or luck-gotten) wealth to people who will actually do something good with it.

As for the more personal level, you hear quite frequently people saying that this situation hardly justifies being called a 'crisis' (again, just their generic word for an economic downturn). The lines run like,

"Crisis? Ha. When you go fishing for the weekend, and on the way home Sunday stop to buy smokes, and the guy at the gas station tells you that what you've got in your pocket, 'isn't money anymore'... That's a crisis"
""Getting up in the morning to find out that the money that covered drinks for you and your friends all night last night with change left for the cab ride home now won't even get you a cup of coffee.... That's a crisis"
"When we had to for six months just make sure to get our people at least a couple hundred bucks a month and just owe them the rest of their salary because that was all the money they had at the time. And no one quit, because the hundred bucks was at least keeping them alive. That was a crisis"

In other words, the collapse that culminated the Russian 4T back in the late 90s -- that was a crisis. This is just a bump.

This slowdown is expected -- assuming the government does a minimum of making-things-worse (a big assumption, granted, but the Russian government has a living memory of getting its ass handed to it by the Russian people, so they're not nearly inclined to push it as far as the more powerful Western governments) -- to have run its course sometime by the spring. So we're looking at a thin winter, but that's about it. And prices are already coming down, which is just fabulous.

I remember America's First Turning, having spent most of my formative years in it, and what you report most surely sounds First Turning to me. Thanks for the update!

Originally Posted by The Rani

Justin, you still glad that you moved over there? Just curious.

Oh hell yeah.

Living in Russia can be a pain in the ass a lot of the time, and Andi still is having a tough time sometimes (though getting to fly back to Portland for a month twice a year helps), but still neither of us would dispute that this was the right move. We're figuring for now on hanging out until we've stashed away a chunk of change and then packing back over to the PacNW and starting a business of our own. Until then, where we are is a pretty good place.

Particularly considering the fact that Freightliner moved all its engineering to South Carolina not long after we moved, and then just recently laid a whole bunch of the poor f-kers off -- now that they had lost out big-time on selling their houses and were stuck on the other side of the country. If we'd have stayed, we'd be no better off than we are now, and in fact a lot worse off, financially. And here, I get to run a factory. Which is pretty cool for a 32-year-old guy.

Plus, the people here are great and the kids are loving it. And the location has its advantages; this (Western, not Russian) Christmas we're taking some time off and driving via Finland and Sweden to Paris for a week. Andi wants to climb the Eiffel Tower, and Garret wants to see where Rattatouille was shot (and the 24th is his birthday, after all).

@

Originally Posted by Justin '77

First, the borders of the Post-Soviet republics upon the break-up were left pretty much exactly on the lines the USSR drew. This did things like put Nagorno-Kharabak (an Armenian region) inside Azerbaijan, the Independent-Since-Alexander's-Army-Retreated-From-India region of Abkhazia inside Georgia, and the Ossetian region split bewteen Russia and Georgia. So it's worth keeping in mind that the national boundaries being fought over are largely lines drawn by Stalin -- a Georgian himself, let's not forget -- and his buddies on a map.

From what I have read, this is a tactic leftover from the Russian empire of dividing up ethnic minorities among different administrative units to prevent claims for autonomy, et cetera.

When the USSR broke down, the various constituent countries took somewhat different paths. Several of the smaller regions, particularly in the Central Asia/Caucasus region (look agin at that demographic map someone posted) tried to push the breakdown even a step further -- encouraged in large part by Yeltsin's clear policy of reviving the autonomy of the various nations in Russia (that's why you've got Bashkiri, Tatar, Buryat, Nenets, and so on and so on spoken in regional governments throughout the RF today, for example).

Yeltsin's policy towards the federation republics seems to have mirrored his policy towards the Soviet republics -- that is he recognized, correctly I think, that the USSR was too large to administer solely from Moscow. I am not sure how real that autonomy is. I mean the Republic of Karelia, once part of Finland, now mostly settled by Russians, only has one official language: Russian.

Caucasians tend to be hot-headed hill folk, so the cease-fire was never really 100% enforceable all the time. But the level was always kept down to at least low-grade sporadic mayhem. Which beats the heck out of full-on Caucasus war. It was at least a more or less decent place to stop. Georgia got to claim it still owned the places, and the regions got to pretend like they were going to get to be independent some day. They called it a 'frozen conflict'. But again, at least quasi-stable.

The post-Soviet "settlement" is about as durable as Soviet-era housing. You can patch it up, but sooner or later it's going to come down. There was no consensus about the status of those regions and there was no mechanism for establishing a consensus. Which brings us to ...

And then the EU and NATO banded together and backed the independence of Kosovo (a city, for chrissake! Not even a county or a region, but just a single city!), the secession forces in those frozen conflict areas -- as had been predicted would happen following the Kosovo independence -- kind of woke back up.

Russia started to put the squeeze on Georgia following the Rose Revolution in 2003. One of the central weaknesses [or strengths depending on how you look at it] is that Russia's ties to both parts of its intelligence agencies and affiliated paramilitary militias, such as in the Caucasus are not clearly under control. Russia's support for those regions encouraged more trouble making on their part -- a drone shot down here, a missile dropped over there.

As for Kosovo, there has historically been a rivalry between Central European [first Austria-Hungary, then Germany] power and Russian power in the Balkans. The break-up of Yugoslavia was facilitated by German recognition of each breakaway state. First Slovenia and Croatia, then Bosnia-Herzegovina. Now Kosovo. But Russia has not pointed the finger at its German business partners. In current Russian rhetoric, the Kosovo solution was determined in Washington, even though a Finn, Martti Ahtisaari, came up with the plan.

Bearing in mind the fact that the two regions are really one that just happens to be split by a line that wasn't even really important in the slightest until fifteen or so years ago, that put a huge chunk of the S.Ossetian people in the position of having dual Russian-Georgian citizenship. It should be noted that Russia did this in large part to avoid having the region declare independence from Georgia; rather it was looked at as a way to counteract the ripples of Kosovo that were threatening to thaw the frozen conflict.

They would make a bit more formal their protection of the people of N.Ossetia (and Abkhazia) from any future Georgian aggression, in exchange for which the regions would allow themselves to remain formally a part of Georgia. It's tough to say whether that was working or not. Most likely -- as with anything politicians do -- not as well as they had hoped. One this it did do, though, was commit the RF to any future Georgian/Ossetian conflict. Their Constitution compels them to come to the aid of their citizens -- which now the Ossetians were.

This tastes a bit like Russian foreign ministry kool-aid. Russia tried to establish formal relations with the Abkhaz and South Ossetians even before Saakashvili came to power. The "constitution made me do it" excuse is also unbelievable. The Constitution also used to say that the president should serve four-year terms. But now it says the president should have a six-year term. See how flexible the Russian constitution is.

Into the mix jumps Misha, inexplicably deciding to settle the issue himself, once and for all. The predominant theory here is that he was hoping to either get away with grabbing S.Ossetia while Russia was afraid to react, or alternately, to provoke a response from Russia and in doing so get Georgia's NATO-membership fast tracked after the 'threat' from the Bear was thrown out for all to see.

We forget that every country has its own psychology. The Germans are terrified of a war with Russia because for centuries they have been bled white in every continental conflict, for example. The Poles want Russia kept weak because historically the Russians have sought to dominate Poland. The last time Georgia was independent, other than during 1918-1921, was in the 18th century. Historically, the country had been a multinational empire: not unlike Russia itself, with similar ideas about how smaller, adjacent lands should be brought into its orbit.

Saakashvili came to power promising greater integration with the West and an end to the stalemates of the 1990s. Why wouldn't he want that for his people? Nearly two decades after they became independent every anecdotal story I heard about Georgia was that it was stuck in the stone age -- that Tbilisi didn't have 24-hour electricity; that people's Khrushevka kitchens didn't work, so they cooked their food in open pits outside their Soviet-era dwellings.

Five years in, I would say the Georgians have made immense progress in spite of the impossible odds against them. I mean Saakashvili is only 40 years old. The Georgian foreign minister is 31. A large section of the Georgian "elite" went from taking courses on post-communist transformation in western universities to running the show.

Could you imagine that you went to a two-year college program, came back to your home country and suddenly had to contend with the Russian political elite, who have careers that go back deep into the Soviet era [Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, for instance, has been a diplomat for 30 years. He spent most of the 1980s at the UN]

So the excitable Saakashvili got played hard by the Russians who had a lot to lose by having Georgia join NATO. If NATO entered the Caucasus, it would mean a possible internationalization of the conflicts in Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, etc. And they know how Kosovo turned out. They intensified pressure on him and in the end he cracked. I wouldn't exactly deem them to be "peacekeepers."

The Russians like to blame everything on the United States. But they are as responsible for this mess as the Georgians are, if not more. Putin has been blustering for so long he owed his people a little bread and circus. And so he turned up the heat on Saakashvili and earned greater popularity at home. In some ways, he and Saakashvili were playing the same game.

We all know how well that played out for him. The opposition that he so succesfully suppressed in the last 'election' cycle in Georgia is coming out strong, and it's pretty unclear how, without doing some serious skull-crushing, Misha is going to keep his spot in charge. So there's one good result for everyone involved, at least (unless he does go the skull-crushing route, of course. More on that in a second).

As The Economist put it, he's a political corpse. That's probably why he needed to get back those regions to fulfill his campaign promise. With little open signals of support from the West, ie. a MAP from NATO, I guess he decided to gamble.

Of course, they did manage to drag things out far enough that, by the time they got to the edge of S.Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two regions had officially declared their independence. So instead of having to pull out of all the regions they had moved into, they only had to pull out of all the parts of Georgia they had moved into. S.Ossetia and Abkhazia weren't Georgia anymore, so they pulled back behind those lines and stopped. A sleazy-lawyer move, sure. But legitimate, nevetheless.

Not legitimate at all, actually. How many countries have recognized those "states"? Nicaragua and the government in Gaza? Not even Belarus is willing to do it. That means that, apart from schools in the Russian Federation and Managua, no students in the world will be learning the capitals of Abkhazia and South Ossetia anytime soon.

Nor was Kosovo a stellar case of legitimacy. Montenegro's independence from Serbia was legitimate. But Kosovo? Well, Google Maps has a red line delineating its questionable border, as opposed to an internationally recognizable yellow line. Most new atlases I have seen similarly put the border in question. Why? Because a state cannot be deemed legitimate until the country from which it secedes recognizes it. Simple as that.

The real issue is that there is no mechanism for creating legitimacy anymore. Moscow creates one world order, the West creates another. What passes for a "state" in Moscow is just a disputed territory in Washington. I guess this is normal. I mean, look at Taiwan.

The independence of the two regions is an accomplished fact, and it's just the clean-up that remains.

They are about as independent as Kosovo is, perhaps less. South Ossetia's economy is wholly dependent on Russian handouts and smuggling. The only way Georgia could have won them back is by building its own economy to make Georgian rule preferable to Russian. But given the scars of the wars of the 90s, that is very much in doubt. I guess Serbia was in the same position: they wanted to preserve their territorial integrity, but, in the end, they could not, for similar reasons.

I was going to type out a long reply to you, but I realized pretty quickly that I could just sum it up and continue to be complacently lazy.

"I disagree with nothing whatsoever in the above comment"

I will note, however, that for all the snide remarks, in fact the Russian Constitution is significantly less-often bent than the US one. Your example is a good one. When they wanted six-year Presidents (and now that they're asking for "president-for-Life or some other banana-republic-bullcrap), they went through the effort of changing the Constitution. So you can hardly say that the clauses obligating them to defend Russian citizens (or not extraditing them or whatever) are unimportant. Cynical or not, the government of the RF is obligated to follow its own Constitution, and actually does so.

day-to-day corruption aside, of course

Originally Posted by Justin '77

I was going to type out a long reply to you, but I realized pretty quickly that I could just sum it up and continue to be complacently lazy.

It took me way too long to write it. I almost regret it, but it was gnawing it my mind, so interesting are your comments ...

I will note, however, that for all the snide remarks, in fact the Russian Constitution is significantly less-often bent than the US one. Your example is a good one. When they wanted six-year Presidents (and now that they're asking for "president-for-Life or some other banana-republic-bullcrap), they went through the effort of changing the Constitution. So you can hardly say that the clauses obligating them to defend Russian citizens (or not extraditing them or whatever) are unimportant. Cynical or not, the government of the RF is obligated to follow its own Constitution, and actually does so.

day-to-day corruption aside, of course

I don't think they could ever change something like that in Estonia. There would be lots of talk, but like most things, the votes wouldn't be there and parliamentarians would chicken out and we'd be stuck with the status quo, which we are. The president in Estonia, for example, is supposed to be elected by a majority in parliament, but this has never happened: instead the nomination always fails and it goes to an electoral college. Every time there is a presidential selection they talk about changing the constitution, but no party would do it because it would be political suicide.

I would agree with your interpretation that Russia is not in a "third turning." I don't know how this country could even have its own turnings. I mean when the Swedes own your financial sector, and your future is linked to the EU and NATO, and your security environment depends on what jerk is in charge in Moscow, then it's kind of hard to have your own time. Are we in a financial crisis? Depends on the Swedes. A security crisis? Depends on trans-Atlantic relations.

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20081128/118602949.html

Hopefully the new administration will take a more reasonable tack towards Russia than its neocon-laced predecessor.

And what might that more reasonable tack be? That we will look the other way at a Drang nach Suden on Moscow's part, but any Drang nach Westen will carry swift and decisive consequences.

One question has come to my mind. For most of the 20th century, Russia not only controlled the rest of the Soviet Union (which was largely inherited from the old Russian Empire), but also had the hope of leading the world into a new Golden Age of perfect human equality and social justice. The US stymied that hope and exposed the hellish nightmare behind the system upon which that hope was based. In the process, Russia also lost nearly a quarter of the old Soviet Union's territory to 14 new/old countries in 1991, and suffered through a decade (the 90s) of economic upheaval and near-depression. Might Russia now be desiring revenge upon the US for those experiences? (Keep in mind that the motivations involved need not make sense to Americans - only to the Russians.)

Originally Posted by SVE-KRD

Might Russia now be desiring revenge upon the US for those experiences?

Seriously?

Why the heck would they want revenge on the US? Why not on the Kenyans or the Uruguayans or the Malaysians?

It is an American myth that holds that the USA defeated the USSR. Anyone who was actually looking at the thing while it happened could tell you that what America did, for the most part, prolonged the life of the USSR -- and that the fall when it came was from purely internal flaws. There's no revenge fantasies, since there's nothing to be revenged.

Originally Posted by SVE-KRD

One question has come to my mind. For most of the 20th century, Russia not only controlled the rest of the Soviet Union (which was largely inherited from the old Russian Empire), but also had the hope of leading the world into a new Golden Age of perfect human equality and social justice. The US stymied that hope and exposed the hellish nightmare behind the system upon which that hope was based. In the process, Russia also lost nearly a quarter of the old Soviet Union's territory to 14 new/old countries in 1991, and suffered through a decade (the 90s) of economic upheaval and near-depression. Might Russia now be desiring revenge upon the US for those experiences? (Keep in mind that the motivations involved need not make sense to Americans - only to the Russians.)

That doesn't sound surprising. The anti-western, imperialistic nationalism developing in Russia is frightening.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

It is an American myth that holds that the USA defeated the USSR. Anyone who was actually looking at the thing while it happened could tell you that what America did, for the most part, prolonged the life of the USSR -- and that the fall when it came was from purely internal flaws. There's no revenge fantasies, since there's nothing to be revenged.

Honestly, I have no idea what Russians think about anything nor do I know how they feel about themselves. I have had Russians try to tell me that Trotsky wasn't Russian. WTF? One day I asked my acquaintance Aleks, a Latvian of Russian extraction, what he thought about the tsar and the revolution. He got really mad. Why, he demanded to know, should he be expected know anything about that!? I thought he might say something like, "yeah, it really sucks what happened to little Alexei Romanov" or "Eh, they had it coming to them." Something a New Yorker would say. My wife asks me these questions all the time. "What do you, as an American, think about the bombing of Hiroshima?" Good question. But I think Russians are a little temperamental. Which means you might be discouraged from finding out what they really think. Anyway, my dentist is an Estonian Russian. She is very sweet. I feel that we are pals, and all she did was drill my teeth. When the drill was in my mouth, I didn't bother to ask her about the tsar.

That doesn't sound surprising. The anti-western, imperialistic nationalism developing in Russia is frightening.

Russia doesn't seem to have an internal political life through which one can live vicariously. It's not like Canada, where you really don't know who is going to be the PM in a week or two. So they need external enemies to keep the masses thinking about something else, like, oh no, the Ukrainians have the wrong version of history! Pesky Ukrainians. The current rulers see such freedoms as unnecessary instability, but I think they are only creating the conditions for their own painful downfalls. You can't keep Russia's wealth all to yourself; you need to share your power with others if you want to keep some of your petro treasure in the long run. I am just waiting for Khodorkovsky to get out of jail. When do you think that day will arrive? I hate seeing Putin and Chavez and Castro getting together. How long has Castro been in power? 50 years. Will Chavez ever leave? Endless power. That's Putin's dream. I am not that patriotic, but king for life makes me itchy for some tar and feathers, know what I mean?

Originally Posted by Justin '77

As far as reaction to the election here goes... Our QA guy came up to me this morning to congratulate me on the "new [n-word] President" (AFAIK, that's the only word they have for the melanin-endowed... "black" means from the Caucasus). There's some mild hope that Obama would be slightly less of an a-hole than McCain would have been, but really, aside from the entertainment value, no one really seems to care all that much.

...

This slowdown is expected -- assuming the government does a minimum of making-things-worse (a big assumption, granted, but the Russian government has a living memory of getting its ass handed to it by the Russian people, so they're not nearly inclined to push it as far as the more powerful Western governments) -- to have run its course sometime by the spring. So we're looking at a thin winter, but that's about it. And prices are already coming down, which is just fabulous.

I've been away from this board a bit, and just read this. Your initial assessment that Russia is 1T seems to hold with this (admittedly anecdotal) information. At times, because I'm a fickle and wanderlust-y soul, I yearn to be somewhere where the drama is over and people are rather sanguine about the future. Here in the U.S., hopes are high about Obama but only in the dimmest way. There is a sense from liberals and moderates (NOT the right) that if anyone can pull this off, he can, but real doubts that even he actually can.

I hope we leave this 4T a little smarter, a little more humble, a little more rational. I'll probably be in my mid-to-late 30s when we do.

Originally Posted by 1990

I've been away from this board a bit, and just read this. Your initial assessment that Russia is 1T seems to hold with this (admittedly anecdotal) information.

Hate to break it to you, but almost all information is anecdotal. Generalizing, you do at your own risk.

At times, because I'm a fickle and wanderlust-y soul, I yearn to be somewhere where the drama is over and people are rather sanguine about the future.

Unfortunately, the history of Russia has 1Ts being not particularly the kind of happy-prosperous-times-are-looking-up fun fests that people seem to expect. It kind of sucks when your neighbors do things like invade you (Napoleon); invade you (Hitler); and trash up the place you live (Greenspan, whoever else you want to blame) right when you've more or less got your crap together and are starting to move forward with momentum.
As with the previous 1Ts, Russian society will come through this pretty much the way it was when it went in. But it's not like society gets rich off a Russian 1T. Anyway, getting rich isn't what 1Ts are about, necessarily.
Basically, people expect it to suck here as bad as it will suck everywhere else -- though they may be excessively pessimistic; time will tell. They'll muddle through, good times or bad, until the time comes for their Prophet-kids to start making things insane for them.

And so on.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Hate to break it to you, but almost all information is anecdotal. Generalizing, you do at your own risk.

Unfortunately, the history of Russia has 1Ts being not particularly the kind of happy-prosperous-times-are-looking-up fun fests that people seem to expect. It kind of sucks when your neighbors do things like invade you (Napoleon); invade you (Hitler); and trash up the place you live (Greenspan, whoever else you want to blame) right when you've more or less got your crap together and are starting to move forward with momentum.

I won't comment on Greenspan or Napoleon, but Stalin did invade Poland together with Hitler. In fact, he paid Hitler for a piece of Lithuania. Here is footage of their joint parade in the conquered city of Brest-Litovsk.

But Soviet society was not in crisis. The prison-labor state was at its zenith, and its paranoid leadership kept inventing new categories of enemies to fill up its concentration camps with free labor.

As with the previous 1Ts, Russian society will come through this pretty much the way it was when it went in.

If you are correct, then the last 1T began with Trotsky the non-Russian's exile; he was killed by ice axe in Mexico in 1940. This one began with the exile of the non-Russian Boris Berezovsky to London in 2001. I am sure, at some point, they'll get him too.

Originally Posted by Uzi

If you are correct, then the last 1T began with Trotsky the non-Russian's exile; he was killed by ice axe in Mexico in 1940. This one began with the exile of the non-Russian Boris Berezovsky to London in 2001. I am sure, at some point, they'll get him too.

I doubt they really care so much about Beryoza. But time will tell.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

I doubt they really care so much about Beryoza. But time will tell.

I would have said the same about Litvinenko. I don't claim to know who killed him, but they sure left a big mess behind!

Justin '77's comments seems to confirm especially when compared to earlier comments he made years ago that could still be seen in the archives, that the real justin has been kidnapped or dissappeared and the justin we're talking to is really a steath FSB agent.

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

Justin '77's comments seems to confirm especially when compared to earlier comments he made years ago that could still be seen in the archives, that the real justin has been kidnapped or dissappeared and the justin we're talking to is really a steath FSB agent.

Careful, CH. People might start actually believing the above to be true.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/12/.../08kremlin.php

Originally Posted by Pink Splice

Naaaah. He's Intourist.

Huh?

The company that sells tour packages to Russians wanting to go abroad?
Intourist website

I don't get the joke.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Huh?

The company that sells tour packages to Russians wanting to go abroad?
Intourist website

I don't get the joke.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intourist

"Before privatisation in 1992, Intourist was renowned as the official state travel agency of the Soviet Union. It was founded in 1929 by Joseph Stalin and was staffed by NKVD officials. Intourist was responsible for managing the great majority of foreigners' access to, and travel within, the Soviet Union."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NKVD

"The NKVD (Russian: НКВД, Народный Комиссариат Внутренних Дел Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del listen (help·info)) or People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the leading secret police organization of the Soviet Union that was responsible for political repression during the Stalinist era. It conducted mass extrajudicial executions, ran the Gulag system of forced labor, suppressed underground resistance, conducted mass deportations of nationalities and "Kulaks" to unpopulated regions of the country, guarded state borders, conducted espionage and political assassinations abroad, was responsible for subversion of foreign governments, and enforced Stalinist policy within Communist movements in other countries.

The NKVD was also known for its Main Directorate for State Security (GUGB), which eventually became the Committee for State Security (KGB). In addition to its state security and police functions, however, some of its departments handled other matters, such as firefighting, border guards (NKVD Border Troops), and archives."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronol...olice_agencies