I'm sure this thread could possibly fit into the politics forum, but it's directed at Russians and would probably get overshadowed and lost in the politics forum.

I was curious, is Russia Today a reliable source of news? I mean, is it highly biased? Is it the Russian equivelant of our (USA) Fox news?

I've watched some videos on youtube of Russia today broadcasts regarding the Russia/Georgia conflict, and there's quite a bit of conflicting information. Some of the comments say that Russia Today is nothing more than a mouth piece for Putin's political agendas.

It's apparently widely regarded here in the USA that Russia started the conflict with Georgia, but I've seen Putin's interview on CNN and also saw Vitaly Churkin's speech at the UN security Council. I've also seen Ron Paul say that Georgia started the conflict for what it's worth.

I'm an American of Russian descent and have always been interested in Russia and Russian culture and history. I've even been learning to speak Russian for a while but I'm a lazy student. I also root for the Russian hockey team when they face the USA in the olympics. There's no better hockey players than Russian hockey players IMO.

Well, just looking for some input and opinions. Thank you.

Also, is there some way you can type in Cyrillic and English? Like change back and forth? Or do need a special keyboard and software or something?

I've never really progressed that much learning Russian because I've never had anyone to learn with and talk with. If I could talk with people in Russian I might actually start learning better and progress.

Finally, I haven't had sex in quite a while

prosteetye pazhalsta, gdye vlagaleeshshye? Spaceeba.

я ..... think I figured it out. My vocabulary is very limited. I basically know vagina and penis.

You totally rock
It was georgia who started a conflict, with a support of US government.
And actually every thinking human canfigure this fact out.
Our news sources are pretty confident

Is this a good layout? Anyone use it?

From what I've seen, I do believe Georgia started the conflict. I saw an interview with Saakashvili and he was asked something, it was like "Mr. Saakashvili, some have said you made a military blunder by starting the conflict" or something like that, and he didn't really deny or confirm, he just kind of avoided the question like Sarah Palin in the VP debate.

Now that I've found out I can type in cyrillic, and now that 2+2 has a Russian forum (nice job with this btw 2+2), I'm going to start studying again and try to learn Russian. It's something I've always wanted to do and now I have a chance to actually have conversations with Russian speaking people.

I followed all the steps in this guide

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homep...lGor/kbd_e.htm

And I can use cyrillic font, and i've installed the keyboard layout manager also, but I'm curious about something.

I only have 31 characters, not 33. I'm missing the "yo" character

that looks like this
..
e

and also the hard sign character which has no sound but represents a very short pause, looks like this

-ь


Is that normal? Like they're not really used in news papers and in emails and stuff? Or should I have those characters?


Edit: nevermind, it was because of the phonetic deal, I'll just have to map it phonetically myself.

Russians use other layout on the keyboards, but this one seems to be easier to memorise. Nice to hear that you are going to learn russian. You are always welcome to ask questions if you have some.

According to the Georgia conflict. I agree with sm11e. Just want to add, that it is not the end of the story.

I ****ed around and got my **** stuck on cyrillic, couldn't log into my user account. Detailed in this thread

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/48...9/#post6512201

****ing corrupted my default US language set up or something, I'm on US international right now.

Anyone ever gone through that **** before?

I'll preface this with I'm an American married to a Russian woman

Georgia was in the wrong, they violated a truce and invaded a politically autonomous region, simultaneously killing Russian citizens and cleansing Alans from the region and Russia was legally and morally obligated to protect South Ossetia, and subsequently Abkhazia, from any Georgian aggression. It should have been no surprise that Russia would have responded to Georgia with overwhelming force, and the Western media reaction was as laughable as it was biased.

I disagree the American government encouraged the Georgian government to invade, because American had nothing to gain from destabilizing the region and in the event of a Russian overreaction or a Georgian failure it'd jeopardize their energy interests. Behind closed doors, I imagine the American government is furious with Tkashvilli for giving Russia the perfect excuse to annex South Ossetia and Abkhazia, forfeiting 1/5th of Georgia's gas and mineral rights along the coast line and giving Russia a new outpost for the Black Sea Fleet circa 2015 to exert military influence over the Caucasian pipeline.

At the end of the day, what Georgia did was illegal and what Russian did was legal in the court of international law. The problem is Russia is going to end up taking advantage of the situation to exert influence over neighboring, pro-West FSU countries and annex South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and that's why the West is really throwing a fit. If you want a non-BS American view point on the conflict, just Google for Susan Eisenhower, Russian expert, former Republican, President Eisenhower's Grand Daughter and married to a former Russian Duma member and read her take on the matter.

Hi LirvA

I am Russian and I'm not really a fan of president Putin. But how can you live in USA and still be Ok with a man who killed a ton of American citizens during a false terract of september 11 ?

Don't u know that it is 100% obvious and proven that buildings could not possibly be destroyed by planes or by fire from fuel, that explosive charges were definitely installed by goverment (because they did everything to hide the fact that buildings fell down exactly like they do after planned demolition from inside) ? If you don't know about the existense of such part of physics like "mechanics", then please find an expert in it and ask about those ridiculous events.

I mean, how come u can care about corrupt goverment and news resources in Russia while your president and his goverment are bunch of criminals with blood of thousands US citizens on their hands? The reasons for what happened on 11 september was this fascist "act of patriots" and a motive to invade yet another foreign country.

About Georgia - please understand that people of South Osetia really hate Georgian president, because he ordered an attack , destroyed their houses and killed their relatives. They are really pissed off by this fact and they don't care about high level international politics. Russian troops are heroes in this region, because they retaliated and destroyed agressors.

Interesting breathweapon, thank you.


Lure, I don't want to get into a whole conspiracy theory type of discussion, I was merely asking some questions about Russia Today, and the Russia/Georgia conflict.

That being said, please don't assume I support George W. Bush, he should have been impeached long ago and he's ****ed this country up in many ways, wiped his ass with the constitution, invaded a soveirgn country who had never attacked us, and has basically been the worst president we've seen in a long long time.

Only like 30% of the US population still approve of him, I'm not part of that 30%, never have been.

You're welcome,

I agree with LirvA, the conspiracy theories don't behoove any one. I could just as easily draw a conspiracy theory between Putin and the Moscow apartment bombings that lead to the invasion of Chechnya, but it doesn't really do anything to add credibility to the U.S.A or to Russia in the case of 9/11.

I think we should be scrutinizing both governments regardless, because their equally full of **** in their own respective ways.

Where did you meet your wife breathweapon?

Russian news sucks...even the **** that's on Russian television here is god-awful (although that might be streamed from there).

Is Russia Today very biased like the US's Fox News?

Also, I read a comment on youtube that about one of the videos regarding the Russia/Georgia conflict, it was something like this

"Putin was once asked how he would respond to critizism that they supress free speech" (or something like that)

"Putin responded, easy, in Russia we don't have free speech so I don't see how you can misunderstand that" (or something like that)

Anyone have any input regarding this?

Hello everyone,

I was born in russia, lived in Estonia, Sweden and the UK since then. Whenever some sort of a conflict goes on there is usually a bias on most news sources including CNN, BBC and Russian news. However in this particular conflict I would have to say that the Georgians started it, there is just too many facts. The european/usa news sources were pushing too much the fact that it was Russia's fault, whereas Russian news were only talking about how its georgias fault and were showing videos of the place. I've tried but I could not find a source where a detailed, unbiased and healthy analysis would be taken. Usually I try to look for sources from neutral countries... but it seems there were no neutrals on this one

When it comes to translating text... a great website is www.translit.ru You can type everything in LATIN text but in Russian and then click "Everything into Russian" and it will change all of it into Russian.

I am not into conspiracy theories, but 9/11 is no mystery and no cospiracy theory at all. It is all very clear, I hope that truth will be officialy opened to your country (other countries already know what happened, cause films like "Fahrengheit 9/11" and "Zeitgeist" are NOT BANNED here [I probably made spelling mistakes in the names of fims, sorry] ). I hope that in near future new goverment will tell shocking info to you (of course, just to show you how much better they are than former corrupt criminal president Bush and win some more points).

Just try to find some videos of controlled demolition and google the term itself. My point is that "goverment" equals "uber-mafia" nowadays in every big country. When you ask something like "don't u think that you are given wrong info by goverment there in Russia?" I just answer "yes, it is possible, but it is 100% normal today".

And if you really were interested in what happened in South Osetia and Gerogia, then you would have visited the area (it is possible, didn't you know?) and ask local people to find the real truth and figure out which news agencies were lying to you, American or Russian. While really you are just a bored guy who has nothing else to do, no offense sorry.

"When it comes to translating text... a great website is www.translit.ru You can type everything in LATIN text but in Russian and then click "Everything into Russian" and it will change all of it into Russian." - NewSkol

Very interesting, that's good to know. Thanks for the link.



Lure, Fahrenheit 911 isn't banned here in the US, I own a copy and have watched it several times. Rock musician Les Claypool even had the ability of free speech to promote it at a concert one time. And I don't think Zeitgeist is banned either, I hear lots of talk about it but have never seen it.

As far as visiting Russia or other countries in the area, sure, I'd love to. Can I borrow some money so I can visit? I don't even have a car, I can't even visit battleground states to help the Obama campaign. There are many things I'd like to do but simply don't have the money.

If you can hook me up with some round trip tickets, I'll gladly take you up on that offer.

This is not standard, but it seems it was designed specially for non-Russians - they are trying to keep letters which sound similar together. But from the frequency of usage of letters (the most frequent letters in the middle) it suxx


This one is a standard one, and it is really hard to find anything other now:



And, as everyone else said, feel free to ask any question!

Yeah I tried the standard layout a little, it's definitely not as easy to remember as the other layout.


I'm still not very far along in learning, my vocabulary is very very limited.

But it's expanding a bit: thanks to you I now know some Russian slang

FYP

Russian.

Is Fox news the only source which you consider bias? I wonder which sources in the States you consider not bias?