Author: insomniacresurrected

Looming Truck Driver Shortage in Europe

So, you may have seen what is happening in the UK with the truck drivers, there ain’t enough of them…

Out of the few jobs that I tried to do in recent years was work for a trucking company. I have seen the treatment of the drivers first hand, got angry and left. I was specifically tasked with recruitment and management of Ukrainian migrant workers, and I am not surprised nobody wants to do it.

In Britain, the situation with truckers became exacerbated because post-Brexit rules do not allow easy recruitment of drivers from the continent. The Covid pandemic also halted the issuing of new licenses. However, my first comment was that we Czechs are also not safe from such a situation because the share of foreign work force is also very high in our country.

I do not have the exact statistics for the Czech Republic but here I read in the Ukrainian online newspaper Strana that in Lithuania, 80% of truckers hail from Ukraine and Belarus. Most of the natives doing this are old guys, who don’t know any better. This is the most unhealthy situation ever if one thinks that it is the truckers that bring necessities such as food and fuel, and the whole system could come crashing down if knocked a little, as happened in the UK.

The root of the problem is that driving a truck is a skill that requires training. That training is time consuming and in some countries very costly. There isn’t much of a return on investment for the drivers. The employers tend to be rather predatory and seek ways to penalize the drivers over, often contrived transgressions, such as they would accuse the drivers of stealing fuel, or causing damage on the cars, although the damage was already there when they boarded the truck.

Similar shit is keeping most of the population from entering the industry. Many of my friends in my village have a license to drive a truck but all of them work in a state company that manages the river. Many of the private businessmen are crooks. Like my former boss, I later found out he was prosecuting for tax fraud scheme with chemicals. This taught me to always get references for an employer before taking a job.

The job is difficult, tying, and you are not always able to take a shower or have hot meal. So what is the solution? In the short term there must be an easing of entry into the business without compromising the quality. Perhaps the government could subsidize the applicants. Reward them for getting the licence. On the part of the employers, better conditions of work, stable pay, stability in general. And in the long term, increased automation of the trucks. I personally do not think the latter will remove the need for a man inside the car. Cargo needs protection.

RT in German gets Blocked and Russia Should Answer in Kind

The YouTube channels of the German language version of RT were blocked, allegedly for hosting content that questioned the policies of the German government regarding the Covid epidemic. Russia must answer in kind.

If RT German is blocked in Germany. Deutsche Welle, also known as DW, in Russian should be blocked in the Russian Federation. Tit for tat.

Furthermore, pro-Russian content and Russia positive content hasn’t had it easy on social media of late. Russia should punish censorship of such content with fines and even blocks on entire websites. I personally would cheer any punishment of big tech.

Oleksiy Honcharenko Spread Cursed Images in Poltava

I already mentioned Oleksiy Honcharenko in my recent post but I remember for a while I have had a video of him on my YouTube channel. Oleksiy has a decent command of the English language and during the time of Petro Poroshenko in the office of the Ukrainian president, Oleksiy represented Ukraine in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe…

So recently, Honcharenko defaced the landscape of the Ukrainian city of Poltava with billboards featuring Ivan Mazepa, the Hetman of the Zaporozhian Host during the reign of Peter the Great. The Zaporozhian Host were Cossacks and vassals of the Russian Tsar, and for many years Mazepa was a loyal subject of Peter. But when in the course of the Great Northern War, the King of Sweden, Charles XII, Hetman Mazepa chose to betray Peter and back the Swedish invaders.

Charles and Mazepa were squarely defeated at Poltava, and the men loyal to Mazepa fled to the Ottoman Empire. Mazepa was reviled by the Tsarist government for his treason but his persona periodically resurfaced since the first half of the eighteenth century in a more positive light.

In the Romanticist period of the nineteenth century, a story from Mazepa’s youth became somewhat popular in the West. The story goes that the young Mazepa, who then was a Polish courtier, was humping one of the wives of some magnate. The magnate discovered this love affair, tied naked Mazepa to a horse and set the animal loose. The horse carried Mazepa east to the lands of the Cossacks.

Around the same time, Mazepa found some favour with the Decembrists, who saw him as fighter against autocracy, and slightly later he was adopted by the Svidomites, who made him a fighter for independent Ukraine. It would seem that modern political movements have a tendency to make Mazepa into something he really was not. That is, an old fool who backed the wrong horse.

But Mazepa animates the Svidomites because he is the personification of their own archetype. Their ideology of the Ukrainian nationalists is in a nutshell basically the betrayal of Russia and embracement of the West. And Oleksiy Honcharenko is another personification of a collective Mazepa. He campaigned in Odessa in defense of the Russian language but then in 2014, a crisis hit, a crisis no doubt influenced by Western interference. Honcharenko completely flipped the script…

Happy Birthday Poltava, The Battle of Poltava is not finished yet. To Moscow!

I am willing to bet that a repeat of the Poltava battle would have a grim ending for any adepts of Mazepa. And Honcharenko would be the first to make a run in the Western direction.

Ukraine has a Hero

And his name is Oleksandr Usyk…

The boxer, Oleksandr Usyk defeated the British fighter, Anthony Joshua and returned belts to Ukraine. However, Svidomites and Russophobes have given him a cold shoulder because Usyk is a Vatnik. Not a single Ukrainian TV station aired Uskyk’s match with Joshua. And some Ukrainian nationalists even supported Joshua. Usyk is a brave man, who is unafraid to say things that are politically incorrect and he elicits salty reactions from Nazis and peddlers of Russophobia.

Klymenko time has a good summary of the triggering…

First comes Serhiy Sternenko, already profiled on this blog. I even saved his sour grapes from his YouTube post:

If you are ready to pardon Usyk for his statements about “Russians and Ukrainians being one nation”, being bros with the occupiers, “Crimea is Crimea”, and a suggestion to hang oneself if you support decommunisation.

Ok, that is your right. However, I am not ready to just forgive.

I am sorry I am spoiling your celebration by the reminders above. One time public appearance in the Ukrainian language and gloves with the slogan “Simpheropol is Ukraine” do not bespeak Usyk’s change of mind.

Medvedchuk also says Crimea is Ukraine and sometimes speaks Ukrainian. However, he does not quit, just like Usyk, to adhere to Russian values.

***

Russia was divided into three by her enemies and nothing good ever came of this division. Ideas are more powerful than any weapon because ideas shape the future and this idea will shape the future of Eastern Europe. It will be more powerful than any nuclear bomb.

I have not investigated Usyk’s biography but from what I have gathered, he certainly has a deep connection to Crimea. It ultimately is up to the Crimeans to decide where that peninsula will belong.

Well guys, I am no fan of Communism. I believe our East European countries will be overcoming the legacy of this system for the rest of this century. However, one cannot deny that contemporary Ukraine is almost entirely a Bolshevik creation, it is another problem created by Communism. Decommunisation in Ukraine is basically going against the territorial, ethnic, and industrial history of that country.

It is no surprise that when forces hostile to the Soviet past prevailed in Ukraine, the country was met by an internal unravelling, and industrial decay.

Ukrainians Can’t Have the Cake and Eat it Too

I have noticed profound confusion in Ukrainian narratives, and you may have read many posts on this blog, where I discuss them…

Let’s start:

1) The Ukrainian nation is a modern nation, created on the basis of a vernacular language that developed in the East European plain through the contact of Old Russian peasants with their Polish overlords. 40% of Ukrainian are borrowings from Polish. It is precisely this centuries long estrangement from the rest of Russia that gave rise to the ideas of a separate Ukrainian nation.

Well, if Ukraine is based on a culture created by centuries of Polish rule, why then would the Ukrainians claim the legacy of Old Rus’. I get it, the true history of Modern Ukraine is the history of enserfed peasants, and there isn’t much to say about the place after the Old Rus’ perished in the flames of the Mongol invasion.

Ukraine is the only country of the East Slavs that does not contain in its name a reference to Rus’. Belarus and the Russian Federation do. Mind you, “Russia” is the hellenized form of the word Rus’ that entered World languages, and retrospectively the Russian language in the time of the Romanovs. I bet the Zmahars (Belorussian nationalists) would have changed the country’s name if a suitable nomenclature was current there.

So, if Ukraine on one hand is the rejection of Rus’, and commonality with Russia and Belarus. How then can Ukraine claim to be the sole proprietor of the Rus’ legacy? Ukrainian officials even make rather uniformed statements that the Russians, of the Russian Federation have somehow usurped the label Rus’.

2) Russian gas is very dirty, said Zelensky on one of his recent visits to the United States but Gazprom must continue pumping that gas to Europe because Ukraine needs the money. For many years, Ukraine was buying Russian gas through Slovakia which was several times more expensive than if it was bought directly from Russia. The Ukrainian population is feeling this independence from Russia every time they have to pay the bills.

3) Ukrainian officials speak of an ongoing war with the Russian Federation but neither is there an official declaration of war, there isn’t even a conflict going on Russian borders.

Ukraine signed the Minsk Accords but would not implement them in any form because then they would have to acknowledge that the Donbas is an internal Ukrainian conflict.

4) Speaking of Donbas and Crimea, the Ukrainians have for a long time used the question: “Whose is Crimea?” as a way to determine a friend or foe. But Crimea is a testament to the formation of the Ukrainian state.

You see, the country named Ukraine was entirely created by the Bolsheviks. The anti-Tsarist forces in the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century were very fond on the budding Ukrainian nationalists. Ukrainian nationalism in the late nineteenth century was very much intertwined with the ideas of social justice, it was about the emancipation of the downtrodden peasants, and naturally these ideas found favour with the Bolsheviks, and it was the Bolsheviks, who played the decisive role in the formation of Ukrainian state as we know it.

It was through the decision of Lenin that the Donbas became Ukraine. Stalin annexed the Western part of Ukraine from Poland and Czechoslovakia, and Khrushchev gave Ukraine Crimea. When Ukraine gained its independence in 1991, instead of trying to accommodate the people in the disparate lands they were given, the successive Ukrainian governments have embarked on a program of imposing what arguably is a West Ukrainian culture on the whole of the country.

The West Ukrainians have the desirable quality of being the most distant from the Russians but they also have a seething hatred towards the Bolsheviks that they view as occupiers. Stalin does not get any props for uniting Halychyna with the rest of Ukraine.

It is rather ironic that when the Ukrainian nationalists began toppling the statues of Lenin around Ukraine, Crimea and the Donbas seceded. You simply cannot deny the genesis of Ukraine in the USSR through the good will of Soviet leaders. The West Ukrainian nationalists have never fought for this territory, they haven’t spent a single bullet for this territory, they have inherited it from the Soviets.

Naturally then, if they want to claim this territory, they have to fight over it. But at present, Kiev finds the guts only to fight the separatists in the East, and therefore de facto, Crimea is Russia.

Recently, Russian rapper Morgenshtern, who arguably promotes a rather degenerate culture of American rappers but is actually smarter than he appears, said in an interview with the Ukrainian TV host, Dmytro Gordon that Crimea belongs to the Crimeans, and basically only the people of Crimea can decide which country they want to belong to.

5) Ukrainian officials claim they are defending Europe from the invasion of Russians from the East. They are probably trying to elicit the help of the countries to the West of their borders, who are no less sick with Russophobia than they are. However, do they not realize that their most immediate Western allies are in no position to help them militarily. The guarantors of the Minsk accords are France and Germany, not Poland and the Czech Republic. Moscow does not consider the latter as equal partners.

Followers of a Russian Football Coach get Zucced on Facebook for Mentioning his Name

The coach of the Volgograd Rotor Football club says he is suing Facebook because apparently, people that tag is name in comments get a one week Zucc.

Dmitry Khokhlov has a surname that is derived from the word “khokhol”, a pre-modern designation for “Ukrainian”, for instance Nikolai Gogol, the writer, referred to himself as “khokhol”. Today however the word is often used pejoratively. Some very smart person in Facebook therefore thought banning the entire word would somehow make Facebook a better place.

Now the algorithm bans anyone using that word. Including when addressing Mr. Khokhlov. I personally think that suing Facebook is a waste of energy. The public must be aware that Facebook is not a platform, where you can safely engage in discussion of whatever topic. You never know where the Zucc is gonna come from. I personally was zucced for a photo of Joseph Goebbels, that was caption with the words: “the media are behaving like Goebbels now.” You cannot have satire on that website, and a historian trying to discuss the Nazi regime would as well be banned for that photo.

When I was still on Facebook, I was Zucced for a photo from the Bengal Famine. It should have dawned on me then that Facebook is rife with ridiculous censorship and not a platform that is friendly to its users. Imagine being treated like this in any offline setting, these people would soon be out of business.

Any public figure needs to have a website and encourage his followers to go there for information first instead of relying on Facebook.

Energy Poverty is Here

Something rather momentous is happening…

Driving to work, I have to pass through woods that were planted on the hill over centuries by the Schwarzenberg family that used the castle I work in as a residence and later as a hunting lodge. I saw and elderly, rather uncouth gentleman collecting tree branches. Energy poverty has arrived to my country.

At another instance, a friend of my sitting in a clandestine pub of ours (pubs were regulated out of existence here), said he finds it difficult to pay for the variety of fuels available in shops. My friend lives in a 16th century house, which does not have the insulation of modern homes. Heating homes with gas or electricity is a luxury for many in this country (the Czech Republic).

The EU seems to have reached the fruits of its labour. For years, I have heard about divesting from Russian energy, about making life hell for Gazprom. I have seen sanctions against the Russian energy sector. I have read claims that the countries of Europe will build a renewable infrastructure that will leave Gazprom in the cold. But the situation today is that prices of gas are through the roof. There is a deficit. Prices of electricity are also high and there isn’t any renewable energy infrastructure to make it cheaper.

Heck, there haven’t been any nuclear reactors installed in the Czech lands since the 1980s. Today the EU wants us to phase out coal, which is 20% of our energy output. But what do you think the people responsible for energy in the Czech Republic are suggesting? More renewable. More solar and more wind. However, there have been government subsidies for solar for years, and this scheme was absolutely corrupt. What makes anyone believe this time will be different?

The solution is to let the Russians deliver and distribute gas but our pride will not allow this to happen. Know this, the Western governments would rather have their people freeze in winter than make honest deals with the Russians…

What Constitutes a Pro-Russian?

The idea to ponder what constitutes a pro-Russian political activist occurred to me while reading a recent article on Karlin’s blog about the rampant censorship of opposition media in Ukraine…

Anatoly Karlin made this statement:

Since the start of this year, the Ukraine has mounted an accelerating campaign to shut down all “pro-Russia” (apostrophes because more often than not they’re not so much explicitly pro-Russian, as merely less anti-Russian and more oppositionist than the mainstream) media.

Well, the climate in many East European countries is such that any conciliatory tone towards Russia is considered pro-Russian. That is, only hysterical Russophobia will do. You must believe any accusation towards Russia no matter how ridiculous that is. You must believe that not doing business with Russia is great thing. Otherwise, you will be branded pro-Russian, and will be cast out of polite society.

However, are any of these people branded pro-Russian any good for Russia? I have already questioned the pro-Russianness of Ukrainian political parties earlier on this blog. I am someone, who reads the Peremogi blog daily, and there is a central thesis there, no pro-Russian parties in Ukraine, and nobody Russia should trust. Well, I think the Russian official circles have already taken the memo to heart judging by attitude they take towards the various individuals branded as pro-Russian in Ukraine.

Here is something I found recently on the Peremogi. Recently there was a vote in the Ukrainian parliament on “addressing the UN to ask the countries of the World not to recognise the upcoming Russian parliamentary elections”. It was a classic ritualistic spitting in direction of Russia but let’s see how the pro-Russians voted?

None of the members of the Opposition Platform for Life voted against this motion. You would think that friends of Russia would vote against? So, whenever hysterical Russophobes accuse someone of being pro-Russian, the Russians should not take that at face value. Instead, before you call anyone “pro-Russian” ask these questions.

If he is Ukrainian or Belarusian, does he believe that his respective nations are a part of one Russian nation that was divided by the enemies of Russia? Or does he believe notions such as Ukrainians are more European than Russians, or more Slavic? Does he ever express those ideas in public?

The above is a fundamental of any pro-Russian sentiment among Eastern Slavs. You may further ask if they desire any integration with Russia. You might surprised how many of the pro-Russian start blathering something about sovereignty or neutrality. The latter is no pro-Russian sentiment.

If he is from the former eastern block, does he believe in normalizing trade relations with Russia? But a grade further would be, does he want any further economic integration with the Russian Federation?

Many of the Russophiles in Eastern Europe are nationalists and very much about self reliance, many support exiting the EU, and would not trade it for a Russian led union. And I am one of these.

Also, opposition to the glorification of Nazi collaborationists and defence of the Russian language in Ukraine are rather domestic issues than they are pro-Russian positions. Most Ukrainians use the Russian language daily, and most have ancestors that have fought the Nazis. Naturally, there is a part of the population that is receptive to such slogans. But anyone taking up these issues should not be automatically viewed as pro-Russian. Alexei Honcharenko once supported rights for the Russian language, but he switched sides after the Maidan.

It is without mentioning that any pro-Russian movement in Ukraine in the last 30 years was hopelessly unsuccessful and nothing worthy of Russian support…

Ukrainian Officials Have Gone Completely Bonkers on Identity Politics

Top Ukrainian officials allowed themselves displays of Svidomism that is scarcely fathomable…

First Alexey Arestovych said Ukraine should undergo a rebranding to Rus’-Ukraine to take the brand of Russians from Russia. I really wonder, what is wrong with Ukraine?

Mind you, the name Ukraine is rather modern too. It only gained circulation in the early 20th century. In a sense, back then the lands that are now Ukraine have undergone a rebranding. However, instead of being honest about their history, that is that the Ukraine is a result of emancipation of the creole culture created there through centuries of Polish rule, the Ukrainian nationalists such as the historian, Mikhailo Hrushevsky, who to my knowledge coined the hybrid term “Rus’-Ukraine”, began to usurp the rights to Old Rus’.

When it comes to Rus’, it was established by Swedish Vikings that were initially based in the north, in areas that are today part of the Russian Federation. Vladimir came to Kiev from the north, from Novgorod. The Ukrainians act as if the Russians have somehow stollen the rights to call themselves Russians.

From RT (hat tip: AK):

Alexey Arestovich, who works as the spokesman for Kiev’s delegation to the contact group on Donbass, claimed that Ukrainians are actually the real Russians.

Arestovych is a strange character. He was a blogger and a pick up artist before representing Ukraine in Minsk. But if a comedian can be a president, then all things are possible. Just do not expect anything highly intellectual from them.

Alexey Danilov, the head of the national security council, suggested to write the Ukrainian language in the Latin Script. This is utterly cargo cultish. Actually, the Cyrillic script is native to Slavs, and the switch to Latin script was always done when the German and Latin influence became dominant. In a sense, it would be a rejection of the Rus’ identity. The Cyrillic is a fusion of Greek and Glagolitic made specifically for Slavic languages. I am not certain such an initiative would be something Ukraine needs, it would create more problems than solve whatever the objectives this initiative has.

These initiatives from rather top Ukrainian officials are somewhere out of the realm of the absurd and betray an identity crisis in Ukraine. I have a solution, Kiev is the mother of all Russian cities and the Ukrainians are nothing but rebranded Russians, whose regional identity was used to manipulate them. However, as long as the Ukrainians continue to claim legacy of the Rus’, they cannot go against that legacy.