It's been truly incredible to see them grow and prosper.
Young, educated, motivated population with western values and a strong will for democracy and freedom. An economy that can only grow and prosper. And unlike Syrian and Afghan "refugees", there's a strong desire from Ukrainian refugees to return and rebuild.
But there were many who really wanted to learn the local language, and even if the life at the "asylum seekers centers" was not luxury, they were grateful that they had a place to stay where there was no immediate risk of death.
Some of these people had their families with them, though most of them were young, healthy males, since this segment is most likely to survive the trip. E.g. riding a bicycle in the -30 C/-22 Fahrenheit for 50 kilometres was one common way to entry Finland during this episode.
And regarding Afghanistan, for many, there is not much to be rebuilt. The country was first run over my Soviet army, then the US revenge. The minorities like Hazara have been persecuted during all the previous regimes. These people have no place to go back to.The people I know have instead build careers here, and are vocal against fundamentalist Islam.
Though it's good to remember the Soviet Union did even worse things to Russia.
Which if true, means that Russian civilian victimization by the Soviet Union is something to hold Russia accountable for rather than a point of mutual past victimization for past Soviet Union states to commiserate together with Russia on.
That's never mind the fact that Russia is committing some of those same crimes now along with waging an expansionist war. The past suffering of an abuser doesn't matter while he's actively abusing someone else.
The people that were sitting in Moscow however were from all around the Union.
The Soviet Union was still ruled by Russians [0]… “ From 1919 until 1991, 89 members of the Politburo were Russians (which makes up 68 percent). In distant second were Ukrainians, who had 11 members in the Politburo, making up 8 percent. In third place are both ethnic Jews and Georgians, who had 4 members respectively.”
It was less than the population since by population , 80% are Russian [1], but still shows that the USSR was ruled by Russians.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politburo_of_the_Communist_Par...
It's the same thing in Communist China. Nobody can displease the Han.
And he happened to be Georgian.
And Moscovite is indeed a bad word in many parts of the old Union.
Have you heard about Stalin? Where was he from?
Moscow.
Hitler was from Austria, but he still ran things from Berlin. And Berlin is where the power structure was, and still is.
It's always more than one man, even if the man is a dictator. The dictator is just the one who survives the power structures environment in a way to be 'the top'. And that power structure exists in a place.
The vast, vast majority of everything that actually happens under a power structure is done by everyone who ISN'T the dictator. And those folks don't just disappear when the dictator dies.
As to if a countries power structure represents a people or not, meh. It always says it does, and it draws resources, taxes, and conscripts from them. So regardless of any individuals take on if they are 'represented' or how that power is acquired, 'it is the people' near as I can tell.
And many of them are happy to murder anyone who says otherwise to prove it.
And just because it has to be pointed out, Stalin didn't do his reign of terror from the Kremlin in Moscow, but from his dacha in Kuntsevo.
Hitler also spent most of his reign of terror from Wolfsschanze and Obersalzberg. He definitely had his own power structure, completely independent of the city of Berlin.
And Kuntsevo is in Moscow. Literally.
And if you’re asserting that Hitler didn’t need, or use, the Wehrmacht or other organs of state power (including the Gestapo, which was consolidated out of the prior Prussian Secret Police), and didn’t spend most of his time in Berlin, then I don’t know what to say.
Yes it is, but it's not in the Kremlin, where the official seat is.
Both Stalin and Hitler were independent of their capital cities for conducting their rule. Dictators and emperors are not mere symbolic heads of state, and their network of people means much more than where they sit to conduct their business. This network is not necessarily connected to the capital.
I think we're maybe debating semantics, but I strongly disagree with the idea that the capital cities are more influential than the dictators and emperors. As in my example of Roman emperors who hardly even went to Rome.
Politics is much more about abstract human connections, than brick and stone buildings. We are a very mobile species after all.
But anyway, I would encourage reading "The Revolution Betrayed: What Is the Soviet Union and Where Is It Going? Преданная революция: Что такое СССР и куда он идет?" by the exiled Soviet Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky to get perspective whether the peaople (Narodnost народность)were really represented in the Soviet nomenklatura (номенклату́ра). At least almost every Finnish speaking representative from Karelia were "neutralized", leaving the previously most prosperious part of Finland in the state as it is now. Finland would not take it back even it was paid for it.
My point, I guess, is that they happened. And the power structure that did it, did it from Moscow.
I prefer to see the Russian invasion as the delayed violence from the Soviet Union's breakup. Russian politicians were very much in control of all of Eastern Europe, and the Moscow political class was going to build a political case to try and retake Ukraine by force. That the violence did not happen in 1989 probably prevented nuclear war, and the fact it is happening now and not in 2032 is probably also preventing nuclear war.
Did Tsarist Russia really do anything that competes with that?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katorga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circassian_genocide
The Soviet Union also made extensive use of slave labor, where millions died.
Let's not pretend it's surrounding is really any better, especially if we start looking at the past.
Someone might think that Russia is opposing a genocidal culture, that had bourne fascism and nazism, enforced apartheid over the world and now breeds it elsewhere to achieve its geopolitical goals.
But I have been grateful that Finland has been independent. As a child, I visited the Soviet Baltic countries since church choirs were allowed entry. I remember it clearly because I saw for the first time the fear of speaking about certain topics.
Defending the country’s independence took a whole generation, as all men who could be drafted were sent to war and women participated as volunteers. My other grandmother worked behind enemy lines as an underage girl, delivering messages. The other grandmother volunteered to work in prison camps.
When Finland was last attacked by Russia (formerly known as the Soviet Republic), Finland did not receive much help apart from thoughts and prayers and socks knitted by housewives in the UK and US. In the first round, Finland defended its independence but lost a significant portion of its most prosperous areas, including its second-largest and most international city, Viipuri/Vyborg. What happened in the second round of the war was not glorious for Finland, who allied with Nazi Germany since they were the only ones that offered an alliance against Soviet Union aggression.
I have not thought of myself as a nationalist, but I am concerned about the safety of my family and this thing we call Finland. And I don't want us to face again the situation as Ukraine is facing now.