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| “Don’t smoke, don’t be like Obama.” |
Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
MOSCOW POSTER: “Smoking Kills More People than Obama, Although He Kills Lots and Lots of People”
Monday, October 20, 2014
Engineering an Oil Price Decline
"The earlier U.S. sanctions on Russia were fairly tame and Europe showed almost no willingness to go along. However, engineering an oil price decline is something that hits (Russian President) Putin where it hurts without hurting Europe in the process because Europe actually benefits from lower oil prices. If this escalates much further, Putin may need to use his two most powerful weapons: shutting off natural gas to Europe and shutting down the New York Stock Exchange with cyber warfare...either will be disastrous for the global economy. So, we may see much worse to come."
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Russia’s reputed top criminal boss killed
MOSCOW--Aslan Usoyan, Russia’s top criminal boss was shot dead by a sniper in broad daylight in the center of Moscow on Wednesday, in what law enforcement officials said was a dispute with a rival Georgian gang.
Usoyan, who went by the nickname “Grandpa Hasan”, was leaving the Karetniy dvor (Carriage House) - which he used as his "office" - when an assassin opened fire with a rifle from a stairwell of a building across the street. He was hit with a single shot to the head, dying a few minutes later at the same hospital where his life was saved after he was shot in a similar 2010 attack.
Usoyan was an ethnic Kurd of the Yezidi faith who hailed from Tbilisi, the Georgian capital. He was the highest-ranking vor v zakone – literally “thief in law” or code-bound criminal – in Russia. The vory are a caste of professional criminals formed in the Soviet gulags of the 1930s. The highest rank is given to men of respect who sit at the top of Russia’s criminal hierarchy, follow the thieves’ common code of ‘law’, and act as unofficial adjudicators of disputes.
“They are dinosaurs, the old Soviet gulag-era crime lords,” says Mark Galeotti, professor at New York University - and expert on the Russian underworld - adding the vory had been steadily giving way to more agile and less principled criminal “authorities” since the fall of Communism.
In 2006, in the only television interview Usoyan ever gave, he said: “I am a pensioner, I live on a pension. I live modestly, I don’t touch anyone, I just mind my own business.”
SOURCE: Charles Clover, Financial Times; January 16, 2013.
Usoyan, who went by the nickname “Grandpa Hasan”, was leaving the Karetniy dvor (Carriage House) - which he used as his "office" - when an assassin opened fire with a rifle from a stairwell of a building across the street. He was hit with a single shot to the head, dying a few minutes later at the same hospital where his life was saved after he was shot in a similar 2010 attack.
Usoyan was an ethnic Kurd of the Yezidi faith who hailed from Tbilisi, the Georgian capital. He was the highest-ranking vor v zakone – literally “thief in law” or code-bound criminal – in Russia. The vory are a caste of professional criminals formed in the Soviet gulags of the 1930s. The highest rank is given to men of respect who sit at the top of Russia’s criminal hierarchy, follow the thieves’ common code of ‘law’, and act as unofficial adjudicators of disputes.
“They are dinosaurs, the old Soviet gulag-era crime lords,” says Mark Galeotti, professor at New York University - and expert on the Russian underworld - adding the vory had been steadily giving way to more agile and less principled criminal “authorities” since the fall of Communism.
In 2006, in the only television interview Usoyan ever gave, he said: “I am a pensioner, I live on a pension. I live modestly, I don’t touch anyone, I just mind my own business.”
SOURCE: Charles Clover, Financial Times; January 16, 2013.
Monday, May 02, 2005
RUSSIAN JOKE: The Line to Shoot Gorbachev
Just after Mikhail Gorbachev placed restrictions on the sale of vodka in the former Soviet Union, Ivan and Serge were standing in line to buy a bottle or two.
After waiting several hours, Ivan finally says to his friend: "This is ridiculous. We've been waiting forever to buy vodka and we haven't moved a single step. I'm going to go shoot Gorbachev."
His friend replies: "Good. You go shoot Gorbachev. I'll save your place in line. By the time you get back things should be moving a little faster."
Ivan goes off to shoot Gorbachev, but he returns in 45 minutes. Serge says: "Back so soon? Surely it takes longer than that to shoot Gorbachev."
Ivan shrugs and says: "It turns out the line to shoot Gorbachev was longer than the line for buying vodka, so I decided to come right back."
After waiting several hours, Ivan finally says to his friend: "This is ridiculous. We've been waiting forever to buy vodka and we haven't moved a single step. I'm going to go shoot Gorbachev."
His friend replies: "Good. You go shoot Gorbachev. I'll save your place in line. By the time you get back things should be moving a little faster."
Ivan goes off to shoot Gorbachev, but he returns in 45 minutes. Serge says: "Back so soon? Surely it takes longer than that to shoot Gorbachev."
Ivan shrugs and says: "It turns out the line to shoot Gorbachev was longer than the line for buying vodka, so I decided to come right back."
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