Russian military recruiting videos

[EMC]

Russian military recruiting videos. Sure looks like a pleasant job doesn't it?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGUT9jX6en8&feature=related

[Zhurdan]

Fire ze retro rockets!!!! 0:32 seconds in.

Those crazy Russians figured out how to land a heavier rover on Mars a long time ago.

If you haven't read about it, the new larger Mars rover will be using that technique to limit decent speed right before touchdown of the new rover. Pretty slick.

[EMC]

I had a good laugh at the hot recruiting chick at the end of the video and the smile on the new recruit's face.

[YVK]

I am seemingly turning into a Russophobe, which is perhaps not surprising, but if you could understand how primitive the narration is...

[EMC]

I can only imagine: "Look at all the gifts you can buy your family, and you can take your blonde girl friend to the fancy night clubs to make your comrades jealous"

[Slavex]

"where she will eat an apple instead of drinking 10 gallons of vodka"

[JM Campbell]

She's prego. Even vodka guzzling Russians need to responsible. :eek:

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

[Kyle Reese]

Russia is in big trouble. With a declining birth rate and a hungry and hostile Sino neighbor to the East, the next 20 years will be very interesting.

[Tamara]

Russia is in big trouble.

It makes me nervous when nations with huge thermonuclear arsenals are in trouble. :eek:

[YVK]

Its biggest trouble is a return to a totalitarian regime, which is all but complete.

He has pretty much shut down all effective opposition, and there wasn't really effective opposition to begin with. Let me illustrate on your example


Russia is in big trouble. With a declining birth rate...

This is well known fact to all of them. Somewhere in 2006 he pronounced a governmental initiative to increase birth rates. By means of providing financial bonus to family with more than one child.
Russian neonatal mortality is somewhere between 2nd and 3d world rate-wise. An obvious responsible and humanistic solution would be to divert money to pediatrics and neonatology to keep babies alive. This is however hard, and not very sexy, and requires admission how bad the situation with neonates is. Instead Vlad the Great goes on to effectively say "go f... more often, get pregnant, and if your baby makes it alive, we give you some roubles".

There was no voice, at least no loud voice, to take it to him.

[EMC]

Its biggest trouble is a return to a totalitarian regime, which is all but complete.

He has pretty much shut down all effective opposition, and there wasn't really effective opposition to begin with. Let me illustrate on your example



This is well known fact to all of them. Somewhere in 2006 he pronounced a governmental initiative to increase birth rates. By means of providing financial bonus to family with more than one child.
Russian neonatal mortality is somewhere between 2nd and 3d world rate-wise. An obvious responsible and humanistic solution would be to divert money to pediatrics and neonatology to keep babies alive. This is however hard, and not very sexy, and requires admission how bad the situation with neonates is. Instead Vlad the Great goes on to effectively say "go f... more often, get pregnant, and if your baby makes it alive, we give you some roubles".

There was no voice, at least no loud voice, to take it to him.

Man, I would love to sit down to lunch and pick your brain on this subject, it would be fascinating. I guess you can take the Putin out of the KGB, but not the KGB out of the Putin.

[TCinVA]

Russia is in big trouble. With a declining birth rate and a hungry and hostile Sino neighbor to the East, the next 20 years will be very interesting.

China has their own ticking demographic time bombs that are cause for concern. Politically, this is the longest China has been stable since the fall of the Qing. The century before us might end up being the sort of time historians later describe as "fascinating". Interesting to study, miserable to live through.


I guess you can take the Putin out of the KGB, but not the KGB out of the Putin.

Guys like Putin highlight the incredible character of the Founders of our nation. In a fledgling republic he moved to consolidate power with an iron fist. In our fledgling republic men like Washington deliberately limited their power and acted with supreme restraint. Had he wanted to, Washington probably could have been a dictator. Instead, even when legitimately elected to our highest office he eschewed fancy titles and said he should only be addressed simply, as Mr. President.

I don't think many people today appreciate how bloody rare it is in human history to see people pursue power with the deliberate aim of limiting it for themselves and everyone else so as to protect The Little Guy who is so often just grist in the mill of history. That's the core of why I look at our political situation with such frustration. We're selling something priceless just to get our next high. It's sickening.

[David Armstrong]

It helps to understand some things when you realize that a large segment of the Russian people still venerate Stalin and think life under a communist regime was much better than anything since. But even with their problems I push my daughter to maintain her Russian passport and Russian contacts, as the potential for greatness is there and it may be a good haven for her if things fall apart here. Russia now is somewhat similar to the U.S. during the time of the robber barons and political machines of the late 1800s. Whether they will be able to pull through it as we did remains to be seen.

[Suvorov]

As a man who has roughly 50% Russian blood coursing through his veins, was raised Russian Orthodox, and has done a considerable amount of studying of Russian culture and history, I find the Russian mind to be a puzzle wrapped in an enigma and Russia to be a vast land of contradictions. I can only imagine how hard it is for an Anglo or German mind to grasp.

I agree with Fred in that the Chinese specter is probably the greatest threat to Russia's land. This is certainly well known in the Kremlin, it is however much easier and results in more political gain to continue to look towards the West for the boogieman.

There are many in Russia who do not like Putin and the protest across Russia clearly show this. Russians do however love a strong ruler. They have no recent history of "freedom" (although Medieval Novgorod may have been one of the most free societies of its age), and 90+ years of Communism or Socialism has created a mind which looks to the Government not only for solutions but for a livelihood. The HomoSovieticus is alive and well today even a full generation after the fall of the Communist party. Putin and the rest of the oligarchs know this and there is little desire to change it as it would be counter productive to their power. So the road ahead for Russia will be hard if they are to develop their own form of Liberalized (in a classical sense) Government without falling pray to their past or to neighbors who see them as an easy mark.

I'm not overly hopeful.

Regarding the recruiting commercials themselves, they are certainly full of eye candy which feature T-80s jumping around and sharply dressed soldiers marching in parades, appeal to the honor of soldiers and friend and defense of the homeland, but they also are praying upon the economic situation to encourage young Russian men to sign up as a way to bring their family or girl a life full of riches. The reality is far different and I can think of no military that has squandered its youth to the sausage grinder of war than the Soviet Union and it's successor. If I lived in Russia, I would do EVERYTHING in my power to keep my child out of the military.

[Suvorov]

Guys like Putin highlight the incredible character of the Founders of our nation. In a fledgling republic he moved to consolidate power with an iron fist. In our fledgling republic men like Washington deliberately limited their power and acted with supreme restraint. Had he wanted to, Washington probably could have been a dictator. Instead, even when legitimately elected to our highest office he eschewed fancy titles and said he should only be addressed simply, as Mr. President.

I don't think many people today appreciate how bloody rare it is in human history to see people pursue power with the deliberate aim of limiting it for themselves and everyone else so as to protect The Little Guy who is so often just grist in the mill of history. That's the core of why I look at our political situation with such frustration. We're selling something priceless just to get our next high. It's sickening.

Incredibly well said.

My Grandfather survived Stalin's purges, Nazi Occupation, the German labor camps, and then brought his wife and son (my father) on a trek from the DP camps of Europe, to Venezuela, and then to Canada before finally receiving permission to work in the United States in the desire for a free and prosperous nation. The sad reality I face is the fact that as this nation is sold asunder, there is no where for me to go that offers the same hope that the United States offered then and still does today.

As my Serbian father in law said to me a couple years ago - America is that last "free" country. :( The reality is that freedom, like peace, is a rare event in the historical scheme of things.

[YVK]

and 90+ years of Communism or Socialism has created a mind which looks to the Government not only for solutions but for a livelihood. The HomoSovieticus is alive and well today even a full generation after the fall of the Communist party.

This is changing, and has changed quite a bit. I can pretty much guarantee that people in the mid-40 to mid-50 age group with higher education have no illusions. Amongst older generation the proportion is lower, but if you recognize that average life expectancy is lower 60s for men and mid 60s for women, the older generation doesnt have much time left over there. A bigger problem is a younger generation with lower education levels that have been hooked on patriotic motives. even those though can see how much their life sucks comparing to those who have gone into business and made it.
there is a strange balance of things there. Lower level business people are ok with status quo as they are doing relatively ok, just dont touch me and I'll vote for you. many people went on to work for western businesses and doing ok too. higher level business people know to play nice otherwise they are shown the example of khodorkovsky and other oligarchs hiding in exile. uneducated masses are caught up in patriotism and older folks want strong rule. you end up with an opposition that has not enough base in elections , and elections are rigged anyway.

[Kyle Reese]

Incredibly well said.

As my Serbian father in law said to me a couple years ago - America is that last "free" country. :( The reality is that freedom, like peace, is a rare event in the historical scheme of things.

Give it some time. Some of my older relatives across the pond, who survived the scourge of Hitler fascism and Soviet communism are already seeing many parallels with the bad old DDR and CCCP emerging over here.

[Tamara]

In our fledgling republic men like Washington deliberately limited their power and acted with supreme restraint. Had he wanted to, Washington probably could have been a dictator.

Cincinnati who voluntarily lay down their power to return to the plow are so rare as to automatically be enshrined as figures of mythology. We should be eternally thankful that the founding of our republic coincided with a fad for Classical history. (Don't forget that, at the time the Revolution was going on on this side of the pond, Edward Gibbon had just hit the best seller lists in England.)

If the Founding Fathers wanted to engage in a little bit of LARPing, signing writings as "Brutus" and forming "The Order of Cincinnati", then more power to them. There were worse cultures to idealize than republican Rome.