This is a college, very much like the one where I first studied.

Typical post office, next to the entrance to an apartment building.

Swimming Pool and coffee shop.  Reminds me of my days at the dorm on Vasilievsky Island, when one of the main streets was torn up for a year.

Typical Apartment building courtyard.

The entrance archway to an apartment complex.

I love this city.  I love the shining, vibrant center, and I love the dark, decrepit center.  They both coexist in an appropriate parallel for the overall state of the country as a whole.

Vice-Speaker of the Georgian Parliament, Mikheil Machavariani, summed up Georgia’s view:

“This will have very serious consequences for the international image of Russia. But that’s Russian politics right now, they don’t give a damn about anything.”

President Sergey Bagapsh of Abkhazia says they’ve reached a deal with Russia on military bases:

According to Bagapsh, the construction works have already started on the plots allotted for Russian military bases, and the only thing left was to sign the formal agreement between Russia and Abkhazia.

Russians are reacting to the economic crisis by spending. 23 percent of those with savings secure them by investing in long-lasting consumer goods to secure themselves against the declining rouble.

You don’t know what tomorrow could bring,” says 33-year-old Alexei, logistician at a Moscow chain dealing in car parts: “In Russia you definitely don’t know.” In the prosperous years, Alexei had a feeling of stability and developed a mind for thriftiness and saving. Once the crisis arrived, he went straight back to making his dreams tangible: In a flash, the cheap Mazda was sold and a new Honda Accord was parked in the Garage: “I can have what I want in an instant, why wait?” says Alexei.

Iceland’s de facto bankruptcy—its currency (the krona) is kaput, its debt is 850 percent of G.D.P., its people are hoarding food and cash and blowing up their new Range Rovers for the insurance—resulted from a stunning collective madness. What led a tiny fishing nation, population 300,000, to decide, around 2003, to re-invent itself as a global financial power? In Reykjavík, where men are men, and the women seem to have completely given up on them, the author follows the peculiarly Icelandic logic behind the meltdown.

…

Back away from the Icelandic economy and you can’t help but notice something really strange about it: the people have cultivated themselves to the point where they are unsuited for the work available to them. All these exquisitely schooled, sophisticated people, each and every one of whom feels special, are presented with two mainly horrible ways to earn a living: trawler fishing and aluminum smelting. There are, of course, a few jobs in Iceland that any refined, educated person might like to do. Certifying the nonexistence of elves, for instance. (“This will take at least six months—it can be very tricky.”) But not nearly so many as the place needs, given its talent for turning cod into Ph.D.’s. At the dawn of the 21st century, Icelanders were still waiting for some task more suited to their filigreed minds to turn up inside their economy so they might do it.

…

In retrospect, there are some obvious questions an Icelander living through the past five years might have asked himself. For example: Why should Iceland suddenly be so seemingly essential to global finance? Or: Why do giant countries that invented modern banking suddenly need Icelandic banks to stand between their depositors and their borrowers—to decide who gets capital and who does not? And: If Icelanders have this incredible natural gift for finance, how did they keep it so well hidden for 1,100 years? At the very least, in a place where everyone knows everyone else, or his sister, you might have thought that the moment Stefan Alfsson walked into Landsbanki 10 people would have said, “Stefan, you’re a fisherman!” But they didn’t. To a shocking degree, they still don’t. “If I went back to banking,” he says, with an entirely straight face, “I would be a private-banking guy.”

Russia has for centuries considered itself a “Great Power,” (Великая Держава), participating first in the empire games of the 1700s and 1800s, and then a military superpower (if economic nightmare) in the 20th century. This was a country that, in their opinion, saved Europe from Napoleon and Hitler, then went toe-to-toe with the United States of America. In their mind, the Cold War didn’t end because America won, but because the Soviet Union decided to stop fighting and give freedom a chance. Instead of having this decision respected, the West treated them like losers, and abandoned their nascent democracy.

A decade of rampant crime, chaos, and social disintegration shamed the country both internally and externally. Not only was Russia not a superpower, but often they were only given a seat at the table out of pity - and they knew it. Perhaps the most frustrating was the fact that Russia no longer had any sway even in its own backyard! The “Near Abroad” or former Soviet Union and Soviet controlled space were now being subsumed into Western structures. First NATO enlarged, then bombed a historic ally, then enlarged again and with it the EU. Russians are paranoid, and possibly with good reason. At their core, the Russian and Soviet empires were expansionist because they felt that the only way to protect the homeland was by having buffer zones, so that when they were attacked, the invaders would have to go through all those other lands first. After the fall of the Soviet Union, they did not only lose control of the buffer zones, but the historical enemy (or “likely enemy” in the Soviet vocabulary “вероятный противник”) was taking control of the lands, and moving closer and closer to Russia’s immediate border.

With Putin, and rising oil prices, Russia began to regain a certain amount of power. As time showed Europe’s dependence on Russian gas, their importance rose even more. Putin’s popularity can be directly traced to the material gains made under him, but also because of the vastly increased prominence that Russia was given in the international arena.

Last summer’s war in Georgia showed how powerless the West was to protect its allies on Russia’s border. They could have gone to Tbilisi, and we likely wouldn’t have done anything about it. In the end, though, they showed their might and destroyed much of the military infrastructure that had been built up in Georgia. Fresh from that victory, and after the election of a man who basically put the world on watch that America was rolling back its influence, Russia decided to help us in that endeavor. They got us kicked out of Kyrgyzstan, and founded a “rapid-reaction force” with the Collective Security Treaty Organization to counter NATO influence in the region.

Obama is playing even more into their hands by promising to back off the missile defense program in Poland and the Czech Republic if Russia promises to help on Iran. The West is more or less united in wanting to pressure Iran, and we should be able to work with them to get Russia on board. Instead, we cave in, showing the world how powerful Russia is becoming - exactly what they want. Medvedev seized perfectly on this to rebuff Obama, saying that “haggling … was not productive.” But welcoming “positive signals” by America to address Russian concerns.

Russia has outplayed us once again. Americans fundamentally don’t understand the importance of narrative in international affairs, and Russians are masters at the game. Learning from necessity during the Soviet Union, the Russians always have great reasons for awful things that they do, Americans always have awful reasons for the great things they do. The missile shield poses absolutely no threat to Russia, but they have succeeded in convincing large parts of Western society that we are sticking our finger in their eye. Russian politicians knowingly and cynically sell this lie to their people, who honestly believe that NATO is gearing up to attack Russia, and they use that fear among their people to boost their claims of grievance. We have every right to build that system (leaving aside the fact that it’s not quite yet proven), and it is a defense against the launching of a rogue missile or two, it in no way threatens Russia’s store of thousands.

Medvedev seized upon Obama’s actions as one of weakness, and doubled down by dismissing him. He played it perfect for his audience, and now we’ll have real trouble gaining back that ground. We look weak. First, we showed that we couldn’t defend our interests in Georgia, then Kyrgyzia, and now we can’t even defend our interest in Europe. Instead of negotiating with Iran from a position of strength, the events of the past few months have put us in a position of waning influence. Have no doubt that Iran will run with this narrative as well. Now, instead of demanding that Iran cease enrichment and development, any meeting will have us begging and groveling. Is this really the change that we had hoped for?

“Privacy advocates are issuing warnings about a new radio chip plan that ultimately could provide electronic identification for every adult in the U.S. and allow agents to compile attendance lists at anti-government rallies simply by walking through the assembly.”

This is something you would expect Russia to put in their internal passports.

Ligovskiy Prospekt Metro

Walking on Nevskiy Prospekt

Click for the whole series

In January of 2009 the world witnessed the third successful cyber attack against a country. The target was the small country of Kyrgyzstan. …The attackers focused on the three of the four Internet service providers. They launched a distributed denial of service attack traffic and quickly overwhelmed the three and disrupting all Internet communications.

The attack seems to be politically motivated and is the latest example of geopolitical disputes being fought with cyber weapons. Cyber Intelligence Analysts stated that attacks were launched to disrupt demands that leaders halt plans to prohibit access to an airbase for the US military in its war in Afghanistan. The analysts went on to say the Russian officials want nothing more than the base closed as soon as possible.

This is starting to be a problem, and is only going to get worse. China has gotten in on the action as well. Cyberwarfare - a new discipline.