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POPSRussia's Bizarre & Horrifying Road Through Hell Yakutsk is the capital of the Yakutia Republic, part of the vast Russian region known as Siberia. The old joke is 'War is God's way of teaching us geography'. With that in mind, any kid who grew up playing the board game Risk remembers Yakutsk and neighboring Kamchatka as two territories with weird names located up at the top of Asia. As a kid, I had never heard of these places. Nor did it ever dawn on me people actually live there (if getting stuck in the mud is considered living... ) The road of mud isn't the only problem. It seems that people who live in Yakutsk were born to suffer. Yakutsk is considered the coldest city on earth, with January temperatures averaging -45 °F. The coldest temperatures ever recorded outside Antarctica occur in the basin of the Yana River just to the northeast. Yakutsk is the world's biggest city built on continuous permafrost. Most houses are built up on concrete piles to keep from sinking.
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POPSGeorgia-Ossetia: Context!! Georgia has massacred Ossetians for centuries; Ossetians have sought Russian protection. And this one began with Georgians (now aligned with the West) slaughtering Ossetians - again! Wake up, Cold Warriors, this is not about Big Bad Russia picking on pure-as-the-driven-snow helpless neighbor. Every player has mixed motives.
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POPSRussian Immigration Scams General opinion is that the danger of an immigration scam is high in marriages with foreign women. Try to share the idea of finding a marriage partner abroad with your family and friends, and everyone will think you are nuts and are setting yourself up to become an immigration vehicle for a cunning Russian girl.
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POPSEditorial from the President of Georgia "I have staked my country's fate on the West's rhetoric about democracy and liberty. As Georgians come under attack, we must ask: If the West is not with us, who is it with? If the line is not drawn now, when will it be drawn? We cannot allow Georgia to become the first victim of a new world order as imagined by Moscow. "
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POPSBackground on Georgia President Saakashvili The Bush administration, with its broad assurances of support for Georgia, has come in for strong criticism in Georgia for having emboldened Mr. Saakashvili to challenge Russia. But Mr. Saakashvili has resisted the notion that he was somehow taken in. Asked in a recent interview on CNN if he believed Georgia could win against Russia militarily, Mr. Saakashvili said, “I am not crazy.”
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POPSS.Ossetia claims Georgia plans to attack Kokoity said Georgian authorities have been issuing warnings to residents of Georgian villages in South Ossetia that Tbilisi will seize the areas by September. However, he said 'volunteers' from abroad will flood into South Ossetia and defend the province in the event of an all-out Georgian attack.
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POPSThose Russian Scamps I'm admittedly ignorant of Russian societal customs yet this story seems so absurd to be almost unbelievable.
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POPSCzar Nicholas II Nine Decade Mystery Solved
Alexei was one of the more compelling of the victims, drawing sympathy because of his hemophilia. His mother's terror of the disease and fear that he would not live to gain the throne were key to her falling under the thrall of the hypnotic and sexually ravenous self-declared holy man Rasputin, who exerted vast influence on the royal family. Rumors persisted that some of the family had survived and escaped. Claims by women to be Anastasia were particularly prominent, although there were also pretenders to Alexei's and Maria's identities. "It was 99.9 percent clear they had all been killed; now with these shards, it's 100 percent," said Nadia Kizenko, a Russian scholar at the University at Albany, State University of New York. "They say that as long as the last soldier remains unburied, the war continues," Lukyanov told AP. "So long as the last victim of Bolshevik terror and the Communist regime remains unrehabilitiated, the repression will continue."
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POPSTo Russia For Love Union. Add to Russia’s demographic bias towards women its rampant alcoholism, high prison numbers and near million-man conscript army and you can understand why it isn’t exactly raining eligible bachelors on the streets of Moscow. British men on the other hand, it would seem, are on the run from female liberation in the UK. All the men I speak to about their other halves said they found the quiet strength and femininity of the Russian women preferable to their pint-downing, man-eating British counterparts. "Russian women are stronger," says Glaswegian David. His Russian wife tells me this stems from perestroika times, when women went out to win the bread leaving their men at home, where they hit the booze. Whether the new economic stability will break them from such a spell is as yet uncertain. But in the meantime, foreign bachelors will have to cater for domestic demand, and it’s the British who seem to be plugging the gap.
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POPSFinding Your HOT "Other Half" "One fraudster, who poses as an attractive blonde called Anna Ivanova, said: "The average salary in my city is £75 a month. The choice here is simple - either poverty or larceny. Now I earn £3,000 a month. People are fools if they want to find a wife on the internet. It is not real. I correspond with a whole division of Westerners - and they are all idiots. And I am quite successful in the business. I can wait to be noble and honest in my next life." She can wait to be noble and honest in her next life?? I don't think so baby. And guys? Hotties like this don't have to advertise for a man. Dream on.
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POPSEmma Goldman One gutsy lady ..... dripping with integrity,empathy, and compassion.