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Post by raybee1970 on Oct 8, 2009 14:18:42 GMT 2
LOL...well, I didn't exactly mean it as an insult by any means. I was basically going off what Oleg had told me in the past. I had heard of Latvia, but never even knew where it was at, what language they spoke, or anything like that....until I asked him.
He told me (back years ago, of course) that Latvia was its own country, but still was heavily influenced by the Russian government....which was part of the reason why his brother was glad to move to Australia. The way he talked, you couldn't just go anywhere in the country you wanted to at any time, like we can here in the US. He talked like there wasn't as much freedoms to do things there, but was still more than Russians have.
For example, you couldn't go to the beach anytime you wanted to, and even at certain times, you could go to the beach, but weren't allowed in the water, if you did go.
It sounded kind of sad. I guess sometimes we take for granted what we have here in the US, but it puts it into perspective when you hear of a lack of freedoms other countries may have.
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Post by Administrator on Oct 8, 2009 16:32:48 GMT 2
The 3 small baltic states had been occupied by the soviets at the beginning of WW2 already, when Adolf and Uncle Joe had still been buddies. Or at least had faked to be. They only got rid of the soviets when the german armies drove them out. The soviets by then had behaved much worse to the natives than afterwards the germans did. Actually no few folks from the baltic states joined the german forces when these fought the soviet armies in the next years until 1945. Ever after WW2 until the fall of the iron curtain the soviets treated the baltic states as a part of the soviet union, and opposite to for example Poland not just like states under soviet influence. And they moved a lot of Russians into the baltic states to MAKE them part of Russia. Same what China does about Tibet today Today the baltic states are all in the European Union, have strong Russian minorities - and not much love for the Russians and/or Russia because of all the past 70 or so years .. mmh... guess we're going slightly off-topic
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Post by ksheppard on Oct 11, 2009 2:09:07 GMT 2
In the eastern parts of Europe "Oleg" is about that exotic a name as is "John" in the U.S. ;D Ya I figured that but it seemed to be a strong coincidence.
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Post by ksheppard on Oct 11, 2009 2:14:30 GMT 2
... mmh... guess we're going slightly off-topic Interesting though
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