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TAC 2012 Russian team - Team Sputnik

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
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Solfrid Cristin
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2011 & 2012
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5335 days ago

4143 posts - 8864 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 529 of 672
29 June 2012 at 2:44pm | IP Logged 
I will not be able to come on the Skype session. I have an open garden on Sunday, and will be busy. Wish you all a nice session, though!
1 person has voted this message useful



Марк
Senior Member
Russian Federation
Joined 5057 days ago

2096 posts - 2972 votes 
Speaks: Russian*

 
 Message 530 of 672
29 June 2012 at 3:11pm | IP Logged 
Tecktight wrote:


To Mark: Sorry if I got snappy. The visa thing can get very frustrating, especially
when it's discussed as a political
item, rather than a logistical issue.

Best to stick to language-discussions only, methinks.

Hope everyone has a good weekend, and I hope to see (talk) to some of you on Sunday!

Never mind, I can't be offended with that. I found some information about this issue
and we have discussed it on the Lingvoforum. The topic is rather complicated and laws
are changing constantly, so I found out a lot of things. But here, I agree, it was not
a
useful discussion.

Edited by Марк on 29 June 2012 at 3:30pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



Teango
Triglot
Winner TAC 2010 & 2012
Senior Member
United States
teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5557 days ago

2210 posts - 3734 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Russian
Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona

 
 Message 531 of 672
29 June 2012 at 5:17pm | IP Logged 
@Solfrid Cristin
How are all your roses coming along by the way? I bet your garden is a little parcel of paradise around this time of year... :) I have small gardens at both the front and back of the house (an occupational hazard of being British I guess), nevertheless it's still quite a weekend workout to keep on top of it all (everything's growing so quickly with the copious servings of sun and rain we've been having lately). The roses, you'll be glad to hear, are also blooming, but I must confess in all ignorance, I only know each variety by their most basic non-Latin name: i.e. "that red/pink/yellow bush over there" (lol).

Edited by Teango on 29 June 2012 at 5:24pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Solfrid Cristin
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2011 & 2012
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5335 days ago

4143 posts - 8864 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 532 of 672
29 June 2012 at 5:29pm | IP Logged 
Teango wrote:
@Solfrid Cristin
How are all your roses coming along by the way? I bet your garden is a little parcel of paradise around this time of year... :) I have small gardens at both the front and back of the house (an occupational hazard of being British I guess), nevertheless it's still quite a weekend workout to keep on top of it all (everything's growing so quickly with the copious servings of sun and rain we've been having lately). The roses, you'll be glad to hear, are also blooming, but I must confess in all ignorance, I only know each variety by their most basic non-Latin name: i.e. "that red/pink/yellow bush over there" (lol).


They are coming along quite nicely - next week you can ask ReneeMona who will come and see them on Monday, and I am sure she can give a more objective view than I can :-)
1 person has voted this message useful



Tecktight
Diglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4977 days ago

227 posts - 327 votes 
Speaks: English*, Serbian
Studies: German, Russian, Estonian

 
 Message 533 of 672
03 July 2012 at 10:19am | IP Logged 
Everyone, I'm sorry about the disaster on Sunday. I couldn't get my internet connection stable for even 2 minutes--it
kept logging me on and off.

I've gone off to a cafe with my laptop just to write this..

I'm getting really sick of my internet situation here. I've been to my internet provider four times already, and today
will be my fifth. I hope they can do something right this time.

Anyway, to that end, is there anyone else who would be willing to initiate the Skype sessions for the next month or
so (until August, when I get back home, where I have blissfully quick and stable internet)? After that, I can take over
again, and I expect my internet to be just fine in Berlin, too, otherwise I will no longer consider Germany a civilized
country.
1 person has voted this message useful



tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4708 days ago

5310 posts - 9399 votes 
Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans
Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish

 
 Message 534 of 672
03 July 2012 at 10:57am | IP Logged 
It's ok - you only disappointed me, and we all know how hard I am to disappoint X)
1 person has voted this message useful



drsarvo
Diglot
Senior Member
Mexico
Joined 4713 days ago

143 posts - 149 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, English
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 535 of 672
04 July 2012 at 7:50pm | IP Logged 
Hello everyone:
I keep using euronews for Russian reading practice. I am just reading an article about the Ukranian Parliament and a law about Russian language. I learned what the Rada is and that there is something called the Party of Regions. Quite interesting. When I finish reading it, I'll give you my opinion :) By the way, this article reminds me that novel of Frederick Forsyth, The Devil's Alternative. Has anyone read it?
1 person has voted this message useful



s0fist
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5047 days ago

260 posts - 445 votes 
Speaks: Russian*, English
Studies: Sign Language, German, Spanish, French

 
 Message 536 of 672
05 July 2012 at 1:04am | IP Logged 
Imho it makes a lot of political sense for Russia to keep reciprocally tough visa laws with the US and the EU. Sadly having visa policies is even more consistent with regulations on internal population movement dynamics -- wouldn't make sense to allow foreigners enter anytime while controlling its own citizens movements.

It's also true that in practice Russia's visa and other processes are horridly slow and inconvenient, beyond what could be considered acceptable in this century. It's a consequence, I think, of the fact that Russia is a true bureaucracy and the point of bureaucracy, as we all know, is to keep itself going. So every day a visa applicant has to wait warrants more jobs for bureaucrat-cogs in the bureaucrat-machine and more money in those department budgets.



I'd suppose that if we shoved aside the political agendas and the back and forth kowtowing, it would still make sense for Russia to keep visa control. For all those who argue that more tourists is more money. The argument goes thus.
Tourism is a really minor part of GDP in Russia. I think currently there's maybe 2.5M tourists per year. Guess where those 2.5M people go? I'd guess 60% Moscow, 30% St.Petersburg, where else are they going to "tour"? Certainly sea voyages to the north pole don't attract 2.5M tourists a year. If tomorrow Russia doubled its number of tourists guess where they'd all go, hint M&SP? So sure, tourism would bring an inflow money to the two capitals but consider how much harm it would also wreck on the economics of those cities and the rest of Russia. Imagine that tourism makes your wage ten percent higher and doubles your rent. Moscow and St.Petersburg are already the two most expensive polities in Russia, and Moscow and St.P rival most European/American cities on most economic rankings, and Moscow probably overshadows most, save maybe NYC or London.
So think what happens when the economic centers of Russia get flooded with even more capital, it makes the economic inequalities between M&SP and rest of Russia even bigger and makes M&SP even less accessible for the rest of Russia. And even insofar as M&SP are polities unto themself by now, they're far more dependent on the rest of Russia than they are on the extra tourism capital to risk it.
So before some of you yell out that more tourists means more money, it would do you well to consider what effect that money will have on everyone involved.
Don't get atop that soapbox unless you know how to climb down, i.e. unless you have more data that allows you to model the specific changes in the situation and predict concretely what the effects of your proposed course of action will be.
TLDR: tourism = money != purchasing power

And now to shot myself in the foot: I'm not an economist and do not purport to have analyzed this situation in detail, this is more of a cry for reason before jumping off the cliff with a banner declaiming visas.
I just saw war cries for tourism and Twoflower with his infamous hungry chest of gold popped into my mind. So go read the Colour of Magic, or at least watch the movie before you would unleash such evil upon the Ankh-Morporks of Russia.



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