News / Will Polish people and Poland be forever slaves and nobody? [20]


Don't worry. Whatever problems Poland does have at present demographic trend it will continue not for too long (by historical measures). There is always some self-regulation in the nature: if some organism is not self-sustainable, - it dies out.

History / Genocide strikes relations between Ukraine and Poland... again [9]


In the last 75 years everything was relatively cloudless. A good moment to start good relations from a new attempt.

History / Why is Poland weaker than Russia? [390]


US military budget in 1945 comprised 41% of their GDP. Yet they didn't collapse, but Japan did.

History / Why is Poland weaker than Russia? [390]


Why not?

History / Why is Poland weaker than Russia? [390]

Sometimes I have strong suspicion that some of the most important technological "achievements" of the late 20 - early 21 centuries could be a complete mystification. For example those related to micro/nanoelectronics or genetic engineering.

History / Why is Poland weaker than Russia? [390]

Here is interview with Alexei Leonov - a first man who visited the outer space (from Soviet space ship).

Alexei Leonov: "At the 500 km above Earth orbit where I exited in the outer space radiation is typically 500 microroentgens, what is deadly to a human. Fortunately Sun wasn't active and radiation was only at 400 microroentgens when I did it. In the Lead-containing space suite that I used movements were constrained and I stuck in the manhole on my way back to the ship".

portal-kultura.ru/articles/person/157143-aleksey-leonov-v-zhizni-bylo-strashnee/

And here mission on Moon according to Americans (turn sound on):
youtube.com/watch?v=8V9quPcNWZE

History / Why is Poland weaker than Russia? [390]

Quite interesting that the first UN-manned artificial device that successfully landed on Moon was a Soviet one. It contained a TV translator with video camera that translated video of Moon surface on Earth. Either Soviets were the first to send an unmanned spaceship to fly around Moon. Yet Americans were the first to send a human to Moon. How that's happened? Mystery... I read Soviet engineers believed it is to dangerous to send a man on Moon in a regular space suits because of radiation. They designed a space suit made of thick Lead and even Lead shields for the astronauts. Yet Americans succeeded to spend many hours on Moon without any special protection and perfectly survived. Neither their photographic films suffered from radiation exposure, what is strange...

History / Why is Poland weaker than Russia? [390]


You mean in 1940-th?

History / Why is Poland weaker than Russia? [390]

But today Russia still poses the largest nuclear arsenal in the World (just officially!), the largest Navy (by total amount of vessels), a larger amount of armored vehicles than US, and even trying to develop new kind of weapons (like hypersonic weapon or new tanks like "Armada"). And doesn't go bankrupt just because of that. Do you think Russia is overall in better shape on total than it was in 1980? And now Russia is much smaller than USSR. So, I afraid your theory could be exaggerated.

History / Why is Poland weaker than Russia? [390]


I think common people may not know exactly what caused USSR economy collapse in 1990. Were it Gorbachev' economic policies, military expenditures or something else... One of Gorbachev's reforms was permission of private co-ops in 1988. I think may be it wasn't the bad idea if introduced much earlier and in more transparent way. But in 1988 it was too late possibly... They would need to do it in 1960-s, the latest.

History / Why is Poland weaker than Russia? [390]

It also depends on how exactly calculate GDP per capita. Western countries often have overinflated estimations regarding their service sector output. Real goods production output (which includes manufacturing, agriculture and natural resource extraction) of Russia is just 1/3 lower that of Italy per capita according to some estimations. According to some info manufacturing comprises over 36% of Russian economy and just 24% that of Italy. Total - 46 bln. in Russia and 38 bln. in Italy.

knoema.com/atlas/topics/Economy/Short-term-indicators/Industrial-production
Another thing is that income distribution over entire population curve is much flatter in Italy than in Russia and hence a drastic social problems of Russia.

History / Why is Poland weaker than Russia? [390]


Russians survived Mongols, Tatars, Teuton knights, Polish invasion, Swedes, Napoleon, Kaiser the conqueror, Hitler, Stalin, Gorbachev, Perestroika, Yeltsin... Who is the next on the list of History?

History / Why is Poland weaker than Russia? [390]


Do you think amount of nukes China poses is exactly known? Also, nukes and a lot of conventional weapons could be produced fast if a country poses sufficient industrial and human power. Probably for now Chinese do not think it is necessary to have more nukes and larger navy than Russia. But if they would really want to it could change quickly. Chinese economy and population is 10 times that of Russia.

History / Give Poland back it's lost land ! [132]

Not necessarily. The first officially GM humans were born in China recently.

History / Give Poland back it's lost land ! [132]

Some scientists predict that in this century we will witness the rise of a new creatures with superhuman intelligence. If they are right then human culture and civilization differences may become not as important as ever before.

History / Give Poland back it's lost land ! [132]

Cultures and civilizations are intermittent in any case. 1300 years ago Romans and Greeks looked at Germanics, Brits and Celts like at uncivilized barbarians. Now Germany, UK and Ireland are perhaps more economically developed than Greece or Italy. Eastern Europe may change as well with time.

History / Give Poland back it's lost land ! [132]

You as always confuse different types of cultures/civilizations (something that people do willingly accept and protect as their heritage and self-identity) with matter of been just Un-civilized/UN-cultured.

Or sometimes just unfortunate. (For historical circumstances).

History / Give Poland back it's lost land ! [132]


You as always confuse different types of cultures/civilizations (something that people do willingly accept as their heritage and self-identity) with matter of been just Un-civilized/UN-cultural.

History / Give Poland back it's lost land ! [132]

I think that in modern Europe borders between the nations and self-determination of nations is often based on languages. So, basically the main difference between a Pole and a Ukrainian (or Belarussian) is that the first speaks Polish and the second either Ukrainian or Russian or Belorussian. Don't get wonder but many people who speak Russian in daily life self-identify as a Ukrainians or Belarussians. Some people will mention the culture as well, but personally I don't see something in Polish culture that a typical Ukrainian or Belarussian would refuse to accept.

I think someone could find it quite strange the situation when the borders between nations and national self-identity of people is defined by languages mostly. Will we be able to move beyond this linguistic borders someday? Will there be a more important factors which will define the borders?

Language / Ukrainian language similar to Polish? [236]


I don't deny there are many borrowings, but I think many words which sound similar can be a cognates rather than borrowings. Many borrowings from Polish sound in Ukrainian differently from Polish. For example Polish Dziękuję Ci (which is borrowing from German "Danke") sounds in Ukrainian like "diakuju", what is similar to Czech "Děkuji". So, do not expect you will recognize all the Polish borrowing in Ukrainian.

Language / Ukrainian language similar to Polish? [236]


How many % approximately?

Language / Ukrainian language similar to Polish? [236]

Majority of Poles like to claim the same thing. I would wish it is true, but rather disbelieve in it. I don't think Ukrainian could be MUCH more comprehensible for Poles than Russian. Ukrainian and Polish pronunciation is quite different and Ukrainian has many small unique pronunciation features which make it different from both Russian and Polish. For example:

Polish - Ukrainian - Russian
Noc - Nicz - Nocz
Most - Mist - Most
Mózg - Mozok - Mozg
żona - drużyna - żena

Language / Ukrainian language similar to Polish? [236]

Many words have common roots, but pronunciation is very different. For example this is a Ukrainian song that became very popular in Ukraine and outside. I afraid you will be able to understand quite a little from it.

youtube.com/watch?v=5Fv19KVVya8

For comparison - a Russia song. Would you be able to understand something?
youtube.com/watch?v=wundb_vF4UU

Language / Ukrainian language similar to Polish? [236]

Thank you a lot for this. Why do you think Ukrainians are linguistically similar? Can you understand some Ukrainian?

History / Give Poland back it's lost land ! [132]

Sorry if I understood you in a wrong way. To some extent I was joking. However it seems Ukrainians are often beaten severely in Poland nowdays (though I don't claim it characterizes attitude of majority toward them).

History / Give Poland back it's lost land ! [132]

Torq writes:
Hmm... perhaps you're right, BB. V4 plus the Baltics, Croatia, Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria could form one such block


Don't worry. Soon Ukrainians and Belarussians will extinct and due to demographic tendencies you will border other nations to the East and have millions of them inside of Poland. But in difference from Ukrainians you will not be able to show even slightest dissatisfaction with them. And guess why?

youtube.com/watch?v=_FlBCJbb2oo&list=RD_FlBCJbb2oo&start_radio=1

History / Give Poland back it's lost land ! [132]


Nowdays - obviously no. However there could be an interesting question about the distant future. Which European countries may recombine or form a confederacy. For example, I wouldn't be wondered to see Germany and Austria joining in the same state or forming a confederacy someday. The same thing may happen to some Slavic countries as well. Shell we move towards the World without the borders or what?

History / Give Poland back it's lost land ! [132]

Why Poland does need to recover its former lands when ethnic Polish population is in decline? A nations have reasons to expand their borders when their population is on the rise. To get territories populated by Ukrainians and Belarussians and be happy? Maybe its better just to create Europe with no borders?

Travel / Impressions from Szczecin [8]

"Bad
1. Extreme consumerism. Tons of big shopping malls with American fast food everywhere and upscale stores. Despite being white, Szczecin does not have the vibe of a proud nationalist Polish town that I saw in other towns (like Bialystok). Plenty of tattoos, nose rings, man buns, blue hair, modern art, etc.

2. Prices not much lower than in Germany. I don't know how the Poles get by here given the salaries that people talk about on this forum."

But they are happy they are in Central Europe now.

Genealogy / Origins of Polish surnames that end in "o". Are they from ukrainian origins [15]

What do you think about actress Izabella Scorupco?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izabella_Scorupco