Language / How Polish sounds to other Slavs [32]


Yes, this could lead to some pretty unfortunate misunderstandings.

Language / How Polish sounds to other Slavs [32]

@Lyzko

Here's some funny Polish/Russian "false friends" for you Lyzko:

1) miłość/милость - love/mercy
2) nagły/наглый - sudden/rude
3) uroda/урод - beauty/freak, ugly
4) woń/вонь - aroma/stench
5) dynia/дыня - pumpkin/melon
6) kwas/квас - acid/refreshing carbonated drink
7) ssać/ссать - to suck/to pee

Language / How Polish sounds to other Slavs [32]

@Pawian

Oh ****, I actually found a different speech then. (aillarionov.livejournal.com/192431.html)

Will look for Jaroslaw's speech now.


I think this is a non-starter, if Snyder is referring to Суржик (pidgin Russian spoken in kiev, the south and the east). Though as an idea it is interesting, I'm afraid it would be completely unpalatable to nationalistically-minded Ukrainians who are fighting for Ukrainian.


This is absolutely true. At the same time, as someone who reads a lot of both, I have to say that the quality of journalism in Ukraine, compared to their Russian colleagues, is still of a lower, more provincial, quality. That is, you don't often see them use their journalistic freedom in a truly bold fashion that challenges the status quo, as of yet. Instead, this freedom has so far been more often demonstrated through the non-stop injection of "kompromat" against rival factions. This is probably a result of the fact that all print publications, radio stations and tv channels in the Ukraine are owned by oligarchs, who each have their own puppet political parties. In Russia, of course, all mass media at this point are owned by the state or state affiliated entities (i.e. Gazprom Media), so all these fights happen under the carpet, with the public left to just guess at what is really happening. However, Russian journalists do write amazing pieces sometimes (latest example is the scandalous story of Golunov's arrest), that proudly carry on the Russian dissident tradition. It'll be some time before Ukraine can truly be a beacon of freedom for Russia. Now, it is more a Scarecrow reminding people of the dangers of excessive democracy.

Language / How Polish sounds to other Slavs [32]


You caught me between edits. Fixed this. Yes, pretty archaic term - and it makes sense, because this was from an anthology of Polish jokes from the 19th and early 20th century.

Speaking of the speech delivered by Lech Kaczynski... it was a great speech. Just watched it again, and read those comments you referred to.

To Russians he will always be the better of the two twins.

Language / How Polish sounds to other Slavs [32]

Hahahaha! Good one.

Agree with you, that we need to bring the thread back on track. So how about this? What do you think about Russian chauvinistic argument that Ukrainian is nothing but a primitive rural Russian dialect infected with countless Polonisms that the Ukrainians absorbed while living under the Szchlachta?

Another Russian joke about Polish and Russian:

Russian: Is it true that you speak a different language than we do in Russia?
Pole: Why yes, we speak Polish in Poland!
Russian: How do you say "Dom" (house)?
Pole: Dom.
Russian: How do you say "selo" (village)?
Pole: Siolo.
Russian: I see, and how do you say "zhopa" (ass)?
Pole: Dupa.
Russian: Indeed, the differences are great!

Language / How Polish sounds to other Slavs [32]

This question is a minefield, with no correct answers. Nonetheless, I will attempt to answer it :).

In my humble opinion, Russia has the stronger claim of the two, because of dynastic and religious legitimacy. On the dynastic side - because the Rurikids continued to reign in Russia right up until 1700 or so - long after the Rurikids had gone extinct in Ukrainian lands. On the religious side, because the Metropolitans of Kiev consciously and voluntarily moved the main seat of the church first to Vladimir, and then to Moscow, as Kiev became deserted and depopulated following the invasions from the East.

Language / How Polish sounds to other Slavs [32]

Russians themselves very rarely use it. When it is used, it's used by residents of other regions of Russia to refer specifically to people living in Moscow (but even then, the much more common and less pejorative term is Москвичи). That being said, the most common way for a Russian to hear Москаль is from a Ukrainian and it has a 100% negative context. The intent is to deny Russians their Rus-ness, since Ukrainians believe the legacy of Rus and its language rightfully belongs to them, but was usurped by Muscovy in the 1300s thanks to Mongol aid.

Finally, the much more popular term is Кацап (Katsap), rather than Москаль.

Language / How Polish sounds to other Slavs [32]


m.lurkmore.to:4443/Поляки

Not so much a joke, but Russian needling of Poles here. Rough translation is that a Pole is a perfect Russophobe, as would exist in a vacuum, or be stored in France along with other standard weights and measurements. Poles hate Russians so much, that Russophobia could be measured in units of PSh (Russian slang term for a Pole is "Pshek"). Polish hatred of Russians is of such magnitude, that any other expression of Russophobia from representatives of other nationalities would necessarily have a measurement of <1 PSh. Then the funniest part in the end - that a Western ukrainian from Galicija who masturbates at a photo of Bandera, and trains himself daily in hate of all things Russian, would still only achieve a PSh of 0.95-0.99 but not 1.

Thoughts?

Life / What income/assets and worth, will give you a "rich" status in Poland? [22]

I looked around and can't find anything in Polish laws regarding non-urban land use, planning/zoning. I'm certain there is something, but so far everything I can find is related to urban territories.

I think pawian is right.

News / POLES FEEL LIKE JEWS HAVE TOO MUCH CONTROL IN POLAND - TRUE? [209]

@Miloslaw

One's imagination is the only limiting factor when thinking about where Poland would be today if it had allied itself with its true friends, Iran and Afghanistan, after the Berlin Wall collapsed.

I think it is reasonable to expect that Poland would now wield a Security Council veto, and would have at least one colony, on both the Moon and Mars. Finally, a true Lusatian prince would rule over the United States of Serbia (formerly known as EU).

News / POLES FEEL LIKE JEWS HAVE TOO MUCH CONTROL IN POLAND - TRUE? [209]

@Miloslaw

Why, Iran and Afghanistan, of course. These are the homeland of the glorious Sarmats. Silly Miloslaw... off-topic discussion (unrelated to Poland) = topic closed.

Life / What income/assets and worth, will give you a "rich" status in Poland? [22]

@Pawian

How many are/hectare do you own now? What size would you need to be happy? How much $ would you need to get the 500 meters of solitude in any direction?

Alright! For Pawian - wealth is clearly measured in trees :) Perhaps he has it right. However, I was more interested in a concrete number.

What is this number for Poland?

I'm sure "wealthy" has different meaning in Warsaw and Bialystok.

P.S. - my hugging tree would have to be a birch

I read the article from your link. Goddamn! I sincerely hope you don't believe this vibrations hocus pocus. My grandma used to be into the same "vibration" stuff, and it would drive me up the wall.

Do you really think that treating water with 10 HZ vibrations, and then drinking it will improve your blood circulation?

Life / What income/assets and worth, will give you a "rich" status in Poland? [22]

Merged:

What does it mean to be "rich" in Poland?

Hey guys! I think this thread has some potential for fun. The thread on "what's enough to live in Poland" has given me an idea...

Just read an article online: cnn.com/2019/05/31/success/feel-wealthy/index.html

It says that a recent survey suggests that a number in the vicinity of $2.27 million is enough for the average American to feel himself "wealthy". What would you give as the number that would allow oneself to feel truly rich in Poland?

What goes into your definition of rich? If you were rich, would you move to a different tax jurisdiction (a lá Monaco), or would you stay in Poland? What would you buy with your wealth? And so on, and so forth.

Edit: My thinking is that the number is the same, if not higher.

News / Poland A and Ukraine B. Compare how far Poland has advanced. [282]

How does admitting that EU funds played a huge role in speeding up Polish economic development in any way a furtherance of an inferiority complex? I think it is an inferiority complex to insist on the opposite in defiance of all empiric evidence.

News / Poland A and Ukraine B. Compare how far Poland has advanced. [282]

@pawian

Lithuania, and the Baltics at large, are the exceptions that prove the rule, and arguably a poor example. Nonetheless, their tiny size allowed them to perform system-wide reforms in a much smoother and faster fashion than any larger state, that has to contend with various regional factions and powerful oligarchic clans, would be able to. This why what was possible in Georgia under Saakashvili, is not necessarily possible in Ukraine under Poroshenko, however pure his intentions and however many Georgians and Latvians he stuffs his cabinet with.

Was it not you, just a few weeks ago, that created a thread discussing electoral and economic development statistics in relation to what empire that part of Poland used to belong to? What was clear from those charts was that any part of Poland that was closer to Germany did better than its eastern counterpart.

Finally, you can agree that Ukraine had to contend with all those things you list (collectivization, shuttering of cooperatives, etc), because it was a constituent part of the Soviet Union, to which it belonged because of its geographic proximity to Russia's heartland. Poland was able to break free, because it was far. I created another thread at some point about the interesting historic counter-factuals of what would have happened if Poland had not won the Polish Soviet war and became a republic of the USSR. I should find it.

News / Poland A and Ukraine B. Compare how far Poland has advanced. [282]

@pawian

oh yeah, definitely it was the enterprising individualism of Poles which led to their capitalist triumph, while it was their knavish ways, that brought Ukrainians to the present state of affairs. Spoken like a true szlachcic.

It certainly wasn't the good geographic fortune of neighboring Germany in the former case, and neighboring Russia in the latter.

Regarding economic numbers, and the 3 trillion euro projection you used. You do realize that GDP encompasses all economic activity, right? A government budget typically represents anywhere between 20% and 40% of GDP. That's all the money that will be spent in a year by the government on everything, from health to education, and defense. So 82.5 billion euros represents a huge sum of money that is injected on top of everything.

News / Poland A and Ukraine B. Compare how far Poland has advanced. [282]


I think any reasonable person, if given the choice, would choose to border Germany (most importantly), the Baltics, the Czech Republic, and Sweden (across the puddle)... than Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Hungary, and Poland - no? So I wouldn't chalk up sharing a border and a language with Russia as such a big advantage. In fact, I think these days very few Ukrainians see bordering Russia and sharing a language with it as a great advantage. I agree, however, that it was "location, location, location" that predetermined the present disparity between the two countries.

Ukraine of the 1991 vintage was f%#&ed before it started, because of the neighbors it had. Poland was dragged into modernity, because of the neighbors it had. Of course it also helped that everyone felt very guilty about their treatment of Poland in the recent past and felt they owed it one (ditto for the Romanians, Hungarians, Czechs, etc., while also recognizing that Poland benefited disproportionately from development funds in comparison to other 2004 inductees).

@Ironside

Some people don't feel that admittance into the EU was much of a gift, and certainly not enough compensation for past betrayals. Here I can only say, that whatever happens to be the truth: nobody likes the guy that looks a gift horse in the mouth. The transformative effect of EU funds is an established fact, and Poland has now been a member of the EU for 15 years. Aristocratically sneering at money, after 15 years of taking it, only makes you look like a hypocrite. Under the current 2014-2020 financial framework of the EU budget, Poland is slated to receive 82.5 billion euros intended for furthering the union's cohesion policy. Last year, the GDP of Poland was ~520 billion euro. So just those funds, represent more than 1/6th of the entire annual economic output of Poland. Do you still think it's just peanuts, and that only ignoramus morons speak of such things? Can you point me out a single "ore rich and oil rich" bantustan that received even 1/10th this amount of funds? The amount of EU funds transferred to Poland over the last decade-and-a-half represents a singular, and historic altruistic transfer of wealth between nation states, overshadowed only by the transfer of money from West to East Germany (can be argued it is one state and thus does not apply).

News / Poland A and Ukraine B. Compare how far Poland has advanced. [282]

None of you smarties chose to say anything about the hundreds of billions of EU development funds that Poland received and Ukraine did not. I think a majority of Ukrainians would indicate that as the proximate reason behind the current disparity.

Study / Studies in Opole University; lack of money, cheap renting, any job available? [8]

@rozumiemnic

I know that you're coming from a good place, so forgive me if I'm being too nitpicky.

Both you and Pawian immediately went after this kid's lack of initiative. Is trying to get into a foreign college, even if a little worried about how you would afford life while a student - not a sign of initiative?

IMHO, his worrying about what he will do, after he is admitted, actually shows some maturity on his part. The only unfortunate thing, but completely human, is that he seems a little bitter at the fact that he needs to factor in these considerations while local young people can be more carefree in this regard.

The hard knocks of life, and bitter truths, like "poor people have to work twice as hard", "compensate for your present lack of funds with more initiative", "drill down on your studies while others party, because you can't afford to" - I'm sure he knows himself.

Study / Studies in Opole University; lack of money, cheap renting, any job available? [8]


Seems to me, that the logical connection between the first part of the sentence and the last is tenuous, at best. Do you suppose that he will arrive and learn that his Western European cousins, on average, actually have less funds available for accommodation and food than him? He's stated something more or less objective, if not very elegantly.

Give the kid a break.

Life / WHY DO POLES USE ENGLISH WORDS IN CONVERSATION? [396]


Well, that's why I used the example of movies. Russians have a good enough vocabulary to talk about movies without having to resort to anglicisms.

If we talk IT, anything from the world of shopping (сэйл, промоушен, 50% офф, etc), or car repair then there is probably more borrowed words than Russian words left, but that hardly seems to be worth mentioning.

Life / WHY DO POLES USE ENGLISH WORDS IN CONVERSATION? [396]

Reading the thread, it seems Poland is doing just fine with Anglicisms.If "upgrade'owałem" is the biggest complaint... Russian has crossed into ridiculous territory in this regard.

I recently went to see a movie with friends while in Moscow. In their discussion of the film there were so many damn anglicisms that were completely unnecessary, because they had perfectly good Russian counterparts. Stuff like релиз (release), флешбэк (flashback), трейлер (trailer), сторилайн (storyline), римейк (remake), and so on and so forth.

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


Truly so. Paranoia must be added to this.

As regards your earlier post, Lyzko, where you questioned if Hitler ever studied the lessons of Napoleon's campaign in Russia - yes he did, and he took its lessons perhaps too close to heart. When Manstein, Guderian, and Von Reichenau advised Hitler, after a fantastically successful summer campaign, to push on to Moscow and behead the Soviet government, he overruled them. Instead, he ordered the capture of Kiev, and the opening of a supply corridor to the oil fields of the Caucasus. He ridiculed his generals exactly by citing Napoleon. He told them they were military dummies, who understood nothing about the bigger picture, and that the only way to defeat the Soviet Union was by starving it through cutting off its industrial base in the Ukraine and its hydrocarbon resource base in the Caucasus.

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


I agree. Miloslaw's comments about Russia's impotence, as supposedly demonstrated in Afghanistan and Chechnya, are laughable.

As an illustration of the many levels of "wrong" in Miloslaw's comment - the Russians were not fighting "drunk Chechens", but rather radical Salafists that were trained in specialist camps in the Middle East, and who would never touch a glass of alcohol. Many of the Chechen insurgents had experience serving in the Soviet Army, while their leadership consisted of former Special Forces operators and an actual soviet general. Regardless, once Russia got serious about the insurgency it handled it within 6 months, at the end of which the UN declared Grozny the most destroyed city in Europe since the fire bombing of Dresden during WW2.

As regards Afghanistan, the ISAF currently relies primarily on military infrastructure erected during the soviet occupation - which by any measure was a more successful occupation than the current one lasting from Oct. 2001 (1 month after the twin tower attacks). When in 1988 the Soviets abanadoned the Afghan government they installed, it managed to defend itself against the Taliban until 1995. When Trump pulls out forces from Afghanistan this year, it's a question whether Ashraf Ghani's government can survive even 6 months without American help.

Long story short - using Afghanistan and Chechnya as examples of Russia's conventional military impotence is foolish.

History / Aurochs, the primitive prehistoric cattle of Europe, had lived in Poland? [48]

Ho-ho-ho!

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

Cool video!

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


Italy has a population of 60 million people, while Russia has 142 million. Given how Russia was plunged into absolute poverty during the transition to a market economy in the '90s, I see nothing pathetic in Russians achieving a standard of living just 2.3 times worse than the Italian one (without 100s of billions of EU infusions, a là Poland). Italy is a export powerhouse second only to Germany, with world-leading competencies in many crucial sectors.

Furthermore, as I explained in my post, these are nominal figures. When the ruble/usd exchange rate plunged from 30 rubles to the dollar to 68, following the annexation of Crimea, it wiped out nearly 50% of Russia's nominal GDP as expressed in US dollars. However, it would be economically illiterate to argue that because of this the Russian economy was halved. Yes, Russia relies on imports for many important types of industrial machinery, and these need to be paid for in USD or EUR. Now it's 50% more expensive to pay for these imports. However, Russia also sells its oil and metals for USD (Russia sells a lot more than it imports, about $200 billion more), and then changes it back to rubles inside the country. This is why despite sanctions and a recession Russian state finances remain robust (lowest debt to GDP ratio in the developed world, and fourth largest fx reserves, with a healthy budget proficit this year).

If a purchasing power parity metric is used instead of nominal USD, then Russia has a GDP of around 4 trillion USD, which puts it above Great Britain and France, and on par with Germany. By comparison, Poland has a PPP GDP of 1.2 trillion.

The swings in the exchange rate have meant that Russia has lost a share of GDP in the last 5 years that is larger than the entire Polish GDP (to those arguing that modern Poland is comparable to russia). If oil and metal prices rally tomorrow, and the ruble consequently strengthens to the 40s-50s, then Russia will add at least half a trillion to its GDP. This is why nominal GDP figures are not very useful.

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


I said that the framing of the question might seem silly, because I was concerned that people would treat this as a no-brainer (i.e. Russia is just so much bigger). However, here you are Ironside :)))

Economically the distance is still huge. Poland has a nominal GDP of around $520 billion, or approximately the size of Sweden. Russia has a nominal GDP of around $1.5 trillion, or about the size of Italy. Before the enormous currency devaluation that followed the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and imposition of sanctions, Russia had a GDP of around $2.3 trillion. So it's not just oil and nukes.

Also not mentioned, is the Security Council veto, G8 membership, and unilateral operations in Ukraine and Syria. Do you, for example, realistically envision Poland acting independently in any military conflict (one measure of Great Power status)?

Finally, how can you be serious saying that only 100 years ago Poland was stronger? In that decade Poland had just gotten its independence from Russia, miraculously, and only after Russia was wracked by a World War, then a revolution, which was immediately followed up by a civil war in which at least 9 million perished.

History / Why are Jews pestering Poland for "proper" WW2 monetary restitution/reparations? [750]

Clever, no doubt...

I try never to wade into these questions, b/c more often than not it's a fool's errand. However, it's necessary to point out that Jews are special in this sense, in that it's not just a religion, but also an ethnicity. The "blood" aspect is important here, and the Catholic analogy does not cover that.

That's it from me, I'm out :)

Classifieds / Fabricator sought for 1:1 scale mockup for MSPO Defence Exhibition. [14]


Thanks for your response!

Didn't know you speak Russian. Yes, asking if the terms were equivalent, but it seems it's not the case.

I kind of arrived at the answer myself (hassle with export licences, pain-in-the-ass logistical arrangements, etc), while waiting on your reply :)

As regards the "moralizing" - am I missing something? Were there messages in the thread that had been deleted? I hope it wasn't anything I said, because I completely agree with you on this point.

Sig,

Different type of modelling here... but what can you say about this? Why do manufacturers do this, and when is it going to stop?!

Photo is from MSPO 2017: pbs.twimg.com/media/DHdFna7XcAYQpGu.jpg