Re: Orthodox Priest vs. Russia

Vladimir Makarenko kirjoitti:
Anton wrote:

Finns are usually
very sympathetic to neighbours in this kind of situations. There have
also been a few cases of old, ill babushkas who have nobody to take care
of them in Russia, but they a daughter or son in Finland who have taken
care of them, and the authorities have wanted to expel them when their
visa expires. You may say what you want about tabloid media, but in this
kind of situations they are able to appeal to the emotions of the
public. One of these babushkas were recently granted a permit to stay
because her case was made public in the tabloid media.

Finland due to geographical and historical experience has a unique
standing vis a vi Russia. Baltics could have been in the place but they
chosen a different game (mistake IMO, great mistake, but time hasn't got
frozen - maybe the things will change).

I suppose you don't mean 1939-1944 when you refer to a 'different game'
;-) Jokes aside: yes, there might be another, alternative approach for
the Baltic countries - but only to a limited extent: the problems, the
circumstances and the types of disputes and 'challenges' are entirely
different - so what is sort of¹ working for us can not be 'benchmarked'
and applied 1:1 as such for Balto-Russo relations.

¹) From our point of view there are many issues that are all but settled
in a way we'd want.

The most unique in this "uniqueness" is that Russians do trust Finland -
well, as much as they are capable to trust anybody at all. It grants
Finland a very special place among Western countries. It is in some
sense bridges the gap (abyss?) between Russia and the West.

Yes, neighbours are neighbours - in good and bad. Finns are sometimes
very frustrated with the politics and distrust any Moscow regime or
government official, but usually the ordinary people get along just fine
- to the extent that people usually do.

The real problem is that all the power management in EU is talking and
doing Nothing. Just Blah, blah, blah. Or sending cops to beat *** -
like in Estonia. And again - Blah, blah, blah: Russkies are Bad Bad Bad.
Blah, blah, blah. When a major, focused effort is needed.

I see two things why your proposal might not catch much wind to its
sails:

a) If the Russian kids are able to come here many of them want to stay

Sure. It is inevitable. Still 80%-90% will return. I watch the Chinese
students stats - ~ 50% return. And they go back to China which is
despite all the cheap talk is oppressive regime in comparison. Again EU
- and I speak about EU not Finland is what 450 mln? Number of the
Russians who will stay will be a pocket change in comparison with the
rest. And they will provide at least some knowledge how to deal with
Russians.

I'm not an expert on the subject, but for an Asian the cultural gap
between the USA and China/South East Asia is perhaps larger than for a
Russian in Finland - not to mention the distance in kilometers. For a
Russian from St Petersburg the distance to home is shorter from Helsinki
than for a Finn from the north (Oulu 800km, Rovaniemi 900km). The
Russian studying or working in Finland (or even Sweden or Germany) can
get home for Christmas/Eastern in a few ours.

For us it will hardly be problem to have a few Russians to stay - in
fact the public opinion is much more positive towards fellow Europeans
than some more distant immigrants - not wanting to make it sound
bigoted/racist or anything. I'm only thinking whether or not the goal to
have these people return home to bring their experience back home is
realistic or not. I don't know.

b) EU has citizens of its own member countries that are competing for
the same jobs or places to study

See above. If seriously that point needs professionals to assess.
However - I can assure that those who will got eduction WILL WILLINGLY
go back to Russia - 99% of them - it is obscene but believe me - young,
educated, fluent English, with knowledge of Western psycho - you or me
will never even dream about money which are thrown at them there.
The limited number who would come for low paid job and stay illegally
keeping them - well - at least they are not so alien as immigrants from
countries seas away. And at least part of them will be Finno Ugric :).

VM.

I was looking at it from the EU angle: if exchange student programs (or
something like that) are created EU and EU country citizens prioritize
EU country citizens first. Romanians and Bulgarians will demand to have
priority to come to Germany for instance. Latvians might want to come to
Sweden or Finland. It would be difficult to explain to Eastern European
EU countries why Russians (or Ukrainians) are offered this but not say
Bulgarians or Latvians. The best would of course be to have both a
program to "build bridges" between EU members - _and_ a few selected,
"strategic" non-EU partners.

p.s. this is technical - Germany as I remember has a special program for
incoming students - putting them for half of year or the whole year
through learning language etc. and only then admitting them to colleges.
Why not to run such program on EU scale funding individual countries
programs from EU budget?

Many different interest groups are fighting for the EU money. (The
sarcastic map posted here that has EU named "Union of subsidized
farmers" has a point). In my opinion it would be a good idea to have
(student and job) exchange programs between EU and key non-EU countries,
but the realist in me is not holding his breath that kids by the
thousands will be in such a program anytime soon. It would however be a
good idea to start an exchange even in a smaller scale tomorrow than
ponder on some colossal program that could happen in 2050 or so.

--
Anton
.

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