Goodbye Russia: a generation packs its bags

[Leghorn21]

Chirikova became an environmental activist 11 years ago...this is an in-depth article on life in Russia under Putin’s mob rule



snip

Chirikova herself was targeted in another way - through her "weak spot", her children.

"The authorities spread lies about me saying I smacked my daughters and didn't feed them properly," she says. "A guy from the security services came to our apartment block and asked my neighbours to sign a document saying I was a bad mother."

Her elder daughter was so upset by the sight of men in unmarked cars watching the family that she was too scared to go to school. When strangers knocked on the door, the girls would hide under their beds. Eventually the family had to move to a new neighbourhood closer to the centre of Moscow but the harassment continued, now in the form of threatening phone calls.

Chirikova says it took her daughters three years of therapy to recover. Her own anxiety continued to grow, however, especially when the Child Protection Service hinted that it might take her "abused" daughters away from her.

Much more:
http://www.bbc.com/news/stories-42431009

article found via Bill Browder tweet

Link to tweet

?s=17

[Irish_Dem]

1. Will this start happening in the US as well? nt

[Leghorn21]

3. It has for years, apparently...for the oligarchs (read mobsters), at any rate

Anatoliy Kuzmin held out his daughter’s blue U.S. passport over a red Russian one and snapped a photo from a Florida beach.

“Woohoo! Got dual citizenship for my daughter!” he wrote on Instagram.

American citizenship for the newborn girl was the goal of Kuzmin and his Instagram-celebrity wife, who sought the help of birth-tourism services in Florida for the arrival of their first child. They are among the estimated hundreds of Russian parents who flock to the U.S. annually for warm weather, excellent medical care, and, more importantly, birthright American citizenship.

And many, like Kuzmin and his wife, stay at President Donald Trump’s properties in Florida.


much more:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/russians-flock-to-trump-properties-to-give-birth-to-us-citizens

[Irish_Dem]

5. Geesh, it is so brazen. We are a Russian client state. nt

[DFW]

2. Germany is flooded with expat Russians.

As long as they learn passable German, no one even raises an eyebrow any more.

[dalton99a]

4. "Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country.

It’s kleptocracy; it’s corruption. It’s a nation that is really only dependent upon oil and gas for their economy, and so economic sanctions are important."
- John McCain

"They are a smaller country, they are a weaker country, their economy doesn’t produce anything that anybody wants to buy except oil and gas and arms. They don’t innovate."
- President Obama

[murielm99]

6. I will never forget President Obama

saying that. Any of our future candidates need to stress this. They need to stress how the repiggies allowed their party and our country to be weakened by this weak, criminal country and its thug leadership.

[dalton99a]

7. Yep. We are being ruled by thieves

and their Russian thug bosses

[StevieM]

11. Agreed. I also vividly remember when Obama spoke those words.

And he was totally right.

[mountain grammy]

8. And we will be the same

Never been a real democracy anyway, but we were inching towards it. Full stop.

[agincourt]

9. oil, coal, Right wing propaganda and racism,

sounds like all the US can produce under Trump and the GOP.

[dixiegrrrrl]

12. seems to me they innovated pretty well.

Hijacking another country's Pres. election seems pretty creative.

[Scurrilous]

10. Half of them moved to Sunny Isles Beach in Miami Dade.

[Blue_true]

13. Several large coastal cities have developed large Russian enclaves.

New York was first with Brighton Beach, but Boston-Cambridge and other large northeast cities are getting enclaves.