Comments on: Hungary Hungary Russia

By: colleen

colleen — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:59:18 +0000

over the years, usually those who have underestimated russia have been proven wrong.

just sayin’

By: Kristy

Kristy — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 23:22:42 +0000

Nathan, I’m dying to know what the Soviet knock-off version of Hungry, Hungry Hippos is called and where I can find it.

By: James

James — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:28:04 +0000

Thanks for this great post … I was in the midst of writing up something similar about how the hysteria in Western press over the invasion is exactly what the siloviki want.

However I am having a much harder time reconciling that small space of common sense in between the McCain-Tbilisi bluster and the humorously dishonest official Russian position.

I do think that the structural underpinnings of these conflicts in the Caucasus deserve significant attention, even if that attention is for the moment distorted. Unfortunately, you all know as well as I do that as soon as hurricane hits Florida, the media will forget all about this inconvenient piece of international news. Georgia could become this year’s Liberia.

By: eran.ru

eran.ru — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 17:10:15 +0000

Osetia said thanks to Russia,so many persons were saved by russian army

By: Nathan

Nathan — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:38:51 +0000

Kristy, your friend apparently didn’t spend enough time in Moscow in the 1980′s. When I visited Yakutsk, the family I was staying with had a Soviet knock-off version of Hungry Hungry Hippos that they told me they had bought in Moscow at some point in the mid- or late-1980′s. The bottom was stamped with a price in rubles and details in Russian on whatever game manufacturing collective made it.

I really should have asked to buy it off of them.

By: Kristy

Kristy — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:42:09 +0000

I recently tried to explain the concept of Hungry, Hungry Hippos to a Central Asian friend here and he looked at me like I was crazy. Or rather, like North Americans who grew up in the 1980s were crazy because they considered it to be fun.

By: Joshua Foust

Joshua Foust — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:32:49 +0000

Well, you’re more on topic than that Kaminsky guy. I swear, the last few months the WSJ has been particularly disconnected from reality. Or maybe they always have been, and I just never paid attention to it.

But most of all, I am disappointed neither of you noticed the title’s pun.

By: Lyndon

Lyndon — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:26:04 +0000

Before that the Soviet invasions, courtesy of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, of Poland and the Baltics in ‘39 and ‘40.

Why do they always forget Bessarabia? People here remember, too. Although perhaps since many are still in the Russophone mediasphere, they seem to have opinions on the current conflict closer to that of Russians than to that of “new Europe” and the WSJ op-ed page. Whether that’s good or bad for Moldova’s future remains to be seen – I have my own opinion on that, but there’s no need to go any farther (further?) off-topic…

By: Kristy

Kristy — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:20:32 +0000

Not only does Kaminski trot out the same tired cliches that you can find in virtually every Western oped on this crisis, he finishes it all off with a lovely, personal (and equally Orientalist) anecdote about his time in Russia (snowy weather, Russian hospitality, vodka) – Look at me, I’ve been to Russia, I know what they’re like!

All around shoddy.