Greetings, You may be interested in some initial thoughts from a Russian cyber-friend in response to Ed Weicks recent long response to Arthur. Steve ------------------------------------------------- Hi Steve, Thanks for invitation to the virtual round table. I must to express what is called "opinion", because am a kind of a "representative" of Russia, whereas it is paradoxically more difficult than for a foreign observer, monitoring the surface results of processes, the depth of which sometimes coincides with non-transparent darkness. And in this case the best helper is history, though for a native of Russia here also the tough thing is prepared by the destiny: he does not know history of his own country because with it the different political powers were dealing towards monuments of every previous ruler - they merely vanished and abolish them either. Therefore I am not surprised that not too much people, among the world's economists, politicians, sociologists, know that ancient national Russian sport is < factious disputes>. In the days of Kiev Rus and beyond there were dozens and even hundreds of serious bloody conflicts between the apanage princes, which governed the different princedoms. The phenomenon of contemporain Russia may be defined by the following words: the geopolitical giant that does not succeed to manage his giantness. Once more - thank you. I'll try to clear something in Russia problematique - for me and for others. Sincerely yours. Valery
