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Reading a skan-original "first printed" of the Ostrozhsky (OstRih) Bible of 1581 y. (see - Sources), auxiliary I've used traditional Synodal (RST) and Church-slavic (CS) versions. Soon I began to notice a difference of senses in texts of Bibles. Reading, only for the sake of acquaintance with a curiosity, has turned to the most fascinating detective research. The book "Exod", in (RST), (CS), (OstRih), (Torah), and parts of other books, a line by a line - in parallel, has been read, and the differential table is made. (drafts: bible-exodus.narod.ru) Gradually I linked up other canonical and uncanonical Bibles to comparison...

Politicians rarely admit mistakes, but Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev always was in a different class. So it is not surprising that, as he looked back on his six tumultuous years in power at the head of the Soviet Union, he was willing to count the errors he had made. In an exclusive interview with the Guardian he named at least five. They led not just to his own downfall 20 years ago; they also brought the collapse of the Soviet Union and the introduction of an unregulated economic free-for-all that turned a few Russians into billionaires while plunging millions of people...

Russia will use facilities on Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula for naval pilot training in the next few years, the Russian defense minister said on Friday. In line with a 1997 bilateral agreement, Russia used the Nitka Naval Pilot Training Center in Ukraine as the only training facility for its naval pilots, but Kiev has been less willing to allow Russian pilots to train at the facility in the past few years and, according to some sources, was even planning to rent it to China. "Russia is interested in the continuation of its naval pilot training at this [the Nitka] facility," Anatoly...

SNIPPET: "When the youngster glanced upward the maniac plunged a knife into his throat, Pravda said." SNIPPET: ..."it emerged that the 27-year-old knifeman was a suspected Muslim fanatic, the Russian online newspaper reported." SNIPPET: "Police arrested the prime suspect, named by Pravda as Server Ibragimov, three hours later at his parents' house..." SNIPPET: "“The man screamed Allahu Akbar (Arabic for 'God is great') when killing the boy, "said a shocked local. “The kid was slaughtered like a goat.""

Russia's Black Sea Fleet based in Ukraine's Crimea will receive new frigate-type vessels and diesel-powered submarines by 2015, a top naval officer said Friday. The unnamed admiral gave his reaction to RIA Novosti on some media reports that had earlier said at least two corvettes and three subs would join the Black Sea Fleet within the next five years. "In line with the approved shipbuilding program and armaments program until 2015, the Black Sea Fleet is to receive two frigates and three diesel submarines," the admiral said, stressing that he indeed meant frigates, which are capable of traveling much longer...

SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine, Oct 26 (Reuters) - SNIPPET: "Yuri Lutsenko said the men, Ukrainian citizens from the southern Crimean peninsula, were suspected of belonging to al-Takfir wal-Hijra, which originated in Egypt and is linked with activities in North Africa. Lutsenko said explosive materials, detonators, a Kalashnikov rifle and cartridges, firearms instruction manuals, and propaganda material propagating extreme Islam were found in seven places. Pamphlets also linked the men to Hizb-ut-Tahrir, a group that has said it wants to establish a global Islamic caliphate by peaceful means and is well known in Central Asia. "A network of the extreme Islamic movement al-Takfir...

Having started the morning with two hours of crucial talks with US President Barack Obama, some might have expected Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to have spent the rest of the day in the office. But not so for the increasingly multi-tasking Russian strongman, who spent the afternoon in casual dress visiting a Moscow bikers club known as the “Night Wolves”, television pictures showed. Perhaps the transformation of Putin - whose varied activities over the last months have ranged from scolding oligarchs to singing Soviet-era songs at a school to touring a supermarket - should be no surprise by now....

The Georgia Watershed By Leon Aron Posted: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 RUSSIAN OUTLOOK AEI Online   Publication Date: November 12, 2008 Fall 2008On August 8, following Georgia's reckless attack on the Russia-supported separatist enclave of South Ossetia, Russia invaded Georgia. For the first time in post-Soviet history, Russian troops crossed the internationally recognized border of a sovereign neighboring state. Yet there were several other lines that may have been crossed. This short war looks more and more like a culmination and an emblem of the troubling evolution in the Kremlin's values and priorities and, by extension, its vision of the...

Charge of the Light Brigade Charge of the Light Brigade. Painting by Richard Caton Woodville (1855) by: Alfred, Lord Tennyson Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. "Forward, the Light Brigade! "Charge for the guns!" he said: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. 2. "Forward, the Light Brigade!" Was there a man dismay'd? Not tho' the soldier knew Someone had blunder'd: Their's not to make reply, Their's not to reason why, Their's but to do and die: Into the valley of Death Rode the...

LETTER FROM MOSCOW The war in Georgia has provoked unprecedented levels of patriosm in Russia. The majority of the population supported their army's actions in the Caucasus. And even the fiercest critics of the Kremlin have now become proud Russians. REUTERS Members of the Kremlin-loyal youth organisation "Nashi" wave flags and hold a banner during a protest in front of the US embassy in Moscow during the Georgia war. I never thought I’d see the day when regular Russians, without any prompting, would voluntarily and passionately defend the actions of the Kremlin in conversations with a foreign friend. But at...

Excerpt - SEVASTOPOL, September 16 (RIA Novosti) - The U.S. Pathfinder ship entered on Tuesday the Sevastopol harbor that is home to the Ukrainian navy and Russia's Black Sea Fleet, a Russian naval source said. "This is the second planned visit of Pathfinder at the invitation of Ukraine in the past 10 days," the source said. USNS Pathfinder (T-AGS 60) is an oceanographic survey ship owned by the Military Sealift Command and has a civilian crew and scientists on board. According to official statements, Pathfinder is searching for a ship which sank in the harbor during World War II. The...

From his giant monument overlooking Sevastopol, Vladimir Lenin gazes dreamily out towards the Black Sea. In the harbour, elderly ladies in floral swimming costumes bob in the warm lilac water. Shimmering in the distance is the grey Russian battleship Moskva, framed by steep chalky-coloured mountains. The port of Sevastopol on Crimea's rocky southern coast is the historic home of Russia's Black Sea fleet. After the break-up of the Soviet Union, Ukraine allowed Russia to lease Sevastopol as a military base until 2017. But after last month's war in Georgia the peninsula is at the centre of growing speculation. The fear...

via translation - Moscow denounces politics "unfriendly act" of Ukraine to Russia MOSCOW - Moscow has accused Ukraine on Thursday pursue a policy "unfriendly" to Russia in the context of Russian-Georgian conflict and "complicate" the activity of the Fleet of the Russian Black Sea based in Crimea. "Lately the Ukrainian authorities are conducting a policy toward Russia that can only be described as unfriendly," said Russian Foreign Ministry in a statement. "We are seriously concerned by the fact that Ukrainian leaders constantly blown up the question of the duration of the presence of the fleet in the Black Sea from...

Ukraine dismisses fears of Crimea separatist crisis Aug 18 2008, 10:31 KYIV, Aug 16 (Reuters) - A top Ukrainian security official on Saturday discounted any notion of a separatist rebellion in the sensitive Crimea as President Viktor Yushchenko proposed Kremlin talks on the issue of the Russian fleet based there. Ukraine's pro-Western leaders, brought to power by the 2004 "Orange Revolution" and committed to seeking NATO membership, have been increasingly at odds with Russia over foreign policy. Yushchenko, like the United States, backs Georgia in its conflict with Russia over separatist South Ossetia. He further enraged Moscow this week by...

MOSCOW (AFP) - A major oil spill off the southern coast of Russia could take months to clear, a top environmentalist said on Wednesday as the first charges were brought over the accident. Some 2,000 tonnes of fuel oil seeped into environmentally sensitive waters of the Kerch Strait in the northeastern corner of the Black Sea, after a fierce storm on Sunday wrecked five ships including an oil tanker. "It will take nearly a week to clear the coast of pollution and months to eliminate fuel oil from the sea surface," Igor Chestin, head of the Russian branch of the...

Hundreds of Moslem Tartars brawled with Orthodox Christian Slavs in the centre of a Ukrainian provincial city on Thursday, the Interfax news agency reported. A long-simmering conflict in Simferopol, the regional capital of the Black Sea peninsula Crimea, turned violent after more than 100 security personnel hired by a real estate company attempted evict Tartars living in an encampment built on a choice city lot. More than a dozen persons were injured in fighting throughout the morning, four severely enough to require medical treatment. Police made six arrests, and suffered minor injuries themselves, said Oleksander Dombrovsky, a Simferopol police spokesman....

SIMFEROPOL, December 17 (Itar-Tass) - The results of the people’s referendum show that “the Crimea, a bastion of Slavic patriotism, stood out against planting anti-Russian doctrine in Ukraine”, says an appeal by the All-Crimean Non-Government Council which held the referendum on Saturday on the attitude of Crimean citizens to Ukraine’s membership of NATO. The appeal was read out on Sunday at a mass rally in downtown Simferopol. “Crimean citizens have overpowered at the referendum the president who claims to be a democrat, but does not want to heed the voice of 900,000 residents of the Crimea and does not recognize...

“YANKEE go home!” the protesters’ signs read outside the military compound. Inside, about 200 US Marine reservists are confined to their quarters, unable even to visit the local shop. Nothing unusual, perhaps, by the standards of Iraq or Afghanistan, but this was the scene yesterday in the southern Ukrainian region of Crimea, more than 18 months after the Orange Revolution supposedly set Ukraine on the path towards Nato membership. The Crimean peninsula was once the site of a bloody war between imperial Russia and an alliance of Britain, France and Turkey, whose futility was epitomised by the Charge of...

“YANKEE go home!” the protesters’ signs read outside the military compound. Inside, about 200 US Marine reservists are confined to their quarters, unable even to visit the local shop.Nothing unusual, perhaps, by the standards of Iraq or Afghanistan, but this was the scene yesterday in the southern Ukrainian region of Crimea, more than 18 months after the Orange Revolution supposedly set Ukraine on the path towards Nato membership. The Crimean peninsula was once the site of a bloody war between imperial Russia and an alliance of Britain, France and Turkey, whose futility was epitomised by the Charge of the Light...

U.S. Sailors Trapped by Protesters Freed by Ukrainian Troops Ukrainian troops freed American sailors trapped by anti-NATO demonstrators in Crimea Sunday, Scotsman.com news website reported. Protesters had surrounded a sanatorium where the 120 crew from a visiting navy ship were staying close to the Black Sea port of Feodosiya. The sailors arrived on the U.S. navy cargo ship Advantage on 27 May to bring equipment for a military exercise, Sea Breeze, scheduled for this summer. But protesters say they should not have been allowed into the country because the parliament, which has been unable to form a government since the...

Ukraine-NATO Exercises To Proceed Despite Protests June 4, 2006 -- Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko says controversial joint Ukraine-NATO military exercises will go ahead despite strong protests. In a presidential decree, Yushchenko ordered authorities to expel foreigners accused by Kyiv of taking part in anti-NATO demonstrations in the Crimean Peninsula. The protests by pro-Russian activists started on May 27 with the arrival of the "USS Advantage" at the port of Feodosiya.

Pro-Russian groups stage NATO protests Journal Staff Report KIEV, May 30 – Pro-Russian groups staged spectacular protests throughout Ukraine after a U.S. Navy ship had docked at a port in Crimea to deliver supplies for a planned NATO-Ukraine naval exercise later this year. The protests, led by the Progressive Socialist Party, an ultra-leftist and vehemently pro-Russian group, started Monday in the port of Feodosia aiming to block the unloading of the ship. But Tuesday the protests spread to Donetsk, where a group of party activists had picketed President Viktor Yushchenko during his visit to the region to introduce the new...

Russian State Duma seeks ways to take Crimea back The State Duma of the Russian Federation intends to inquire the government how to take Crimea back to Russia. Today Duma’s members by majority have backed the corresponding protocol message to the Duma Committees on the International Affairs and CIS. Regarding the bilateral agreement on Russia’s recognition of Ukraine’s current frontiers until 2007, Russia should claim a non-prolongation of the agreement and restitution of Crimea in accordance with the Kuchuk-Kainardzhijsk Agreement of 1774, the Duma envoys told. According to the agreement of 1774, Russia and Ottoman Empire recognized Crimea as “free...

(AP) Dozens of people protested the arrival of U.S. and NATO military equipment on Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, accusing the military alliance of interfering in the ex-Soviet republic's internal affairs, a navy official said Monday. The Sunday night protest was sparked by the arrival at the port of Feodosiya of the USS Advantage, which was to take part in an NATO-sponsored exercises this summer, Ukrainian naval spokesman Volodymyr Bova said, speaking by telephone from the Black Sea port of Sevastopol. Russia's NTV television showed several dozen local residents trying to prevent cargo trucks from unloading equipment from a ship, while others...

Mar 28 2006 4:02PM Pro-Yanukovych bloc running first in Crimea SYMFEROPIL. March 28 (Interfax) - Although no official reports on the vote-count have arrived at Crimea's elections commission from the districts, unofficial figures, based on the counting of nearly 31% of the ballots, suggest that the coalition For Yanukovych, organized by the Crimean branches of the Party of Regions and the Russian Bloc parties, is far ahead in the race to the Crimean parliament, with 34.98% of the votes won. The Popular Rukh's Crimean organization, whose electorate roll includes members of the Crimean People's Majlis, is second with 8.75% of...

SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine (AFP) - Viktor supports Ukraine's pro-Russian opposition. Natalya will vote for a pro-Western party. Married for 15 years, the Crimean couple is on the verge of divorce ahead of Sunday's legislative vote. "You're an imbecile, they'll drag you into NATO, the Americans are going to flood in here," Viktor yells at his wife in front of customers in their small convenience store in Crimea's capital of Simferopol. "And what's wrong with NATO?" Natalya shoots back. "You don't want our children to lead a better life?" The warring in their family mirrors the deep divide in Ukraine, where the...

ST. PETERSBURG, February 7 (RIA Novosti) - Students in Russia's second largest city came up with an unusual "present" for Ukraine's consul general Tuesday in an original twist to a recent spat between the two countries over Russia's naval facilities on the Black Sea. Students in St. Petersburg presented Mykola Rudko with a dummy 2.5-meter lighthouse, thereby "commemorating" a move made by Ukrainian officials to seize a lighthouse belonging to the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Many Russian politicians saw the step as a response to a dispute between the neighboring countries over natural gas prices. Sergei Verevkin, an organizer of...

Crimean Tatars Call On Kyiv To Restore Their Rights 12 December 2005 -- Members of the Crimean Tatar Congress gathered in the main Crimean city Simferopol said yesterday that Ukraine's integration with the West should not go forward until Kyiv restores Tatar rights. Congressional delegates, issuing a statement at the end of the three-day session, accused Ukrainian authorities of disregarding the rights of Crimean Tatars, who were deported en masse by Soviet leader Josef Stalin in 1944. RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service reported that congress member Timur Dagci was among the voices calling for Kyiv to recognize the deportation as genocide: "Our...

A few Ukrainians, presumably activists of nationalist Student Brotherhood, have set today to filming and making photos of facilities of the RF Black Sea Fleet, in particular, of Mars-75 radio navigation station that is located close to Genichensk, said Four-Stripper Captain Igor Dygalo, who is the aide to commander-in-chief of Russia’s Navy. ”From around 8:50 a.m., MSK, a group of Ukrainians, presumably, from the nationalist Student Brotherhood, is making video filming/pictures of Mars-75 radio navigation station of the RF Black Sea Fleet,” Dygalo said as quoted by ITAR-TASS. “So far, there have been no attempts to enter the military facilities...

MOSCOW, January 13 (RIA Novosti) - The seizure by Ukrainian officials of the Russian Black Sea Fleet's lighthouse in Yalta, in Ukraine's Crimea, cannot fail to harm Russian-Ukrainian relations, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Friday. The incident is "all the more disappointing in the light of the constructive meetings in Astana between the Russian and Ukrainian presidents," ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said. The head of the Yalta lighthouse and two of its workers were prevented from working Friday morning on the grounds that the staff's documents enabling them to enter the port had allegedly expired, Russian officials said. Ukraine has...

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yuri Yekhanurov has produced new loud statements. Talking on air of a Ukrainian radio station, he once again declared that Kiev would revise the price of leasing for objects rented by the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Crimea in case Russia raises gas prices. “Of course, it is natural,” he said answering a listener’s question, reports RSN. As the prime minister noted, Ukraine does not revise the agreements on the temporal deployment of the Black Sea Fleet, it goes about the use of property

Once the pride of the Soviet navy, Russia's Black Sea Fleet can still put on an impressive display. But it could soon be fighting for its own survival, the BBC's Helen Fawkes reports from Sevastopol, in Crimea. Thousands of Ukrainians lined the harbour at Sevastopol to watch the powerful show of strength in a demonstration battle for the public by the fleet, which is based in Crimea. A fighter jet swooped low over the southern tip of Ukraine to attack a giant warship from the Russian navy. The vessel returned gunfire and green torpedoes cut through the water towards advancing...

MOSCOW, June 1 (RIA Novosti) - The refusal of authorities of the Crimean autonomy (Ukraine) to distribute official information in Russian contradicts the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, said State Duma (the lower house of the Russian parliament) deputy Konstantin Zatulin. "This is a direct violation of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. The charter allows to use, for instance, the Russian language alongside with the official Ukrainian language in the regions with the dominating Russian population," he said. "Crimean residents may seek protection of their interests in European institutions." "Everyone, including Ukrainians and Tatars, speaks...

The Russian Black Sea Fleet will no longer be deployed in Crimea after the year 2017, the first deputy foreign minister of Ukraine, Vladimir Ogryzko, said in Sevastopol. Ukraine will see to it that the base of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation “can move to another location without any problems.” However, in the course of the next 12 years Ukraine is set to honor its agreements with Moscow. “Ukraine has always been and will remain a reliable international partner and will observe the treaties signed,” the Ukrainian diplomat said. An earlier withdrawal of Russia’s fleet from the...

Ukraine Outraged After Russian Marines Make Landing in Crimea The Russian amphibious ship Nikolai Filchenkov has crossed the Ukrainian border near the town of Feodosiya in the Crimea without Ukraine’s permission and begun landing personnel and hardware at the naval training ground near Mount Opuk, Interfax news agency reports. In total, 142 marines and 28 pieces of military hardware from the Black Sea Fleet’s 382nd Marine Battalion were landed on Ukrainian territory. Ukrainian authorities halted the operation and forced the ship to leave the country’s territorial waters. The incident, which took place on Wednesday, has raised tensions between Russia and...

In Crimea components of " a dirty bomb " In the Crimean village Ishun the warehouse of chemical substances which can be used for creation so-called " a dirty bomb " is found. The broadcasting company of NTV informs on it. As it became known, in a court yard of one of apartment houses sat law enforcement bodies of Ukraine it was revealed six containers with a dangerous radioactive isotope caesium. All tenants of village evacuated, as the local radiating background exceeds norm in 380 times. As one of heads of local service of the Ministry of Emergency Measures...

More Dead Scientists Devvy Kidd April 21, 2002 Back on December 31, 2001, I posted a piece on the unusual number of micro-biologists who died within a 33 day period. If you haven't read that piece, you should so this update will make sense to you: http://www.devvy.com/micro_20020104.html I have received an update from Ian Gurney and with his permission, below is that information: April 15, 2002 By Ian Gurney "And so to the New Year, and still the scientists keep dying. On February 9th. the Russian daily Pravda reported that: "The head of the microbiology sub-faculty of the Russian State...