There are very few Russians in Poland, or very few that would admit to it.
You very likely will get your ass kicked in Warsaw if someone hears you speaking Russian.
There are very few Russians in Poland, or very few that would admit to it.
Right. But Estonia and Latvia are small countries with a lot of Russians. In the end it will be about geography. Poland is next to Germany. Estonia and Latvia are next to 150 million Russians.
It is interesting that Vladimir Putin’s main argument justifying the seizure of the Crimean territory, and Russia’s participation in the conflict in the Ukraine in general, is that there was a regime change in the Ukraine that put an illegal political group into power, when the same can be said about Russia, where the current regime is a direct descendant of the Bolshevik terror group that obtained its power illegally.
There was never an official renunciation of the actions of the communist regime and its emblems; no declaration that this regime’s rule was illegal; no criminal indictment, and no ban on its emblems and symbols. This is exactly why we have conflicts with the Baltic nations, Poland, and other countries from the former “Communist bloc.” And it is also why our neighboring countries (Ukraine, the Baltics, and others) have such antagonism towards modern Russia and the Russian language, since Russian is directly associated with a regime that occupied not only Russia, but also a number of Eastern European countries after World War II.
It stands to reason that such an attitude towards the Russian language should be ameliorated, as Germany did in its time, spending enormous amounts of money and efforts to separate “everything German” from “everything fascist.” But the fact is Russia never did that work because our current regime is still a descendant of Stalin’s – a regime that openly entered into a dialogue with Hitler’s government, supported the actions of the fascists in other countries, and even participated in military campaigns, invading, for example, Poland in 1939, and it turns out that that regime to this day, in essence, remains in power. If in the late 1990s and early 2000s the regime somehow hid and suppressed this allegiance, then today it is once again openly shown.
I am a citizen of Russia, I consider Russia my motherland and my home. A home where, many years ago, armed people broke in and began to loot, murder, rape, destroy churches, eliminate the faith of a people in the beginnings of spiritual freedom, and now these criminals, in essence, still remain in power.
Ivan Vyrypaev
https://michelleort.wordpress.com/2017/08/29/an-open-letter-from-the-screenwriter-and-director-ivan-vyrypaev-in-support-of-kirill-serebrennikov/
“There are very few Russians in Poland, or very few that would admit to it.”
There was a guy whose house was right on the Russia/Poland border. Both countries argued for years about whether the house was in Poland or Russia. Finally, the politicians agreed they would let the owner of the house decide. A delegation of politicians from both countries visited him and asked which country he preferred. He said Poland. The Russians asked “Why”. He replied he didn’t think he could survive the Russian winters.